Testimony
Sammy Keyonnie
P.O. Box 7101 Teesto, Winslow, AZ 86047
September 6, 1997

Yah teehey, Greetings to the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the Center for Human Rights, Special Rapporteurs, the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, the Commission on the Status of Women, all appropriate UN fora and US Congress

My name is Sammy Keyonnie. I am 36 years old. I am Tachii'nii (Red Running Into Water People). I was raised and live northeast of Teesto, in Teesto Chapter south of Star Mountain on Hopi Partition Lands. I would like for Special Rapporteurs to come out here and investigate how we are getting treated and expose what the United States is doing to my people. I think my people have been pushed around so much that we will not take it anymore. We want to do something about it but it seems like we are tied down because the U.S. has the upper hand all the time. We do not know anything about a possible IX Circuit Court hearing on October 2, 1997. I am against it. We have received no decision from Judge Carroll or any notification of a IX Circuit Court hearing. This is just another way to trap us and deceive it because they are being exposed. They are doing this to try to get out of what they have been doing. This is wrong. It is not enough time. We do not even have our lawyers ready. They will try to put Attorney Lee Phillips as our lawyer. He does not represent us. He is pro Accommodation Agreement, more a lawyer for the Hopi tribal government, not the Navajos. He acted as a Hopi attorney really pushing the Accommodation Agreement. He signed this Agreement before even showing it to any of my people. I do not trust him. He is benefiting from us.

We do not have information about human rights and our own tribal government does not help to tell us we have human rights. But now we know we have rights. The U.S. government used their fire power and their lies. This was how they manipulated us. We were denied this information. What we want to stand on our human rights We have been waiting for a David to come and deliver us. Before we found out we have human rights we did not know how we could prevail. Now we can defeat our foe, the giant U.S. government for committing human rights violations against us.

Human Rights violations: My people endure threats of being removed from our land, we are denied the right to rebuild our homes, remodel. This is America. Every American is supposed to have a right to these things. But we have been told for 31 years that we can't do this. Our rights have been violated. Because of this it gave hopelessness, it caused alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, family break up, family working against family. This is the way it is with my mother and grandmother. My mother and my grandmother are on the same side of the fence, inside HPL. The fence divides us from our other relatives. The people living on the other side of the barbed wire fence have all the rights and privileges, and as much livestock as they want. The U.S. government is denying us, violating everything we have, committing abuse against our elders.

Livestock, they are being reduced. The lies. We were told that when they were giving us the Accommodation Agreement, they said they would not confiscate our livestock. So my mother and my grandfather signed so we would not be evicted. They hoped we would start having homes built and not be harassed anymore. Two weeks later 2 of their cattle were confiscated. We went to Keams Canyon, BIA ranger office, when we got there, they said they had it but we had to pay
-1-
$230.00 to get them back ($115.00 each). We got no help from the Navajo Nation. We got into a big argument with them. We were there. Robert Carolin, head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) said there is not a lot of grass. My grandfather could not understand that there is grass out there, why are you doing this to us. We have a right to our livestock. Finally, we were able to get our animals back.
It seems like we can't really go elsewhere, the rangers come unexpectedly, they bring out their trailers. Without telling us, and without giving us any notice they just come whenever they want to. So there is a constant fear that if we go anywhere else at the same time we have to watch over our livestock over fear that the BIA rangers will confiscate our livestock.

We were promised that if we signed there would be no impoundments and here they are doing this. We found out that the people working for the BIA and the Hopi tribe were not working together on this. The BIA said they did not know the Hopi tribe said they would not confiscate.

But the BIA is under U.S. government law so it is the U.S. government that wants to do this to us. Robert Carolin, Superintendent of the BIA told us that my grandparents and Alvin Clinton's wife are stubborn and do not want to reduce their livestock. They are not even giving us the 2,800 total promised using studies on grazing conditions taken during a year of drought. We depend upon our livestock for our survival. The whole thing is a lie. The whole reason that a lot of our people signed is because they were promised that there would not be any more harassment. When Hopi Chairman was in Teesto, we had a meeting, they said these were all our privileges. 17 families signed that day, that day they got the most signers from any Chapter. But two weeks later we found out that everything they said was a lie. We were tricked. Right now they are saying our livestock has to be reduced again. They are threatening us. We have been lied to saying there would be no more impoundments.

I would like to build my own house but I can't because my right to build is being restrained by the U.S. government because of their laws. There are times that I wanted to move out and relocate and when I look at my grandfather and grandmother. I feel like if I moved out I would hurt them. Throughout my high school and college years because my not moving out would be saying to them I support you. I feel like my youth was stolen from me. I feel like I could do a lot of things but could not because of the U.S. laws against us.

My relative near me but on Navajo side has access to electricity and water. But we are denied access to water because a barbed wire fence denies us access. We were told if we signed the Agreement we would have access to that water but we were told that there was a total of only $200,000.00 and it is for rebuilding our residences. And we were recently told we might not even get this little bit of money. This is not enough and before anyone gets it, it has to go to the Hopi tribe first, not to the people who really need it. We have nothing guaranteed, not housing repair, water, roads. There is no money even to pay for it. We were told the government would help us but now we are told there is only $200,000.00 after 31 years of being denied all services, everything.

The Accommodation Agreement is a rip off because the Hopis are the only ones that are going to benefit. It is like eating at the table where the Hopi get all the best food and then what we get are the scraps thrown at us. We are only given 3 acres of land is like a scrap, that's an insult. Not only that the people who have relocated to the New Lands, instead of giving them good land they were led into a uranium contaminated dump. The government knew about it and yet instead of finding the best place, these people left their lands and hope they got something, but when they moved to that area they only found a tragedy against them by the U.S. government. The land surrounding us is big. Before the white man came we had all the land and pretty soon they came in and took it over and put us on a reservation. They were not finished with us and now our land is reduced to 3 acres. That is appalling and sick. I feel that we have been violated. -2-

To the U.S. government burning a flag is a big crime. The flag, they view it to the point of almost worshipping it. Under the same flag in the 1800's people were promised that Native Americans were going to be protected but they were massacred. They brought out the flag of the U.S. government and still they were massacred (read Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee). About fifty years later our people helped win World War II as Navajo Code Talkers. But yet we are still treated like trash. The flag is called old glory. But there is not much glory. But now it symbolizes a symbol of shame to me. All these years, all the people they ripped off were the people who helped win the war, the Navajo Code Talkers. When they returned home they found the U.S. government stole their land from them. When it comes to Native Indians it seems that the flag is more important than we are. That is why I hate the flag. When I was growing up in boarding school I was brainwashed and then I found out that the flag symbolizes oppression, it seems like it is only for the white people. When it comes to Indians they do not consider us. What has been done to our people in the 1800's is still going around. What is happening now is a repeat of history.

What adds insult to injury is our own people who are supposed to be our leaders have sold us out. Maybe Peter McDonald would not have done this. Even though he is in prison I would rather stand with him than with President Hale. It makes me sick that our own people are working against us, our Attorney General, they had the audacity to sign the the Accommodation Agreement without our ever having seen it. They said our land now belongs to the Hopi and they never even talked to us first before they sold our rights. We had a glimmer of hope and then we heard it was all signed and there was no more hope. Even at this moment the Hopi tribe is working against us. They are pro Accommodation Agreement, they are pushing it, making promises they do not have the money or authority to enforce. There are only a few that are willing to stand for us and speak for us, just a few. We would like to have funding at our Chapter for our people to have for Dineh Bekeya Committee, an organization we are under recognized by the Chapter and the Tribe. We are not given any funding by the tribe for our people to get gas money to attend meetings that we have. We can do a lot if we can travel to these meetings set hundreds of miles away from where we live, but we can't because of a lack of financial resources. A lot of the tribal officials are making more money, getting paid for their jobs and attending other meetings at Window Rock. They are making more money, we need some of these funds.

We need to be ready for winter by winterizing our homes. There is a lack of money, when it comes to wood we have to get a permit for that, if we are caught without a permit, the Bureau of Indian Affairs under the U.S. government confiscates our wood, wood cutting tools and our trucks. There is always a constant struggle for survival here. But now the tables are going to turn.

I wish to quote U-2, "And I must be an acrobat to talk like this and to act like that and you can dream so dream out loud and you can find your own way out. You can build and I can will. And you can call, I can't wait until you can stash and you can seize. In dreams begin responsibilities and I can love and I can love. I know that the tides are turning around. Don't let the bastards grind you down." We are tired of being ground down by these 'bastards'.

With you coming. I invite you to come. Let us turn the table around. A lot of our youth have given up because of hopelessness. We are another defeated Nation. But now I found my David. The tides are turning around.

 

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Sammy Keyonnie