Dear Big Mountain Supporters,

This was written by Timo Schaefer, German Human Rights Observers.

Please publish this Open Letter and post it to your networks.

Thank you,

Marsha Monestersky

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Timo Schaefer
e-mail: hyperlink mailto:Timo.Schaefer@surfinn.com
Timo.Schaefer@surfinn.com

 

OPEN LETTER

 

To
Mr. Eugene Kaye
The Hopi Tribe
Office of the Chairman
Kykotsmovi, Arizona 86039

 

Dear Mr. Kaye,

I am writing to you as an international human rights-observer for FIAN
(Foodfirst Information & Action Network), a human rights organization for the
right to feed oneself with consultative status at the United Nations. I am
here together with other human rights observers to investigate human rights
violations against Dineh elders in Big Mountain, as allegedly perpetrated by
the US-government and the Hopi Tribal Council. We were invited to come to Big
Mountain by these elders, who are facing relocation from the land which they
have inhabited for generations and which is the center of their economic and
spiritual life.
In my role as an international observer I have so far

- read a wide range of testimonies and articles on the Navajo-Hopi land
dispute by Dineh and Dineh supporters;

- read a wide range of testimonies and articles on the same subject by Hopi
people;

- talked to Dineh “resistors” about their attitude towards this land dispute
and their
impending eviction.

So far I was not able to talk to Hopi people, but collegues of mine met with
a delegation of twenty Hopi on March 2nd in order to listen to their side of
the story, and they gave me a detailed report of that meeting.
With that background, I have arrived at this personal evaluation of the human
rights situation on HPL which will be open to corrections in the process of
my investigation:

The Hopi claim that this land rightfully belongs to them, that they have
lived on this land since time immemorial, that they are descendants of the
Anasazi people and that the Dineh only came to Big Mountain two or three
hundred years ago.
The Dineh claim that this land rightfully belongs to them, that they have
lived on this land since time immemorial, that they are descendants of the
Anasazi people and that the Hopi only came to Big Mountain when it was
already inhabited by Dineh.
Both parties are in possession of absolute truth and have bulletproof
evidence to sustain their version of history. Both parties warn the public
not to listen to their opponents since they are only telling lies and messing
up people’s minds.

However that may be, it seems to me that these arguments are of no relevance
when evaluating current human rights violations against Dineh on HPL.
So far undisputed is: Many Dineh were born on HPL. They have spent all their
lives (in some cases more than eighty years) on that land herding sheep and
growing small crops. . The Dineh feel spiritually related to that land and
say that their culture and religion are identical to the land they live on.
Thus evicting them from their land means destroying the essence of their
life; means destroying their culture and spirituality. The appropriate term
for that (and this is no throwing around with “ominous buzz words”) is
ethnocide. And destroying people’s lifes clearly constitutes a human rights
violation.

Now you are stating that certain Dineh elders actually have the opportunity
to stay on their (in terms of who always lived there) land by signing the
Accomodation Agreement. There are many reasons why that is no acceptable
option for the Dineh on HPL. Here are some that seem particularly important
to me:

Signers must live under the jurisdiction of a government (Hopi Tribal
Council) which they are not allowed to participate in and which is openly
prejudiced against, if not hostile to them. That also applies to police and
other authorities they would have to deal with and upon whose goodwill they
would often have to rely. Prejudices that we have already heard articulated
against Dineh by Hopi are plenty.

The agreement allots only 2800 SYUL to be divided among all the families
which is less than the number needed to sustain their traditional subsistence
herding. Thus the agreement allows them to live on the land while denying
them a means of survival if they do. This contradicts the agreement’s and
Hopi Tribal Council’s claim that Dineh signers and Hopi are treated equally
on HPL: A grazing-study by the BIA conducted in 1996 concludes that HPL can
sustain 12797 SUYL, out of which only 2800 are allotted to the Dineh. In
fact, in Hopi Tribal Council Resolution H-026-98 there appears a list of
priorities for issuing grazing permits on HPL. Accomodation Agreement
Signatories are the seventh lowest priority – out of a number of seven
priorities.

The agreement prevents the Dineh from burying their dead on their ancestral
land as required by their religion. That alone is unacceptable for
traditional Dineh and reason enough not to sign the agreement.

The agreement provides its signers with a 75-years lease for their land
without guaranteeing the continuation of that lease after that period. This
violates the Dineh’s responsibility to be stewards of their sacred land so
that their children can continue in their religion and way of life.

- Last but not least not all the Dineh living on HPL are eligible to sign
the agreement.

I believe that the arguments mentioned above demonstrate clearly that the
Accomodation Agreement denies the Dineh basic human rights, i.e. the right to
adequate nutrition and the right to exercise one’s religion.

It would be very helpful for my ongoing investigation to know your opinion
about these arguments as this will enable me to arrive at a thorough and
unbiased evaluation of the human rights situation on HPL.

Sincerely Yours

(Timo Schaefer, German human rights observer)