Diné elders resist eviction from Big Mountain

Debra O'Gara and Guerry Hoddersen, August 1986

"Forced relocation. The words bring to mind the Trail of Tears, Nazi concentration camps, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Past atrocities, not present and future ones.

"But on the #BlackMesa surrounding Big Mountain in northeastern Arizona, over 11,000 #Diné (Navajo) are facing a new holocaust: removal by armed U.S. troops from their ancestral homelands in an area jointly held by the Navajo and Hopi nations.

"The U.S. media bills the government’s role as peacemaker in a #Hopi vs. #Navajo war. But the reality is very different at Big Mountain.

"For over 50 years, #mining companies have sought to exploit the rich mineral resources that lie beneath the land now occupied by the #Navajos. To do this they first secured the assistance of the federal government, which in the 1920s and ’30s unilaterally replaced the traditional forms of government, based on clan elders, with malleable tribal councils. Over the years these councils have been only too willing to negotiate mineral leases, and the elite who run the councils have gotten rich doing it.

"Now, giant energy #corporations like #PeabodyCoal, #KerrMcGee, and #Exxon want unhampered access to the estimated 44 billion tons of high-grade #coal and deposits of oil, natural gas, and #uranium found on and around #BigMountain.

"There’s only one problem: the traditional Diné who live on the land will not move voluntarily.

"So once again the energy moguls have turned to their servants in the government and the Hopi council for help.

"Forced relocation, the holocaust hatched in corporate boardrooms, has in fact gathered formidable support: it is endorsed by Congress, covered up by the press, and sanctioned by a phony tribal leadership."
#CulturalGenocide #ForcedRelocation #NativeAmericans #EnvironmentalRacism #ThackerPass
https://socialism.com/fs-article/dine-elders-resist-eviction-from-big-mountain/