Both Hopi and Navajo Traditionalists are adamantly set against the fencing, and its inevitable consequence-relocation. 6,500 Navajos, it seems, are now on the wrong side, the Hopi side of the. fence. In late April, federal troops swooped into the area and b~gan an aggressive "stock reduction program" aimed at eliminating the Navajo food supply. In the Andrew Jackson Administration, this Presidents may have changed since Andrew Jackson, but the enthusiasm for fv!anifest Destiny still appears to exist. policy was known as "starve or move;" under the Reagan Administration, it is simply an enforcement of the law. In both cases the federal government has determined the relocation to be the "final solution." While the "Hopi-Navajo dispute" has been raging for over 5 years, the timetable appea'rs to have been accelerated in recent months. As a result, the situation in the Southwest has reached a critical level where it appears more than paper will be thrown. While some Indian people in the south are facing forced eviction from their lands, to the North and West Indians are "resettling" areas of national and state parks. The Lakota-Sioux Nation, led by a delegation of traditional leaders and the Dakota branch of the American Indian Movement, have moved into an area of the Black Hills, or Paha Sapa. In California, a similar action has been taken by the Pit River Nation, in setting up camp in Eldorado National Park. The Lakota have maintained a 3-acre encampment in the Black Hills since April, taking a major step in their struggle to reclaim their sacred land, illegally confiscated from them by the U.S. government over a century ago. They want control of the 80% of the hills now undel\U.S. government domain, but which belongs to them under U.S. Constitutional Law. In addition to direct ~ction, the Lakota have filed a claim for 800 acres of the Black Hills, and a "special use" application for the construction of 83 structures, including a school, ceremonial building and homes which utilize solar and wind energy. The plan is to establish an "Indian self-sufficient community" which provides a culturally and spiritually based learning environment for their children. The camp has been named the Raymond Yellow Thunder community after an elderly Sioux man who was stripped and beaten to death at an American L~gion Hall in Gordon, Nebraska, in 1972, one of the many incidents which sparked the resettlement at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1973 and led to the death of several Indians and FBI agents. The current occupation is, in part, a response to the latest efforts of the U.S. government to buy the Hills from the Lakota Nation. In June 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the Hills had July 1981 RAIN fage 17 indeed been stolen and for the fifth time since 1875 attempted to award the Lakota monetary compensation for the taken land-this time to the tune of $105 million. This offer was rejected, the Lakota maintaining that "the Black Hills are not for sale!" Many have asked for an injunction to stop the·payment of the money. The Black Hills encampment, unlike that to the south, has re- • mained peaceful, but rumor of possible federal intervention has surfaced at this time. Government and Park officials have taken the position that the Indians are "just camping.'~They stated the Indians could stay as long as they like, as long as they do not break any laws. Hopefully, it will be the United States government which does not break the law, but given the currently un-Godly mentality , of the Reagan administrators, who knows what might happen. A common denominator in all three land battles is development, and in the case of the Sioux and Navajo it is mining and energy development. The Black Hills have been surrounded by an energy cavalry of 26 multinationals, led by Kerr-McGee and Union Car-. bide-both in hot pursuit of uranium ore. The Navajo people are living on top of a 22-billion-t~n coal deposit, in which Peabody Coal, and ironically enough the same law firm and public relations · firm pressing for relocation,,are quite interested. The plan is to establish an "Indian self-sufficient community'' which provides a culturally and spiritually based learning environment for their children. Life for Indians under the Reagan Administration is going to be , _quite different. Nixon's clan and Carter's men may have been business oriented, but not since the Manifest Destiny policy of the 1800s have we seen this sort of behavior. ~att may be only the latest in.a long line of Interior Emperors, inheriting all true problems of his position, including the "Indian problem," but his own particular religious persuasion gives this federal olficial a very dangerous air. Born again in 1964, James Gaius Wa~t calls himself "a man of God, above all." It appears that Watt puts his policy interpretations of religion even above the budget of the Reagan Administration. In his religious interpretation of God's word, the earth is just a resting place for man, before he goes elsewhere, and the earth is waiting to be made fruitful and prosperous. Looking at the face of an "undeveloped" West, and a score of unchristianized, uncooperative Indians, Watt's strong ~eliefs in what God would say become quite important. In truth we haven't seen such a potential since the Indian wars. Even a deluded James Watt should knbw the ".Frontiers" of that era·are gone.□□ • •
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