Navajo Nation Calls on Obama to Intervene in Commercial Development that Will Desecrate the Sacred San Francisco Peaks

[Editor's Note: Having lost an en banc (full panel) decision in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and filed a petition for certiorari (review) with the U.S. Supreme Court, which has issued rulings in the past that have curtailed the religious rights of Indian tribes in favor of commercial interests, the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, Havasupai Tribe, White Mountain Apache Tribe, Yavapai-Apache Nation and the Hualapai Tribe are now very close to exhausting their judicial remedies. Recognizing this, the Navajo Nation Council, meeting at Window Rock, Navajo Nation (Arizona) on April 22, 2009, passed a resolution calling on President Obama to honor the commitments he made to the Indian Peoples of this nation during his presidential campaign.

They remind him not only of the commitments he made to give Native Americans a voice in Washington D.C. and to honor the government to government relationship that exists between the U.S. and tribal governments and the treaties that have been drawn between them, but also of the United States' obligations under International treaties and conventions concerning the fundamental human right to the practice of one's religious beliefs. This right is about to be extinguished for the thirteen southwestern who hold Dook' o' oosliid (San Francisco Peaks) to be sacred ground.

The resolution calls on Obama to direct administration officials to meet with representatives of the Navajo Nation and other Indian nations and tribes to find a mutually agreeable way to protect Native American sacred sites from desecration and destruction. Alternatively, it asks Obama to "aggressively champion" congressional legislation to protect Native American sacred sites.

A copy of the resolution can be found in .pdf format at: http://www.indigenousaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/CAP-16-09.pdf Our thanks to IndigenousAction.org for making the resolution available to the public on their website. -- Perry H. Chesnut, Editor NRN]


Tribes look to Obama for protection of sacred peaks

Gallup Independent
By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — The Navajo Nation Council has given its approval for the Nation’s attorneys and leaders to meet with the Obama administration in hopes of working out a settlement to protect the sacred San Francisco Peaks from desecration.

The Nation is seeking an expedited meeting prior to May 8, when the U.S. Solicitor General’s response brief is due to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In “Navajo Nation v. United States Forest Service,” the Nation and three other tribes challenged the Forest Service’s approval of an expansion of the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort on the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The expansion included using reclaimed sewer water to make artificial snow, which in the view of Indian religious practitioners, desecrates the mountain.

In 2008, the 9th Circuit, in an en banc decision, held that the Forest Service’s approval did not violate the tribes religious freedom because the proposal does not place a substantial burden on their exercise of religion by forcing them to act contrary to their religion under the threat of a legal penalty or choose between their religion and the receipt of a government benefit.

Delegate Leonard Tsosie said it is feared that the Supreme Court will take the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in the wrong way, “because they’re somewhat not sentimental to Indian cases.” The high court previously has withdrawn or denied First Amendment rights to tribes when it comes to federal land-management decisions.

The San Francisco Peaks, or Dook’o’oosliid, the sacred mountain to the west, is one of four mountains held holy by the Navajo people and 12 other Arizona tribes. Mount Taylor, or Tsoodzil, the sacred mountain to the south, is threatened by uranium mining.

The Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, Yavapai-Apache Nation, the Havasupai, White Mountain Apache, Hualapai and others filed suit in federal court to stop what is viewed as a “government-sponsored desecration of a well-documented sacred and holy site.”

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act represents the last chance for the Navajo Nation and tribes across the country to protect their sovereignty, practice their religions, and to survive as a people, according to the emergency legislation sponsored by Tsosie and passed, 60-2, last week by Council. Edward Jim and Lawrence Platero voted against the measure.

The Nation has turned to President Barack Obama, who during his election campaign committed to honoring the government-to-government relationship between tribes and the federal government, ensuring that treaty obligations are met and that tribes will have a voice in Washington.

“What this does is it allows our lawyers and also our leaders to sit down with the Obama Administration and look at the possibility of settling the San Francisco Peaks (case) in favor of the Navajo Nation because the lawsuit is ‘Navajo Nation v. U.S. Forest Service,’ and the U.S. Forest Service is being represented by the U.S. government lawyers which the U.S. government has control over,” Tsosie said.

Delegate Ervin Keeswood told Council there also is a need to indicate that there are instruments of international law to which the Nation could resort.

“I believe that it’s time to start quoting and also remind the United States’ government of these actions internationally.

At some point in time ... we may have to go to the international community for resolution of some of these matters if they’re not heard as we wish in the United States government,” he said.

Delegate Rex Lee Jim, the Nation’s “international representative” at the United Nations, received approval for an amendment to the legislation.

The amendment cites religious rights contained in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man supported by the Organization of American States, of which the United States is a member. It also refers to religious rights contained in the American Convention on Human Rights, signed by the United States in 1977.

In September 2007, the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, by which the international community has made the effort to strengthen partnership with states, indigenous people and civil society as a whole.

The declaration recognized that “indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied and used lands, territories, waters and coastal seas and other resources and to uphold their responsibilities to future generations in this regard.”

The United States is one of four states that voted against the declaration.

“Without such commitment by the United States to protect the rights of its indigenous peoples, sadly the protection of holy and sacred sites such as Dook’o’oosliid will continue to yield to commercial interests,” the amendment states.

The Navajo Nation is formally requesting that Obama, on behalf of the United States and its indigenous peoples, sign the declaration without delay and stand firm with its commitment to protect and preserve holy and sacred sites of indigenous people within the United States.
__________________________________________________________
Article: Copyright © 2009 Gallup Independent
Photo courtesy of Arizona Emporium

Native Rights News is making this material available in accordance with the Fair Use Doctrine codified at Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107: This article is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information. Distribution of this material is for research and educational purposes that will promote social and economic justice and benefit society.
____________
Native Rights News (NRN) is published by the Alliance for Indigenous Rights, a nonprofit corporation owned and operated by Temple Beit Shem Tov as part of its Peace and Justice Ministry.

Techqua Ikachi (Land and Life)--Aboriginal Warning

Global Warming And Indigenous Wisdom

By Alan Gorg
Special to History News Network (1-31-09)

[Editor's Note: Mr. Gorg, (B.S. 1952 and M.F.A. 1970, U.C.L.A.), is a teacher/writer/producer/director/actor. He has published several books and his documentary films have won numerous film festival awards. He lives and works out of Venice, California, where he owns and operates his film production company Venice Visionary Media.]

American history taught in our schools and colleges omits the one American society with the most outstanding record of peaceful coexistence ever in human history. The name Hopi means "Peaceful People" because long before the Dalai Lama or Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi, long before the European invasion, they lived in peace for a thousand years on the high desert of what is now northern Arizona. No other society since the rise of agriculture has ever enjoyed anything near a millennium of peace— certainly not the Aztecs or Mayans or the constantly warring nations of Europe, Asia, and Africa which are currently the subjects of history education.

Yet during my decades of schooling and years of history classes in Los Angeles City Schools, Los Angeles City College, Santa Monica College, UCLA, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and USC, I never heard mention of the Hopi. Perhaps like with TV and newspaper journalism, war is news and war is history, and peace is no news and no history. But following the history of the Hopi and their ancient prophecy could serve as a spiritual example for a simple life which may be the only way to control the present danger global warming and save human society.

Similarly, the accuracy of Hopi prophecy is unmatched by any other prophecy. There are many Doomsday predictions based on moral and spiritual failings, but the Hopi prophecy is directed specifically against mining and drilling into the Earth. Their oral history tells of a time prior to that thousand years of peace, an ancient time when their ancestors chose their simple life while other kindred peoples were drawn to develop societies more rich with industry and material wealth. The histories of the Aztecs and Incas show a fascination with gold mining and display which attracted quick conquest by the Spanish, and now comes modern science recognizing the danger of global warming from carbon dug and drilled from the ground, a perfect manifestation of the aboriginal warning.

People are concerned about global warming and the environment, but few are pushed to seriously change their lives because the worst effects will be felt gradually and over a period of decades. But there are others who are in fact suffering and dying right now from the development of global warming.

My wife and I were founding members of the Committee for Traditional Indian Land and Life (T.I.I.L.), which through the 1960's and 1970's supported traditional causes, primarily in the courts. Protests by the Hopi and Dineh drew our attention to Black Mesa in northern Arizona on those same reservation lands where in prior years many had died from the carcinogenic effects of uranium mining. The Committee used the slogan TECHQUA IKACHI, Hopi for "Land and Life."

The resistance by Hopi and Dine' traditionals continues to this day. One center for this widespread local opposition has been the traditional Hopi village of Hotevilla, founded in 1906 after a clash between Hopi traditionals and those "progressives" who had decided to give up their traditions, convert to Christianity, and seek the material benefits of Western technology and industry. The traditionals were purged out of the ancient village of Oraibi into the desert wilderness in the cold and snow of winter and founded their own new village of Hotevilla.

In 1969 the federal government brought in contractors to provide the first electric power to the village of Hotevilla. Power poles were trucked in, and heavy equipment arrived to clear the way for the installation. At this point a group of Hopi elders arrived on the scene to block the work. Those old men lay down in the path of the bulldozers, ready to sacrifice their lives if necessary to prevent electric power from coming to their village. One ninety-year-old man was injured and did not survive long after.

This scene of confrontation was the proverbial moment of truth for those of us from the civil rights movement. To capitalist and socialist alike, belief in the value of material progress had always been fundamental. Why would anyone resist progress? How could anyone criticize progress?

The Hopi elders were concerned over the price to be paid. In the traditional economy there was no money because it was not needed. How were the Hopi to get money? There are few jobs on the reservation other than working for the government or working for corporations extracting coal, oil, and uranium out of the land. The only source of money for many is to go on welfare.

There would also be a price more costly than money.

Like many indigenous peoples, the traditional Hopi share a widespread belief and prophecy that taking oil and minerals is a transgression on Mother Earth and will bring disaster. Modern evidence supporting this belief can be found in the toxicity at all mining sites everywhere and in the new specter of a potential Doomsday from the continued dominance of coal as our principal energy source. Hopi prophecy, like scriptural prophecies, foretells doom for those who forsake the right way of life, but the Hopi and Dineh prophecies are very specific in describing mining and drilling as the sources of the coming catastrophe, and this focus is proving accurate with the rise of the specter of global warming.

In those days when we were traveling to Hotevilla to help the traditional Hopi elders, I was a film student at U.C.L.A., and I was inspired to begin work on a documentary about the Hopi. Their political philosophy of consensus and their harmony with nature as farmers opened up my head. The elders asked for a film about the prophecy.

During that period we shot our short AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HOPI, presenting the life and philosophy of a traditional. This black-and-white 16mm documentary was a finalist in the National Short Film Competition and was also selected for Best of Filmex at the Los Angeles International Film Exposition in 1980.

Reservation government police prevented us from continuing to film there, so we developed a docudrama to present the aboriginal prophecy about the land. On our way, we learned the Arizona conflict was but one aspect of a worldwide epidemic of appropriation and exploitation of lands of indigenous peoples for mining and oil, including many other locations in the U.S.A. Among sites of recent protest demonstrations are Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah, Florida, the Dakotas, Alaska, Canada, Burma, Columbia,, Indonesia, Tibet, the Arctic, Mexico, Madagascar, the Philippines, Russia, Chile, Brazil, Guatemala, Australia, Thailand, India, and thousands of demonstrations in China. Many others are not reported. Civil war over oil has broken out in Sudan, Nigeria, and Pakistan, mass murder in Ethiopia. More than five million have been killed in the Congo in civil wars over mining. There is no organizational link between these peoples. What they have in common is their suffering the despoiling of their lands for the profit of others.

Almost forty years after that demonstration in Hotevilla, the 43-minute documentary/and docudrama film TECHQUA IKACHI: ABORIGINAL WARNING has been finished, aimed at schools and colleges, and dedicated to now-deceased Hopi elders James Kots, Helen Kots, David Monongye, Nora Monongye, Thomas Banyacya, Carolyn Tawangyama, Ralph Tawangyama, and Dan Katchongva.

TECHQUA IKACHI won the Neptune Award at the Moondance International Film Festival and has been honored at the Columbus and Chashama International Film Festivals here in the United States and at other international film festivals in China, India, Canada, Korea, and Latin America.

The DVD of TECHQUA IKACHI—and a supporting CD of study materials with production notes and scientific and news reports concerning the dangers as well as the worldwide conflicts arising from mining and drilling—are available through www.venicevisionarymedia.net/techquaikachi.html. The film's trailer and background may be viewed there.

Our purpose with the film is to push the issue into consciousness. A change in human society significant enough to stop global warming would help all people, but would require reductions in manufacturing and consumption almost nobody is presently willing to undertake. So we remain on track to fulfill the prophecy.

In America and the other industrialized nations, we need to focus beyond our own energy and environmental problems and consider also the sufferings of others—and not only in the Middle East. Higher gas prices, more smog and pollution, the threat of global warming, and the many wars ongoing make the production of oil a personal concern for all of us. We worry over the danger of accidents and radioactive contamination from nuclear energy. What few think about or even recognize, native peoples around the world are suffering impoverishment, even sickness and death, from exploitation and pollution of their lands by oil and mining interests, but the prophecy and now science both indicate that ultimately everyone will go down together.

The Hopi elders requested a film be made about the prophecy. The elders risked their lives to block the bulldozers, as in our film. Those elders are gone now, yet the protest demonstrations at Black Mesa by the Hopi and Dineh community groups have not only continued, the conflict there has grown and expanded. Similar conflicts worldwide continue and worsen. A long list of urls for news reports is on our website.

The Hopi people knew how to be civil to others long before modern so-called civilization, which brought money and modern things but no peace and little civility. The Hopi had lived their quiet life in a difficult desert for many centuries in peace, but now the lust for energy and minerals leaves them and many other indigenous peoples around little chance for peace.

__________________________________________________________
Copyright: This article does not appear to be copyrighted

Native Rights News is making this material from George Mason University's History News Network available in accordance with its stated policy: "HNN encourages the wide dissemination of information and therefore allows other publications to reprint our articles unless the author expressly requests copyright protection." (See http://hnn.us/articles/41637.html)

This article is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information. Distribution of this material is for research and educational purposes that will promote social and economic justice and benefit society.

--
Posted By Alliance for Indigenous Rights to Native Rights News at 2/02/2009 08:19:00 AM

The Black Mesa Nightmare Returns

Why Raul Grijalva matters at Interior
The Black Mesa nightmare returns
Posted by Jeff Biggers (Guest Contributor) at 10:42 PM on 07 Dec 2008

For the sake of a deliberate and balanced approached to mining, indigenous rights, and environmental concerns, let's hope U.S. Representative Raul Grijalva takes the reins at the Department of the Interior in Obama's administration.

Take this week's startling announcement that the George W. Bush administration might quietly give the green light to reopening the scandalous Black Mesa Strip Mine on the ancestral lands of the Dine (Navajo) and Hopi.

Within a few days, the U.S. Office of Surface Mining will release a "Record of Decision" on the "Black Mesa Project" Final Environmental Impact Statement, which could ultimately grant the Peabody Coal Company a "Life-of-Mine" permit to re-open and expand one of the nation's largest coal strip mines.

Like a voice in the wilderness, Grijalva recently wrote the current Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne to request a suspension in the OSM's "hurriedly conducting a deeply flawed environmental review."

Despite a Hopi tribal government in disarray and a deeply divided Dine-Navajo community, the George W. Bush administration's 11th hour move to unleash Big Coal in the tribal lands will not only jeopardize the Navajo Aquifer -- the main source of drinking water for the area residents and farmers -- but will re-open one of the bitter wounds in contemporary tribal conflict.

Like mountaintop removal in Appalachia, the decades-long battle over Black Mesa and the ensuing Hopi-Navajo Settlement sybolizes shameless disregard of human rights and environmental protection for the sake of extraction industry profits.

It's an old story, of course, dating back to the discovery of one of the largest coal deposits in the country on Black Mesa over a century ago.

Over a decade ago, documents emerged that proved that the main lawyer hired to represent the divided Hopi was also on the payroll of the Peabody Coal Company and might have actually helped gerrymander the massive land deal and subsequent settlement acts. This not only resulted in unfair royalty payments and virtually no environmental safeguards, but bitterly divided tribal interests and relations.

In the process, one report estimated that over 12,000 natives were forced to relocate while one of the largest strip mines in the nation swept across the northern Arizona desert.

As investigative reporter Judith Nies wrote:

In Los Angeles, air conditioners hummed. Las Vegas embarked on an enormous building spree to make gambling a family vacation. Phoenix and Tucson metastasized out into the desert-building golf courses and vast retirement developments with swimming pools and fountains. Few realize that much of the energy that makes the desert "bloom" comes from the Black Mesa strip mines on an Indian reservation. Even fewer know the true costs of such development.

And water, in this upland desert, was pumped away. As part of a 273-mile slurry line, billions of gallons of water were siphoned from the Navajo aquifer for decades. Not only the main water source for the native farmers and ranchers in the area, this caused wells and springs to dry up, groundwater levels to plummet and native vegetation to vanish.

According to native Black Mesa advocates today, the rammed through OSM report has numerous flaws, legal or otherwise:

• The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) does not address the pumping of the Navajo Aquifer for the last thirty years. These amounts exceed the aquifer's ability to replace water annually, and have adversely impacted the natural springs and seeps all over Black Mesa. Springs no longer can produce the water needed for Navajo families to survive daily. Instead families must abandon local water resources and use community wells 20-30 miles over unimproved roads. Peabody has not included in its application the impact on the people of Black Mesa and how long they can expect to survive with continued use and contamination of the only source of drinking water the people have. Nor are measures in place to insure an alternate source of water in quality and quantity for local residents will be delivered if there is irreversible damage to the N-Aquifer;

• local Black Mesa residents have been inadequately informed of the proposed changes; • due to changes in the original alternatives, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) is outdated and has irrelevant information; • the DEIS mentions lung problems and only proposes mitigation for mine workers, not residents. The EIS must look at mitigation measures for local residents to avoid health problems associated with black lung, asthma and other lung ailments;

• the DEIS does not consider how the OSM will comply with the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act, and prevent substantial burden on the tribes' ability to practice their religion; • the DEIS does not compare the economics of additional coal mining vs. transitional renewable energy development on the mine site and reclaimed areas to prevent long-term cumulative impacts by additional coal mining; • the DEIS does not recognize the impact of the potential relocation of native families;

• the DEIS does not address the current U.S. federal laws that make CO2 a pollutant, and uncalculated CO2 emissions that will contribute to global warming until 2026, if more mining by Peabody coal company continues.
Last month, Rep. Grijalva asked for delay until the OSM "can determine the actual purpose and need of this project."

Let's hope the OSM heeds his sound advice.

___________________________________________________

Native Rights News is making this Gristmill material available in accordance with the Fair Use Doctrine codified at Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107: This article is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information. Distribution of this material is for research and educational purposes that will promote social and economic justice and benefit society.

Sekaquaptewa: Time for the Hopi to 'Get to Self-Governing'

Sekaquaptewa: Time for Hopi to ‘get to self-governing’
By Pat Sekaquaptewa
Story Published in Indian Country Today: Nov 26, 2008


I find myself in the ironic position of highlighting the great strides of tribal justice systems over the years for an ABA journal article while at the same time my own tribal government is in the throws of a constitutional crisis.

Recently, the Hopi Tribal Council managed to take out the entire tribal high court by resolution. The vice-chairman, who orchestrated the removal of our duly elected chairman, with the assistance of the formerly removed chairman, states that he plans to farm out our appellate judging to a regional intertribal appellate court. This, I believe, is an effort to remove the vice-chairman’s office and supporting members of the council from being immediately accountable to Hopi judges in a Hopi judicial system.

I must admit that despite the shortcomings of our governing document (originally drafted and pushed through by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1936), I never expected to see such a rapid deterioration of our key institutions and the rule of law. If this can happen at Hopi where we have had stable court system for over thirty years, it can happen to any tribal government operating under one of the Bureau’s governing document boilerplates. We should have reformed our constitution years ago and now we will have to take back our government.

The Hopi Tribe launched its tribal court under tribal law in 1972. Prior to that time the BIA ran its administrative court on the Hopi Reservation maintaining the Bureau’s version of law and order as defined in the Code of Federal Regulations. With the establishment of the Hopi Tribal Courts in 1972 and the appointment of trial and appellate court judges, both rule of law and the Hopi common law had begun to grow. I joined the court team in 1993 as a young law clerk to a longstanding trial judge and then later as the senior law clerk to the appellate court’s three-judge panel. I have also served as a pro tem judge on the high court since 2002. Since 1993 I have been fortunate to be a part of the growth of the Hopi common law which has blossomed to respect the sovereign villages, and to incorporate deeply held traditional values, while at the same time making court processes more transparent and reinforcing fundamental fairness at both the tribal and village levels.

_________________

If this can happen at Hopi where we have had stable court system for over thirty years, it can happen to any tribal government operating under one of the Bureau’s governing document boilerplates.

_________________

The recent Hopi Tribal Council action (Resolution H-075-2008) has freed me from my judicial duties and now makes it possible for me to speak openly about what I see as the core issues facing the Hopi government and our villages today. The political roller coaster of the past two years sheds significant light on the fact that government by resolution is bad government and that the time has come for targeted constitutional reform.

Some argue that the 1936 Hopi Constitution has never reflected Hopi/Tewa sentiments but the Hopi/Tewa people have re-adopted it three times with amendments since 1936 (in 1969, 1980 and 1993). The Tribal Council over the years has also passed more than 50 ordinances including rules governing elections and the establishment of the court system. However, within the last two years, each time the political tides have shifted (often by reshuffling council seats or by secret, last minute meetings), that particular group of council members has attempted to overwrite, without formally amending, well-considered constitutional provisions and ordinances relied upon by generations of Hopi/Tewa people and prior councils.

In the case of Benjamin Nuvamsa’s election to the office of chairman, there are procedures for challenging an election in the Election Ordinance that Resolution H-036-2007 sought to preempt. The council’s subsequent suspension resolutions naming Mr. Nuvamsa (H-074-2008) and Justice Lomayesva (H-075-2008), similarly seek to preempt Article V of the Hopi Constitution that sets out the only means by which the legislative branch may unseat members of the executive and judicial branches. Conveniently some of our council members argue that we do not have a constitutional separation of powers requiring the legislature to respect or follow a court’s finding that they have not followed their own rules (as set out in the constitution or in earlier ordinances and resolutions). I must point out that this is despite the fact that Hopi Councils in 1981 and 1996 reiterated their commitment to a separation of powers in Resolutions H-3-81 and H-14-96.

It is true that our Hopi Constitution lacks text vesting the judicial power in a separate judiciary and it is true that we must trust our legislators to follow their own stated commitment to that principle as a last resort. But I must ask - is this approach working? Are the current tribal council members being good trustees for us given the awesome powers that a one-branch government vests in its legislators? The original Hopi Constitution was drafted by BIA employees who saw themselves as the final check on tribal government corruption - a duty the BIA is no longer eager to involve itself in. Today they leave us to our own devices as a matter of respecting our right to self-govern. So it’s time for the Hopi and Tewa people to get to self-governing then.

We Hopis and Tewas need constitutional reform in three key areas: (1) creation of a separate but equal judicial branch to watch-dog that our legislature complies with our Constitution and our ordinances; (2) the setting of requirements for what it takes to legitimately enact and amend an ordinance in a transparent way, and describing what makes an ordinance different from a mere resolution; and (3) the memorializing of the right of the Villages to select and remove their representatives to Tribal Council pursuant to their local ways, standards and rules.

Under Hopi constitutional law the steps for constitutional reform are that: (1) Any Tribal Council member may propose the amendment at any meeting of the Council; (2) At a second meeting of the Council, the Council may vote to approve the amendment by a majority vote; (3) If the Council votes for the amendment then it is forwarded to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior with a request to call a referendum (to put it to the Hopi/Tewa membership for a vote); (4) The Secretary then calls for a vote; and (5) the amendment will be adopted if a majority of adult Hopi/Tewa members vote (with at least 30 percent of those entitled to vote voting).

The original drafters made our Constitution very difficult to amend but it can be done if the Hopi and Tewa public is committed to the task and is ready to make sure that our representatives get it done. Then we need to mobilize our voters. We should all remember that our tribal government is neither Hopi/Tewa in origin nor reflective of the full American model with checks and balances. We were sold a defective model which encourages, at its worst, unchecked power grabs and at its best, unaccountable day-to-day decision making.

Only we Hopi/Tewa people can fix our government. It is far better that we do it with courage now than to leave this mess with cowardice to our children.

Patricia Sekaquaptewa was a Pro Tem Justice on the Hopi Appellate Court since 2002.

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/opinion/35154579.html


Native Rights News is making this Indian Country Today material available in accordance with the Fair Use Doctrine codified at Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107: This article is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information. Distribution of this material is for research and educational purposes that will promote social and economic justice and benefit society.