Posted by [EMAIL PROTECTED] : Date: Sat, 04 Dec 1999 11:04:24 -0800 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "Charles M. Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Dine Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" You might be interested in these emails which I have recently sent out: Kee Shay, a Dine resister, and Marsha Monestersky, an activist who has been supporting and helping the resisters for the past several years, have been served exclusion orders by the Hopi Tribe. Pursuant to these orders, the Hopi Tribe hopes to exclude Kee Shay and Marsha from the Hopi Reservation, which tribe contends includes the Hopi Partitioned Lands. Hearings on the exclusion orders are set in January for Marsha, and February for Kee Shay. If the Hopi Tribe prevails in these hearings, and excludes Marsha and Kee Shay this will serve as a precedent for the Hopi Tribe to serve other resisters with exclusion orders. As it stands now, it remains unclear what the Justice Department will do next February 1, 2000 with regard to the resisters. With this uncertainity the Hopi Tribe is looking for ways it can evict the resisters if the Justice Department does not take action. Therefore, these two exclusion hearings, the first of their kind, are critically important to the resisters. I am an attorney who has been representing Marsha and Kee Shay in this process. I know of at least one other lawyer who is interested in joining our effort, and there may be others. However, in order to launch an effective and winning defense we need financial support. Right now we have none. We are desperately in need of funds to support the Marsha and Kee Shay's defense and stop the Hopi Tribe from launching its own forced relocation of the Dine people. Please Help. Second email In northern Arizona today there are several hundred traditional Navajo families (Dine, in their own language) who are facing forced relocation from their traditional homelands. This is largest forced relocation since the relocation of the Japanese in World War II. The purpose of the relocation: to help the coal companies, such as Peabody coal, get to the coal deposits underneath the land where these people now live. On February 1, 2000 the US government can begin forced relocation by going to court and evicting these people. This relocation process has been going on since 1974. Thousands have already been relocated. As a result health problems have increased, subicide levels increased, serious depression and other forms of mental illness increased. Many of the relocatees rather than be helped, as promised by the US government, have lost their homes, and now live in destitute conditions. The people who remain on the land, who have until February 1st 2000, are some of the most traditional of the Dine. Manyare grandmothers (The Dine is a matriarchal society) who tend their sheep, and live in their traditional way. Part of that way is their spiritual connection and duty to the land on which they live. To remove them from their land, as one Grandmother has said, is to disappear us. Many people have come to the aid the resisting Dine. I am a lawyer who has been working on this issue for over 12 years. We are now at a point where we must find a way to stop the relocation and secure the traditional land for the Dine. I have talked to other lawyers who are interested in working on a team of lawyers to fight for the people. I have visited the land several times, at my own expense, to meet with the people and see what can be done. We have developed some legal strategies which have a reasonable chance of success in working to stop this forced relocation. We have tried to raise funds to support what will be a costly legal effort, but so far have not been able to do so-many foundations have turned us down. We need your suport.
