Don't close your doors until you clean up your mess

Bravo! To Ms. Pauline Whitesinger in her continuous effort to take a stance in her beliefs and values! An exemplary woman continuing her crusade to remain on the land (Hopi Partitioned Land) so precious and dear to her heart that we learn by now is rich (plentiful) with natural resources.

Land so rich that it's taken the U.S. Federal and tribal governmental entities to once again revisit just as we've seen and read about from time and time again.

Today we hear once again from Congress, namely Senator John McCain, to bring closure to the relocation program that reportedly has exhausted (exceeded) federal budgets (Senator John McCain's Senate Bill of 2005).

How long did it take for the government to finally understand such a plan (if relocation was ever a plan) was going to hurt the pursue ... yes, the costs exceeded whatever dollars were appropriated (billions) through the years relocation was enforced but on the other hand what about of the cost family destruction?

Did we place dollar amounts on the cost of human destruction?

Senator McCain, hear from the people living on the land out in HPL, not tribal council delegates who have no clue what life is like out on the land nor a way of life for the remaining families/elders suffering from year to year. Human destruction specific to family breakup(s) through depression, alcoholism, suicide, etc...will never carry a price tag.

Ending a forced resettlement because it's hurting the purse is a quick fix, do it humanely, don't close your doors until you've cleaned up your mess. This is not closure, as wounds remain open.

Likewise, recently an article on one of the local newspaper's front page displaying a Black Mesa Mine key executive presenting an $11 million dollar bonus check to President Joe Shirley Jr. The smiles on these two individuals, I couldn't resist chuckling as I read a statement by Shirley "the money is the people's money."

If you do your math, "the people's money" turns out to be about $38 going to each Navajo individual. Little do these two individuals realize - or do they? - that the bonus check that they exchanged with smiling faces is money coming as a result from the families (individual, family and children) relocated from the Black Mesa/Peabody Coal mining area.

My suggestion (is) instead of using the $11 million dollars as a political payout during this election year, the reality is that there are elders like Ms. Whitesinger who continue to live on the land out in HPL are in need.

My challenge (is) go to the land, homes that were built through an accommodation program lack basic essentials, i.e., handicap ramps, septic systems, refrigerators using natural gas and solar systems in dire need of repairs/replacements. Merely basic needs we take for granted outside HPL are essentials that must not be ignored as human beings are at stake.

By the way, Roman, where is your response to our letters? Thank you.


Sarah J Woody
Tuba City, Arizona

 

originally found in the opinion section in the Navajo Times 29 June 2006

        


Reprinted as an historical reference document under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html