Chapter members ask for hearing on Freeze deal

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Members of Tuba City Chapter finally will have an opportunity at a public hearing Friday to learn details of a proposed intergovernmental compact between the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe regarding the Bennett Freeze.

Delegate Duane Tsinigine (Bodaway-Gap/Cameron/Coppermine) and Attorney General Louis Denetsosie presented legislation on the compact Tuesday to the Public Safety Committee, which passed it after considerable debate.

Denetsosie and Navajo-Hopi Land Commission Chairman Roman Bitsuie then spent two hours on KTNN Radio Tuesday evening discussing the history of the Bennett Freeze and denying reports that the compact had been negotiated in secret.

Several residents have filed a complaint in Tuba City District Court on behalf of residents directly affected by the Bennett Freeze, asking for a permanent injunction against passage of the intergovernmental compact, alleging they have been denied due process.

"The homesteaders that are directly affected were never informed of the development of the compact at any time prior to the call for a resolution to be voted upon in the chapter houses, and held the compact as secret, confidential, not for publication, never to be revealed upon seal.

"Without sharing the contents of the compact, the Navajo Nation officials are misleading and manipulating the people to support a resolution to lift the freeze they said was in their best interest."

However, the court says it will not act on the plaintiffs' request until they refile the document because they failed to give a 30-day notice to Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. and the attorney general, as outlined in the Navajo Nation Code.

Shirley, Denetsosie, Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan, and Bitsuie all are named as defendants in the suit.

In addressing the Public Safety Committee, Tsinigine said, "I live right in the middle of the Bennett Freeze. I used to see my grandparents, aunts and uncles go to the Interior and Hopi Tribe to approve construction.

"I noticed that when I was about 10 years old. To this day, we're still doing that. That is not a good feeling; that is not a good subconscious feeling. It retards your emotional development and your mentality in living with these type of conditions."

Tsinigine said he believes there has been a tremendous amount of attainment on the settlement compact.

"In 1994 it was mentioned that only 64,000 (acres) was to be given to the Hopi Tribe. That was at Moenkopi and Pasture Canyon. They wanted 800 million acres and that was toward Bodaway/Gap, most of it. That 800 million acres was denied. They were only given 64,000 acres."

He said he liked language in the compact's Article 7 which mentions "quieting title" and dismissing any and all claims asserted by the tribes "with prejudice, meaning it will never come before the courts again."

"Navajos will keep their land. Hopis will keep theirs," he said.

"When we go to practicing our religious rights on the Hopi Reservation, we can go in there without them spying on us. There's also some fencing around hogans and somewhere at Star Mountain. If this settlement compact is approved, they will have to tear down those fences."

He said the compact also provides that when the Hopi come onto Navajoland for religious purposes, "we will not spy on them either, for we respect their story of origin and their traditional way of life."

But, he added, "If we are going to have 20 or more people, we will just give notice to the Hopi Tribe, and vice versa, that 20 will be coming. Just notice. No license, no permits will be involved because we will respect each other's traditional religion."

Confidentially speaking
Denetsosie cautioned that the compact is marked confidential and is protected under the Navajo Nation Privacy Act and that any disclosure of the compact is punishable by law.

Public Safety Committee Vice Chairman Pete Ken Atcitty (Shiprock) questioned how they were presenting the information to the public if it was confidential and argued that if the information has been presented to the public, it is no longer confidential.

Committee member Ben Curley also questioned how the presentations were made to the chapters if the information is confidential.

Tsinigine said they went to five chapters Bodaway/Gap, Cameron, Coppermine, Tonalea, Red Lake, and Bird Springs. "We explained to them word for word what was in the compact and we translated in Navajo. When we did the map, we showed it to the people because there was no media there," he said.

The generic map basically differentiates Navajo and Hopi-controlled lands in the affected area without pinpointing locations. Confidential maps can be shown only to elected leaders and employees of the Navajo and Hopi tribes "having responsibility for performance and/or enforcement of this compact."

Denetsosie said several exhibits in the compact must remain confidential. Those involve a map showing the location of the Hopi Salt Trail, Hopi eagle-gathering areas, a five-page list of existing eagle nests on Navajoland, and a two-page list of springs, located on both Navajo and Hopi lands.

"That is proprietary information. They have asked us not to reveal that. If we reveal that information then the compact is gone. We won't have a compact. Those are all the Hopi sacred places. All that information is protected by the Navajo Nation Privacy Act," Denetsosie said. "We did not show that to the membership of the tribe."

Committee member Harry Brown said that back in the 1880's when the land was set aside, "it was set aside for Navajo and Moqui." But, he argued, "There is no such tribe today."

"If the Hopi were there in 1882 when Kit Carson rounded the Navajo up, there were no Hopis rounded up. I guess that says that the Hopi were not there," Brown said.

In addition to the 62,000 acres set aside for Hopi, Denetsosie said the District Court of Arizona in 1992 also designated land shared by the San Juan Southern Paiutes.

"The judge determined that there is an area of concurrent use but said he had no jurisdiction to create a reservation for them, so that just sits right there.

"He determined that there was about 40,000 acres of concurrent use of land by the Navajos and San Juan Southern Paiutes, but he did not establish a reservation for the Paiutes," Brown said.

Challenging chapters
Tsinigine said that of the chapters affected by the freeze, only Tuba City and Coalmine Canyon chapter support are questionable. He said legislation was presented to the Resources Committee last Wednesday at Coalmine Chapter, where the committee approved it.

Residents of Coalmine Chapter have yet to be presented the proposed compact.

Referring to the lawsuit filed in Tuba City court, Tsinigine said, "The majority of people that live in the Bennett Freeze area, residents of the chapter, they support this and they want this lifted as soon as possible.

"What is causing chaos is people that don't live in the Bennett Freeze, that never lived in the Bennett Freeze, they're the ones that are questioning the validity of the document. So we need to listen to the people that actually live in those freeze areas," he said.

Public Safety Committee Chairperson Hope MacDonald-LoneTree (Tuba City/Coalmine) took exception to Tsinigine's comments. "Just as a correction, I understand from looking at the attachment to this summary, there are two of those people that are listed here that I know of that live in the Bennett Freeze area," she said.

Atcitty added that the language in the compact does not specifically state that the Bennett Freeze would be lifted and that there also was no specific language pertaining to rehabilitation funding.

MacDonald-LoneTree agreed, saying that though Denetsosie and Tsinigine said the freeze would be lifted as soon as the document is signed, it still has to be approved by Congress. "And there's no assurance in the document that there will be funding available to meet some of the needs."

Tsinigine countered, "They don't want funding, they just want it lifted. Funding goes along with all of this, but right now we're in a human issue and we need this lifted.

"We can ask the chapters to get infrastructure and housing and water without going through the tribe to approve it further and then going to the Hopi and Interior. We want to get rid of all of that. It's a gross feeling. Funding's going to come, but right now we want this lifted as a human issue," he said.