Dear Sir,

In December I was on Big Mountain with a Member of European parliament and a lady who works for the secretariat of the greens. During the preparation period already I had reached the conclusion that things weren't as the Belgian activist group had painted them. I was most happy to read your strongly worded reaction...which I am including in the file about the trip. I am happy to say that also my two travel companions are leaning towards this conclusion. We have the hard task now to explain and convince the Belgian activists that they might not have their facts right.

Respect to you,

Annmarie Sauer

The Hopi have tried to work toward a peaceful solution of the problem very intensively, especially since 1994. They have tried to educate the Navajo families as to the meaning of the Accommodation Agreement. In May of that year Judge McCue determined that 80% of the families had ratified the Agreement in Principle.

The AA was the means to introduce the lease concept so that the individual families that wanted to stay on Hopi land lawfully could do so. On the other hand, this established a recognition of title by the signing families that the land was indeed Hopi land.

The Hopi intend to deal fairly with religious concerns and permits for wood, grazing and building of temporary structures for religious purposes and feel that the Lease agreement is a necessary and reasonable way to let the Navajo families remain on Hopi lands if they make that choice. The deadline for signing of the lease has been twice extended to give every family full opportunity to consider their choices.

There have been many court cases and they all determined that the Hopi proposal was not contrary to Human rights.

The Hopi try to deal with all the complicated issues individually: the relocation or lease, the water rights issue, the coal issue, environmental issues, religious concerns. They are willing to resolve the problem for the Navajo families by helping them with schooling, social services, medical services, child protection and so on. Jurisdictional problems at the level of the Navajo nation make this impossible right now.

The Hopi are shocked and astonished at the world's involvement in this issue. They feel they have not been heard by the outside world and that the activists surrounding the Big Mountain issue have misrepresented them. Hopis do not understand why it seems strange to Europeans that they expect people residing in their sovereign nation to live by Hopi law, just as the Hopi themselves. The only legal difference between Hopi and non-Hopi is that the non-Hopi have no right to vote or be elected.

Their plea is: We are a peaceful people. Left alone, we can work this out. They also ask the world to understand that Hopi, within its current boundary, is occupying only a fraction of their original land, or Tutsqua. "We cannot afford to lose more land because it would make it impossible to fulfill our religious obligations and pilgrimages and gathering of feathers. We would have no access to our shrines and the cycle of ceremonies would be further disrupted and the balance of our world and the world in general would be threatened." The people we spoke to are participants in the ceremonial cycles of Hopi spirituality. They participate in the Kivas and in the Plazas. They are religious leaders and priests. Hopi religion is so inextricable from every-day Hopi life that it would be difficult to find anyone who was not a part of the community's spiritual consciousness and ceremonial cycle.

Mr. Benally felt that the Big Mountain issue is a 'lost case': It has been decided this land belongs to the Hopi; the resisters are fighting a western concept of land. Some relocations have gone well others have led to a lot of pain and loneliness. We met a lady living in Sanders and she spoke about the difficulties of living alone among low mountains and in a foreign system. It is yet known what the long-term effects of the relocations will be. The people that ended up on the wrong side of the line suffer emotional trauma, through their own government and the people. The Navajo Nation Government (NNG) has to live with the statutes and find it very hard dealing with the different issues of the resisters. The Navajo nation finds itself in an awkward position.

According to Thomas Benally only 7 families are non-signers and they are fragmented. There is distrust among them, they do not agree on many issues and have different lawyers.

Thomas Benally felt the outside activists had been giving false hope to the elders. They tend to close the doors and stir up the situation. He feels that our concern for the fate of the people is good, that we can try to help but should refrain from 'agitation' as it only causes more pain and suffering. It is more important to explain the facts to the people and then if they make a choice, they should accept also the consequences of the their choice. Many of the people have no formal education and find it hard to deal with all this. The term 'traditional' was challenged. Thomas Benally considers himself to be a traditional Navajo; he would refer to the Dineh as 'conservative', they want to go on living, as they know how. He himself knows about his clans, speaks the language and felt secure in the knowledge that if needed, his family would organize an appropriate ceremony for him.

Words are powerful, they mean something and we associate certain values with certain words. If we read terms like "traditional elders" versus "progressive Tribal Councils" then our feelings almost immediately dictate a choice: we seem to know immediately who the good guys are. Yet here different cultures are involved and we have to question who is defining what. The representatives of the Hopi Tribal Council and Land Team and from the Navajo Hopi Land Team were involved in their clans, religious societies and acknowledged the importance of and participated in their respective ceremonies. We should think and not judge on the basis of the words used.

A great many of the concerns expressed by the Navajos at Big Mountain are concerns that should be answered/addressed by the Navajo Nation. They are not concerns that have been caused by the Hopis, the U.S. government, or the designation of the land upon which they live as Hopi Partitioned Land. Many of their difficulties and hardships have always been a part of life in this remote and harsh land. These are conditions that have existed from the time the Navajos moved into the region. They are conditions that exist equally for Navajos and Hopis living in the area.

I think we should not interfere in finding a solution for the jurisdictional problems: Three Nations are involved in this and they should work this out. Preferably sooner than later. If any of the groups asks for our help on specific issues, we should be willing to provide that in all fairness. Injustice and imbalance never bring harmony and peace and this is what we should be working towards.