Sharing Boulder's bounty
Traditional Support Caravan enters its tenth year

by Pamela White

The first time Vint Miller made the trip with Traditional Support Caravan to the reservation at Black Mesa, Ariz., he was looking for an answer. His question: "Could this really be happening in this country?"

Miller had heard about the forced relocation of Diné, or Navajo, families from Black Mesa and wanted to learn the truth for himself.

Like other caravan members, he helped raise money, helped purchase and load supplies and made the 12-hour drive to the reservation at his own expense. As soon as he arrived, however, his reason for being there changed.

"We began unloading a few boxes of food and animal feed," Miller says. "There were several children running about peeping into each package we delivered, when one of the smaller ones screamed, 'Look, peanut butter!' The look of joy on that child's face will never leave me."

Since then, Miller has made six trips to Black Mesa.

"(The first trip) created a bond with that family which I have been lucky to maintain through six trips to the reservation, and it's what keeps me returning each time," he says. "I think about them daily."

Miller is one of hundreds of locals who have spent their Thanksgiving holidays with Traditional Support Caravan to bring supplies to relocation resisters. The caravan-one of the oldest and most successful grassroots Indigenous support organizations in the country-is preparing for its 10th fall supply trip and looking at expanding its mission from supporting relocation resisters to supporting the work of Indigenous spiritual leaders across the country.

Local farmer Thad Johnson, one of the caravan's founders, says spiritual leaders are the ones who hold traditional Native communities together.

"We want to help them in any way they wished to be helped," Johnson says.

A history of struggle

Before whites arrived, the Diné lived a migratory existence within their traditional homeland, which included parts of Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. They traded mutton for fruits and vegetables grown by the Hopi, who farmed the mesas above.

In the 1860s, whites invaded the dinetah, or Diné homeland, and the Diné resisted, as did the Apache. With the end of the Civil War, the U.S. government was ready to deal with uncooperative Indians and launched a military response. In 1864, Kit Carson starved the Diné into submission and forced 8,500 men, women and children to walk 350 miles to Fort Sumner, called Bosque Redondo. Used as a concentration camp, the fort was eventually home to about 10,000 Native people, many of whom died due to starvation, disease and lack of clean drinking water.

By 1868, the Diné had signed a treaty with the government that allowed them to return to their traditional homeland to raise sheep and grow corn. While the government set aside a reservation for the Diné in New Mexico, the Navajo population grew, and soon Navajo had spread back into Arizona.

From the Diné point of view, trouble on Black Mesa began in 1868, when U.S. government surveyors discovered massive deposits of low-sulfur coal lying on the ground and jutting out from the dry desert soil. Realizing the land's value, the government moved to keep whites from settling on or around Black Mesa. The government created a reservation for the Hopi and any other Native group they chose to deposit there. Some of the land was eventually set aside exclusively for the Hopi, who were vastly outnumbered by the Diné, while the majority of it became known as the Joint Use Area.

But the coal was still there. In the 1950s, John Boyden, a Mormon lawyer whose firm secretly represented Peabody Coal Company offered to give the Diné pro bono legal counsel, but was rebuffed. Boyden then offered his services to the Hopi, who accepted. Over the course of the next 20 years, Boyden "helped" the Hopi ink deals with Peabody that sold most of their water to the mining company for a fraction of its value. Meanwhile, his pro bono work cost the Hopi millions taken secretly from the Hopi trust account.

Boyden also worked to foment a "range war" between the Diné and Hopi, urging the Hopi to reclaim the Joint Use Area for themselves. In 1974, he pushed a law through Congress-Public Law 93-531-which divided the Joint Use Area between the Hopi and the Diné. Some 15,000 Diné and 1,000 Hopi were caught on the wrong side of the fence and were required by law to relocate. The law made it easier for Peabody to mine by clarifying which Indian nation held rights to the land and by placing a significant portion of the coal deposits on Hopi Partitioned Land (HPL).

While the majority of Diné have relocated-some of them to land contaminated by uranium mining-an estimated 1,000 still cling to homesites that have been settled by their ancestors for generations. Many of them are elderly women who do not speak English.

"Relocation is a word that does not exist in the Navajo language," says resister and elder Pauline Whitesinger. "To be relocated is to disappear and never be seen again."

Those who remain face laws that prohibit them from repairing their homes and that require permits for normal daily activities like gathering wood for fire or constructing ceremonial buildings. Many say they have faced threats and harassment from Hopi rangers ranging from concrete poured into wells to slain livestock to threats of violence.

"They told me they were going to come with a truck and take me and my lifestock away," says Glenna Begay, a resister in her 80s.

Creation of the caravan

Thad Johnson first heard of the conflict on Black Mesa in 1992, when he heard three Diné grandmothers speak at the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center.

"I was moved by them," Johnson says. "I'd never heard of them before."

Johnson had a chance to speak with them privately after their talk and asked one of the women what she and her family needed. She told him she needed help chopping wood and herding sheep.

Because the vehicle returning to Black Mesa was full, Johnson planned to hitchhike to Black Mesa. He ran into a friend, who offered Johnson the use of his mother's truck. The two decided to raise money and fill the truck with food and supplies. The ended up raising $1,100.

"Suddenly we had three trucks," Johnson says.

They delivered the supplies, dividing them between as many families as they could.

"It was just chance," he says. "It wasn't really my idea. It just happened."

Johnson moved in with elder Alice Benally, the grandmother he'd spoken with in Boulder, and spent a few months herding sheep and chopping wood. The resisters so appreciated the first shipment of supplies that Johnson was asked to return to Boulder and raise more money.

Since then, the Caravan has made 17 trips to Black Mesa. Over the years, the caravan has carried more than $100,000 in aid and hundreds of tons of supplies from tools to livestock goods to food to the traditional Diné.

Johnson estimates that, over the years, between 400 and 500 Boulder-area residents of all ages and all walks of life have participated in the caravan in some way.

"We make them work hard," he says. "Anyone who wants to help has always been welcome to go down."

Participants are required to attend an orientation. In addition, members pay the cost of their own participation. This ensures that every dime raised makes it to the Native community on Black Mesa.

Johnson believes Traditional Support Caravan differs from many Indigenous support groups in that the group has a close relationship with Diné resisters and the Diné call the shots.

"They oversee what we do tell us what they want and when they want it," he says. "If they want gas, we give them gas. If they want food for ceremony, we give them food for ceremony. If they want a chainsaw to cut wood, we give them a chainsaw."

The resisters have expressed their appreciation to caravan members by inviting them into their homes, sharing meals and sharing prayers. For Johnson, the value of that connection is deeply personal and has come to define his life.

Diagnosed with cancer in 1996, Johnson underwent three months of chemotherapy that left him near death. Due to undergo the last treatment the week after Thanksgiving, he opted to travel to Arizona with the caravan though he had not been well enough to participate in any other way that year.

"I had what could have been my last few days, but those days I was down there, I was alive," Johnson says.

The Diné prayed with him-and teased him about his new bald look.

"I think about those old people all the time and the way they live," he says. "That hogaan door was always open. I'd come home from herding sheep, and I'd come inside, and there would be food and a fire."

Expanding horizons

Over the past 10 years, Johnson has come to appreciate the role spiritual leaders play in a traditional Indigenous community. Spiritual leaders are cultural guardians, but they also maintain the ceremonies that bind people together and give them a sense of identity.

The U.S. government realized this early on, and until the 1970s had laws that made it illegal for Native people to speak their own languages or hold certain ceremonies in what many consider to be an act of cultural genocide. Indian culture went underground, as elders tried in secret to pass on their language, customs, songs and prayers to their children and grandchildren. Though some cultures were devastated by these laws and some languages lost, many lived on unseen.

Although federal law protects American Indian religious practices, many Native people say the government is practicing a more covert form of cultural genocide by requiring permits for certain ceremonies. Spiritual leaders often face arrest for holding ceremonies, even on Indian land.

This summer, traditional Lakota spiritual leader David Swallow was arrested for holding a Sun Dance without a permit and for piercing a minor.

"That's consistently the case," Johnson says. "That's what all Native American spiritual leaders are up against. (The government) tries to nit-pick about it because they can't just go gun people down anymore."

To be fair, Johnson says, churchgoers should be required to have permits before holding Sunday services, and mohels should be arrested for circumcising boys, priests for baptizing children.

The caravan is expanding its efforts to include supporting the work of traditional Native spiritual leaders knowing that support translates into aid for communities across North America.

The caravan is seeking volunteers and hoping for a banner year in monetary donations. They are accepting donations of hay and animal feed, as well. Drought in Arizona has left most families unable to grow corn and made it more difficult to feed livestock through grazing.

Johnson says Boulder has been generous to the caravan in the past.

"Boulder has definitely been making it happen," Johnson says. "It's that special mix of Boulder that's made it possible."

To make a donation to Traditional Support Caravan or for information on how you can volunteer, call 303-564-3393.

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com

Public TV silences candidates
Third parties excluded from debate on public airwaves

by Brian Klocke

With less than two weeks until Election Day, 20 percent of Colorado voters have not been swayed by the leading Democrat and Republican candidates for governor, according to a recent Rocky Mountain News poll. Third-party candidates Ron Forthofer (Green) and Ralph Shnelvar (Libertarian) believe that their exclusion from last Saturday's televised debate sponsored by Rocky Mountain News, News 4 TV and Rocky Mountain PBS, was a sham of democracy representative of big money politics.

At a protest outside the News 4 studios, Forthofer said, "This is outrageous. Why should the Democrats and Republicans, the parties that have the resources to buy the advertising, get free media advertising?"

Libertarians, said Shnelvar, were not present to protest the debate because they realized after zero press coverage of a recent protest at the Denver City Club that, "it was completely pointless."

Two third-party candidates for U.S. Senate, Libertarian Rick Stanley and American Constitution Party candidate Doug Campbell, have decided to try another approach. They filed a federal lawsuit on Friday asking for a temporary restraining order on Saturday's debate and the upcoming Oct. 18 debate in Pueblo, unless they were included.

A federal judge denied the suit saying the complainants failed to give the defendants enough notice. Stanley and Campbell are continuing to pursue the issue of equal access for all ballot-qualified candidates in federal district court.

Boulder Weekly, not allowed to photograph the debate, approached gubernatorial candidates Rollie Heath (Democrat) and Bill Owens (Republican) afterwards and asked each of them about the exclusion of two ballot-qualified candidates.

"Well, I think this debate was successful," Owens said before he vanished into an elevator.

Heath's answer was nearly as evasive: "I had nothing to do with the decision. I just show up. We've gone to every debate we've been invited to."

Heath and Owens supporters rallied outside the studios before the debate.

A young Owens supporter, Steve Dribner, joined the sidewalk rally and said of the exclusion of third party candidates, "That's not really our call. That's not our decision. We're out here to support democracy."

Another young Owens supporter who did not give her name stated that several Owens boosters came up from Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma to "help campaign for the American Republicans."

Surprised at the exclusion of third party candidates, she said, "This is America. Everybody needs to be heard."

John Montgomery, News 4 debate coordinator, refused to comment until the end of the debate.

"Anybody tracking at the 15 percent level (in polls) is invited for debate and for free air time," he said. "That was the decision between the three boards of the three stations that sponsored tonight's debate."

"If the media don't cover us then people don't realize they support us on our issues and ideas," Forthofer said. "If they don't know that we exist, how can they respond positively in a poll question to say they support us? As long as the public is kept in the dark, as long as the media is not living up to its responsibilities to our democracy, then we're never going to be allowed into any of these debates.

"It's particularly outrageous for Channel 6 to be doing this as a public station. The airwaves are public airwaves, and we're leasing them to Channel 4, and this is not what democracy is supposed to be about. The media's job is to provide information so that the electorate can be informed and make decisions."

Shnelvar agreed. "The voters of Colorado have not been given an opportunity to hear the truth. Both candidates are trying to find the political center as opposed to being principled and telling the voters what they need to know."

After watching a tape of the broadcast, he laughed. "The debate was a joke. It did not present information that the electorate really needed to get in order to get good information to consider who to be governor-I wish I would have been there to provide that info."

Said Forthofer: "It's the big money that has corrupted our system. It has so destroyed the American population's public faith in our government and in the stock market and other things. The only way to clean up that system is by electing candidates that are responsible only to the public and not to big money."

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com

Confronting Columbus' legacy
Activists decry holiday named for man guilty of genocide

by Brian Klocke

The legacy of Christopher Columbus, revered by some and despised by many, manifested itself last Saturday in the state's capital. The All Nations Alliance and its allies have met the national holiday with passionate resistance since 1989. Supporters of the Columbus legacy continue to be defiant.

George Vendegnia, organizer of this year's Columbus Day Parade, vowed to keep the parade going for years into the future and likened protesters to terrorists. "If we were to back off now, it would be like backing off to (Osama) bin Laden," Vendegnia said.

While Colorado U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo marched in the parade, not all officials and not all Italian-Americans support Columbus Day. Green Party candidates and many Italian-Americans were standing with the Transform Columbus Day (TCD) crow which, at about 2,000 strong, police estimated to be double that of parade participants.

One Italian American, Olivia Florio, spoke at the TCD rally on the Capitol steps, "I dream of a world where peace, justice, dignity and respect reign. We are creating that world today by marching here, by being here and transforming Columbus Day."

Glenn Morris, a member of the leadership council of the American Indian Movement of Colorado, reminded the diverse crowd that the first Columbus Day parade was in 1905 in Pueblo, Colo., and this state was the first to make it an official holiday.

"This isn't just about Denver, Colorado, but it began here, and that's why we feel a particular responsibility," Morris said.

Both Morris and CU-Boulder professor Ward Churchill, also of AIM, told ralliers that the Columbus parade organizers made it clear on the radio recently that the celebration is not about Italian pride.

Morris paraphrased Columbus Day parade organizers as saying, "Just like the Nazis and just like the Klan, we have a right to have our parade," adding, "If that's the company they want to keep, then we will send them the same message we sent to the Klan: You are not welcomed. Your message of genocide and hatred and colonialism and white supremacy is not welcome."

Some parade protesters crossed the barricade and riot cop-lined street.

"The police were using horses as tools to get activists out of the way," said Boulder resident Eric Loftman.

Seven people were arrested. Six were charged with disturbing the peace or disobeying a lawful order.

Morris criticized past media coverage of previous TCD events for dismissing Columbus' crimes as allegations.

"When that happens with the Nazi holocaust," Morris said, "those people are called holocaust deniers, and they're vilified and put on the margins and considered nuts. But when people deny the holocaust in this country, they're given all this police protection, they're given a parade permit, and they're escorted down the street to continue an ideology of hatred and separation... The holocaust against our people is not an allegation, it's a historical fact. And it's a historical fact not in books written by Indian people, not in books written by other indigenous people, but in books written by European people, who were there."

Bartolome de las Casas, transcriber of Columbus' journal and a Catholic priest, wrote in his book, Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies (1542), "Our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy...We can estimate very surely and truthfully that in the 40 years that have passed, with the infernal actions of the Christians, there have been unjustly slain more than 12 million men, women, and children. In truth, I believe without trying to deceive myself that the number of the slain is more like 15 million...Their reason for killing and destroying such an infinite number of souls is that the Christians have an ultimate aim, which is to acquire gold, and to swell themselves with riches in a very brief time."

Many Columbus protesters made connections with this legacy with corporate colonization and U.S. foreign policy.

Said Morris: "Globalization is turning the world into an Indian reservation-NAFTA, the GATT, the WTO-that's the legacy of Columbus, driven by the same greed, driven by the same malice, hatred, designed to imprison you all."

Churchill called those who joined the Four Directions march "freedom fighters-those who stand against oppression and injustice in solidarity with the humanity of the Earth and with the Earth itself."

All Nations Alliance organizers like Morris hope that their efforts and the efforts of the people in attendance will "transform this city and transform this country."