Non-Indian Support: Swaneagle

Blessings People of Conscience:

I just got home from going to Big Mountain. Was heavy down there. I occupied the BIA offices with Arlene Hamilton on March 15th after talking with those in charge of impounding livestock for 4 hours. We asked the to stop impoundments immediately because of the terror it is causing in the lives of Dineh people. Arlene told Eugene Secakaku she had been told that impoundments would cease if it was causing undue hardship upon the people and that the BIA is legally supposed to be protecting the health and well being of the people. No one in that office sees to that. We talked to Robert Caroline in Phoenix, Mark Bradford and Dave Etheridge in D.C. over Eugene's speaker phone. All of those guys said someone else was in charge acting as if they were helpless. Bob Caroline said thy are impounding the sheep because of the drought. Save the land so that Peabody can permanently ruin it. When we exhausted our pleas, we at into the central office to display our position that today as not business as usual in a nonviolent act. Arlene laid down in Fred Chavez's office and I sat on the floor next to her. We were then arrested by BIA police. Arlene went limp and they dragged her out. We were charged with criminal trespass and released 3 hours later.

My heart aches with a depth that defies description. The suffering is extreme and Dineh people are living in a state of sustained anxiety. The stress is tremendous. Truly slow motion genocide. I cannot say what must be done. All that continues coming to me is the need for millions of white skinned Americans to be willing to lay their lives on the line. I am one of terribly few who have shown up to do just this. My privilege disgusts me knowing I have such freedom to do civil disobedience with minor consequences and still have no impact upon the driving force of unfettered greed's genocide.

Police drive around the reservation going into hogans unannounced guns on their hips. Pauline has taught herself to write so that she can document incursions by police recording their license plate numbers, date and description of appearance. There are not enough people bearing witness on the land at this time. It tore me up to leave when I did. I feel under the thumb as I struggle to survive going to school while IÕm also on call to the struggle. I am afraid I will once again end up quitting school because the situation is deadly serious and Pauline is my mother. Right now, they are threatening to kick me out of TESC because my fall quarter is incomplete due to my awful illness. At least my student loan paid for my trip down there.

The day after our arrests, we were told by supporters that an impoundment crew was driving around with police. So we changed course to go find out what as going on. We saw two impoundment trailers and marked and unmarked police escorts in 7 to 9 vehicles. We faced the "army" with my car that Willie Lone Wolf was driving. Arlene and I got out to talk to the drivers. We asked why so many police were needed to count livestock? Then we were approached by a bunch of police that followed Fred Chavez to confront us. Again we asked why so many armed police to count sheep and he said, that Marcia had threatened them so he had to protect his men. Arlene said, "You are using that as an excuse." the cops zeroed in on Arlene and grabbed her. When she pulled away, they handcuffed her and put her in the police rig. I called out to the other drivers to quit scaring my friends, quit scaring the Elders and the children. One cop had a hand on my arm the whole time. He grabbed me a little tighter and said "If you don't leave this land, I will arrest you." I said, "I am not leaving." He let me go. Then Mary Katherine drove up and said she would take care of these two yahoos. The cops let her take me, but they wouldn't let her take Arlene. She was humorous and assertive. I enjoyed her encounter with the cops. Again she as told that words Marcia had used caused them to bring in so much force.

Willie drove my car and we all at up at Katherine Smith's. Dineh people came out of the hills to find out what had happened. Some had been hiding along with their livestock and others had their animals counted. One guy said that hundreds of supporters are needed who are COMMITED TO NONVIOLENCE. Of course, that's what I am into....

After we ate, Willie and I went to pick up Arlene from Keams Canyon. They may be charging her with felony failure to disperse and disorderly conduct. Ridiculous. When they let her out, they said they were gonna send someone out to find her with a Federal Warrant. That didn't happen.

The in fighting is terrible. I don't know what to do. I am afraid if I say anything to anyone. I will be attacked as well if it isn't already happening. I see that trust is limited and that means we are in danger of loosing everything. How to bring people together? How? Are humans just too flawed to be part of significant solution? Has the oppressor won? Is any hope I carry in my heart an illusion?

I will return to Big Mountain as soon as possible. I am planning a fast to prepare myself for what is to come. I don't know what else to do. I feel that I a part of a profound failure. Pray for the people.

In peaceful struggle,
Swaneagle

Date: Tue, 04 May 1999
Blessings Judge Lamb:

Thank you for allowing me to enter my plea over the phone. I received the papers in the mail a few weeks ago. After talking with my friend, Arlene Hamilton, and another valued friend, I now wish to request that you accept my change of plea from guilty to not guilty.

If this is not possible, I wish to take the harshest sentence available.

I am willing to serve time in jail for my action of non-cooperation with evil. As a committed human rights observer and activist, I feel a deep obligation to oppose the genocidal policies currently being enacted against the traditional Dineh people of Big Mountain and the other commnities in the Black Mesa region.

I have been spending time with Dineh families periodically since 1984.

The climate of fear created by the Hopi Tribal Rangers, the Bureau of Indian Affairs officials, the impoundment crews and other affiliated Navajo and Hopi Tribal Officials is astronomical. Seeing the people I know and love being subjected to escalated harassment by armed police imposing sustained anxiety upon them is intolerable. Now I discovered that the BIA shot the horse of Dineh Elder Pauline Whitesinger while she was at the impoundment yards attempting to get her confiscated cow returned. Such techniques of terrorism were initiated by Kit Carson under U.S. policy and further refined by Adolf Hitler, who studied the implementation of Indian Reservations before establishing his concentration camps. I have visited with Dineh people relocated to the New Lands living lives of confined misery never recovering from the loss of traditional, self-sufficient culture. The casualties from relocation mount, giving further reason to resisters of forced removal to maintain their spiritual instructions to remain on these sacred lands.

As a person of Irish-French descent, I am aware of the place my ancestors have played in annihilating the peoples indigenous to the Americas. I have made a lifetime commitment to addressing the ongoing genocide still practiced against Indian people. It is my belief that once amends are truly made, the opportunity may arise for humans from all stratas of life to collaborate in activating solutions to the undeniable catastrophe emerging globally.

I would encourage you and anyone else you know to go see for yourself the results of relocation policy, the results of pollution, destruction of burial sites and ancient Kivas ax well as deaths of sheep from Peabody Coal Company operations, the anguish caused by militarization of the Black Mesa area, the isolation of Elders separated from their already relocated relatives, the high suicide and death rate among relocatees, the methodical expansion of corporate greed that views human life as a tragic, yet trivial, side affect of highly prized mega profit. In retrospect, this forcible mass removal will be seen as a major human rights violation of the twentieth century within U.S. borders. What has been done to these traditional Dineh weavers and their families is truly appalling. I say ENOUGH! with the power of my white skin privilege, my education, and, above all, my conscience.

I am not willing to pay any amount of fine. It is not my intention to benefit the system causing such harm to the friends I love and consider to be family. I am willing to serve jail time other than make any payment or do community service by choppping wood, hauling water, herding sheep or working in the cornfields for Dineh Elders.

I ask you to please consider hearing testimony directly from the Dineh families who are being terrorized. It is only the fact that there is a press black out on this issue keeping Americans at large ignorant of it's seriousness that has allowed the extent of damage done to continue. It is immoral and all my life I will be devoted to opposing this atrocity.

Please let me know soon what you think. If my change of plea is not accepted, I will fill out the papers sent including getting myself finger printed by local police.

With respect,
Swaneagle