Guest Essay: Is is time to enact laws for libelous remarks on social media?

By Leonard Tsosie
Special to the Times

Recently, friends and supporters sent me a copy of a message appearing on Facebook regarding my service as a Council Delegate and showing that I supposedly used my political power to get $25,000 waterline extended only to my house (I don’t subscribe to Facebook.)

This was put on Diné Politics Facebook website by a John Yazzieman (obviously covering himself with a pseudo-name).

I don’t deny I was involved in this water project for Whitehorse Lake Chapter. I have literally spent half of my lifetime figuring out a way to get water development for the chapter.

Whitehorse Lake Chapter sits on Continental Divide and has no big aquifer to tap into. Initially, chapter planners were drilling here and there to get water with state-funded dollars. Finally, I said “No more” and that “We are going down the canyon to tap into the waterline at Pueblo Pintado.” And, we did after 8 years of effort.

Whitehorse Lake Chapter was the last of the 10 Cutter Lateral chapters to get water. When the line finally got to the chapter, my family area was the third group to get waterline development we let others get water first!
“John Yazzieman” knows he is telling a lie because his own information tells him that the waterline was developed for all of our neighboring families – there were families before us and after us that got water. It appears that he wants community leaders’ families to not get any water and have leaders perish with their families from lack of water.

I am proud of my involvement in promoting water development for the Chaco region chapters. IHS-OEH and others kept telling us that our area is not eligible because we live too far apart and that it is costly. Without their help, we proactively gathered enough funds to undertake the project. Many helped.

The late Judge Becenti gave passionate testimonies on how he hauled water all his life. The late Frank C. Willetto, on his White House visit, personally made a plea to President Obama on the need for water for the Chaco region. Six months later, the Navajo-Gallup Water project was on the national priority list.

Now, the 10 chapters meet as a Cutter Lateral group to happily plan socio-economic developments. As a community leader for the area, I tirelessly helped to make this possible. In a few more years, our community waterlines will be connected to San Juan River a lifetime accomplishment that no social media’s denigration can erase.

It’s alarming on what has become of, and how, many dark-minded Navajo persons misuse social media like Facebook to cast negative dispersions on fellow Navajo citizens and leaders in the most defaming manner. These dark-minded Navajo persons’ misuse of social media is now the modern version of Navajo witchcraft (adiighaash).

Adiighaash has no positive value and uses natural objects for bad or ill purposes; and its only purpose is to promote ill-will and bring down a person or leader. Today, they use camera-phones to peek or sneak out of darkness, snap a picture, return to social media’s darkroom to process it and then put it on social media to disparage a person.

The camera-phone has become their ‘an’t’’’h. Then, nalch’i’i’ are used to transmit and disseminate the ill-intended information.

I recall how relatives of Robert Joe, former employee with Navajo Nation Oil and Gas Company, took quick photos of me and others while eating at Twin Arrows. I later saw those pictures on Facebook 15 minutes later under the label of “Navajo mafia.”

Recently, they showed up on the steps of Navajo Nation Council Chamber to “air out” their ill-gotten pictures as a form of “dirty laundry” of me, Speaker Bates and others to disparage our names. This was done simply because I held Robert Joe and others accountable for their mismanagement and taking of funds at NNOGC as was covered by previous editions of Navajo Times.

Maybe it is time to enact laws to hold people accountable for libelous and untrue remarks on social media. Neither Freedom of speech nor Navajo teaching do not protect such untrue remarks.

For the strong representation of my constituents, for holding people and programs accountable, I have been at the opposite end of the old and new versions of adiighaash.

Thankfully, a large group of Navajo persons still believe in goodness, support my leadership and many have told me that they pray for me. I thank them. With their prayers, I have survived and moved on. I believe in goodness for the Navajo People.

May the Creator continue to bless our homeland.

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