Letters: Deschene treated poorly during election

I am a public school educator and professional musician married to a Native American man, and am active in studying and promoting indigenous knowledge and wisdom. Currently I am visiting friends on the Navajo Reservation.

It was with great interest that I followed your 2014 elections. I was dismayed by the poor treatment of the brilliant young candidate, Chris Deschene. I don’t understand how this level of defiance against your own accomplished relative can happen. To me it seems he was treated like an enemy. Like other tribes, in the face of a multiplicity of challenging issues, why would your politicians choose to turn against their own, instead of embracing someone with the talent and motivation to assist your beautiful people in moving forward with the times?

It makes me wonder what is really at the root of such exclusive behavior. And more to the point, how will the Navajo be able to thrive if such attitudes continue?

Sandra Locklear
Seattle, Wash.

Issues holding back positive progress

Navajo government corruption has been an issue for years. The most common words we hear about our previous and current governments are “corruption, mismanagement, incompetence, ignorance, favoritism, greed, oppressive, abusive, non-democratic, economic failure” and so forth. And yet term after term we continue to elect corrupted individuals causing havoc with our Navajo society, and we complain as always. It’s time we stand up and challenge those we know to be behind the corruptions.

The new administration has fallen into the same rut of Shelly’s administration which was chaotic and na•ve, behaving like a stunned bird that flew into a closed window, not to mention those of the many prior administrations. What those leaders don’t seem to understand is that there are ever-present agents (negotiators) of corruption and exploitation ready to keep us in the black hole of abuse, denial, and violating our independence, taking our rich natural resources with little or no return to us, and with no concerns of our human rights.

In the past several years, concerned Navajo groups have organized throughout the reservation. They addressed the corrupted issues with little success where the general Navajo public does not seem to understand or not care, or know how to deal with the corruptions.

Hada, Asidi is one of the concerned groups from the eastern part of the reservation and has known for some time who instigates the corruptions, causing the Navajo people to lose billions in the process. This letter is the first of several that will follow for purpose of addressing and exposing major issues holding back our positive progress and who the instigators are. Unfortunately our present and past leaders have been aware of who the major culprit is but are more than willing to listen to and act by advices of this person.

Stanley Pollack, a non-Navajo attorney with the tribal Department of Justice, has been employed with the tribe for 30 years. During his tenure with the government he learned Navajo habits, their wants and desires, which he uses to lead the Navajo leaders astray to control what he wants, all for the purpose of serving the outside corporations and governments.

Senate Bill 2109 in year 2012 is a prime example of Pollack’s control. He became so effective and sure of his deceits that he thought it would be simple to follow through with advising the then Arizona Senator, Jon Kyl, that Navajo had approved the Little Colorado River Settlement Agreement, when the Navajo Nation president and Council weren’t even aware of Pollack’s proposed settlement at the time. It was the concerned Navajo grassroots who brought the issue to light by advising the full Council that stopped the LCRSA.

Pollack has been very successful in maneuvering his way through the tribal government, starting with DOJ lawyers as Kathryn Hoover, Scott McElroy, Bitah Becker, Department of Natural Resources, Water Resources, and so on. Throughout the years Pollack also gathered trust of major tribal employees, who he uses to keep our people and our rights down, while elevating those he involved.

Tulley Haswood
President
Diné Hada, Asidi Organization
Rock Springs, N.M.

Carefully approaching sweatlodge

Sweatlodge ceremony has long played an important role in maintaining the spiritual and emotional well-being of many Indian people. Its ritual follows several forms as determined by the particular lodge leader. Participation generally requires exposure to steam, darkness, and varying levels of heat. The risk for injury due to heat exhaustion, burns, or physiological stress exists but is thought to be small if the sweatlodge is appropriately led. By history the sweatlodge ceremony is part of Native American healing ceremonies. Its practitioners are required to complete extensive apprenticeships before allowed to perform such ceremonies and prayers independently.

In October of 2009 there were three people who died in a sweatlodge ceremony that was mis-appropriately led by a sweatlodge leader in Sedona, Ariz. On July 5, 2015, on our Navajo Reservation there was a male who died in a sweatlodge after he participated in a peyote meeting the night before.

If you are not familiar with the ceremony and what it includes, you are strongly advised to seek guidance from an experienced spiritual leader. If you have any medical conditions, you are strongly advised to consult your physician before participating. Some medical conditions that may worsen with sweatlodge participation include heart, kidney, or lung conditions, anxiety problems, and any other medical problems that involve body heat and fluid regulation. Some medications can be dangerous when taken in conjunction with use of sweatlodge.

Again, please consult your physician if you have concerns. Remember all my relations, the sweatlodge ceremony is not a fun event; it’s very therapeutic and a purification and powerful healing. I also strongly recommend that prior and during participation you make certain drinking enough liquids like Gatorade.

Lois A. Becenti
Spiritual Leader
Coyote Canyon, N.M.

Stand up for water rights in Utah

Once again they are coming after our water rights in Arizona and Utah. They, meaning water lawyer Stanley Pollack, the Navajo Water Commission, Senator John McCain, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, and their entourages. Pollack seeks a water rights sneak attack to join a new version of S.B. 2109 (Little Colorado River Settlement) with the dishonest settlement he’s doing in Utah. Both draft settlements violate our human rights of free, prior, and informed consent. Yet Pollack, who President Begaye should have fired, is unchanged, as are other corrupt people in the government.

Pollack did not quantify our LCR water rights. He gave them away by saying he used “indirect quantification.” There is no such thing. He made it up to trick our leaders that he’s serving our best interests. He and his minions must go. Across the rez many people are fed up with him and demand grows for his and his puppets’ removal.

Our so-called Water Rights Commission, which Pollack owns, says it’s going after municipal faucet water, forgetting our needs for and rights to mass industrial and agricultural water like the surrounding states have. Every urban ghetto has faucet water. Our key to an economy is to maximize our water rights and then lead a charge to participate in the west’s economy with maximized rights. Instead we’re left behind, while we, our land, and our resources are exploited to make strong Phoenix, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Tucson, Salt Lake, and more.

Pollack short-changed us in the New Mexico San Juan River settlement. Our leaders and the allottees were told falsehoods. Most people know that the “Navajo-Gallup Project” always lists us first but always puts Gallup first. And the first water Gallup gets will not be river water. Pollack arranged to drill big water wells for Gallup on our land near Twin Lakes Chapter to insure that Gallup is still first.

In Utah, it’s just another S.B. 2109 situation. Pollack, the Commission, and their helpers in the Council and state are withholding the truth from our people. We have no democracy here. The recent election fiasco and the continuing anti-democracy and corrupt behavior of our government prove that. We demand to know the whole truth hidden from us in the Utah water settlement.

Pollack, NDOJ, the Council, each of our recent presidents, our representatives in Congress, and the state of Utah have conspired to violate our most basic rights and freedoms of democracy. It’s obvious economic racism.

Our lives, votes, democratic rights, aspirations, and families matter. We envision an end to colonization and exploitation of us, our votes, our resources, our humanity, our dignity, and our future that now profits a few in Window Rock and millions in the border towns and border states.

We stood up for the people’s sovereignty in 2012 against S.B. 2109. We must do it again, in Utah, too. Our water rights, sovereignty, and survival are one in the same.

We need to free ourselves from Pollack and all water enemies and the corrupt elected officials who keep us down, and deny our human, political, economic, and sovereign rights.

We wish Navajo Code Talkers Day was not being used as a ploy by the dishonest Pollack and his supporters to push his exploitation agenda with Sen. McCain, the Arizona governor, and our leaders.

Navajo Code Talkers Day should have been just for our code talkers, and to honor them. We should have had at least one sacred day without exploitation by Pollack, his Window Rock gang, and outside interests.

Ed Becenti
Diné/Navajo Grassroots Liaison
Window Rock, Ariz.

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