Letters | Mirroring a mask for Halloween

President Jonathan Nez’s initiative to provide the Navajo Nation’s Missing & Murdered Diné Women & Relatives (MMIW/MMIR) guidelines mirrors a mask for Halloween, and that is what it is a mask.
It has taken the Navajo Nation president a year and a half to assist Navajo families of MMIW/MMIR. An entire year and half!

This is just another great photo op for President Nez to mirror that he is doing something about it before election time.

During the recent Navajo Nation presidential debate in Crownpoint, N.M., President Nez stated that 70% or a majority of our missing Diné individuals are found or come back on their own.

President Nez brushed off the MMIW/MMIR question on how he would help those families report or deal with a missing relative.

President Nez needs to establish protocols starting from when a missing person is reported to the police station with dispatch, police officers, and sergeant, what is the response time, release of information to media, and initiating a search team with timelines.

Mr. Nez has assigned several of his Administration’s directors but failed to include or ask for assistance from families with authentic experience and accounts in working with law enforcement and other agencies. They have an understanding of what works and what does not work.

This is the first time I have heard first lady Phefelia Nez’s response to MMIW/MMIR. When Ella Mae Begay’s family met twice with the Navajo Nation Office of President and Vice President Office, first lady Nez was nowhere to be found, nor did she meet with the family.

President Nez, it would help if you had initiated these MMIW / MMIR guidelines at the beginning of your tenure, not at the end of your administration.

Michael J. Roy
Volunteer foot searcher for Ella Mae Begay
Gadiiahi, N.M.

No one is perfect

Concerning the news that the Navajo Nation Council speaker may be removed from his speaker position due to an infraction in Las Vegas, Nevada, I pray and petition that the Navajo Nation extend the Honorable Dam Clemency and allow him to continue as the speaker.

I don’t know Mr. Damon, but I am aware that he’s done well as a speaker. Furthermore, no one is perfect, and there are elected officials who have been victimized by alcohol, and their infractions or infractions are on record.

We are all related to Mr. Damon; according to the newspaper, he is my father. My own father occasionally abused alcohol, and all his sons, including me, were also victimized by alcohol. But I managed to be intervened successfully by the Native American Church and our own traditional healers. My brothers, who served in the armed forces, left us because of alcohol without traditional healing.

Therefore, it is unfortunate that now that the present CO of the Navajo Veterans is not a Navajo but is further contracted by the current Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez. Despite his disrespect for Navajo veterans, as well as our elected officials. We Navajos need a change with the help of our Holy Being, and so over Speaker Damon.

Dan Vicenti
Crownpoint, N.M.

---