Repeal of the Bennett Freeze

Now this is only my opinion and I gather that there are a lot of opinions out there on this subject-piece of land, and I'm sure the Palestinians and Israelis will also tell you that land is an issue for them in a similar way.

Read here to see what the Bennett Freeze is. Basically, in the opinion of myself and others out there in Cyberspace, it was a blockade of services to Dineh (Navajo Tribe) to force them off their aboriginal land so that the Federal Government could "give" Peabody Coal Company access to the land and the water there.

Indianz.com reports that this Thursday May 15, 2008, there is a U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing to repeal Sect. 10 (f) of P.L. 93-531, which is also known as the "Bennett Freeze." Robert Bennet was head of Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1966 and he is "credited" with having created this policy.

The web page, Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute, states that:

Observers at the time of this decision felt (and wrote) that it (the Bennet Freeze temporarily being removed) seems to have been influenced by the fact that the Navajo tribe could be expected to be more compliant and friendly to Peabody Coal than Hopis with newly-affirmed Navajo subsurface rights. The coal deals were the basis for the swift rise to power of long-term Navajo tribal chairman Peter MacDonald, who had been appointed (in 1963) to head Office of Navajo Economic Opportunity. MacDonald was elected to the first of his many terms as tribal chairman in 1970. MacDonald was recently released for health reasons from federal prison terms being served for convictions in 1990, 1992 and 1993 for racketeering and corruption charges in relation to land and financial dealings.

Peabody Coal was formerly a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kennecott Copper. Many mergers later, it is now part of an empire of coal, owned by a British holding company, Hanson. Not only was the Black Mesa to be strip-mined, but the Mohave power plant, 275 miles away was to be -- and is -- fed by a liquified slurry of crushed coal pumped along a pipeline that uses 3,000 gallons a minute of precious desert aquifer water, laid down in the deep rocks millions of years ago, before this land was desert. This irreplaceable water is the most valuable of the subsurface rights Peabody acquired access to, and its profligate use is the most threatening to long-term survival of the entire southwest. The water pumping all takes place near the Black Mesa mine (though it can suck water from hundreds of miles away, the entire aquifer). The Peabody Kayenta mine feeds the power plant at Page with dry coal on coal trains. But for Black Mesa, Peabody counts only the cheaper method of delivery, which maximizes its profits, not counting the cost of stolen water to all life in the southwest.

Dirty Per Caps? Keep the Natives dependent, poor, denied of basic privileges, so that you can gain the most precious resources from under their feet for the cheapest of prices. Sounds like the policy was hard hitting all over Indian Country.

"It is discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit." (think: "money & bottom line")

Related Blog Posts:
"Good Indians"
"An Ammotment of Sorts"