FORGOTTEN PEOPLE PUSHES REHABILITATION IN THE WAKE OF THE COBELL SETTLEMENT ANNOUNCEMENT
By Don Yellowman
By Don Yellowman
Photo: Pavement Pieces: The Forgotten Navajos
TUBA CITY, Navajo Nation, Ariz. -- The United States recently announced a comprehensive settlement in the Cobell trust fund case, but that overlooks other breaches of trust to American Indians and violations of the human rights of the survivors of one of the most massive breaches of Indian trust — the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute. There have been many pronouncements on the need to rehabilitate the former Bennett Freeze lands of Arizona, and to help the people who were victimized by a policy of a fourty-year freeze on all improvements on those lands, but while there is a lot of talk, there is no action. While the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe signed a settlement agreement dated November 3, 2006, fee monies accumulated during the Bennett Freeze to be distributed to those tribes have not been paid out. Other trust funds were set up to benefit people affected by the case that divided Navajo and Hopi lands in the former “Joint Use Area” and allocations to both tribes, the set-aside of an exclusive Hopi Reservation and Navajo-Hopi land dispute legislation, but where is the money?
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