This document is a summary and evaluation report of the activities, development, and plans of PBI's North America Project (PBI-NAP) in 1997. It is intended for distribution to funders and supporters of the project, and any other interested people.
This is all public information and may be freely reprinted.
Alan Dixon
Chair, North America Project Committee
February 26, 1998
| Year project established | 1991 |
| Number of volunteers in field during 1997 (total) | 9 |
| - of which medium/long term | 6 |
| - of which short-term (1 or 2 days) | 3 |
| Number of ERN activations in 1996 | 0 |
| Paid staff Jan - May, Nov | 3 days/week |
| - remaining months | 1 day/week |
| Total project expenses in 1997 | approx. US$17,500 |
| Committee members | 9 |
| Committee meetings | 3 |
| Volunteer pool | approx. 30 |
| New volunteers trained in 1997 | 3 |
We began our year with a long-term team of two witnessing the situation of the Saugeen in Ontario, Canada - our first long-term team since 1995. That team finished its work at the end of March, and an exploratory team of three people spent two weeks around the area known as Big Mountain in North Eastern Arizona in early May. Upon the return of this team, the project closed down until September - since that time, our project energies have been directed towards rebuilding the project and no new teams have been fielded. We expect our next team to go back to Arizona some time this year.
The Saugeen are the sister band of the Chippewas of Nawash, with whom NAP has been involved for several years. The Saugeen live on a reserve on the shore of Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada near the small town of Port Elgin.
With the Nawash, the Saugeen are involved in a conflict over their right to fish commercially in what they regard as their traditional waters. The Saugeen surrendered two million acres of land through questionable treaties in 1836 and 1854, but never surrendered their fishery, which was regarded at that time by the government as "belonging exclusively to the Indians." However, this recognition of Saugeen ownership of the fishery slowly disappeared, and over time their rights eroded, along with the state of fish stocks.
On September 23, 1995 at a meeting of the International Joint Commission, the Saugeen put forward the Duluth Declaration. The declaration affirmed their jurisdiction over their traditional waters, and laid out a time-table for exercising that jurisdiction by January 1, 1997 - i.e. recognising their own, and not the federal or provincial, regulations concerning their fishery. The Duluth Declaration had some legal basis from the Fairgrieve Decision of 1993. The latter was a judicial ruling, based on interpretations of earlier treaties, that gave priority to the fisheries surrounding the Saugeen/Bruce Peninsula, first to conservation, then to Native peoples, commercial fishermen and finally to recreational fishing.
Despite the 1993 Fairgrieve decision, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) have attempted to impose an Aboriginal Communal Fishing License on the Saugeen. The MNR argues that it has to regulate the Saugeen fishery because it has to manage and conserve fish stocks. The Saugeen counter that they have a conservation plan in place and that they have practised stewardship of the lake for centuries, while under provincial regulation there has been over fishing and pollution of the waters.
In September, 1996 - a year after the Duluth Declaration, and shortly before the Jan 1, 1997 deadline, the Saugeen requested NAP's presence during their negotiations with the various levels of government and police, to monitor the situation, to do an ongoing analysis and to report on the situation. After an exploratory visit in November 1996, NAP sent two trained volunteers to the area in December 1996. The team conducted interviews with members of the Saugeen Band Council, various other individuals of the Saugeen Band, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH), recreational fishermen, the MNR, the Municipal Government, the police and non-Native residents of the Bruce Peninsula region.
The team witnessed tense relations and a lack of communication between the Native and non-Native communities in the area, despite the Saugeen's efforts in educating the public, both within their own community and in neighbouring communities. Many non-Natives, including sports fishermen, expressed interest in learning more about all the issues of the conflict.
Prior to leaving the area in March 1997, the team helped establish a network of people from some of the communities in the area to help act as a calming influence if an incident or event threatens to cause upheaval. The contact person of this group will communicate with NAP should our presence be required again.
The North America Project's current focus involves the Dine-Hopi-US government conflict at Big Mountain, Arizona. The history of the conflict is long and complex, and involves many players. The following is a very brief summary of the conflict and NAP's involvement at Big Mountain.
Big Mountain lies in a high desert area which straddles Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. This land includes the traditional territory of the Dine (Navajo) and the Hopi people. The land was deemed to have little value by the early US government, who set up the Navajo and Hopi reserves on this land, only to later realise that it was home to large deposits of coal, uranium and oil.
The historical relationship between the Hopi and Dine people are subject to various interpretations, ranging from outright hostility and conflict, to peaceful interdependence. The interpretation of this historical relationship has been a key element in the modern conflict, believed by many to be a fabrication and distraction from the real issue of resource extraction. The parties involved in the conflict include not just the traditional Dine and Hopi, who continue to work together on many occasions, but also Tribal Councils that were originally created by the US government for the express purpose of getting mining leases signed on reservation lands.
The United States formally claimed this area from Mexico by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, and proceeded to relocate the Dine who obstructed the government's plans of settlement and development. The relocation was a financial disaster for the government, and the Dine were eventually returned to the Big Mountain area and placed in a reserve which eventually enclosed the already established Hopi reservation. The order creating the Hopi reserve determined that the land was set aside for the use of both the Hopi and other tribes as designated by the Department of the Interior, which included Dine living within the boundaries of the official Hopi reservation.
Complications evolved in the 1930s when mining companies began looking at the coal deposits of Black Mesa, a geological formation that extends south into the Hopi reservation. Tribal councils for both the Hopi and Navajo were formed to sign lease agreements to mining companies for the reservation lands. However, on the part of the Hopi reserve occupied by Dine, there was a complication of jurisdiction - the Hopi Tribal Council could not sign lease agreements because the Dine were legally settled there. This began the so-called Hopi-Navajo conflict in which the Hopi have been struggling for title to their land, while Dine living on this land have been involved in the struggle to maintain their rights to remain on the land which holds, among other reasons, great religious value to them.
A series of court cases followed which divided the land into a core Hopi area, known as "Hopi grazing area 6" and the rest of the area into "Joint Use Area". The latter was subsequently partitioned into two equal sized pieces; Hopi Partitioned Lands (HPL) strictly for Hopi use, and similarly Navajo Partitioned Lands (NPL). The legislation mandated the relocation of Hopi residing in NPL and Dine residing in HPL by 1986. This was later revised in the 1988 Accommodation Agreement which is at the heart of the current dispute. The Agreement allows for the Dine who sign it to continue to live on HPL, under the limitations of a 75-year (renewable) lease from the Hopi Tribal Council, thus trying to "accommodate" the Dine's rights to religious freedom, within the Hopi Tribe's demand for legal jurisdiction over HPL. While many Dine have already signed the agreement, there are some Dine who see it as a "sell-out" and refuse to accept it. For them, it would mean not only a loss of sovereignty and freedom, but also the inevitable destruction of "their" land to the mining companies, to whom they believe the Hopi Tribal Council intends to lease the land.
Peace Brigades' first contact with the Dine - Hopi conflict dates back to 1986 when PBI volunteer Charles Walker met with various individuals at Big Mountain. Alice Norton, another PBI volunteer, then spent one month at Big Mountain interviewing people and trying to understand the multi-faceted, deeply complex situation. Alice's written report provided valuable background for NAP's current involvement with the conflict at Big Mountain.
In February 1997, PBI-NAP received an invitation from the Sovereign Dine Nation, a group of Dine living around Big Mountain who are resisting relocation, to "come out and help protect their land". A team of NAP volunteers responded with a two week exploratory visit to the Big Mountain area in May 1997. The volunteers met with Dine and Hopi elders, members of the Tribal Councils and agencies, and business representatives in the area. The team's objective was to introduce PBI to the people involved in the conflict, learn more about the issues, provide non-violence training and recommend further courses of action for PBI in the future.
NAP is currently re-establishing contact with the Dine and preparing for a second visit to Big Mountain in the spring of 1998 to see if Peace Brigades can be of any assistance in providing a space for peaceful resolution. If assistance is required, NAP will be prepared to organise a team for long term presence in the area.
Total active field volunteers in 1997: 9
* indicates return volunteer (previous NAP experience)
Alan Dixon (Canada)*
Carmen Fraser (USA)*
Terry Fundak (USA)
Anna Jarvis (Canada)*
Jan Karon (USA)
Kari Reynolds (Canada)*
Jim Smith (Canada)*
Jill Sternberg (USA)*
Marianna Tzabiras (Canada)*
In 1997, NAP made progress in a number of key organisational issues - volunteer preparation, mandate, and committee functioning. Nevertheless the project continued to be challenged by finances and fundraising, and are facing the possibility of closing the project.
Our second volunteer gathering in May provided an opportunity for field volunteers to meet without the pressure of field work and to talk about experiences, successes and difficulties of the past year.
Topics included: ways of addressing conflict on teams, challenges relating to volunteer field co-ordination, and the difficulties of working on issues of justice within a discipline of non-partisanship. NAP held one volunteer training in North America in October 1997, adding two more US-based members, and one Canadian to our volunteer pool.
In spite of beginning the year with a slight increase in our budget, fundraising efforts fell short of expected amounts by about 50%. At the end of May, our co-ordinator resigned unexpectedly. Faced with a shortage of income, the committee chose to temporarily suspend the project, until our fall committee meeting. At that meeting, we began a process for hiring an interim co-ordinator with a primary mandate of fundraising. At our January 1998 meeting, we continued to struggle with a very small income budget for 1998. We identified several criteria to be met by June for the continuing feasibility of the project, and sought ways for committee and volunteers to contribute to outreach and fundraising. We were successful in finding funding for a publicity and research intern to work with the project for the first six months of 1998, and hope that these combined efforts are enough to return the project to viability.
As part of our process of reflecting on the purpose and scope of the project, the committee drafted a written mandate for the project for approval at the 1998 General Assembly. A copy is appended. We are reminded of the necessity of the work we are engaged in, and a recent interview with Ward Churchill is appended as one perspective on the question of conflict between indigenous peoples in North America and its newcomers.
Meanwhile, we have begun preparations for a return field team to Big Mountain, Arizona - we hope by mid-year. We anticipate this to be one of the most difficult challenges of our project, and also see it as a unique opportunity to put to use the resources and experience we have gathered together over the years.