6A
Monday, March 31, 1997
NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
American Indians continue dispute over Arizona land
Navajos may face relocation
The Associated Press
PHOENIX —The clock is ticking louder and louder for hundreds of Navaios living on Honi land.
Navajo families have until midnight to either sign leases acknowledging that the land in northern Arizona is Hopi or to put themselves in line for eviction.
"One person in the family wants to sign because they're scared, and another says they shouldn't. I don't trust the attorney. I don't trust the Hopi Council. I don't know what to believe at this point," said Lisa Tso, whose family lives on the Hopi reservation. "People are running around pretty sad, confused, stressed, fearful."
The leases, or so-called "accommodation agreements," were approved by Congress last fall as a solution to a decades-long land feud. The leases came about after the Navajos sued the federal government in the 1970s, saying their historical religious attachment to the land gave them the right to live there—despite the fact that courts had already ruled the area Hopi. A
federal appeals court in 1991 told the two sides to negotiate; the leases are the result of that.
Rumors abound about the lease agreement and whether the Hopi will limit the Navajos' agricultural or religious life. While the land was legally declared Hopi more than 20 years ago, the case has been tied up in the courts since then.
"People are being given all kinds of false hope," said Lee Phillips, a lawyer who represents Navajo families that want to sign leases with the Hopis. "They're being told it would be too much of a public embarrassment for there to be evictions of Native Americans on U.S. soil and that Congress will step in. They're being told the United Nations will step in or the World Court, none of which have any merit."
Religious freedom has been a sticking point. The Navajos claim that the Hopis are violating their rights by requiring permits for large ceremonies or for removing branches for spiritual services.
"These ordinances are designed for protection of our natural resources, not for restricting religion," said Kim Secakuku, a spokeswoman for the Hopi tribe. "Any community requires permits when people use public lands or roads."
cent of the 112 Navajo "homesites" had signed leases. Several extended families can live at one homesite. Estimates of how many Navajos live there range from 300 to more than 1,000.
As of late Friday, more than 65 per-
Either way, evictions aren't imminent.
For families who don't sign, the federal government must give them 90 days to decide whether they want to be relocated at the government's expense. Then the government must build them a house, typically on the Navajo reservation. The process could take from six months to more than a year.
Families who do sign have three years to live under the Hopi leases before they lose their right to a relocation home elsewhere.
Cult suicide brings closure
The Associated Press
SAN DIEGO — The shock and grief most people feel when losing a loved one was missing for many relatives of the Heaven's Gate cult members who killed themself.
Most cult members abruptly left worldly matters, writing themselves out of their loved ones' lives long before they took their own.
"For me, he died 22 years ago," Mary Ann Craig said of her exhusband, John Craig, who left her and their six children for the cult in 1975. "When we found out
he was dead, there was a sense of closure more than anything for us."
Cult members estranged themselves from family and friends to pursue a monastic life in preparation for the UFO they believed would arrive to carry them to a higher plane of existence.
When they killed themselves in an attempt to rendezvous with a spaceship they thought was trailing the Hale-Bopp comet, it did not surprise many relatives.
"We're of mixed emotions," said Mark Applewhite, the son of Heaven's Gate leader Marshall Herff Applewhite. "My father is
dead—that's painful. It's sort of like we've been through a grieving process, and now we're seeking closure."
Applewhite said that he had not seen his father since he was 5 years old.
Actress Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura on the original Star Trek television series, sad her brother cut off all communication with the family for 20 years after joining the cult but had called twice in the past few years.
"He made his choices, and we respect those choices," Nichols said Friday on CNN's Larry King Live.
Prescribed burning to clear forest
Debate about land clearing heats up
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Smokey Bear made a career of stomping out fires, so it may seem odd to think that the Forest Service would set trees ablaze.
stocked national forests of dead and dying timber.
Rep. Bob Smith, R-Oregon, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, said the burning could cause hidden problems. He preferred salvage logging and worried that the fires would get out of hand.
Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck agreed and told lawmakers fires must be treated with respect.
The Clinton administration plans to increase prescribed burning from 750,000 acres in 1997 to 1.3 million acres next year to clear over-
result, they upset the natural cycle of fire that for 10,000 years made way for more mature trees.
"The price that we have paid for 60, 80 or 100 years of very effective fire suppression is that we have changed the succession of ecosystems," Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said.
In defense of prescriptive burns, Babbitt used an analogy of a person with a long history of poor eating habits.
Federal firefighters saw 6 million acres burn naturally last year and tried to douse every blaze. As a
"We need to burn off the unhealthy fat, not practice forest liposuction," Babbitt said.
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