The Relocation that Wasn't

SECOND MESA, Arizona - Hopi Indian Leader, Chairman Ivan Sidney said his tribe has no plans to evict the Navajos who were told by the federal government to vacate by July 6, 1986.

"Hopis aren't going to force the Navajos to move" Sidney said on July 6. "They are to move themselves."

Hopi police will, however, act "against any Navajos" who attempt to stop Hopis from moving onto the land, Sidney said. On July 7 he called on Navajo leaders to draft a plan within 30 days to move the Navajos off Hopi land.

But Congress has delayed the relocation of Navajos because new homes cannot be found for all of the Indians who will be dispossessed of their land. Government representatives say that since this process is expected to take several years, the deadline has become meaningless.

Although the McCain-Udall bill for further land exchange between the Hopi and Navajo tribes has been withdrawn, two new bills have been introduced. One bill, introduced by Senator Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), would require an 18-month moratorium on any relocation of either Navajos or Hopis from the joint Use Area. It would also establish a 13-member commission, made up of members from both houses of Congress, representatives from the Navajo and Hopi tribal councils, and traditional Hopi and Navajo leaders, to study the remaining obstacles to relocation. The study would be funded by money originally appropriated for the Relocation Commission.

According to Hal Gross, a legislative aide to Senator Cranston, the bill was drafted under the advice of the Big Mountain Support Group and has the backing of both the Navajo nation and the Hopi traditional leadership. Gross admitted however, that the bill is not backed by the Hopi tribal council which is pushing for relocation.

"In the meantime, all forces are in agreement that there shouldn't be any compulsory relocation," Gross stated. "Relocation is an inappropriate solution-the issue is much more complex than the Congress has been led to believe."

Representative Bill Richardson (D-NM), has introduced a similar bill in the House. Like Cranston's bill, the House version would stop the forced relocation of Navajos and Hopis from the joint Use Area although voluntary relocation would continue. But members on the commission would be appointed by the President rather than by the parties to the dispute.

Whatever happens to the proposed bills, Hopi Tribal Council leader Sidney maintains that relocation is the only solution. "Justice will be done to protect our people," Sidney said.

Navajo Chairman Peterson Zah and the tribal council have tho responsibility to care for their people and to make sure they obey the law, said Sidney. (See Indigenous People: The Struggle For Land and Equality, Multinational Monitor, Vol. 7, No. 10, June 1986.)

- Indigenous Press Network

Chevron Fuels Consrevative Ire

Since the Reagan adminstration began funding Angolan rebels in mid-February, Chevron USA has come under increasing fire from conservatives for continuing to do business with the marxist government in Luanda.

Chevron, the leading U.S. oil company in Angola, operates via a 49/51 partnership of its wholly-owned subsidiary Gulf and the government company, Sonangol. Gulf taxes and royalties return about $585 million annually to Luanda; revenue which a conservative coalition has charged makes up more than 95 percent of the government's military budget.

"Seventy percent [of Gulf fees] go to Cuban mercenaries," says David Balsiger, a spokesman for the California-based Restore a More Benevolent Order (RAMBO) Coalition. "The bottom line is that ChevronGulf is killing black Angolans."

About 30,000 Cuban troops currently back the Jose Eduardo dos Santos government in its battle against U.S. and South Africa-fortified insurgents, as well as recurrent cross-border raids from South Africa.

But while the Reagan administration is currently providing about $15 million in covert military aid to Angolan insurgents, it has so far resisted pressure from conservative groups to order U.S. oil companies--including Texaco, Conoco, and Union Texas-out of Angola.

The campaign to force Chevron out of Angola scored a minor victory July 15, however, when Congressional lawmakers voted to bar the Export-Import Bank (Exim bank) from extending loans or credit to the Luamda government for as long as Cuban troops remain in Angola.

The restrictions, sponsored in the House by Florida Republican William McCollum, and in the Senate by Wisconsin Democrat William Proxmire, came in the form of an amendment to the Exim Bank reauthorization bill.

The Congressional effort to curtail Exim Bank activity has been opposed by the State Department because, according to one official, "the President already has the requisite authority to achieve our goals in Angola. [U.S.] policy now is clearly not to support anything that would aid [Luanda] earn foreign exchange."

Exim Bank spokeswoman Beverly Thompson confirmed that all Angola projects are "on hold indefinitely. Over the last two years, the Exim Bank has committed about $112 million in loans and credits to Angola, most of this to support development of the country's rich oil reserves, according to Thompson.

Pressure from groups like RAMBO and the Conservative Caucus has also prompted the Pentagon to conduct a review of its authority to bar oil companies from bidding for lucrative defense contracts as long as they remain in Angola. The House Armed Services. Committee has already voted to prohibit Pentagon purchases of Angolan oil refined and sold by U.S. companies.

Despite mounting pressure, oil industry sources say, they are determined to stay in Angola until ordered to leave. "Commercial prospects are still very good" in Angola, commented one industry official. "We are not about to pull out."

Reagan Keeps faith With Boitech

The long-awaited federal guidelines for regulation of biotechnology have finally been issued-to rave reviews from the biotech industrialists, who have fought for more than a decade for a policy that would allow them to market genetically-engineered products.

"A general sigh of relief went up" from the industry after publication of the guidelines, Richard D. Godown, executive director of the Industrial Biotechnology Association IBA), told the Washington Business journal.

"We support the regulations," said John Wheeler, spokesman for Dupont Chemical Co., "We think they are a positive step."

But Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation for Economic Trends, a Washington-based group opposed, to the development of biotechnology, charged that the newly-issued guidelines have simply "rubber-stamped the industry's needs."

"The Reagan administration has used political criteria, not scientific criteria," to determine how to regulate the rapidly growing field of biotechnology, Rifkin said. "They've put profits first, and the environment last."

Rifkin has filed suit against all twelve federal agencies, including the White House, on a wide range of, grounds relating to the regulatory guidelines. The suit: seeks a preliminary injunction to halt implementation of the policy until the government has conducted fur

The administration's 500-page "Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology", distributes the responsibility for regulation among four federal agencies and two research agencies. The proposals were drawn up by the White House, Domestic Policy Council, and were published June 26, in the Federal Register.