Native American activists for and against drilling outside Chaco Canyon clash, derailing official visit (New Mexico)

The Albuquerque Journal ^ | June 12, 2023 | Ryan Boete, Susan Montoya Bryan

[CedarDave]

Native American activists verbally clashed outside Chaco Culture National Historical Park on Sunday, derailing a visit by U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who was there to celebrate a 20-year buffer around a World Heritage Site in northwest New Mexico.

Haaland’s trip to Chaco on Sunday was canceled when a group of Navajo land allotment owners blocked the road, upset with the Biden administration’s recent decision to enshrine for the next 20 years what previously had been an informal 10-mile buffer around the World Heritage site. The buffer protects the area from future federal mineral development, including oil and gas drilling.

Protesters yelled “Go home!” and some held signs that read “No trespassing on allottee land.” Other Native American activists who support a buffer zone around the historic and culturally significant place gathered to celebrate the protections. The two sides argued with each other on a county road leading to the remote park.

[Later] Haaland and other leaders of New Mexican tribes and pueblos instead gathered at the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office in Albuquerque on Sunday evening to talk about the protections.

The land allotment owners and Navajo leaders have said Haaland and the Biden administration ignored efforts to reach a compromise that would have established a smaller buffer to protect cultural sites while keeping intact the viability of tribal land and private Navajo-owned parcels for future development.

Navajo President Buu Nygren said in a statement issued Thursday that the weekend celebration was disappointing and disrespectful. It should have been cancelled, he said.

“The financial and economic losses that are impacting many Navajo families as a result of the secretary’s recent land withdrawal are nothing to celebrate,” Nygren said. “As leaders of the Navajo Nation, we support the Navajo allottees who oppose the withdrawal of these public lands.”

[CedarDave]

A Republican-led U.S. House committee announced just days after the Chaco decision that it would investigate the secretary’s ties to an Indigenous environmental group (Pueblo Action Alliance/Greater Chaco Coalition) that has protested fossil fuels. One of the leaders of the group is Haaland's radical daughter Somah, and they apparently corresponded back and forth about the decision before it was announced by Haaland.

[CedarDave]

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[LegendHasIt]

HA! Good for the Navajos!

Must really burn Haaland to be rejected by ‘Native Americans’ when her whole political career has been based on being a (half) ‘Native’ rather than any inherent knowledge, skills, abilities or charisma.

[Flaming Conservative]

Maybe Indians should stop voting democrat. (My husband is an Indian, and agrees with me).

[lonestar67]

I am glad this article acknowledges that many Native Americans want fossil fuel development and it is pure ideology to pretend that there is only one Native opinion on the matter.

[FlyingEagle]

I am very connected with Navajos. They were never consulted, not at all. It is their land, not FedGov jurisdiction, being restricted, several hundred square miles. The Navajo Nation Council (legislative) was never ever consulted. Nor was the office of the NN President consulted. The allottees have not just oil and gas rights, but also grazing rights, and now cannot even drill for water on their own land. It is, pure and simple, expropriation.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Fifty years ago planned development of the Navajo reservation brigining in good jobs for the tribes was shut down by and invasion of THE AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT. Now the tribes are suffering for caving to them back then.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I should add, with the closing down and destruction of the Page AZ power plants and the same for the San Juan and the APL plants at Waterflow they will definitely be feeling the hurt.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Haaland is a screwball. Another one of FJB’s finest freakshows.

[threefinger]

There are NO native Americans. In fact, the Homo Sapien is only native to one place on the planet, and America ain't it. We're all of us immigrants, some of us just got here earlier than others is all.