FORGOTTEN PEOPLE ANNOUNCE SUIT TO PRODUCE BENNETT FREEZE PLAN
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by Staff Writer Today, July 8, 2009 marks the 43rd anniversary of a Bennett Freeze imposed on July 8, 1966 by U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Robert Bennett. The freeze made poverty mandatory for 10,000 people (with countless more displaced) living on 1.5 million acres in the western portion of the Navajo Nation. The freeze made it illegal for people to fix their homes, build new homes, have access to running water, electricity, any infrastructure and development. Elderly people whose wells ran dry could not drill a new well, were forced to drink uranium and arsenic contaminated water, denied the right to build a wheelchair ramps to their homes and repair leaking roofs and broken windows. No new housing, schools, waterlines, powerlines, community facilities. Nothing. The ban on construction and high unemployment rate forced the area’s young people to work away from their homes and families. It also had a devastating effect on a traditional Navajo socio-economic system that is centered around raising livestock and farming. Compounded by livestock confiscation and barren fields, the people faced starvation or wage labor and federal aid. On May 8, 2009, President Obama signed legislation to end the freeze. However, no plan for rehabilitation has been made public. For this reason, Forgotten People by and through their attorney James W. Zion, Esq. filed a Notice of Suit requesting production and disclosure of a Bennett Freeze Recovery Plan to make the plan public and see how it will or will not benefit the people of the Bennett Freeze. Notice of Suit The Forgotten People Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit corporation, announced today that it will file suit against Scott House, the manager of the Former Bennett Freeze Recovery Plan Task Force, the Navajo Nation, and WHPacific, Inc. for production and public disclosure of the Former Bennett Freeze Recovery Plan. Despite WhPacific’s broadside for a “Final All-Chapter Summit Meeting” in August 2008 and a promise that the “final project deadline” would be September 15, 2008, and despite President Joe Shirley, Jr.’s. January 26, 2009 announcement he would produce the plan, it has not been made public so that it can be reviewed by the victims of the Bennett Freeze. President Shirley prematurely announced that the Bennett Freeze was “over” when the Navajo Nation signed a compact with the Hopi Tribe, and we now have legislation in place that formally terminated the freeze. What we do not have is either a plan or a program of rehabilitation to deal with the freeze, or effective involvement of the victims of the Freeze to address its severe impacts. The Forgotten People Community Development Corporation made a formal demand for a copy of the Former Bennett Freeze Area Recovery Plan under the Navajo Nation Privacy Act on March 31, 2009. Scott House, the manager of the task force that was to develop the plan, did not respond to the demand for more than three months, so the Forgotten People CDC is bringing a suit to produce a copy of the plan so it can be made public. Suit is initiated by a notice of intent made to the President and Attorney General of the Navajo Nation to give an additional period of time to produce a copy of the plan. The notice of suit states a claim under the Privacy Act and also states claims for access to public information under the free speech provisions of the Navajo Nation Bill of Rights and the “rule of law” and “communication with the people for guidance” provisions of The Fundamental Laws of the Dine. The Forgotten People intends to make the plan public when a copy is obtained, with information on how it will or will not benefit the people of the Bennett Freeze. For further information, contact: Lucy Knorr, Secretary-Treasurer (928) 401-1777 |