Saxakali Magazine 3:1 Local Voices - Suriname Maroons and Dineh Nation

Saxakali Magazine V3N1
Local Voices:

Dennie Pryor
New Koffiekamp, Suriname

My name is Dennie Pryor. I am from the village of Nieuw Koffiekamp in Suriname. The village New Koffiekamp was one relocated in 1964 because of the hydro-electric dam constructed by the US company ALCOA. Now my village is facing relocation again because Golden Star has signed a mineral agreement with the government of Suriname. New Koffiekamp is part of the concession which is granted to Golden Star. The people of New Koffiekamp were not informed precisely what effect the granting of this concession would have on the community. The effects are:

1. We cannot do our economic activities as we used to;

2. The place we used to go for fishing cannot be reached anymore. Golden Star has put barriers on the road that leads to that area. If you want to go there you have to ask permission of Golden Star, something we are not used to;

3. There is a trench between the village and some of our agricultural plots. It gives problems to bring food from the plots to the village as the trench is very wide. This is especially hard on the women;

4. There has been some shooting in the air by Golden Star and the police and people of the village get injured while running away. All this because you cannot walk around like you used to;

5. The village Koffieamp was split into three parts during the relocation in 1964; New Koffiekamp, Marshall kreek and some people went to Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname. We think that this, split into different parts, can happen again;

6. The tree called "kankantrie" is very important for the maroons in Suriname, culturally, religiously and spiritually. We think that Golden Star has cut down some of them while digging their trenches needed for gold exploration. We are very concerned about this because we believe that it is wrong to cut them down, because there are bad spirits in them.

In 1992 the government of Suriname signed the Peace Accord in which they promised to demarcate our land and legally recoginize the land and other rights of the Maroon and Amerindian peoples of the interior of Suriname. The previous government did'nt want to honor these rights. New Koffiekamp is now negotiating with the present government about our land rights. We have reasons to think that they want to respect the land rights of the people of the interior of Suriname, but time will tell how serious they are. Until now my village still has to live with Golden Star,

Dennie Pryor.

21 October, 1996

Roberta Blackgoat
Sovereign Dineh Nation, usa

Roberta Blackgoat, was born and has lived for 76 years in Thin Rock Mesa.

"I am the Chairperson of Sovereign Dineh Nation, the organization formed to protect our homes. I bring to you today greetings and statements from the Dineh residents living on Black Mesa, who today, as for the last 22 years, are resisting the efforts of the United States government to evict us from our ancestral land. 10,000 people have been forcibly relocated to clear the land for coal mining. Only a few hundred families remain, living in the shadows of North America's largest coal field, which has been carved into the heart of our sacred land. We who continue to resist are political and religious prisoners, divided by miles of barbed wire fence on our ancestral land.

In 1864, the US Government forcibly removed nearly 10,000 Dineh to the world's first concentration camp at Fort Sumner, New Mexico. As a result of this ethnic cleansing, thousands perished from illnesses brought on by physical and spiritual diseases and malnourishment. Only when the survivors were allowed to return home to Dinetah and rejoin those who avoided removal, was health restored to our Nation. 110 years later Congress again brought ""war" against our people through the evil known as Relocation Act. Again, nearly 10,000 Dineh were intimidated into leaving their Church and Altar. Many who left have since met with premature deaths. Many more have been devastated by physical and spiritual illnesses.

We who are unalterably opposed to relocation gain our strength by maintaining our traditional religion. We wish harm to no one and don't understand why we've been made to suffer so much for so long. We remember our honored friend and Traditional Hopi Elder, Grandfather David Monongye. He often told why many Traditional Hopi knew it was the Creator's idea for Dineh to live here. He was taught the Dineh were brought to surround the Mesa by the Holy Ones so as to provide a protective buffer from the forces of greed and destruction. If, and when, the Traditional Dineh were removed from these lands, his people would fall in turn, and the Earth would be destroyed. He knew from ancient teachings that Dineh and Hopi were physically and spiritually bound together. He realized, as do the current Resisters to relocation, that if the Dineh Church and Altar can be destroyed, so could everyone else's.

The Hopi and Dineh peope do not have a quarrel, but 22 years ago, a group of mining and power companies deceived the US government into thinking there was a range war between us. These mining companies convinced the US government that the solution wwas to evict everyone who lived in the areas which they wished to mine."

The US Congress should be working on ways to return our People and help heal the wounds it has caused. Instead the US Congress just passed legislation that will seal the fate of the few families remaining on the land. This bill, Senate #1973, is opposed by all the people remaining on the land. This bill tells us we pay rent to live on the land where our families have lived for hundreds of years, that we must pay grazing fees for the livestock herds with which we survive. It says we must submit to a foreign government who only wishes to remove us by any means necessary so that they can sell our land to the mining companies. The US Congress passed this law on October 11, 1996, without ever allowing any of our people to appear before it or testify about what it means.

The rights which we request are only the minimum granted to all people under the United Nations's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We request your support and the support of the United Nations in protecting our right to continue in our tradition way of life.

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