OPINION
Page 4 Monday, September 15, 1986 The Michigan Dily


'U' begins weapons project;

e mg ba n Michig an I
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan

%M"F i

Vol. XCVII, No. 8

420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board
All other cartoons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily.

Big Mountain

Hundreds of years after
the white man first settled in
North America, the exploitation
of Native Americans continues
in the Big Mountain region of
the northeastern part of
Arizona. Coal mining interests
in the area have managed to
pass legislation that has re-
sulted in efforts to relocate
10,000 Native Americans.
In 1882, the United States
government established the
Hopi Reservation, where
previously both Hopis and
Navajos lived without the
concept t of land ownership
conflict.
In 1921, Navajo elders voted
75-0 against a deal with
Standard Oil to drill for oil on
Navajo Reservation land,
established in 1868 by the United
States government. As a result,
the Bureau of Indian Affairs set
up a puppet three man Navajo
Council to sign with Standard
Oil.
From 1938 to 1943 the U.S.
government dealt with the Hopi
tribe in the area through the
Hopi Tribal Council that it set
up without majority backing of'
the Hopi people or its traditional
leaders.
In 1950, the Bureau of
Indian Affairs needed a legal
entity to deal with $90 million
dam and road projects. The
Hopi Tribal Council had been
defunct for eight years, but the
government resurrected it.
The Tribal Council then
hired a lawyer, who set about
securing the Tribal Council
legal title to land used jointly by
both the Hopi and Navajo people.
After oil and gas companies
paid $3.5 million to the Tribal
Council for exploration rights
on the land, the lawyer received
$1 million.
The lawyer-one John
Boyden, a former Mormon
archbishop-simultaneously
represented Peabody Coal
Company, which is partially
Mormon owned. Peabody Coal
Company gained access to the
land to strip-mine coal in 1964
and 1966.
Boyden has written the
relocation legislation needed by
all energy companies to get the
Native Americans off the land
so it can be used for further
exploitation.
In order to secure the
No svi

passage of the legislation
Boyden wrote, the Hopi Tribal
Council hired a public relations
firm that represents 23 utility
companies building power
plants in the Southwest. The
public relations firm staged a
war between the Hopi and
Navajo people, so Congress
could pass the legislation in 1974
in the name of ending the
fighting.
There are support groups
working to repeal PL 93-531, put
a moratorium on relocation
through a bill sponsored by
Senator Alan Cranston ( D-
California ), and stop al -
locations to the relocation effort,
which request that citizens lobby
Congress: Big Mountain (Joint
Use Areas) Legal
Defense/Offense Committee,
2501 N. 4th St., Ste. 18,
Flagstaff, AZ, 86001 (602) 774-
5233 and Big Mountain Support
Group, 1412 Cypress St.,
Berkeley, CA, 94703.
Contributors should earmark
-their donations for "legal work,"
"on the land," or something
more specific and send them to
the legal committee.
Originally, the cost to
taxpayers of the relocation was
supposed to be $40 million.
Now, with the relocation
partially "completed" those costs
are estimated at $1 to $2 billion.
Among other things, the
relocation is found to require the
building of roads to connect
relocated Indians with law
enforcement agencies and the
rest of 20th century America.
The relocation once
"completed" is in actuality only
the beginning for Native
Americans. Put into newly
constructed suburban houses
with no means to pay the bills,
the Native Americans end up
selling or getting cheated out of
their real estate. Relocated
Native Americans suffer
especially from suicide,
alcoholism, unemployment and
mental illness.
In 1986, Pilgrims do not
shoot Indians. This is no longer
necessary. Today, the white
man removes the Indians'
means of livelihood, disrupts
Indian social organization and
places Indians in absurd
suburban houses. The effect is
still genocide.
up.athy
Senator Jesse Helms, few in
Washington would object to
having a civilian government
replace Pinochet, as long as the
new government is favorable to
the United States. As in the
case of the Philipppines and
Haiti, however, the United
States government is primarily
concerned with human rights
criteria only as a matter of
strengthening its own geo-

political position. Washington
strategy-makers have calculated
that a brutally repressive
Chilean regime may be a
staunch anti-communist ally,
but one which is exceedingly
vulnerable to mass unheaval.

By Ingrid Kock and Robyn Watts
Over the summer, the Pentagon
decided to establish the Center for High
Frequency Microelectronics at U-M
with Professor George Haddad as the
principle investigator. According to
the Army project description, the
research will increase military
capability to process information from
sensors in "complex battlefield." A
complex battlefield situation is one in
which both conventional and nuclear
weapons are utilized. In effect, this
research contributes to the delusion that
limited nuclear war is a possibility.
This project is only one of three new
Pentagon centers established on
campus this past summer. Along with
the other two, it could double military
research at U-M for the next five years.
The University of Michigan has not
had such Pentagon Centers since the
Vietnam War. Disturbingly, the
recent funding for the centers is just the
beginning. The Pentagon intends to
use these centers to establish its
presence as an institution on campus.
The Pentagon will supply new
Watts is the MSA University Research
Advisor and Kock is a member of the
University Research Policies
Committee .

equipment, sponsor exchanges of
personnel between Pentagon and
University labs, and direct research
projects to meet military goals.
Unfortunately, the University admin-
istration is greeting new Pentagon
funding with open arms and empty
pockets. In July, a Presidential
Committee recommended that the
University eliminate its policy that
forbids classified research the primary
purpose of which is the destruction of
human life. If adopted, this action
would sanction weapons research on
campus. Furthermore, the committee
recommended that the University take
away the power of faculty-student
committees to determine the
appropriateness of specific research
projects. This step would allow
professors to pursue any type of research
contract, regardless of its consequences
and University opinion.
Before the University Regents vote on
the proposed policy changes in January,
Vice-President for Research Linda
Wilson will elicit University
responses. During this semester, we
can expect to see University-sponsored
forums and debates on, important
research issues. The Michigan Student
Assembly will take part in organizing
these events because they will contribute
to much-needed discussion on military

research issues. Those interested yin
organizing the sponsored events should
contact the MSA Peace and Justice
Committee or the Vice-President for
Research.
It is important, however, that we do not
allow the Vice-President of Research
and the Regents to use the forums and
debates to legitimize weakening the
guidelines. We need to firmly
demonstrate the strength of our
commitment against weapons
research before it's too late, before tihe
guidelines are changed. This
semester, the Women's Action for
Nuclear Disarmament (WAND) and
United Campuses to Prevent Nuclear
War (UCAM) will hold weekly vigils
and demonstrations on Thursdays
from 3-4 outside of the Administration
Building (next to the Michigan Union).
UCAM holds weekly planning
meetings on Mondays at 7:00 p.m., 3909
Michigan Union.
The new coalition between the Ann
Arbor community organization
WAND and the campus-based UCAM
will maintain the spirit of the Great
Peace March. We -are a diverse group
of people united to achieve the common
goal of nuclear disarmament in our
community. We work to ensure that an
actual "die-in" as a result of nuclear
war never occurs.

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LETTERS:~

Homeless don't have real choices

4

Last week's assassination
attempt on Chilean Dictator
Augosto Pinochet draws at -
tention to the struggle against
military dictatorship in Chile.
Ordinarily, politicians receive
sympathy for suffering through
an assassination attempt, but in
Pinochet's case the adage "live
by the sword; die by the sword"
is in order.
Pinochet himself came to
power in a military coup against
a democratically elected socialist
government lead by President
Salvador Allende in 1973. For
many people, the coup
represented an end to the belief
that non-violent nolitical change


To the Daily:
In his attempt to even -
handedly report on the plight
of the homeless in Ann Arbor,
"Rising homeless group poses
problems for city " (New
Student Edition of the Daily,
9/4186), Jerry Markon lends
credibility to one of the most
insidious claims propounded
by the Reagan admini-
stration. In what was
otherwise a fine account,
Markon writes that " the
administration's contention
that the poor abuse shelters
and other social services may
have some merit." This
argument has been used to
justify both an attitude of
callousness toward the
homeless as well as a policy
of dismantlement of vital
federal programs. I am a
regular volunteer at the Ann
Arbor Shelter for the
Homeless, but anyone
spending even a single night
at the shelter could see that the

their alternative is to live in
the street.
Most of the residents are
simply unable to secure
homes of their own. Some
lack sufficient income and
others are too ill, mentally or
physically, to rent an
apartment. The shelter staff
strongly encourages those
who are capable of living
privately to do so; every
resident is assigned an
advocate who helps in the
search for a private home.
All inhabitants of Ann Arbor
find the task of locating an
apartment to be extremely
difficult. Many of the
homeless-ex-convicts,
mental patients, persons who
rely exclusively on
government assistance for
income, and persons with
extremely low paying jobs-
are thought to be undesirable
tenants by landlords and
find it impossible to secure
housing.

The man was not
identified in the article, but I
know him and we have
discussed his renting of an
apartment many times. Al-
though he is well dressed and
articulate, he has often had
difficulty holding onto his
near minimum wage jobs
and he often complained that
he could not afford to move
out of the shelter. All winter
he assured me that he would
find his own room after he
had saved some money, and
this is what he did this
summer. Although he was
able to afford an inexpensive
summer sublet, he cannot
now afford to rent a room at
the normal high rates and

has consequently returned to
the shelter. I would not
consider him or those like
him to be "abusers " of the
shelter.
Of course, the important
issue is not the possibility
there are a few people who
might be able to rent
apartments who sleep at the
shelter. The important issue
is that more and more of the
indigent and the ill are
homeless, homeless not by
choice but by circumstance,
and governments at every
level have failed to address
their problems.
-Stephen Weisbrod
September-0

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