Something came to mind via what some of the youths were saying; what our Navajo government terms “Intergovernmental Relations” the youth refer to as “Foreign Affairs.” This comes from teaching about tribal sovereignty in their Native American Studies courses. When a Sovereign deals with outside governments through treaties, agreements, settlements, etc., it is called “foreign affairs.” So, when Indian Tribes do the same thing, this too is foreign affairs. We, for example, have had foreign affairs with other tribes over many centuries, and we have also had treaties (foreign affairs”) with Spain, Mexico, and the United States since European arrival in the Southwest.With this we ask, why do we have “foreigners” running three of the most important programs in our tribal government? Our water rights program in the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Water Resources (DWR), and the Minerals Department (Minerals) are managed by “foreigners”.In DOJ our chief water attorney describes himself as Anglo/Jewish. He is Stanley Pollack, from Michigan, and he has been the water attorney for 25 years. He has notoriously betrayed Navajo with the infamous SB-2109, the Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement. He has also betrayed us and allottees in the San Juan Settlement in New Mexico. There is little doubt he has done it, as well, in the Utah San Juan Settlement, and that he is working on it with our Colorado River Settlements.Pollack schemed with Senators Kyl and McCain to plan a major loss for Navajo by allowing the two Senators to take away Navajo surface water rights worth billions of dollars. Many rights and protections were waived “forever.”
[ed notes:click link for whole article and also see... Dine': Non-Indian attorneys and Kyl waiving Navajo water rights
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