Gallup 2nd border town to OK human rights pact

During a 2009 hearing on race relations in Gallup, Delores Begay testified that city police accused her of DWI and impounded her car, refusing to believe her statements that she doesn't do drugs or drink.

Such testimony led the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission to ask cities that surround the Navajo Nation to enter into a memorandum of agreement to help lessen such events, and give people a place where their concerns will be treated with respect.

The city of Gallup has become the latest city to approve an agreement with the rights panel.

Harry Mendoza, Gallup mayor, signed a memorandum of understanding between the commission and the city, a document that officials of Grants, N.M., also have signed.

The Farmington City Council is mulling whether to approve a version of the agreement.

Mendoza signed the document Aug. 13 after Gallup City Council approved it Aug. 10.

"This is something that we should have done a long time ago", Mendoza said in a phone interview.

NNHRC Chairman Duane "Chili" Yazzie agrees.

"It's a long time coming," Yazzie said. "I'm just reflecting back on the ties of negative relationships between the two communities."

According to a press release from NNHRC, the commission sent the document to Gallup officials about a year ago. Leonard Gorman, NNHRC executive director, noted that city officials did not have issues with the language of the agreement, as is the case with Farmington.

In earlier interviews, Gorman said he hopes the MOA will eventually help the commission investigate allegations of race-based mistreatment.

Mendoza said he would not object to the Navajo panel investigating incidents that occur in Gallup.

"It's not a problem. They're public records and of course they have the right to do that," Mendoza said.

He noted that the city has a commission that oversees police conduct and handles allegations of police mistreatment.

He noted that he has appointed two Navajos to that commission.

Yazzie said he hopes that the rights commission can develop a better assessment of what conditions are for Navajo people in Gallup. The document still needs approval by the Intergovernmental Relations Committee to take effect, but that is not expected to be a problem.

"We did hear a number of complaints, primarily the treatment of Navajos by certain businesses," Yazzie said.

He noted that he wants to hear from some of the homeless and transient Navajo people in Gallup too.

"As far as a good assessment (of Gallup), I don't think we've gotten that yet," he said.

The proposed MOA sent to reservation border cities included a passage in the preamble stating, "During colonial and independent periods, long series of ethno-national conflicts were waged with the primary objective of obtaining the indigenous people's agriculture and mineral resources."

The statement provoked such a reaction from Farmington officials that the NNHRC came up with a softer alternative, but neither Grants nor Gallup has objected to the original language.

"We didn't have an issue with it," Mendoza said.

Yazzie said the commission is now working on similar agreements with the cities of Bloomfield and Aztec, N.M., and Durango, Colo.

"They have received our proposed MOA," Yazzie said. "We're taking them a group at a time."

Mendoza said he just wishes the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission had approached Gallup sooner about the agreement.

"The Navajo people are very, very important. We need the Navajo people," he said.

Besides the towns already mentioned, other border towns where Navajos have reported receiving unfair treatment include Cortez, Colo., Page, Holbrook and Winslow, Ariz., and Bluff, Utah.

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