State of Minnesota
INDIAN AFFAIRS COUNCIL

525 Park Street, Suite 303 St. Paul, Minnesota 55103

1819 Bemidji Ave Bemidji, Minnesota 56601

WHEREAS, the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Membership consists of eleven federally-recognized Indian Tribes located within the State of Minnesota and two at-large members who are members of federally-recognized tribes not based but are citizens of Minnesota, and

WHEREAS, the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council is the official liaison between national, state, and local units of government in the delivery of services to the American Indians in the State of Minnesota, and

WHEREAS, we the members of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council do hereby establish and submit the following resolution; and

WHEREAS, the San Carlos Apache and White Mountain Apache tribes are federally recognized tribes located in Arizona; and

WHEREAS, the mountain landform Dzil Nchaa Si An (Mount Graham), in the Western Apache homeland, and once part of the original Apache reservation, is now in the federally-managed public lands of the Coronado National Forest in Arizona; and

WHEREAS, Dzil Nchaa Si An is a central source and means of sacred spiritual guidance and a traditional cultural property of the Western Apache people, and a unique place on earth through which Apache people’s prayers travel to the Creator, and Dzil Nchaa Si An is presently being desecrated and harmed by the cutting of ancient forest, digging, road building, electrification, and the installation of telescopes and metal buildings sponsored by the University of Arizona and its astronomer-collaborators: and

WHEREAS, Apache spiritual leaders and medicine men and women at San Carlos have long since signed a pre-construction petition opposing that desecration and such harms; and the San Carlos Apache Tribal Council has passed resolutions at least five times, most recently in June 2001, in opposition to the installation of any telescopes on their sacred mountain, Dzil Nchaa Si An; and archives, documents and testimony in the custody of the University of Arizona and the U.S. government agencies and courts confirm the sanctity of the mountain; and

WHEREAS, some institutions such as the University of Minnesota have announced their intent or may be considering joining the University of Arizona and its collaborators in the observatory which desecrates Dzil Nchaa Si An and continues to harm Western Apache people, their culture and their religion.

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council does hereby respectfully request and urge the University of Minnesota and any university or other entity, foreign or domestic, to look elsewhere for their astronomical developments and to not join the University of Arizona and its collaborators in their Mount Graham telescope complex which desecrates Dzil Nchaa Si An and continues to harm Western Apache people, their culture and their religion; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council join and ask all universities or other entities foreign and domestic to join the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council and stop the practice of desecrating this sacred site.

We do hereby certify that the foregoing resolution was duly presented and acted upon by a vote of Yea 12, Nay 0, Abstain 0, at a regular meeting of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, a quorum present, held on January 15, 2002, at the Kelly Inn, 161 St. Anthony Ave., St. Paul, Minnesota

signed

Norman Deschampe, Chairman Audry Kohnen, Vice Chair

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Minnesota Indian Affairs Council

AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER