The federal government wreaks havoc on Navajo tribes targeting the impoverished elders

Arizona's Black Mesa undergoes harsh rules, including livestock reduction.

People are being held at gun point, arrested and having their property taken from them in the remote area of Arizona called Black Mesa.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Black Mesa is the home to many Navajo residents. The Navajo make their living off of the earth. Most Navajos survive because of their sheep.

In late October, federal SWAT teams raided the land, wearing military uniforms and geared with assault rifles. They set up roadblocks and began apprehending people as helicopters and drones circled above.

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The actions taking place that day made it seem as though the federal government was implementing the take down of a very dangerous criminal, like a terrorist.

They were actually detaining poor Navajo elders for owning too many sheep.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Hopi rangers have been wreaking havoc among the tribes for the past month. According to an Aljazeera America article, many community members say they live in fear "because of this extreme intimidation in the Hopi Partitioned Lands in northern Arizona."

The people are allotted 28 sheep per household. The Hopi tribe and the BIA state over four dozen people exceeded their permitted limit. Three people have been arrested and over 300 sheep have been impounded.

The 1974 Navajo and Hopi Settlement Act ultimately relocated more than 14,000 Navajo and 100 Hopi and paved the way for two of the largest coal strip mines in the country.

The residents of Black Mesa continue to believe this most recent attack is being projected by the federal government through the Department of Interior and the BIA as "part of an ongoing effort to maintain access to vast coal reserves on their ancestral homelands."

With efforts to force the Navajo out of their homeland, the government implemented rules including, repairs on existing structures and a livestock-reduction program, based on overgrazing of the land.

Traditional Navajo economy is based on sheep and the newly regulated rules pose a direct threat to their very survival. If they cannot survive on what they know, they are forced to relocate and find some other way to live.

This clears the way for additional mining concessions.

"Twenty-eight sheep is not enough to sustain a family. If Hopi care about the land, help us with land management education," expressed Black Mesa resident, Louise Benally. "We need someone qualified who knows the plants and animals to oversee the rotation of animals in these areas."

In September, Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell declared President Obama's plan to improve relationships between tribes and the federal government.

The actions made during the following months represent the complete opposite of the promised improved nation-to-nation relationship.

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