Big Government Gone Wild—How the U.S. Helps Outside Interests Plunder Indian Land
This article, the result of a six-month investigation, was published by In These Times m agazine in 2016. For more on topics like this, see my book, American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle... . “ T hey attacked my aunt like a bunch of coyotes attacking sheep in a corral,” says Navajo tribal member Roberta Tovar. “They were going, ‘Mary, Mar y, just go ahead and sign it.’ ” The “coyotes” included representatives of Western Refining, a Texas-based oil company. One of the company’s pipelines carries 15,000 barrels of crude a day from oil fields in the Four Corners region to a refinery near Gallup, N.M. On the way, the line crosses a 160-acre plot of Navajo reservation land, shown here, owned by 88-year-old Mary Tom, also seen here, and dozens of family members. Western Refining’s right of way expired in 2010. After years of negotiations with family members, the company invited just a handful of them, including Tom, to an October 2013 meeting at the El Rancho Hote