Canoncito Navajo leader says casino will be built

Monday, May 29, 2000 | 9:07 a.m.

However, band President Tony Secatero said he believes Navajo Nation President Kelsey Begaye, who has opposed gambling on tribal land, will support the Canoncito effort to build a casino.

"He said to put our concerns in writing, and we are completing a draft of that letter," Secatero said.

Secatero said Begaye told him and other band officials at a meeting in April that he would consider amending his veto of gambling on the Navajo Nation.

Calls to the Navajo Nation headquarters in Window Rock, Ariz., seeking comment weren't answered Sunday.

"He (Begaye) doesn't want gambling on the Navajo Nation," Secatero said. "That's fine. That's a hundred miles away. What does that have to do with us?"

The Canoncito chapter is about 15 miles west of Albuquerque, far removed from the larger Four Corners reservation. The chapter wants to build the casino near Rio Puerco on Interstate 40.

There are about 2,832 members in the Canoncito Band.

Secatero, who is running unopposed for re-election this August, has argued that the Navajo Nation does not have the right to tax the band, take any sort of revenues from it or tell the band what it can do with its land.

He says the band has a right to establish a casino.

"In 1949, Congress gave the Canoncito - not the Navajo but the Canoncito Band - 125 miles of land to be run exclusively by the band and the BIA," Secatero said.

Secatero said many of the responsibilities of the BIA were taken over by the Navajo Nation in 1975. He said that's when the problems between the band and the Navajo Nation started and they have been aggravated by the controversy over gambling.

"It would be a lot simpler if the BIA would take a stand," he said. "But many BIA employees are Navajo, and they don't want to act against their own people."

Members of the band are not seeking individual gain, Secatero said.

"We want the revenues to improve our schools and social services," he said. "We see what's going on among our neighbors (Laguna and Acoma), and we see their lives getting better."