DAVID HARDEN/Arizona Daily Wildcat Apache tribe elder George Starr shakes hands with UA president Peter Likins yesterday in front of the Administration building. Starr, along with other elders of the San Carlos reservation and about 100 people, gathered to protest a telescope on Mount Graham.

A group of Apache tribe members flanked by environmentalists hand-delivered a letter to UA President Peter Likins yesterday afternoon, stating their opposition to the university's presence on Mount Graham.

But a former tribal chairman and University of Arizona officials said the relationship between the university and the tribe has been healthy all along.

The seven tribal members and environmentalists from Earth First! demonstrated in front of Old Main to voice their opposition to partially UA-owned telescopes on Mount Graham, which is approximately 75 miles northeast of Tucson.

After introducing all tribal members, the group of fewer than 50 supporters walked to the Administration building for an unannounced meeting with Likins.

As supporters neared the building, Sharon Kha, associate vice president for communications, called the president's office and told workers to "lock the place down."

Likins met the demonstrators on the steps of the building.

The protesters delivered the letter, signed by the six tribal members, which stated that Apache elders and medicine people are opposed to the Mount Graham observatory.

Likins replied by saying he would continue dialogue with tribal leaders in private.

George Starr, who was said to be a tribal medicine man, said the site's preservation was important for the children and for historical value.

"Our goal is to stop any entity from having any monetary contribution to the telescopes," protester Sandra Rambler said. "Any of these people are willing to die for their religion," she said as she pointed at the six members.

Rambler also said the tribal council voted last summer to declare that Mount Graham was sacred, and former tribal chairman Harrison Talgo said the tribe has no problem with the university's presence.

"Most people (in the tribal council) don't get involved with Mount Graham," Talgo said. "The core group is the interest groups."

The Mount Graham telescope project has taken heat from environmentalists and American Indian activists since its conception in the early 1990s.

Last April, several construction vehicles were damaged, prompting a state of high security in the area of the telescope. In October, nearly 30 protesters were arrested for storming the Mirror Lab on campus and injuring two employees.

Talgo said the interest group, which comprises about 5 percent of the 8,000 residents of the reservation, is fueled by environmentalist causes like Earth First! in order to get their point across.

Peter Strittmatter, director of Steward Observatory, said that until recently, most of the protests had centered around an endangered red squirrel that makes its home on the mountain, but the American Indian protests have become the contentious issue recently.

Michael Cusanovich, former director of the Mount Graham project, said when construction plans for the telescope were being drawn up, a letter was sent to all the reservations that would be affected.

He said that although members from the Hopi and Zuni tribe responded to the letter to voice their opinion, the Apache tribe declined.

The telescope is on land owned by the United States Forest Service.