An open letter to President Likins

The very day your comments appeared in the Nov. 6 Wildcat ("Likins: Most Apaches don't mind Mt. Graham desecration"), we received a letter in our mailbox from you. It states that you have yet to actually go to the San Carlos Reservation and meet with traditional Apache to talk about the Mt. Graham issue. We wonder, therefore, how you can claim expertise on the issue. We are especially dismayed that you would make such offensive statements.

When we met with you 13 months ago, you said that you would "study" the Mt. Graham issue and respond to concerns raised at that time. Had you done even minimal research, you would understand Apache opposition to this project. You would know that the Tribal Council has passed numerous resolutions opposing this project. You would know that the largest Native American rights organizations in the country staunchly oppose it. You would not even have had to leave your office to learn that more letters opposing the desecration of Mt. Graham come into your office than letters about any other topic, bar none. In short, you would understand how negatively people view the UA's choice to continuously violate a people's religious and cultural rights.

Your lack of respect brings to mind that of your predecessor, Manuel Pacheco. When Pacheco visited the Tribal Council, he heard strong opposition from council members, who even issued another opposition resolution in his presence. Nonetheless, on the UA's sham website, Pacheco made no mention of the opposition. He instead made it seem like there had been support for the project. This brutal cultural assault is appalling, but it is reflective of the leadership at this university.

Head UA astronomer Peter Strittmatter, who was also quoted in the article, shares Dr. Pacheco's talent for misleading the public. He has a reputation even among other project partners. On official Ohio State University letterhead (obtained by SEAC through Public Records laws), one department director complains that Strittmatter's "facts" should be always be double-checked. His memo states that Strittmatter presents a "serious problem for conveying factual information about the project to the national media."

Dr. Likins, you have spent enough time in office that you do not have the luxury of saying that Strittmatter misled you. We met with you 13 months ago. We showed you the fraudulent Biological Opinion and incomplete cultural and environmental studies which Strittmatter and other UA officials continue using to pretend compliance with the law. We showed you documentation of the UA's continued effort to divide and conquer the San Carlos Apache and deliberately make "isolated outliers" of the traditional people. We also showed you proof that a UA-retained public relations firm misleads the public and involves students in unethical ways.

You cannot claim ignorance of these things.

We ask that you 1) meet with traditional Apache. There is a difference between meeting with traditional people and people who the UA or a UA-related entity has hired to promote the project. We think you'll agree; 2) cancel the contract with SIMG, the public relations firm that falsely signs students' names to untruthful letters targeting members of project opposition groups; 3) comply the law and open all records belonging to the LBT Corporation, a "corporate shield" . For too long, the UA has withheld and hidden publicly-owned information about this project from the public; and 4) halt LBT construction until the UA complies with this nation's cultural and environmental protection laws. This means completing those long-overdue cultural and environmental studies from which UA has spent millions in court and in Congress trying to exempt themselves.

Members of the

Student Environmental Action Coalition