Peter MacDonald (Navajo leader)

Infobox President


imagesize = 150px
name = Peter MacDonald
order = 7th
office =
term_start = January 20, 1970
term_end = January 19, 1989
vice_president =
predecessor =
successor = Incumbent
birth_date = 1928
birth_place =
nationality = flagicon|USA American
party = Republican
spouse =
occupation =
residence = Tuba City, Arizona
religion = Native American Church

Peter MacDonald (born 1928) is a former Native American Navajo leader, born in Arizona, USA. In 1989 he was removed from office pending the results of federal criminal investigations instigated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and possibly Senator Barry Goldwater(AZ) by a deeply divided Navajo Council.

Peter MacDonald was sent to federal prison in 1990, and within several years was convicted of more US federal crimes including fraud, extortion, riot, bribery, and corruption.

Life and Politics

Raised among traditional sheepherders, groomed as a medicine man, MacDonald was shipped off to the United States Marine Corps as a Communitcations Language Code Talker designated in the Navajo Language during World War II, although was never deployed to the Pacific.

MacDonald came back to earn an electrical engineering degree at the University of Oklahoma. His acumen landed him on the Polaris nuclear missile project with Howard Huges', Hughes Aircraft Co. He returned to the Navajo reservation in 1963 and began his public life within tribal politics.

He began serving as Navajo Nation Tribal chairman for four terms(1970, 1974, 1978, 1986), stressing self-sufficiency and tribal enterprise. He worked to extend tribal control over education and mineral leases, and towards the latter end he co-founded the Council of Energy Resource Tribes (CERT) (1975), which favoured accelerated development of energy resources on the reservation. He is credited for starting the Navajo Nation Shopping Centers Enterprise, Navajo Engineering and Construction Authority, and many other Navajo owned enterprises. MacDonald was critical of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and fought against federal intrusion of native sovereignty.

During the 1972 Richard Nixon presidential campaign, MacDonald was referred to as, "the most powerful Indian in the USA", was invited to introduce Nixon during the Republican National Convention. At the time, MacDonald had become an auburn-skinned Golden Boy in national Republican circles. He had served on Richard Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President, and was scheduled--at the urging of Senator Barry Goldwater--to speak during that year's nominating convention. [http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Currents/Content?oid=oid%3A43998]

But sensing Nixon's tepid support for Navajos in the land dispute, MacDonald met with George McGovern, the Democratic presidential candidate, and chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Indian Affairs. When McGovern pledged to back the Navajo position, MacDonald toyed with supporting McGovern's presidential bid. As tribal chairman, he could rally a solid block of votes across the reservation.

When this news reached Republican headquarters, Goldwater came unglued. That rage would only harden two years later, when MacDonald delivered 9,006 out of a total 10,274 Navajo votes to help elect Raul Castro, a Democrat, as governor of Arizona.

Not surprisingly, Senator Goldwater supported the Hopi Indians in the land struggle, sparking what would become the hemisphere's most immense forced mass emigration. Thousands of Navajo families were banished from their homes, cementing the caustic rift between Arizona's senior senator and the leader of Arizona's largest tribe.

In 1996, congress adopted a law that allowed extended families to stay on their lands for 75 more years. The Navajo's agreed to a number of restrictions on economy.

The Boquillas Transaction

THE BIG BOQUILLAS ranch, spreads across convert|491000|acre|km2 of desolate scrub land west of Flagstaff. And the rugged piece of real estate had long been on the radar screen for Bud Brown, a Scottsdale businessman and a friend of McDonald. Eventually, Brown invited the chairman on a trip to Hawaii, where over a golf game he suggested the tribe purchase Big Bo, to compensate for any land it might lose in the Navajo-Hopi land dispute.

What MacDonald may or may have not known was that at 9:50 a.m. on the morning of July 9, 1987, Brown and an associate named Tom Tracy bought the land for $26.2 million, and by 9:55 a.m. had resold it to the Navajo Nation for $33.4 million that very day. Tracy, owner of Tracey Oil and Gas, had attained a fictitious name as "Big Boquillas Ranch Co" never giving his true identity to all documents previously approved by the Navajo Council as a whole or its standing committees who all previously approved the deal.

In barely five minutes, Brown and Tracy had flipped the ranch for a profit of $7.2 million. The deal would have gone unnoticed, if not for an anonymous tip slipped to a reporter from the Gallup Independent in New Mexico.

The Boquillas transaction had sparked rampant suspicions of alleged kickbacks for the chairman, but details were sparse. That he was seen traversing the reservation in a shiny BMW--not the standard vehicle for an official making around $55,000 a year--did nothing to staunch the rumors.

By the summer of 1988, Indians leaders from across the nation were converging in Washington D.C. for long-sought Senate hearings on the BIA's mismanagement of tribal affairs.

Co-chairing the subcommittee were Arizona senators John McCain and Dennis DeConcini. And though he'd retired a year earlier, Goldwater's presence was palpable. [http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Currents/Content?oid=oid%3A43998]

*The hearing never once mentioned the BIA mismanagement but instead focused on MacDonald and the allegations against him.Fact|date=March 2008

Allegations and Charges

On February 17, 1988, the factionalized Tribal Council placed MacDonald on administrative leave. Chairman MacDonald refused to step down, leading to a five-month stand-off. By March of that year, the council appointed an interim chairman. Remaining MacDonald supporters--hardcores known as "Peter's Patrol"--replied by occupying the leader's offices.

In 1990, the Navajo tribal judge of the time ordered Peter MacDonald Sr., after being suspended by the Navajo Council, to face three criminal trials instead of a single trial on 111 criminal counts. [http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/2001-August/000214.html]
*raising questions of double jeopardy.Fact|date=March 2008

Ruling at a pretrial hearing in Navajo tribal court here, the judge, Robert Yazzie, said he agreed with arguments by Navajo special prosecutors that a single trial on all counts would be "unmanageable."

In one case, MacDonald, had been charged with fraudulently using his position as chairman to persuade the tribe's governing body to purchase a convert|491432|acre|km2|sing=on ranch in which he is accused of having a hidden financial stake. The prosecutors contend that after the sale, Mr. MacDonald shared a $7.2 million profit with two silent partners MacDonald denied having any financial interest in the Boquillas Ranch near Seligman, Arizona. #3, he Denied Charges In a second case, MacDonald was accused of accepting bribes and kickbacks from companies and building contractors doing business on the 17-million acre Navajo Reservation. The judge ordered that he and his son, Peter Jr., stand trial together in the cases involving the ranch and the alleged kickbacks. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE2D8173DF932A35751C0A966958260]

In the third case, MacDonald was charged with violating tribal election law by accepting illegal campaign contributions from non-Navajos. In this case, MacDonald stood trial with Johnny R. Thompson, the suspended Navajo vice-chairman.

*Bud Brown, given immunity, testified against MacDonald, alleging that the chairman pressured him into the Big Boquillas deal. He was allowed to keep the $4 million dollars profit from the land sale and face no jail time.Fact|date=March 2008

Government prosecutors, in retrospect, have commented to the New York Times their misgivings of the charges and trial. "I've always wondered if we (prosecutors) were the dupes." One remarked.

Inciting Riots and Prison

The Navajo Nation Council suspended Macdonald in February, 1989. The council had suspected that MacDonald accepted kickbacks from contractors and corporations. Turmoil ensued, culminating in a riot in Window Rock five months later that led to the shooting deaths of two MacDonald supporters and the injury of two tribal police officers. They had stormed the tribal headquarters in an attempt to restore him to power, according to the Associated Press. [http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Currents/Content?oid=oid%3A43998]

MacDonald was eventually convicted of defrauding the Navajo Nation in tribal court, but served only a few months of that sentence before being convicted in federal court of conspiracy to commit burglary and kidnapping charges connected to the Window Rock riot.

MacDonald was convicted on US Federal conspiracy charges for inciting the riot and for taking bribes and kickbacks. MacDonald also served a federal sentence for fraud and racketeering convictions.

In 1990, Peter MacDonald was sent to a Federal Prison in Texas. Within several years was convicted of more US federal crimes including fraud, extortion, riot, bribery, and corruption stemming from the Navajo purchase of the Big Boquillas Ranch in Northwestern Arizona. MacDonald was then moved from the general federal prison unit into a prison hospital after experiencing chest pains.

MacDonald had been imprisoned at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, since 1992.

Commuted Prison Sentence

The Navajo Tribal Council pardoned MacDonald in 1995 as he was serving his sentence in federal prison in Fort Worth.

*noting in their pardon that certain allegations could not possibly have been true and re-establishing the Navajo concept of hozhonji, the Beauty Way, and the need to forgive and ask forgiveness.Fact|date=May 2008

Presidential

The day before President Bill Clinton left office in 2001, U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy lobbied the White House to commute the sentence of the former leader.

President Clinton granted the request [ [http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/pardons6b.htm List of Clinton Pardons and Commutations] ] , along with dozens of other commutations and pardons, some of which have raised questions about whether alleged money or other influence helped secure them.

Return to Navajoland

-"I sincerely believe that we will all be better off if we return to the traditional Navajo system in which the family was important and everyone fulfilled their roles and responsibility for preparing our children for life," said the former Navajo Nation Chairman.

Since his return from federal prison, Macdonald has remained a public figure advocating for increase Navajo sovereignty away from federal domains on certain aspects. He speaks at conferences, meetings and education venues.

Reference

ee also

* Navajo Nation
* KTNN Radio
* Supreme Court of the Navajo Nation
* Navajo language
* Navajo people
* Southern Athabaskan languages
* Dinetah
* Bill Clinton pardons controversy

External links

;Documentaries, topic pages and databases
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE2D8173DF932A35751C0A966958260 The New York Times(1990):Ex-Navajo Leader Is Facing 3 Criminal Trials]
* [http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/2001-August/000214.html Peter MacDonald and the Navajo Nation]
* [http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8197983.html NAVAJO CHAIRMAN SENTENCED TO 6 YEARS IN TRIBAL JAIL FOR BRIBERY, ETHICS VIOLATIONS ]
* [http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Currents/Content?oid=oid%3A43998 The Price of Doing Business: After eight years in federal prison, former Navajo Tribal Chairman Peter MacDonald has returned to the reservation.]
* [http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/57449.html Navajo Times endures shutdown, gains independence ]
* [http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.PrintableArticle?article_id=16586 Undaunted muckraker]
* [http://www.gallupindependent.com/2007/march/030107kh_nvjomillionaires.html MacDonald: Where are the Navajo millionaires?]
* [http://www.navajohopiobserver.com/main.asp?SectionID=35&SubSectionID=47&ArticleID=5919 Former Navajo Nation chairman calls for a return to traditional Navajo family values ]
* [http://www.indianz.com/News/2006/017290.asp Former Navajo chairman speaks on elder abuse-2006]
* [http://www.gallupindependent.com/2005/august/080605macdonald.html MacDonald applies for city job-Gallup Independent]