From gars@speakeasy.org Sat Jul 21 03:40:06 2001 Date: 13 Jun 2001 00:42:29 -0000 From: Gary Night Owl To: Internet Recipients of Wotanging Ikche Subject: Wotanging Ikche--nanews09.024 W O T A N G I N G I K C H E Otapi'sin Atsinikiisinaakssin KANOHEDA ANIYVWIYA O It-hah-pe-hah Ah-num pah-le Ha-Sah-Sliltha O o O ni-mah-mi-kwa-zoo-min Un Chota O o O Aunchemokauhettittea O o o o o O VOLUME 09, ISSUE 024 O o O Es'te Opunvk'vmucvse June 16, 2001 O o O Ximopanolti tehuatzin, Potawatomie turtle moon O inin Mexika tlahtolli Blackfeet moon when the long rains come ( N A T I V E A M E R I C A N N E W S ) ==>If you want your Nation represented in the banner of this newsletter<== email gars@nanews.org with the equivalent of "News of the People" in your tribal language along with the english translation +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Much more happens in Indian Country than is reported | | in this weekly newsletter. For daily updates check | | http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm - also events | +-----------------------------------------------------------+ This issue contains articles from www.pechanga.net; www.owlstar.com; indianz.com; ndn-aim, KOLA Newslist, RezLife First Nations and LPDC Mailing Lists; UUCP email IMPORTANT!! ----------- In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, all material appearing in this newsletter is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for educational purposes. <----<<<< >>>>----> This newsletter is a way of keeping the brothers and sisters who share our Spirit informed about current events within the lives of those who walk the Red Road. ++ It may be subscribed to via email by sending a request from your own internet addressable account to gars@speakeasy.org ++ It is archived at http://www.nanews.org As historian Patricia Nelson Limerick summarized in The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West, "Set the blood quantum at one-quarter, hold to it as a rigid definition of Indians, let intermarriage proceed as it had for centuries, and eventually Indians will be defined out of existence. When that happens, the federal government will be freed of its persistent 'Indian problem.'" "When, on their occasional visits in here, I hold my grandchildren in my arms and smell the scent of their hair and feel the warmth of their little hands in my own. I am momentarily transported. But then comes the inevitable clang of the metal doors sliding shut behind them as they leave, and I'm transported instantly back here, to this eternal iron lodge called Leavenworth. That metallic clanging echoes in my soul as it reverberates down the cold-walled corridors." __ Leonard Peltier, "Prison Writings...My Life Is My Sun Dance" +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | Indian Pledge of Allegiance | The Indian Pledge of Alleg- | | iance was first presented | I pledge allegiance to my Tribe,| on 2 December '93 during the | to the democratic principles | opening address of the Nat- | of the Republic | ional Congress of American | and to the individual freedoms | Indian Tribal-States Relat- | borrowed from the Iroquois and | ions Panel in Reno, NV. NCAI | Choctaw Confederacies, | plans distribution of the | as incorporated in the United | Indian Pledge to all Indian | States Constitution, | Nations. | so that my forefathers | | shall not have died in vain | Walk in Beauty! Night Owl +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | Journey | In the summer and early fall | The Bloodline | of 1998 the Treaty Unity Riders | | rode a thousand miles on horse- | For all that live and live by law | back, carrying a staff and | We Stand, we Call, We Ride | praying each step of the way. | For All that fear and fear by sight | | We Hear, we Listen, we Ride | These prayers were offered for | For all that pray and pray by strength| each of us, and that the Unity | We Feel, we Move, we Ride | of all Peoples might happen. | For all that die and die by greed | | We Hurt, we Cry, we Ride | Tatanka Cante forwarded this | For all that birth and birth by right | poem on behalf of all the Unity | We Smile, we Hold, we Ride | Riders that we might stop and | For all that need and need by heart | ask if the next words we say, the | We Came, we Went, we Rode. | next act we make is for the good | | of the People or is it from ego | Treaty Unity Riders | for self. +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ O'siyo Brothers and Sisters! There are two very long articles in this issue. Both will do much to fill in blank spots some readers my have. The first of these is titled "Canada's Oldest Nations" by Martin O'Malley of CBC, and will serve as a basis regarding issues involving First Nations within what are now Canadian borders. This, in turn, will help many readers understand why some of these issues are terrible infringements on treaty rights; and should have never been issues to begin with. Most became the volatile kettles they have due to that oldest of diseases brought to Turtle Island by Europeans - greed. In conjunction with this reading do NOT fail to view the video of the Canadian authorities deliberately coming about and ramming a Mi'kmaq fishing boat. This video is, at least, damning! It is available in Real Media on http://www.owlstar.com/who_will_sing_for_us.htm. Also on this page, there's a statement you can sign and send to Amnesty International expressing concern about the ongoing denial of court-affirmed treaty rights for the Mi'kmaq, and the official violence they face. The second very long article is in the prisoner/police section of the newsletter, and is titled "The Legacy of Wounded Knee". It is actually the transcript of a speech by defense attorney Bruce Elison to the Black Caucus. Mr. Elison does a masterful job of explaining the events which lead to Wounded Knee 1973, the subsequent manipulation of evidence that lead to Leonard Peltier's conviction and the conspiracy to keep Leonard imprisoned in spite of overwhelming evidence he should be a free man. Read this, send a copy to your Senators, Representatives and anyone else you believe needs to know the truth. Dohiyi Ani Oginalii , , Gary Night Owl gars@nanews.org (*,*) P. O. Box 672168 gars@speakeasy.org (`-') Marietta, GA 30006, U.S.A. gars@olagrande.net ===w=w=== gars@sdf.lonestar.org ----------- News of the people featured in this issue ---------- - Jamake Highwater - Supreme Court - Canada's Oldest Nations lets Tigua Tribe be Sued - Lobster War Simmering - Walk to Whiteclay - Pikangikum First Nation - Governor Meets with Oglala loses Control of Reserve - The Legacy of Wounded Knee - First Nations Chief - Leonard Peltier's Words angry with Minister from June 1 1977 - Red Bank N.B. Reserve - Urgent Peltier Action signs Fishery Deal - Native Prisoner - Seminole Tribal Council -- Inmates repay society fires Three Officials - John Rustywire: - Suspended Seminole Leader Has Anyone seen any Thunder... James Billie sues Tribe - Poem: Judgement - War on Bison - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days - Chiapas Governor loses Peace Hopes - The Indian Renaissance in America - Crow Tribe reduces - Officer cleared in 700 Workers Pay to $5.15 Shooting of Native Man - Eastern Band Cherokee - Arvol's Book: debates use of Sacred Land White Buffalo Teachings - Hopi Tribe blasts Activism - Tulalip School - Kuiu Pilgrimage connects Students with Heritage - Federal Ruling: - Planting Seeds for Tomorrow Oneida Land is Indian Country - Upcoming Events --------- "RE: Jamake Highwater" --------- Date: Sat June 9, 2001 11:21:42 -0400 From: "Janet Smith" Subj: OBITUARY - JAMAKE HIGHWATER http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm News from Los Angeles in the Los Angeles Times http://www.latimes.com/communities/news/los_angeles_metro/20010609 Jamake Highwater; Wrote About Native American Culture, History By MYRNA OLIVER, Times Staff Writer Jamake Highwater, prolific award-winning Native American writer and host of educational television shows rooted in the culture of his heritage, has died. Although his precise birth date is unknown, he was believed to be 59. Highwater, perhaps best known for his books "Anpao: An American Indian Odyssey" and "The Sun, He Dies: A Novel About the End of the Aztec World," died Sunday in his Los Angeles home of a heart attack, said his friend Ruth Schwab. A self-taught expert on art, dance, music and history, Highwater wrote widely on all those topics, sometimes scarcely aware that he was writing from a Native American viewpoint. His more than 30 books include novels, nonfiction, poetry and even travel books for Fodor's. Although he disliked being labeled a children's author, Highwater won some of the most prestigious awards given for young people's fiction-- including the Newbery Honor Award for "Anpao" in 1978 and half a dozen Best Book for Young Adults awards from the American Library Assn. and the School Library Journal. "I simply consider myself to be very fortunate to have found it possible to cross that great barrier that publishers and critics normally construct between writing for children and writing for adults," he once told an interviewer. "[I try to create] a book that sings. If there is a song ... it lasts and people listen." Highwater gained wide public exposure through his several documentaries for PBS, including "The Primal Mind" in 1984. The film was based on his book "The Primal Mind: Vision and Reality in Indian America," which a Times reviewer lauded as a "sensitive book, a rare volume . . . to catalyze the mind." Shot on Southwestern Indian reservations, the documentary was written and hosted by Highwater and contrasted American Indian culture with European American traditions. It earned both the best film of the year award of the National Educational Film Festival and an ACE Award from the National Cable Television Assn. "I have been credited with bringing a lot of attention to American Indians, but I'm not sure this is my purpose," Highwater told The Times shortly before the program aired on KCET-TV Channel 28 in April 1984. "I would not presume to be a spokesperson for Indians, but, as with any other reporter, who and what I am as a person reflect [in] my work. I represent me and what Indianness means to me." He had taken years to understand that "Indianness" himself. About all Highwater knew of his early life was that he was Indian. He was born, perhaps on Feb. 14 and perhaps in 1942, maybe in Montana, to an illiterate Blackfoot mother and a Cherokee father who was a rodeo rider and stuntman from "Virginia, Tennessee or North Carolina, depending on his memory and mood." The impoverished parents soon deposited the boy in an orphanage. The young Jamake was adopted at about age 7 and brought up in Southern California by Alexander and Marcia Marks. For years, he used the name "J. Marks" and even wrote his earliest books--on such subjects as rock music and Mick Jagger--under that name. "When I was growing up in the 1950s, what I thought didn't seem to belong anywhere," Highwater once told The Times. "I never did think the way everybody else seemed to be thinking." He embraced the counterculture of the 1960s, educating himself informally in Los Angeles and then San Francisco, where he founded a modern dance and theater group and created its choreography. He moved to New York and became so steeped in art, architecture and music that he spent much of his life lecturing at such institutions as the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture and writing for such authoritative tomes as the New Grove Dictionary of American Music, as well as alternative publications, including the now-defunct Los Angeles Free Press. It was Arthur Fodor, the travel guide magnate, who focused Highwater on his own Native American culture--by commissioning him to write a travel guide to "Indian America" in 1974. "I realized," Highwater said, "that a lot of other books had not been written." So in the 1970s he began to write them--"Song From the Earth: American Indian Painting," "Ritual of the Wind: North American Indian Ceremonies, Music and Dances," "Anpao," "Journey to the Sky: A Novel About the True Adventures of Two Men in Search of the Lost Maya Kingdom," "Many Smokes, Many Moons: A Chronology of American Indian History Through Indian Art," "The Sun, He Dies" and "The Primal Mind." Among other works in the 1980s, Highwater turned out a noted "Ghost Horse" quartet of novels: "Legend Days," "The Ceremony of Innocence," "I Wear the Morning Star" and "Kill Hole." Moving into his final decade, Highwater delved into mysticism and spirituality with such books as "Myth and Sexuality," "A Myth of Our Own: Adventures in World Religions" and "The Mythology of Transgression: Homosexuality as Metaphor." Highwater once explained what he termed the "Indian concept of reality and identity" that laced his writing in an interview with Publishers Weekly: "To the Indian mentality, dead people walk and things go backward and forward in time, and these are absolutely real and vivid ideas to my head, our heads. "And more than that, the Indian world is one of the few worlds where human identity is not a major issue. In this [Western] society, you're not permitted any kind of personal transformation. In ours, it is expected." Janet Smith Owlstar Trading Post http://www.owlstar.com --------- "RE: Canada's Oldest Nations" --------- Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 09:34:47 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NORTHERN REPRISE" http://cbc.ca/news/indepth/aboriginals/ Canada's Oldest Nations Martin O'Malley CBC NEWS ONLINE Updated: December, 2000 Major news events involving aboriginal Canadians have become a regular feature of Canadian life. In 1999, there was the joyous creation of Nunavut, the first territory or province in Canada with an aboriginal majority. As 2000 came to an end, the sad plight of the Innu people in Labrador, where residents of Sheshatshiu asked that their children be taken away to be treated for addiction to gas-sniffing. * In July, 2000, the Supreme Court of British Columbia upheld the Nisga'a treaty as constitutionally valid. This came after Liberals in British Columbia tried to quash the $487 million deal, which gives land, cash and legislative power to the Nisga'a. * Days earlier, again in British Columbia, the Squamish Nation voted to end its claim to 600 hectares of prime West Coast real estate in exchange for cash amounting to $92.5 million. This ended a court battle that began 20 years earlier. * Late in 1999, tension between aboriginal and non-aboriginal fishermen resulted from a Supreme Court of Canada decision giving year-round fishing rights to Mi'kmaq and Maliseet people in Atlantic Canada . The Court based their judgment on a 100-year-old treaty. * A new battle involving aboriginal fisherman in British Columbia, with police in boats pulling in fishing nets during a violent confrontation on the water. * The Samson Cree of Alberta have launched a $1.4 billion lawsuit against the federal government, alleging mismanagement of the band's petroleum resources. The case is expected to come to court in June, 2000. * As 2000 began, more aboriginal stories - sad ones. Enough to warrant an RCMP criminal inquiry into the deaths of two aboriginal men in Saskatchewan, found frozen on the outskirts of Saskatoon. There was a complaint from a third aboriginal man that Saskatoon police officers handcuffed him, then drove him out of the city and abandoned him in a field in freezing weather without a jacket. The man survived, by gaining access to a powerhouse. It is part of the fabric of Canada, a brave federation of differences: multiculturalism, official bilingualism, minority rights, cultural and geographic diversity, ancient grievances. Managing these differences is a constant juggling act, a high stakes poker game, an act of faith. There was the dangerous standoff between police and Mohawks at Oka near Montreal, the threat of a breakaway partition by the Crees of northern Quebec if separatists take the province out of Canada, the Inuit and Innu in Labrador blocking development of Inco's massive nickel find at Voisey's Bay. And back, back in time, the plains rebellion led by Metis leader Louis Riel. On Nov 30, 1998, an event of political, historical and cultural significance occurred when Chief Joseph Gosnell led his Nisga'a people to the doors of the British Columbia legislature in Victoria. The Nisga'a delegation brought with them a canoe, which they placed on the steps of the legislature. "The canoe symbolizes a cargo of hope," one of the Nisga'a explained The last time they made the trek, in 1887, barricades blocked their way to "The Big House" and they were unable to sign the treaty they had been promised. The Nisga'a returned home empty-handed, after paddling 750 kilometres up the wild coast to the remote Nass River Valley. The return trip in 1998 was far more than symbolic. This time, Premier Glen Clark escorted the the Nisga'a into the Big House where Chief Gosnell had been invited to make a speech, an honour reserved for visiting heads of state. The Nisga'a are expected to get their treaty, though it requires approval of both the British Columbia legislature and the House of Commons. The treaty gives the 6,000 Nisga'a title to 2,000 square kilometres of the lower Nass Valley, limited self-government, extensive fishing and logging rights, and $340 million. It is the first treaty negotiated by the B.C. government in more than a century, a momentous event in the history of aboriginal Canadians. And there's more to come: 50 other aboriginal groups are waiting to negotiate other treaties with the B.C. government. Paul Tennant, professor of political science at the University of British Columbia, says the Nisga'a treaty marks a social shift in the province. "It means a new view of what it means to be a British Columbian," he said. "It really marks the death of the old white tribe." Back, back in time... If you fly beyond Old Crow Flats in northern Yukon you can see the remains of ancient logs that form massive, man-made structures once used to catch caribou. Aboriginal Canadians call them "the caribou corrals." The corrals were designed to capture migrating caribou. The log walls of the corral were higher than the caribou. The animals entered at a place where the corrals were about five kilometres wide. The corrals gradually narrowed until the caribou were trapped, providing a convenient bin of live meat, enough to feed dozens of families over the long Yukon winter. Finding the caribou corrals excited archaeologists, anthropologists and paleontologists. They discovered that some of the logs used for the corral walls had been fashioned by stone axes, which suggested the corrals might have been used in prehistoric times. By carbon-dating fossil bones by the corrals, scientists determined they were 30,000 years old, which proved to be a rare instance of direct evidence of human activity in the Western Hemisphere. There is more to be learned from aboriginal culture than caribou corrals and stone axes. The federal systems of government in Canada and the United States are modeled on the system of government devised by the Iroquois. The Iroquois system took care to protect individual liberties and freedoms, including gender equality. Thomas Jefferson, America's third president and one of the drafters of the U.S. Constitution, observed that among the Iroquois "every man, with them, is perfectly free to follow his own inclinations. But if, in doing this, he violates the rights of another, if the case be slight, he is punished by the disesteem of society or, as we say, public opinion; if serious, he is tomahawked as a serious enemy." Jefferson used this to draft his First Amendment, which allows freedom until it violates another person's rights. In their 1991 book Occupied Canada, authors Robert Hunter and Robert Calihoo devote a chapter to "The Great Gift of the Iroquois," in which they describe some of the workings of the Iroquois Confederacy: "Factionalism with the confederacy was reduced by building in a system of clan kinships that transcended the borders of different tribes. Thus, the clans of the Hawk, Turtle, Wild Potatoes, Great Bear or Deer Pigeon would have had members among the Mohawks, Seneca, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Cayuga alike, and these individuals would view each other as members of the same family." Benjamin Franklin was so impressed by the Iroquois Confederacy that he championed it as a model to unite the new colonies, urging that each colony become a state with control over internal affairs, with a federal council responsible for external matters. This became the basis of the Articles of Confederation. The story is rich, vast, confusing. Consider, for a start, the nomenclature. Is it "aboriginal Canadians" or "first peoples" or "natives" or "Indians" or "First Nations People" or "indigenous people"? They're all correct, with some mild fretting over politically-correct hemlines, which at least has eliminated such clunkers as the English "redskins" and the French sauvages. We still call it "the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs." Aboriginals find demeaning the use of possessives such as "Canada's aboriginals" and "Canada's natives," though "native" is acceptable if used to modify "people" and "leaders" and "communities." Consider the languages. The largest aboriginal language group is Algonquian, spoken by some 100,000 people. The Algonquian language group actually contains nine aboriginal languages: Abenaki, Blackfoot, Delaware, Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, Montagnais-Naskapi, Ojibwa, Potawatomi, and Cree. The Crees are spread across Canada in various groupings, each with their own dialects: Plains, Swampy, Northern, Woods, Moose, and East. On the matter of the Mi'kmaq, the word comes from "nikmaq," which aboriginals gave to the French and Basque fishermen and explorers in the 17th century. Essentially it means "my kin-friends." The Mi'kmaq, when referring to themselves, use the term "L'nu'k," which means "the people" or "humans." Mi'kmaq is pronounced Mig-mow(as in "owl"). Benjamin Franklin was so impressed by the Iroquois Confederacy that he championed it as a model to unite the new colonies, urging that each colony become a state with control over internal affairs, with a federal council responsible for external matters. This became the basis of the Articles of Confederation. The complexity cries out for perspective, which I found one afternoon in May, 1975, in Inuvik where the Mackenzie River empties into the Beaufort Sea. I was talking to an Eskimo named Abe Okpik. Abe and I were both on assignment with the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, popularly known as the Berger Inquiry after the chairman, Mr. Justice Thomas Berger. "Three times this morning I heard someone say Inuit," Okpik told me. Then, with exquisite timing over his mug of coffee, he added, "The anthropologists must be early this summer." Okpik died early in 1998, by which time he had comfortably embraced the use of "Inuit" to describe "Eskimos," a southern aboriginal expression for "eaters of raw meat." And why not? "Inuit" means "the people," as in "people everywhere." It is also plural; one Inuit is an "Inuk." Abe told me an Inuk can denote two Inuit by somehow saying Inuuk. The Berger Commission was a watershed event in the history of aboriginal Canadians, examining the lives and living conditions of the people of the Mackenzie Valley and further north to Sachs Harbour and Holman Island. Judge Berger held formal hearings in Yellowknife, and community hearings in scattered villages and encampments across the western Arctic. He ended up taking his commission across southern Canada, all the way to the Maritimes. The next big story about Aboriginal Canadians will be Nunavut. On April 1, 1999 the Northwest Territories divided into two parts: the eastern portion will be called Nunavut, the western part has not yet decided on a name. It will be the first time the map of Canada will change since Newfoundland joined confederation in 1949. Nunavut means "our land" in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit. The territory of Nunavut will be fives times larger than Alberta, with a population of 24,000, of whom 85 per cent are Inuit. Ottawa has agreed to pay Nunavut $1.2 billion over 14 years, ending in 2007. Expect to hear snickers and complaints from southern Canada about so much money going to so few people. I heard it often during my time in the Mackenzie Valley working on a book on the Berger Inquiry, which was titled The Past and Future Land. I finally found a way to reply when we were in Fort Liard and I met Chief Harry Deneron, who testified at the inquiry that the local nurse had posted a sign on the door of the Hudson's Bay store that warned: DO NOT DRINK THE WATER. "Well, it's okay for us - like a doctor can tell us this because we're humans," Chief Deneron told Judge Berger. "Most of us will probably know what they're talking about, but what we can't get at is, how can we get the message across to the animals that are depending on this water, the fish and that?" In the book I wrote: "It is a good question, one that confounds those white people who like to put a priority on things, with humans and their things definitely at the top and all the rest, the beasts and fishes, definitely lower down. The whole of the Northwest Territories, they say, could easily fit into Toronto's CNE Stadium, and it's true if by 'whole' you mean only the humans. For sure you won't get the land in, not the land that is one third of Canada, or the animals, not the herds of caribou that thunder by in numbers exceeding 100,000. But just the humans, yes. It is like measuring a Caesar salad by counting the croutons." At the start of 1998, the Canadian government formally apologized to the aboriginal Canadians for they way they have been mistreated. This was in response to the 1996 report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, a massive document that recommended a new era of partnership. A section of the report titled "Looking Forward, Looking Back," begins: "After some 500 years of a relationship that has swung from partnership to domination, from mutual respect and cooperation to paternalism and attempted assimilation, Canada must now work out fair and lasting terms for coexistence with Aboriginal people." As a starting point, the royal commission listed four reasons why this must be done: "We possess a terrible self-centredness, even arrogance, as a people," Berger said, referring to non-aboriginal Canadians. "History is what happened to us. We dismiss as a curiosity what has gone before. The culture, values and traditions of native people amount to more than crafts and carvings. Their respect for the wisdom of their elders, their concept of family responsibilities extending beyond the nuclear family to embrace a whole village, their respect for the environment, their willingness to share - all of these values persist within their own culture even though they have been under unremitting pressure to abandon them." As a starting point, the royal commission listed four reasons why this must be done: 1. Canada's claim to be a fair and enlightened society depends on it. 2. The life chances of Aboriginal people, which are still shamefully low, must be improved. 3. Negotiation, as conducted under the current rules, has proved unequal to the task of settling grievances. 4. Continued failure may well lead to violence. Other recommendations: 1. The creation of what would essentially be a third order of government: an aboriginal parliament. 2. An independent tribunal to decide on land claims. 3. More money to be spent to improve housing, health, education and employment. 4. Establishment of a native university. 5. An "immediate and major infusion of money" that would see $2 billion added to the present government spending of $6 billion a year on aboriginal Canadians. The report cites the Royal Proclamation of 1763 as a defining document in the relationship between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people in North America. The document, signed by King George III, says: "It is just and reasonable and essential to our interest and security of our colonies that the several nations or tribes of Indians with whom we are connected and who live under our protection, should not be molested or disturbed in the possession of such parts of our dominions and territories which, not having been ceded to or purchased by us, are reserved to them or any of them as their hunting grounds." Copyright c. 2001 CBC/SRC. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Lobster War Simmering" --------- Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 09:34:47 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LOBSTER WAR 2001" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm Jun. 5, 01:01 EDT Lobster war simmering as natives prepare traps Negotiator awaits next wave of confrontation Kelly Toughill ATLANTIC CANADA BUREAU HALIFAX - This region's violent lobster wars are likely to resume next week, when fishermen from the Indian Brook First Nation drop traps in defiance of federal regulations. More than 100 fishers from the Mi'kmaq band near Truro plan to take to the waters of Saint Mary's Bay to fish lobster out of season. In the last two years, a score of native fishermen, fishery officers and commercial fishermen in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have been injured as they battle over who has the right to fish lobster and who should control the rules for fishing. A new federal negotiator hired to sort through the aftermath of a controversial Supreme Court ruling on the issue said yesterday there is nothing he can do to stop the next wave of confrontation. "I don't have a mandate to negotiate short term," said lawyer Thomas Molloy, who is supposed to help negotiate a new treaty to cover a range of aboriginal rights issues in the Maritimes. "My mandate is for the longer term. . . . This is not something you can do overnight." Three years ago, the Supreme Court ruled Mi'kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy people have a treaty right to fish for profit in the Maritimes. That prompted hundreds of people from impoverished aboriginal bands to join the lucrative lobster fishery, at first with Ottawa's blessing. But a few months later, Fisheries Minister Herb Dhaliwal changed his policy and insisted the bands fish only within existing seasons, under licences issued by his department. He offered lucrative packages. Last year, 30 of the 34 Maritime bands took his package. Two refused and insisted on following their own rules. That led to violent dawn raids on the waters of Miramichi Bay and weeks of intense confrontation that saw hundreds of native people charged with fishery offences. Dhaliwal is offering short-term packages again this year. So far, only four bands have signed the agreements. Indian Brook Chief Reg Maloney says he is interested in signing an agreement - but only if his fishermen can continue a "treaty-based fishery" in Saint Mary's Bay. Federal officials have said they will arrest anyone who tries to fish without Ottawa's blessing. They also said they won't let Indian Brook fish out of season in Saint Mary's Bay. In the meantime, Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault appointed Saskatoon lawyer Molloy to negotiate long-term agreements on fishing, hunting and resource rights raised by the controversial court ruling. Copyright c. 1996-2001 Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved --------- "RE: Pikangikum First Nation loses Control of Reserve" --------- Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2001 23:04:11 -0400 From: "Janet Smith" Subj: Ontario First Nation loses control of reserve http//www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm Ontario First Nation loses control of reserve WebPosted Fri Jun 8 20:27:33 2001 PIKANGIKUM RESERVE, ONT. - People on the Pikangikum Indian reserve in Ontario are preparing for two funerals. The dead are a 13-year-old girl, and a 29-year-old woman who died in separate suicides this week. The deaths add to the Ontario reserve's already tragic reputation of having the highest suicide rate per capita of any North American community. There were eight suicides last year and five so far this year in a community of 2,000. The isolated reserve is just a short flight north of Red Lake, one of 50 native communities in Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault's riding. Last month Nault invoked a rarely used authority as minister and took control of the band away from chief and council, and hired an agent to run things. While it's not in financial trouble, Nault says the community leaders can't handle the suicides and the band's daily business at the same time. The community is challenging the minister in federal court, and the dispute has become a political battle neither side wants to lose. In the meantime, people in Pikangikum continue to suffer. Nault gets some sympathy from teacher Vesa Peltonen. "I've been here for two years and I've had three or four of my students kill themselves. Two each year. They've been mostly girls," she said. A patriarchal streak runs through the community. There's a hockey arena promoted for boys, but little else in the way of recreation. Peltonen adds that a particular brand of evangelical Christian belief has left the community unable to address the suicides. "The community just doesn't know how to deal with it, and they deal with it basically in a religious way. If that person has committed suicide, well then it's that person's fault." Pikangikum has refused to co-operate with the agent Nault hired. The school's been shut down and the teachers haven't been paid. On Friday the band secured a loan from Northern Stores so it could make good on its payroll. Community leaders argue they've been asking the Department of Indian Affairs for things such as a crisis line and a healing centre for years, going back to former minister Ron Irwin in 1994. But they've been turned down. And the suicides continue to haunt the community, leaving people like Kevin Suggashie worried. "I got four kids at home, and I was hoping for them to finish their school. But it's closed. There's no recreation co-ordinator here. It's frustrating, I find it frustrating." And it's for that reason that the head of the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention has asked Nault to restore control of the community to its chief and council. In a letter to the minister, Dave Masecar tells Nault he takes no sides in the dispute over management. But Masecar warns Nault's plan may backfire. Wresting control of the First Nation away from it's chief and council will cause feelings of helplessness and hopelessness to intensify in a community where they've already reached toxic levels. Written by CBC News Online staff Janet Smith Owlstar Trading Post http://www.owlstar.com --------- "RE: First Nations Chief angry with Minister" --------- Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 09:45:21 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ANGRY COONCOME" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm First Nations chief angry with minister WebPosted Fri Jun 8 08:05:40 2001 PIKANGIKUM, ONT. - An effort by the minister of Indian affairs to solve a suicide crisis in his own riding could be backfiring. Assembly of First Nations National Chief Matthew Coon Come was on the Pikangikum reserve in northern Ontario on Thursday, and what he heard from the people there made him angry with Indian Affairs Minister Bob Nault. Nault's department took control of the reserve last month, hiring an agent in London, Ont., to look after its business affairs. The idea was to get the books in order and to free the chief and council to focus on the alarming rate of suicides among their people. But Coon Come said the move was that of "a minister who is abusing his authority, behaving as a dictator." It's also a move that appears to be causing more problems - without solving the one it was meant to deal with. The school on the reserve is closed because teachers aren't being paid. The fuel supply for power generators may soon be cut off and water and sewage treatment is threatened. At the same time, three people have killed themselves since the agent was hired - two this week. Nault says he took control from the band council at the urging of Coon Come. "The national chief asked me himself over a year ago when am I going to so something about the suicides in my own back yard," he said. "This is not something that can be resolved overnight. This community has some major issues it has to deal with." Nault says he's always been willing to discuss co-management, which would at least give the community a say in it's own affairs. But the band is instead asking a federal court to restore full control. Coon Come says he's working on a political strategy with the community which he won't share, but he says things could get ugly. "I don't want another OKA, I don't want another Ipperwash, I don't want another Burnt Church," he said. "But if you have nothing to lose, you'll do anything." Written by CBC News Online staff Curt Petrovich reports for CBC Radio Copyright c. 2001 CBC News Online --------- "RE: Red Bank N.B. Reserve signs Fishery Deal" --------- Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 09:42:23 EDT From: ErthAvengr@aol.com Subj: Fwd: Red Bank, N.B. reserve signs fishery deal Mailing List: ndn-aim http://WWW.GlobeAndMail.CA/servlet/RTGAMArticleHTMLTemplate/D/20010607/ wfisherydeal?tf=RT/fullstory.html ------ Forward ------- From: senior-staff@nativenewsonline.org (Senior Staff) Mailing List: Native News N.B. reserve signs fishery deal Canadian Press Saint John, N.B. - Federal Fisheries Minister Herb Dhaliwal is hailing his department's first interim fishing deal in New Brunswick as a breakthrough for peace on the water. The Red Bank, N.B., band has signed a three-year deal with Ottawa that includes money for everything from fishing licences to gear and training. "I think every time we sign an agreement, it's a breakthrough," Mr. Dhaliwal said in Ottawa on Wednesday. "I think this will be a model in terms of how to create real opportunities for some of our aboriginal communities. It's a very good sign." Mr. Dhaliwal did not have specifics of the deal, but said it is part of the "hundreds of millions of dollars" Ottawa will spend trying to sign new deals with the 34 native bands in Atlantic Canada and Quebec affected by the Supreme Court of Canada's so-called Marshall decision. The 1999 ruling gave Mi'kmaq and Maliseet bands the right to earn a moderate livelihood from fishing, hunting and gathering. Red Bank is the fifth band - after two in Quebec and two in Nova Scotia - to sign an interim deal. Mr. Dhaliwal said his federal negotiator, James MacKenzie, is in discussions with "many more" bands. He said it's "difficult to predict" if a deal can be reached with the Burnt Church, N.B., reserve, where some of the most violent clashes have occurred between native fishermen and fishery officials. --------- "RE: Seminole Tribal Council fires Three Officials" --------- Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 07:13:08 -0700 (PDT) From: Paul Pureau Subj: Tribal Council fires three officials Mailing List: ndn-aim Tribal Council fires three officials By JEFF TESTERMAN Copyright c. St. Petersburg Times, published June 5, 2001 TAMPA -- In the wake of the ouster of Seminole Tribal Chairman James E. Billie, the shake-up of tribal government has continued with the firing of three top administrators. Fired by the Tribal Council on Friday and escorted from tribal headquarters in Hollywood were controller Hugh Chang-Alloy, personnel director Diana Sgroi and information systems manager Al Skavroneck. "I think in the minds of the council members, these people were too closely associated with (former operations manager) Tim Cox," said Seminole General Counsel Jim Shore. "I think the council just felt safer taking them out." Cox, Billie's handpicked top administrator, was fired May 10 after tribal members questioned a secret hotel deal Cox put together in Nicaragua and a $500,000 consulting fee he took from the developers of the tribe's proposed $400-million Hard Rock Cafe hotel-casinos in Hollywood and Tampa. Billie, the tribe's elected chairman since 1979, was suspended by the Tribal Council on May 24 over misconduct alleged in a federal sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Christine O'Donnell, the tribe's former director of administration. O'Donnell claims Billie got her pregnant, forced her to get an abortion, then fired her and paid her off with tribal money -- $100,000 worth of phony sick time. The $100,000, representing 345 days of unused sick time, was delivered by Cox, according to O'Donnell's suit. Shore said Monday that the tribal council fired Chang-Alloy partly because of his trips to Nicaragua with Cox. Shore said the tribe is still trying to determine what tribal money was used in the Legends Hotel purchase arranged by Cox, who had set up a company to operate a Hard Rock Live restaurant in the 95-room hotel in downtown Managua. Billie's unpaid suspension is pending the resolution of O'Donnell's lawsuit and a special outside audit of tribal spending. ===== FREE LEONARD PELTIER NOW STOP THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE TO SUBSCRIBE TO NDN-AIM SEND A BLANK EMAIL TO: NDN-AIM-SUBSCRIBE@YAHOOGROUPS.COM FOR OTHER ACTIVIST ISSUES: AMERI-ADVOCATE-SUBSCRIBE@YAHOOGROUPS.COM --------- "RE: Suspended Seminole Leader James Billie sues Tribe" --------- Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 09:34:47 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JIM BILLIE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm Wednesday, June 6, 2001 Suspended Seminole leader James Billie sues tribe The Associated Press HOLLYWOOD, Fla. - James Billie has sued the Seminole Tribe of Florida, saying the Tribal Council did not have the authority to suspend him as chairman. The lawsuit - filed in U.S. District Court - asks the council to reinstate Billie and give him back pay dating to his suspension, said Billie's attorney, Robert Saunooke, on Tuesday. Saunooke said he plans to argue in court that the tribal constitution has no guidelines for suspending an elected leader. There are guidelines for removing a leader with a recall petition, but those were not followed, he said. Billie, 57, led the tribe for 22 years and developed its highly profitable gambling operation. He was suspended indefinitely on May 24 after Christine O'Donnell, the tribe's former director of administration, charged in a federal lawsuit that Billie had gotten her pregnant, forced her to have an abortion and then fired her. Billie was initially reluctant to file the lawsuit, Saunooke said, preferring that the tribe consider his case. The lawsuit, which was filed late Monday, names the tribe, Tribal general counsel Jim Shore and the four other members of the Tribal Council as defendants. Information from: The Miami Herald Copyright 2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. Copyright c. 2001 The Florida Times-Union --------- "RE: War on Bison" --------- Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2001 10:02:55 -0400 From: Pat Morris Subj: War on Bison Mailing List: ndn-aim http://www.greenjournal.com/articles.html?article_id=100968454 War on Bison 06/01/01 The Montana Department of Livestock wants no bison grazing in its state. It asserts the right to kill any bison wandering from Yellowstone National Park. The livestock industry says it fears transmission of brucellosis to cattle. Wildlife advocates have condemned the policy, challenged it in court, and tried to save wandering bison by driving them back into the Park. No transmission of brucellosis from bison to cattle has ever been documented. Recently the Department of Livestock (DOL) tried to capture three bison in the Gallatin National Forest, presumably for execution. They wanted no witnesses and persuaded the Forest Service and Gallatin County sheriff to close the area to public access. Oddly, the closest cattle were fifty miles away. One Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC) volunteer and a journalist tried to enter the area, were arrested, taken to jail in Bozeman, and charged with obstructing a peace officer. "Bison have the same right as other wildlife to use public lands outside of Yellowstone," declared Mike Mease BFC field coordinator. "Thousands of elk, which also carry brucellosis, leave the park every winter unmolested. But DOL knows that if they mess with elk they'll have the entire hunting lobby on their backs.". BFC's Peter Leusch said "In Grand Teton National Park vaccinated cattle have co- mingled with bison for forty years." Several operating cattle ranches remain inside the Park. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> http://www.geocities.com/wlfskr http://forums.delphi.com/Wolfseeker <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> "On the ragged edge of the world I'll roam. And the home of the Wolf Will be my home." Robert Service <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> To subscribe to this group,send an email to: ndn-aim-subscribe@egroups.com Archived on line at: http://www.eScribe.com FREE LEONARD PELTIER --------- "RE: Chiapas Governor loses Peace Hopes" --------- Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 19:57:03 From: KOLA Subj: Chiapas/Mexico: Salazar loses hope of peace talks <+>=<+>KOLA Newslist<+>=<+> [from Anne Bates. Thanks!] From: " Dana Aldea" >To: chiapas-i@eco.utexas.edu Chiapas governor loses peace hopes Salazar sees dead end in bid to reach deal with rebels TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico, June 6 Efforts to end 's Zapatista rebellion are at a dead end Indians' constitutional rights only months after hopes for peace soared in a government sea change, the state governor in the rebels' stronghold said. Six months after taking office in Chiapas, a move that seemed to augur an end to the state's armed uprising, Gov. Pablo Salazar told Reuters: "I see no options now." "THERE IS disenchantment. We must recapture that optimism based on deeds once again," the veteran of the peace process added in this tropical state capital late on Tuesday. Salazar's assessment comes despite elections last year that ended the 71-year hold of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) on the presidential palace and the governor's chair in Chiapas bringing a fresh political will to achieve peace. It also follows key government concessions and a landmark Zapatista cross-country tour promoting an Indian rights bill that raised hopes for renewed peace talks. Those hopes faded when the rebels returned to their jungle stronghold, rejecting the rights legislation passed by Congress in April because they said it watered-down their demands for greater self-determination in Indian communities. But Salazar, whose peace activist credentials have been hailed as crucial to restarting dialogue between the government and Zapatistas, tempered his pessimism. He noted that while the Zapatistas have refused to return to peace talks, they have not opted for a renewed military offensive either, a sign their strategy will remain political. And although some accuse the rebels of intransigence, Salazar said he trusts their "sincere will to dialogue." FOX'S CHOICE The 46-year-old human rights lawyer took office as governor of this impoverished southern state just eight days after the Dec. 1 inauguration of President Vicente Fox another plain-speaker who has vowed to press for peace. Their elections breathed new life into the peace process in Chiapas, home to more than 3.5 million people, about a third of them Indians, where the Zapatista rebels took up arms in 1994 to defend indigenous rights. But giant steps on the path to relaunch peace talks Fox's withdrawal of troops from key Chiapas military bases, the rebel command's historic march to the national parliament in Mexico City, congressional approval of the rights law have only led back to the deadlock of the past five years. The Zapatistas' war and subsequent clashes between rebel sympathizers and paramilitaries have claimed up to 200 lives. Amid what local media call an increasingly tense relationship with the rebels, Salazar fights the grinding poverty underlying the rebellion, resistance from the PRI-controlled state legislature and community violence. LACKING LEGITIMACY The constitutional reforms involving Indian rights passed by the Congress are likely to be ratified by a majority of the 31 states, but their rejection by the Zapatistas and indigenous leaders make them virtually useless in advancing peace. State assemblies in Oaxaca, a heavily indigenous state bordering Chiapas, and Zacatecas rejected the measure on Tuesday. The Zapatistas have pledged to remain in their mountain hide-outs until the original rights bill proposed by Fox is enacted. That proposal was based on the 1996 San Andres accords between the rebels and a congressional peace commission. Salazar participated in the accords as a federal PRI senator and member of the commission. He later broke with the party and was elected governor on a coalition ticket that included Fox's conservative National Action Party (PAN) and the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Salazar acknowledged the final version of the measure approved by Congress falls short of the intent of the accords in balancing national sovereignty with individual rights against autonomy for Indian communities. <+>=<+> KOLA Information: http://users.skynet.be/kola/index.htm KOLA Petitions: http://kola-hq.hypermart.net KOLA Greeting Cards: http://users.skynet.be/kola/cards.htm --------- "RE: Crow Tribe reduces 700 Workers Pay to $5.15" --------- Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 07:4:23 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CROW WORKERS" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm Crow Tribe reduces 700 workers pay to $5.15 By JAMES HAGENGRUBER Of The Gazette Staff Many of the Crow Tribe's 700 employees received smaller than expected paychecks last week after tribal leaders decided to cut wages. Because of tight budgets and a problem renewing certain federal grants, the tribe's $7 per hour minimum wage was decreased to $5.15 per hour, which is the federal minimum wage, said tribal spokesman Leroy Not Afraid. Department directors were not affected, he said. When tribal leaders took office in July they made good on a campaign promise to raise wages to $7 per hour. Last week's wage cuts have caused grumbling among the tribe's remaining workers, according to a tribal employee who refused to give his name fearing firing. The employee said he was rudely surprised last week when his twice-monthly paycheck was $106 smaller than usual. "This hurts all of us. I have bills. I was counting on that money," he said. "There's a lot of people pretty disgruntled about this." An estimated 400 tribal employees have been laid off since March. The tribe is the largest employer on the 2.4-million acre Crow Reservation, where unemployment is at 44 percent among the residents enrolled as tribal members. Not Afraid said there were 1,100 tribal employees during most of the winter months. Today there are about 700 employees, he said. "The chairman's philosophy was to employ people to the very maximum during the winter months because the chairman felt the Crow people should not go without during the winter months," he said. "When springtime came around, we needed to cut back." Not Afraid said the previous tribal leaders left a $26 million debt and had not reapplied for federal grants to run certain tribal programs. "We feel that was a retaliation effort by the previous administration to basically make us look bad," Not Afraid said. Members of the previous administration have denied leaving such a debt. They point to $3 million previously set aside in a bank account to build a new campus for the tribe's college. The tribe is working to find new sources of funding and regain federal grants, Not Afraid said. "We're speaking to several companies interested in forming a partnership to mine coalbed methane," he said. A new budget will be considered by the tribal council in July. James Hagengruber can be reached at 657-1232 or at jhagengruber@billingsgazette.com Copyright c. 2001 The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: Eastern Band Cherokee debates use of Sacred Land" --------- Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 07:4:23 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CHEROKEE HOMELAND" Tribe debates use of sacred land By Quintin Ellison, STAFF WRITER Posted: 06-04-01 01:30 CHEROKEE - As a child, Eddie Bushyhead sometimes wondered where his people came from and why they settled in the Southern Appalachians. When the boy would ask those questions, he'd receive this answer: The Cherokee are from here. "I didn't understand what they meant," Bushyhead said. "But I do now." According to legend and belief, the Cherokee are from Kituwah (pronounced ga-doo-wa). It is here that priests shared divinely ordained clan laws and ethical codes after receiving them from spirits on Clingmans Dome. It is in Kituwah where the people became the "Ani-Kitu'hwagi," the people of Kituwah, a name still used by many Cherokee. "This is where we were born," Bushyhead said. The location of the Cherokee's traditional birthplace isn't shrouded in mystery. Kituwah is outside the Cherokee Indian Reservation boundary, three miles east of Bryson City, on a huge swath of flat land. The property was seized from the tribe in 1823. But five years ago, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians paid more than $3 million for a 309-acre tract that includes the sacred village. Since then, tribe members have debated whether to develop the property or leave it alone. The proposals have ranged from a golf course to an interpretive village. By year's end, the tribe is likely to make a critical decision about whether to preserve Kituwah or take advantage of the site's economic possibilities. The outcome of that decision involves not only the tribe's heritage, but also the fate of the richest, most-significant archaeological site in Western North Carolina. A treasure trove of history Gerald Schroedl marches through rows of 4-inch high corn. In his right hand is a white-colored, L-shaped machine called a gradiometer. The University of Tennessee anthropology professor is measuring variations in the earth's magnetic field. It is a non-intrusive way to help him uncover Kituwah's secrets. The Cherokee have endured decades of watching people uncover their ancient burial grounds and meddle with burials and funerary objects. During this archaeological survey - the tribe's own - there is an emphasis on minimal disturbance. The tribe's leaders decided to conduct the survey before considering any development proposals. What Schroedl's machine and other examinations have revealed doesn't surprise Brett Riggs, the project's lead archaeologist. "It's the largest, densest and most complex archaeological site in WNC," he said. There is evidence of near-continuous occupation for 10,000 years. A few weeks ago, an 8,000-year-old soapstone bowl was found. There is a mound at Kituwah, another indicator of the importance of the village. A council house once topped the site's mound, which has been shaved to a shadow by decades of tilling. The great fire once burned inside the council house. "The spiritual strength of that fire embodied the strength of the nation, " Riggs said. "Some believe that all of the flames that exists today, in traditional grounds here and in Oklahoma, are the lineal descendent of this flame." In addition to untold artifacts, Kituwah contains countless human burials. Tribal archaeologist Brian Burgess estimates there are at least 1,000. He's also convinced there is just one portion of the site that could be developed. "The only part is the dairy farm area, because it has already been disturbed," he said, referring to a set of structures where a local farming family once lived and worked. The decision ahead Mary Thompson, one of the tribe's 12 elected council members, is sitting alone in the council chamber sorting through papers. It's election time, and Thompson soon will be fighting to retain her seat. She represents Big Cove, a community of about 1,000 that has clung to traditional ways and where many would undoubtedly oppose the development of Kituwah. Thompson said she believes that all tribe members must decide Kituwah's fate, not just the council or those tribe members who speak loudest. "It needs to be put to referendum," she said. "Then Tribal Council would know what the people want. I think we need that direction." Vice Chief Carroll Crowe agrees that the tribe's members must be the decision-makers on this issue. "We need to put it out to the people," he said. "There are 12,500 people who have a say in this." The referendum could come this fall. Myrtle Driver is a traditionalist. She believes in the old ways, practices traditional medicine and joins with others to worship and honor the Creator at the sacred site of Kituwah. She is also scathing when she talks of those who would consider a golf course or housing development. "This is our mother town. This is where we come from," Driver said. "Anyone who has respect for Mother Earth can feel it when you walk out there. There's a spirit you can feel." Driver promises "a tremendous outcry" if the site is developed, though she does believe an interpretive village would be a suitable addition to Kituwah. Bushyhead, seated nearby, agrees that heavy development would be unsuitable. "It's just ridiculous that we have tribal leaders who pursue the idea," he said. "It shows you the gap between people who really understand what this is about and those who are in it for the money." Bushyhead also believes any decision the tribe makes will influence future dealings with other mountain communities, a number of which have found themselves at odds with the tribe over the treatment of archaeological sites. "This right here is going to be watched," Bushyhead said."Very closely." Contact Ellison at 452-1467 or QEllison@CITIZEN-TIMES.com Copyright c. 2000 Asheville Citizen-Times --------- "RE: Hopi Tribe blasts Activism" --------- Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 23:03:44 +0200 From: "H.F.C. Buma" Subj: Fwd: Hopi Tribe blasts activism Mailing List: ndn-aim TUTUVENI May 29, 2001 Hopi Ancestral Land Issues Press Releases Activism, Inc. Activism is Big Business Being a member of a wealthy and free society allows time for social conscience. When one doesn't have to worry about the basic needs of food, shelter and personal safety, one has the time to take on causes and help the less fortunate. As a result, charity and activism are big business in developed nations such as the US, Canada and Western Europe. In addition, it doesn't take much to get a cause going. One doesn't need massive amounts of capital, highly trained personnel, or even proof that the cause is genuine. Perhaps the most critical element is at least one individual who can convince the donor public that a cause is worth contributing to. Which makes it easy for people with questionable motives and dubious tactics to create or manipulate a cause. Good examples are the so-called activists involved with the Navajo resisters at Big Mountain who were highly successful in making a cause out of the 1974 Navajo-Hopi Settlement Act. The Act ultimately established boundaries that divided disputed land within the 1882 Hopi Reservation between the Hopi and Navajo. The members of both tribes who found themselves on the other tribe's land were ordered by the courts to move to their own land. The majority of affected families - both Navajo and Hopi - accepted the decision. However, a number of Navajo resisted the decision and in this resistance a handful of activists saw an opportunity. These activists operated under the guise of representing a group of traditional, elderly Navajos who were supposedly not equipped to fight the system that determined they had to move. The activists created jobs for themselves s, such as Non-Profit Director, Fundraiser, and Web Master, all of which were funded by donations raised on the premise that the money would be used to relieve the alleged hardships of the Navajo families. The activists, all of whom were outsiders from far-away cities, gained national and international notoriety through their association with the resisting Navajo, securing speaking engagements, attending conferences and rubbing elbows with the world's "who's-who." Unfortunately, their message all too often consisted of misinformation and half-truths intended to generate sympathy, political support and dollars at the expense of reality. The activists used clever words and rhetoric, "genocide" and "relocation" being the two most popular words, to describe the so-called plight of their Navajo benefactors. In truth, the Hopi simply wanted full use of their land and the resisting Navajo, absent intervention from the courts, would not let them have it. Today, Navajo families remain on Hopi land, but now most remain with Hopi consent rather than as trespassers. For these people, finding a way to co-exist with the Hopi was more important than position and rhetoric. The remaining resisting Navajo families, those who refused to sign leases with the Hopi, now face the same fate that once brought the activists flocking to their doors so many years ago. The Manybeads appeal has been rejected by the Supreme Court, the Hopi Tribe owns and controls the land it regained under the 1974 Settlement Act, and the resisting Navajo families await eviction. The only benefits they apparently enjoyed from the presence and advice of the activists, temporary ones at that, were free hay and having their impounded livestock retrieved for them. Thankfully, not all activists have self-serving intentions when they champion a cause. Major advances in the arenas of human rights and environmental protection were won through grassroots activism. However, the donor public is rightly cautioned that not all causes assist the intended beneficiaries, and not all activists are selfless campaigners. for more info, see the 'official'web site of the Hopi tribe http://www.hopi.nsn.us/ ===== Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) is a group of individuals acting to support the sovereignty of the indigenous people affected by mining activities on Black Mesa, who face forced relocation, environmental devastation, and cultural extinction at the hands of multi-national corporations, and United States and tribal governments. http://www.blackmesais.org >>>>>-----------------------------><--------------------------------<<<<< Pray for the Dine'h and traditional Hopi at Big Mountain, AZ, USA. http://www.senaa.org , http://www.senaawest.org, http://www.senaaeurope.org UN draft declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, Article 10: "Indigenous Peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories. No relocations shall take place without the free and in- formed consent of the Indigenous Peoples concerned ....(...)........." See the video "Vanishing Prayer" at: http://www.freespeech.org/senaa and check out: http://www.hoganview.com for the Elder's words. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to this group,send an email to: ndn-aim-subscribe@egroups.com Archived on line at: http://www.eScribe.com FREE LEONARD PELTIER --------- "RE: Kuiu Pilgrimage" --------- Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 16:59:52 -0700 From: Rudy James Subj: Kuiu Pilgrimage June 8, 2001 Dear Family, Friends and Colleagues, The Kuiu Thlingit Peoples Respectfully Ask You To Pray for the Kuiu Island Peoples The US Supreme Court is hearing a "Quiet Title" lawsuit filed by the state of Alaska. The state is trying to take title to all the underwater lands in the Alexander Archipelago that includes Glacier Bay, the Tongass National Forest and areas around Kuiu Island and our ancestral waters. The Kuiu Tribal region is the cradle of much Thlingit spirituality, culture, law and history. Our people prefer to be self-sufficient, not relying upon handouts for food and shelter. Respect for and Preservation of Mother Earth and all her children is the cornerstone of our ecological beliefs. Living off the natural resources of the region, has always been the Kuiu Kwaan way of life. Access to traditional foods helps us maintain good health. We honor the tradition of the fruits of a harvest going first to elders, the infirm, widows, single mothers and others in need. No one has a lot while others go without. Federal statutes have offered some protection and guaranteed our ability to continue as a Thlingit People. If Alaska wins, the state will control all activities important to the life of the Thlingits such as traditional subsistence, fishing and gathering food. The state of Alaska takes the position that we Natives have no rights left. There is a Court higher than the United States Supreme Court - the Supreme Court of All the Universe. We are convicted that we need to bring our concerns for our Peoples and our ancestral lands and waters before the Creator's Throne. Monday, June 11, 2001 we embark on a ten day Pilgrimage of Prayer aboard the Tribal Fishing Vessel F/V Wolf Chief. During this time we will also be meeting with filmmakers on Kuiu who are producing a program for public television on the Kuiu tribe. The concept is to step out in faith and hold a meeting of ceremony and prayer in Ketchikan, then journey around Kuiu Island and circle our beloved home with prayers to the Creator, Dike'e Aankaawu, the Man From the Land Above. We intend to prayerfully lay our case before the Throne of God. We call on all our tribal members to take heart and have faith that great good can be achieved through intercession with the Creator of the Universe. We pray that the land be protected in its pristine state, that it be returned to its rightful owners and that we be able to feed our children and Elders and continue as a Thlingit People, honoring our culture and traditions. We pray that the Creator Bless and Protect the film crew that is journeying to Alaska to help us tell our story. To that end, we respectfully ask you to join us by lifting up the Kuius in prayer in your own tradition during our pilgrimage from June 11-21, 2001. Kindest Regards, ThlauGooYailthThlee, Rudy Al James Spokesman for the Kuiu Tribal Council What Staw, George Suckinaw James, Jr., Gowukaan Peacemaker Diana James, Tribal Administrator ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kuiu Kwaan Goals - To continue as a People - Maintain our culture and spirituality - Make a living in our traditional and customary way on our ancestral lands, waters and resources - Protect the environment, naturally restore habitat and spawning creeks - Save old-growth timber on Kuiu Island - Harvest resources on a sustained yield basis - Protect threatened and endangered species ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kuiu Post European Contact Timeline + 1836 First smallpox epidemic hits Kuiu Island. + 1862 Smallpox introduced by contaminated blankets, decimates most of the Kuiu Kwaan. + 1869 The US Military at Sitka, commanded by Jeff C. Davis, ordered a US naval vessel to bombard 8 Kuiu longhouses and systematically destroy canoes, hunting and fishing equipment. + 1934 US Marshals forced Kuiu families out of their homes and off tribal lands at gunpoint under threat of prison sentences for adults and orphanages for the children. + 1934 Clear-cut logging destroyed tribal lands on Kosciusko Island. Logging continues with no compensation to the tribe, while fragile eco-systems are beyond recovery. + 1935 Three year old youngster (Elmer James) dies after Kuius were ordered to move into small, two-room substandard housing that did not keep out the Alaska damp, cold winds. + 1950 Approximately 90% of the Alaska commercial fishermen were Indians with less than 10% of the fleet made up of immigrants. + 1971 Kuiu, Tenakee and Yakutat Kwaans left out of Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. + 2001 Approximately 90% of the commercial fishermen are now non-Natives with 10% Indigenous. In the state of Washington approximately 900+ permits to fish Alaska are held by residents, doctors and lawyers who fish commercially "for fun," not to mention the foreign fleets who are licensed to fish the same waters. - Out of more than 1600+ tribal members, the Kuiu tribe has only one license to seine salmon. - The US Forest Service has allowed clear-cut logging on the northern end of Kuiu Island. Old growth timber is being taken without consideration for fragile eco-systems, plant and animal life. - The state of Alaska has denied Indigenous Peoples customary use and trade, in conflict with US statute (ANILCA) that guarantees subsistence priority. Commercial fisheries are allowed to use methods that destroy ecosystems and engage in unbridled waste. - Weirs (cement or wire barriers) set across rivers disrupt salmon spawning. Salmon runs on many rivers have been annihilated as a result. - Alaska Fish and Game requires fishermen to throw dead King Salmon back into the ocean that have been caught while fishing for other species. The "incidental catch" law conflicts with tribal law prohibiting waste. Indigenous natives are not allowed to give the fish to elders or those in need. - Elders have been jailed for catching salmon to eat and another Elder suffering from Parkinson's disease was fined for walking down a road with a rod and reel "thinking about going fishing." - Sea Otter have excessively proliferated and compete for seafood normally utilized by natives. Tribal members cannot make use of pelts because of unfairfish and game regulations. - Winter's deep snow causes deer to walk beaches to survive. Yearlings and adult deer have been shot by non-indigenous peoples for target practice by persons who go unpunished for wanton waste. --------- "RE: Federal Ruling: Oneida Land is Indian Country" --------- Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 09:45:21 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ONEIDA LAND" Indianz.Com http://www.indianz.com/SmokeSignals/Headlines/showfull.asp?ID=law/672001 Judge: Oneida land is Indian Country JUNE 7, 2001 A federal judge in New York on Wednesday ruled that land puchased by the Oneida Nation in Oneida County is Indian Country. As a result, the land cannot be taxed by local govenments and it cannot be subject to foreclosure. The city of Sherille began foreclosure proceedings on land the tribe owns, claiming back taxes of $23,000. The judge said the tribe proved the land it purchased falls within its territory as defined by the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua. The ruling vindicates long held arguments of the tribe. It also supports claims made by former Assistant Secretary Kevin Gover, who last year told Oneida and other tribal officials their land automatically becomes Indian Country. The city and county are planning an appeal to the 2nd Circuit. The Story: Judge sides with Oneidas on foreclosure case By Associated Press, 6/6/2001 10:32 SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) Local government officials say they will appeal a federal judge's decision that prohibits them from taxing or foreclosing on land owned by the Oneida Indian Nation. U.S. District Court Judge David Hurd ruled Wednesday that property acquired by the Oneidas in the city of Sherrill and Madison County is considered reservation land and exempt from taxes or foreclosure. The decision will be appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Sherrill Mayor Dwight Evans said. "We think the judge is seriously wrong on a number of points," said Madison County Attorney John Campanie. Sherrill began foreclosure two years ago on nearly a dozen properties owned by the Oneidas over the tribe's refusal to pay what is now $23,000 in property taxes, penalties and interest. The properties included the Oneidas' T-shirt printing factory and a gas station. The county followed with its own foreclosures on Oneida-owned properties. The Oneidas filed lawsuits in federal court to block the proceedings. "The Oneida Indian Nation is grateful that the federal court recognized the Oneida reservation in the Sherrill lawsuit," tribal officials said in a statement. "We hope this will pave the way for solving all land claim issues by negotiated settlement." The nation maintains that any land acquired in its 270,000-acre ancestral land claim area reverts to sovereign reservation land and cannot be taxed. Hurd said the nation provided "undisputed facts that establish that the properties are within the Oneidas' aboriginal lands and within the reservation confirmed by the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua." Sherrill, however, "has not raised even a metaphysical doubt as to these material facts," the judge wrote in a 76-page decision. Hurd ruled specifically on 23 parcels of land that were the basis of the lawsuit. Campanie said it was not clear if the decision would extend to all the land the nation has bought in Oneida and Madison counties. The nation lost all but 32 acres of its reservation land in Madison and Oneida counties to New York state in a series of transactions in the 18th and 19th centuries and filed a lawsuit in 1974 to reclaim the land. The U. S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Oneidas, who are negotiating with the state and two counties over damages. Using the profits from its casino and other business ventures, the Oneidas have acquired more than 13,000 acres inside the land claim boundaries. Copyright c. 2001 Boston Globe Electronic Publishing, Inc. Oneida Nation Statement: 6/5/2001 15:17est Oneida Nation Representative Ray Halbritter's statement in response to a federal judge's ruling in the Sherrill lawsuit: "The Oneida Nation is grateful that the federal court recognized the Oneida reservation in the Sherrill lawsuit. "We hope that this will pave the way for solving all land claim issues by negotiated agreement. "It is time for the entire community to turn away from conflict and to cooperate for a better future for all of us." --------- "RE: Supreme Court lets Tigua Tribe be Sued" --------- Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 07:4:23 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TIGUA" URL http://www.indianz.com/SmokeSignals/Headlines/showfull.asp?ID=mm/652001 Supreme Court lets Tigua Tribe be sued JUNE 5, 2001 In a victory for the state of Texas, the Supreme Court on Monday turned down an attempt by the Ysleta Del Sur Tigua Tribe to keep a long-running dispute over its casino out of the court system. Without comment, the Court let stand a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals decision which upheld the right of Texas to sue the tribe over the operation of the Speaking Eagle Casino near El Paso. The state claims the tribe offers its patrons slot machines, keno, and various card games in violation of state law. The tribe, on the other hand, has held the games should be allowed because Texas has a lottery. In other states, a lottery has cleared the way for Class III, or Vegas-style gaming, although no court has yet weighed in on the issue in Texas. But what the courts have said so far hasn't been kind to the tribe. After opening a casino in 1993, the tribe attempted to force then Governor Ann Richards to negotiate a Class III compact under the guises of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA). The tribe, however, was unsuccessful. In a ruling which the state believes is crucial to its case, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said the 1987 law which restored the tribe's federal recognition would govern gaming on the reservation, not IGRA. The tribe kept fighting, but didn't have much luck convincing then Governor George W. Bush to negotiate a compact either. Another lawsuit failed as Bush angered tribal leaders on the Presidential campaign trail saying he believed state law reigned "supreme" over tribes. He later clarified his remarks about tribal sovereignty. But with the help of $1.5 million in funds provided by Bush, Attorney General John Cornyn in 1999 sued to shut down the casino, claiming the tribe had "broken" a promise not to engage in any type of gaming in violation of the 1987 law. The tribe tried to have the case dismissed, only to be rebuffed by the Supreme Court yesterday. With the legal hurdles seemingly out of the way, Cornyn is now getting ready to go to court next month. A hearing in federal court has been scheduled for July 16 and may finally result in a ruling to close the casino. "Today's ruling give the state a green light to proceed to a court hearing and final judgment on this matter," said Attorney General spokesperson Jane Shepperd yesterday. A bill that would have purportedly legalized gaming for the Tigua Tribe, the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe, and the Kickapoo Tribe failed to pass the Texas Legislature this year. Lt. Governor Bill Ratliff last month refused to let the bill come up for debate in the Senate after the House approved it. The Tigua Tribe was not available for comment yesterday. The casino has brought the 1,400-member tribe out of poverty and has reduced unemployment. It is estimated to bring in revenues of $50 million. The Kickapoo Tribe already operates a casino. The Alabama-Coushatta Tribe hopes to open a gaming facility as well. Copyright c. Indianz.Com 2000-2001. --------- "RE: Officer cleared in Shooting of Native Man" --------- Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 09:45:21 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="KILLING JUSTIFIED" Indianz.Com http://www.indianz.com/SmokeSignals/Headlines/showfull.asp?ID=law/6112001 Officer cleared in shooting of Native man JUNE 11, 2001 The Department of Justice has cleared a Fairbanks police officer who shot and killed an Alaska Native man last October. In a letter to the city, the department said there is not enough evidence to prosecute Officer Perry Williamson for the death of Corwin Vent. Vent was shot after an hour-long pursuit. Alaska Native organizations had called for the investigation. Copyright c. Indianz.Com 2000-2001. Get the Story: http://www.adn.com/metro/story/0,2633,273234,00.html Justice Department clears Fairbanks officer (AP 6/9) JUSTIFIED: Policeman shot and killed man after an hour long chase. The Associated Press (Published June 9, 2001) Fairbanks -- The federal Department of Justice has ruled there is not enough evidence to prosecute a Fairbanks police officer who shot to death a 22-year-old motorist at the end of a police chase. Officer Perry Williamson shot Corwin Vent after an hour long pursuit through Fairbanks streets on Oct. 29. The Fairbanks Police Department already had cleared Williamson. Chief James Welch said a few days after the event that Williamson was justified in shooting Vent, an Alaska Native whose family is from Huslia, because Vent placed both the public and officers at risk during the pursuit. Police determined that Williamson fired when Vent drove a van into the officer after being told to stop. Alaska Native organizations expressed outrage after the shooting and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice announced in November it would investigate. The Justice Department, in a letter received by the city, states that the "evidence is not sufficient to establish a prosecutable violation of the federal criminal civil rights statues." The letter said the Civil Rights Division enforces violations such as "the willful abuse of authority by public officials that deprives individuals of liberties and rights defined in the United States Constitution or federal law." On a Sunday afternoon police tried to stop Vent for reckless driving. The borrowed van Vent was driving reached speeds estimated up to 85 mph before police stopped the chase, officers said. Welch said at the time the department's policy is to abandon pursuit if it creates a hazard. Police resumed the chase after police dispatch received calls reporting the same van driving recklessly around Fairbanks -- running red lights and passing other vehicles on the right. Williamson parked his car at an intersection to block traffic. Instead, Vent drove slowly through two lanes of traffic, scraping a car beside him, according to a witness. Police said Williamson tried several times to get Vent to stop, but the van continued to move slowly forward between two lanes of traffic. When the van's bumper touched Williamson's legs, the officer fired three rounds into the windshield, killing Vent. District Attorney Harry Davis says he is waiting to see if the FBI collected additional information before he decides whether to prosecute Williamson at the state level. "There's a strong indication that there isn't any additional information," Davis said. Tanana Chiefs Conference counsel Chris Provost said the organization received a copy of the Department of Justice letter May 29. He said he is waiting for more information and for instruction from the four Native organizations who called for an independent inquiry. Copyright c. 2001 The Anchorage Daily News --------- "RE: Walk to Whiteclay" --------- Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 08:07:14 -0400 From: Pat Morris Subj: Walk to Whiteclay Mailing List: ndn-aim http://www.journalstar.com/native?story_id=90 Walk to Whiteclay: 300 people gather for memorial march BY JODI RAVE LEE Lincoln Journal Star WHITECLAY - A red bandanna held Roy Johnson Helper's long, straight, black hair in place Saturday as he walked with hundreds of Native marchers along a 2-mile stretch between the villages of Whiteclay and Pine Ridge, S.D. This wasn't the dark, weathered-faced man's first trip to Whiteclay, but it was one that evoked hurt, pain and troubled emotions. It had been a week, he said, since he had had a drink, and on this day he was marching for a friend, one whose life ended near Whiteclay two years ago. "I love my brother," Helper said as he walked the hot black pavement in dull, faded jeans. "I feel like crying sometimes," he said, the words no sooner said than tears appeared. And while Whiteclay elicits a personal ache, deep inside, that ache also links him to a town marred by sex and drugs, booze and death. "Whiteclay has a history of trading sex, drugs and stolen goods for alcohol, providing alcohol on credit, selling to underage individuals, to intoxicated people," said Frank LaMere, a Winnebago who marched to show his support for the Lakota people of South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation. Helper and about 300 people gathered in the streets of Whiteclay Saturday as part of a multi-ethnic march to commemorate the yet-unsolved deaths of two men who have risen to represent what Whiteclay is - and what people want it to be. Today, it's a town where four beer stores sell nearly four million cans of beer annually to residents of the nearby reservation, where alcohol is prohibited. But there are those who envision a town with no retail beer sales, its land officially recognized as part of the reservation. Although Whiteclay has been noted regionally for decades, it grabbed national headlines two years ago. On June 8, 1999, the brutally beaten bodies of Ronald Hard Heart and Wilson "Wally" Black Elk were found in field near Whiteclay just north of the reservation border. Since then, organizers like Tom Poor Bear have organized marches, sometimes on a weekly basis, between Pine Ridge and Whiteclay. Poor Bear described Saturday's march as successful. "We brought true unity to our people. All the races came to represent our Lakota Nation. There's only a handful of us, but we march for millions." The march ended with dozens of white Nebraskans joining the Lakota, the two groups forming a circle. "This kind of circle is the answer," said Anne Radford of Scottsbluff, who participated as a result of organized efforts by Nebraskans for Peace. Those who marched met expectations of organizers, state officials and police officers. It was a peaceful event marked by prayer and solidarity. "I would credit the fact that the marches have been peaceful . . . to the cooperation between Nebraska government officials, the tribal police and Tom Poor Bear," said Lt. Bret Friesz, a spokesman for the Nebraska State Patrol. But not many people can forget the first march, in July 1999, marking Hard Heart's and Black Elk's deaths and protesting the beer sales. It sparked a riot that resulted in the looting and burning of a store. Poor Bear has blamed the presence of 100 police officers in riot gear and armed with tear gas for provoking the violence. Stan Star Comes Out, then Oglala Sioux Tribe chief of police, blames Oglala Lakota activist Russell Means, who was one of nine people arrested for crossing a police barrier into Nebraska. "It was his speech that incited the incident," said Star Comes Out, one of 40 Oglala police officers on hand in case violence broke out at Saturday's march. Means didn't attend Saturday, and tribal police joined 40 Nebraska state troopers, most making up a reserve force that kept out of sight. For people like LaMere, who marched to show his solidarity with the Lakota, Whiteclay represents a cancer that has afflicted many. "Every reservation has its Whiteclay," said LaMere. "The country is watching and hoping we can make change. When we change things at Whiteclay, we will change things throughout Indian Country." <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> http://www.geocities.com/wlfskr http://forums.delphi.com/Wolfseeker <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> "On the ragged edge of the world I'll roam. And the home of the Wolf Will be my home." Robert Service <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> To subscribe to this group,send an email to: ndn-aim-subscribe@egroups.com Archived on line at: http://www.eScribe.com FREE LEONARD PELTIER --------- "RE: Governor Meets with Oglala" --------- Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 06:37:18 -0700 (PDT) From: Paul Pureau Subj: Johanns, Oglala Sioux Meet, Talk Mailing List: ndnaim Published Tuesday June 12, 2001 Johanns, Oglala Sioux Meet, Talk BY PAUL HAMMEL WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER Lincoln - Two topics - allegations of overzealous law enforcement and the prospect of building a tribal nursing home near Whiteclay, Neb. - dominated a meeting about solving problems associated with massive beer sales at the border village. In response to the problems, the Nebraska State Patrol has stepped up traffic stops and roadblocks near Whiteclay, where four beer-only liquor stores sell 4 million cans a year to residents of the officially dry Pine Ridge Indian Reservation just across the South Dakota border. John Yellow Bird Steele, president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said the beer sales enact a terrible toll on the reservation, contributing to massive alcoholism, domestic violence, murders and rising alcohol-related diseases. While Steele said Monday's meeting was a good first step toward addressing problems, he criticized the recent crackdown as harassment. "The focus is against our people instead of focusing on the liquor sales," Steele said. He said his tribal vice chairman had been jailed after being stopped at a State Patrol compliance check. Passengers also have been checked, Steele said. Recently, merchants in Whiteclay and nearby Rushville, Neb., have complained, saying that the increased patrols are scaring away customers. Gov. Mike Johanns, who organized what was characterized as the Whiteclay summit, appeared somewhat irritated by the allegations Monday. The governor said he ordered the crackdown because of "demands" by business owners in Whiteclay and others. Johanns said the traffic stops and roadblocks have been evenhanded. Steele disagreed that the stops targeted both whites and Indians. Johanns said he would investigate. Monday's meeting follows several months of protests in Whiteclay about the beer sales and the unsolved murders of two Lakota men. Saturday, about 300 people marched on Whiteclay on the second anniversary of the murders. Johanns said there are several issues that the tribe and the state can work on together. He reacted positively to a request that the State of Nebraska help build a long-sought nursing home on tribal land near Whiteclay. A moratorium on building new nursing homes in South Dakota has stymied the project on that side of the border, Steele said. Nebraska not only could help solve a nagging problem but also could aid in changing the perception of Whiteclay as only a place where beer is sold, tribal officials said. "It's hard to envision Whiteclay as a place for economic development and jobs, but it could be," said David "Tolly" Plume. He is director of the "empowerment zone" set up after President Clinton's visit to the reservation in 1999. Plume said the empowerment zone designation would give the tribe preferential treatment in obtaining federal grants to build a nursing home. In a telephone interview, Damian Prunty, South Dakota's state Medicaid director, said that such a nursing home would be a "two-state issue" that both states would need to discuss. ===== Paul Pureau to subscribe to ndn-aim send a blank mail to: ndn-aim-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.com ndn-aim is now archived on line at Http://www.escribe.com/life/ndn-aim/ FREE PELTIER NOW! STOP ETHNIC CLEANSING OF THE LAKOTA! --------- "RE: The Legacy of Wounded Knee" --------- Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 09:45:21 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="WOUNDED KNEE 1973" truthout forum http://www.truthout.com/0297.MC.CivRts.Pt3.htm ISSUE FORUM HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES: THE UNFINISHED STORY CURRENT POLITICAL PRISONERS - VICTIMS OF COINTELPRO PART 2 : THE LEGACY OF WOUNDED KNEE MR. ELISON: As I was introduced before, my name is Bruce Elison. I am a criminal defense lawyer that is currently based in western South Dakota, where I have been for 25 years. On behalf of Leonard Peltier, who is now a grandfather, and my own children, I hereby want to thank the members of the Black Caucus, and particularly Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, for conducting this meeting here today. I mean, this is fantastic. Congresswoman McKinney, you have done what the Senate Intelligence Committee under Frank Church decided not to do, and what the Congress failed to do, despite strong recommendations of the necessity of such an inquiry by the chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and Amnesty International. I came to western South Dakota to be a staff attorney with a group called the Wounded Knee Defense Committee back in 1975, and I came from an urban Jewish upbringing in the New York City area. I was raised to believe in the importance of justice for all people. I was raised to believe in the importance of our democracy and our fundamental rights to free speech, freedom of association, and freedom to seek redress of grievances. From what I have seen over the last 25 years, Native Americans have many legitimate grievances, as do others in this country. Educated as a lawyer, I was taught that our courts exist to promote and preserve justice, our Congress to enact responsible legislation, and our executive branch to enforce the laws of our country. What I have experienced since my move West has both shocked, amazed, and terrified me as a citizen of this country and, more importantly, as a father, and I remain so today. I prepared a written text, since I understand that is what you are supposed to do when you testify in front of a congressional hearing, and I forgot my glasses, so you are going to have to bear with me. FBI documents and court records in the thousands, together with eyewitness accounts, show clearly that beginning in the late 1960s the FBI began a campaign of infiltration and disruption of the treaty and human rights movement which calls itself the American Indian Movement or AIM. FBI operations were directed towards the destruction of AIM and its grassroots supports in the urban and reservation communities containing the survivors of America's wars against its indigenous population of the last 400 or more years. Particular emphasis was directed by the FBI towards the descendants of the Lakota, who stopped the campaign of slaughter by General Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry, who now reside on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and some of the surrounding reservations. FBI operations against AIM began with surveillance of peaceful demonstrations of people calling for the enforcement of treaty rights, for human rights, for equal opportunities for jobs and housing and medical care, and for justice in America's courts. It soon led to the infiltration of informants and agent provocateurs, to the manipulation and use of our criminal justice system, and ultimately, out where I live, to state-sponsored terrorism in the Indian communities within this country. Documents show the FBI was assisted in the suppression of domestic dissent by agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the State Department, military intelligence, often enlisting the aid of State and local police and intelligence agencies throughout the country. It was a period in which the groundswell of people's movements in our communities were regarded as a threat by the Federal Government, perhaps due to its magnitude and intensity and the righteousness of the grievances being aired. The FBI targeted the voices, the members, the supporters, and the funders of those who stood up and visibly tried to obtain fundamental correction of the ills affecting millions of people across America. The FBI acted as if terrified by any signs of bridges across the barriers of color and ethnicity and the joint recognition of common problems and collective solutions that we could all work together to accomplish. Many of the documents that I have reviewed, that we obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, talk about the concern around the time of Wounded Knee, and between then and the firefight in Oglala, of the connections between the American Indian Movement and the Black Panther Party, particularly in California. After the 71 day siege at Wounded Knee in 1973, our criminal justice system became but an improper tool of the Domestic Security Section of the Intelligence Division of the FBI, in its efforts to destroy AIM. The man in charge of the Domestic Security Section at the time, whom others present today are well familiar with, was Richard G. Held. Based in Chicago, Held secretly came to Pine Ridge during the Wounded Knee occupation in 1973 to directly supervise FBI domestic security operations against AIM in the field. While claiming in documents that AIM members were engaging in acts of sedition, the Bureau sought to arrest hundreds in the aftermath of Wounded Knee, in the hopes that it would tap the strength and resources of the Movement and make it go away. It soon concluded that this approach was insufficient. As one FBI document stated, "There are indications that the indian militant problem in the area will not be resolved or discontinued with the prosecution of these insurgents." Most Wounded Knee criminal charges brought against hundreds of AIM members were eventually dismissed by Federal court judges for illegal use of the United States Military. The FBI then began to fund and arm and equip a group of more western-oriented Lakota men and women who called themselves the Guardians of the Oglala Nation, or the "goon squad" on the Pine Ridge Reservation. As many as 60 men, women, and children were killed in the period of political violence which then followed, and this is out of a population of 11,000 people. These were mostly members of AIM, members of their families, supporters, their friends, and sometimes simply people who were neighbors of those people involved in the movement. I remember staying in homes in Pine Ridge during this period where men felt compelled to keep loaded weapons nearby while they and their families, including children and elders, slept, fearful of the real and immediate danger of an attack by the goon squad in the night. People whose families lived for years in fear of immediate serious bodily injury or death in their homes, their yards, or walking in the streets of their community. And we are not talking at this time of random acts of mindless violence by those who are angry, mentally ill, desperate or lost in this country, but violence directed at them and their families because they believed in the traditional indian ways of their ancestors and belonged to or supported the American Indian Movement. One instance I personally witnessed involved FBI agents and a Bureau of Indian Affairs SWAT team escorting carloads of goon squad members and their weapons out of the community of Womblee after a day and night of armed attacks on the community. This resulted in the ambush murder of a young AIM member, and the burning and shooting up of several homes. One of the killers was given a deal by the FBI for five-year sentence in return for his testimony that two goon squad leaders had acted in self defense in their attack on four men who were unarmed in a vehicle. I investigated this murder at the request of the tribal president-elect, and was horrified by this deal, and the main killers went free. I represented a 14-year-old who was physically handicapped at the time, who was forced to face an adult sentence in adult court, charged with murdering one of three goons who had just threatened to kill him as one of them attacked him. Court testimony revealed that he had previously witnessed his brother being shot in the streets of a nearby town, his obviously pregnant sister being beaten in the stomach by a rifle butt, and his family hugging the floor of their rural home for nearly five hours while members of the goon squad fired semiautomatic and high-powered rifle bullets through the walls of their home. There was no investigation by the FBI of those responsible, although they were identified in each instance. This child's brother was involved in the American Indian Movement. That was the only connection the family had. I represented a young mother and AIM member named Anna Mae Pictou on weapons charges. She told me after her arrest that an FBI threatened to see her dead within a year unless she cooperated against members of AIM. In an operation previously used against members of the Black Panther Party, the FBI, through an informant named Doug Durham who had infiltrated AIM leadership, began a rumor that she was an informant. Six months later her body was found on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The FBI said she died of exposure. They cut off her hands, claiming that this was necessary to identify her, and buried her under the name of Jane Doe. We were able to get her body exhumed, and a second, independent autopsy revealed that rather than dying of exposure, that someone had placed a pistol to the back of her head and pulled the trigger. When I asked for her hands after the second autopsy, because she was originally not buried with her hands, an FBI agent went to his car and came back and handed me a box, and with a big smile on his face he said, "You want her hands? Here." I myself have been personally and directly threatened by agents of the FBI for my efforts to expose what the Bureau did on Pine Ridge and within the courts of our country. They seem to be fearful of what daylight could bring to their conduct in the past, and perhaps their plans for dealing with dissent in the future. U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Gerald Heaney, after reviewing numerous court transcripts and FBI documents, concluded that the United States Government overreacted at Wounded Knee. Instead of carefully considering the legitimate grievances of Native Americans, the response was essentially a military one which culminated in a deadly firefight on June 26, 1975, between Native Americans and FBI agents and U.S. Marshals. While Judge Heaney believed that the "Native Americans" had some culpability in the firefight that day, he concluded the United States must share the responsibility. It never has. The FBI has never been held accountable or even publicly investigated for what one Federal petit jury and Judge Heaney concluded was complicity in the creation of a climate of fear and terror on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The resulting firefight near Oglala was preceded by FBI documents internally declaring AIM to be one of the most dangerous organizations in the country and a threat to national security. It followed by two months the issuing of a position paper entitled "FBI Paramilitary Operations in Indian Country," a how-to plan of dealing with AIM in the battlefield. It referred, used such terms as "neutralization," which in the document it defined as "shooting to kill." It included the role of the then-Nixon White House in handling complaints as to such military tactics being utilized domestically. It followed by one month the build-up of FBI personnel on the Pine Ridge Reservation with mostly SWAT team members from various divisions of the FBI. It followed by three weeks an inspection tour of the reservation by senior FBI officials and the reporting of concern by those officials for the widespread support enjoyed by AIM in the outlying communities on the Pine Ridge Reservation, such as Oglala. The FBI headquarters document further referred to an area near Oglala which reportedly contained bunkers and would require the use of paramilitary forces to assault. Three weeks later a firefight broke out on the ranch of elders Cecelia and Harry Jumping Bull which lasted for nearly nine hours. FBI documents describe as many as 47 people being involved in the battle with SWAT teams of the FBI, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and State police agencies. Three young men lost their lives that day, each shot in the head, two FBI agents and one AIM member. And one thing, and I will detract from my notes for a moment, that I have always felt was so critical about the way the FBI has looked at that firefight and the way the American Indian Movement has looked at that firefight, is that for AIM people that day, before they left that area, before they were able to escape, they sat and prayed for the three men who died that day, all three. The FBI has always only considered that only two men died that day, their own agents. One of the agents had in his briefcase a map of the reservation. It had the Jumping Bull ranch circled with the word "bunkers" written next to it. The bunkers turned out to be aged and crumbling root cellars that one wouldn't want to defend in a spitball fight behind. Leonard Peltier and other AIM members from outside the reservation had come into the Jumping Bull area to help them celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. They had come in to join other local AIM members because the climate of violence on the reservation had gotten so intense that people felt the need to gain assistance from the outside, so men and women came in, including Leonard Peltier, and they brought with them their single- shot 22's and their rusted shotguns and a few hunting rifles that they were able to get, and they were in a camp on the Jumping Bull ranch. The government used the incident to increase its campaign of disruption and destruction of the American Indian Movement. FBI agents, dressed and equipped like combat soldiers, searched homes and questioned Pine Ridge residents at gunpoint. Armored vehicles patrolled the reservation, as did SWAT teams and National Guard helicopters. This was accompanied by a public disinformation campaign by the FBI, designed to make Oglala residents and their guests appear to be the aggressors and, in fact, terrorists. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights would soon report, "It is patently clear that many of the statements released to the media regarding the incident are either false, unsubstantiated, or directly misleading." You know, we used to think of, during the anti-war days of the war in Indochina, we used to talk about "bringing the war home." Well, I think the FBI kind of thought that that was really a good idea, and many of the tactics that they used in Indochina and Central America and other places in this world, they decided to try out on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Noting Leonard Peltier's regular presence and involvement in AIM activities throughout the country, the FBI targeted him for prosecution from the desks of its agents. According to FBI documents, about two and a half weeks after the firefight, the Bureau was going to, in its own words, "develop information to lock Peltier into the case," and it set out to do so. The FBI eventually charged four AIM members, including Peltier, with the killing of the agents. No one has ever been prosecuted for the killing of AIM member Joe Stuntz that day. After hearing testimony of numerous eyewitnesses to the violence directed at AIM members by the goon squad and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, two of Leonard Peltier's codefendants were acquitted on self-defense grounds by an all-white jury in the conservative town of Cedar Rapids, Iowa--truly a remarkable thing, but people who were willing to keep their eyes and their ears open and listen to the truth, and were able, by a judge who had the courage and willingness to learn himself, to allow this evidence to be presented. However, after those acquittals, the FBI analyzed why these two men, these two long-haired indian militant men could be acquitted by an all- white jury, and decided a new judge was needed. FBI documents show that a meeting in Washington, D.C. at FBI headquarters, there was a decision made to "put the full prosecutive weight of the Federal Government" against Leonard Peltier. Evidence shows the government used now admittedly false eyewitness affidavits to extradite Peltier from Canada. This would catch the attention of Amnesty International and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, but only a little bit. The Court of Appeals would call such conduct "a clear abuse of the investigative process by the FBI" and gives credence to the claims of indian people that if the government is willing to fabricate evidence to extradite a person in this country, it is willing to fabricate evidence to convict those branded as the enemy. Well, absolutely true, but Leonard Peltier remains in prison. At Peltier's trial the government presented evidence and argued to the jury that he personally shot and killed the agents. To do this, the government presented ballistics evidence purportedly connecting a shell casing found near the agents' bodies with a rifle said to be possessed by Peltier on that day, and the coerced and fabricated eyewitness account of a terrified teenager, claiming that the agents followed Peltier in a van, precipitating the firefight in Oglala. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the ballistics evidence was a fraud; that the rifle could not have fired the expended casing found near the body. Further, the FBI had suppressed evidence showing the agents followed a pickup, not a van, into the compound, and thought someone else, not Peltier, was in that vehicle. Citing the case of Leonard Peltier as an example, Amnesty International has called for an independent inquiry into the use of our criminal justice system for political purposes by the FBI, other intelligence agencies in this country. Amnesty cited similar concerns for other members of AIM and other victims of the COINTELPRO-type operations by the FBI. I will submit to you, when the government can select a person for criminal persecution because of their political activity, when they can fabricate evidence against that person and suppress evidence proving that fabrication, and go ahead and prosecute a person and put them in prison for any amount of time, let alone for life, you have a political prisoner. Upon disclosure of these documents, a renewed effort in a new trial was sought from the courts. While concluding that the suppressed evidence "casts a strong doubt" on the government's case, our appellate courts denied relief. The U.S. Attorney's office has now admitted in court that it had no credible evidence Leonard Peltier killed the agents, and speciously claimed it never tried to prove it did. Under our system, if there is a reasonable doubt, then Leonard Peltier is not guilty, yet he has been in prison for nearly 25 years for a crime he did not commit. The FBI still withholds thousands of pages of documents in this case, claiming in many instances that disclosure would compromise the national security. In the absence of such disclosure, no further efforts in a new trial are possible. And Leonard Peltier is not alone in his imprisonment for his political activities. We have heard about some of the other people today, and I am hearing more every day. Kind of isolated, out in South Dakota, from some of the things. Despite congressional interest in an investigation of the tragic events at Ruby Ridge and Waco, the committee of Congress with subpoena power has yet to hold full and formal hearings on what the FBI did to suppress the indian movement in the 1970s, as well as the human and civil rights movements in the black and brown communities of this Nation. This meeting today is an important first step, Congresswoman McKinney, to make sure that we truly have freedom of speech, freedom of association, and the freedom to seek redress of grievances in this country. I would respectfully submit that the FBI's involvement in the suppression of dissent within our country is a cause for great alarm. Its use of the criminal justice system, disruptive campaigns, and outright condoning and support of terrorism in our communities must be investigated and never allowed to happen again. On behalf of Leonard Peltier and my own children, we would urge a full congressional investigation, and we would urge the granting of executive clemency to those activists from the '70s, '80s, and '90s who have yet to gain their freedom. Thank you. [Applause.] Copyright c. 2001 :truthout --------- "RE: Leonard Peltier's Words from June 1 1977" --------- Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 23:10:03 EDT From: JTRoad@aol.com Subj: Leonard Peltier's words from June 1, 1977 haunt America.... >To: president@whitehouse.gov Passed on by Keith Rabin: >From the Pre sentencing hearing for Leonard Peltier...June 1st, 1977 shall we never forget.... (Words spoken by Leonard to the presiding judge who was about to sentence him) "....Fifth, I stand before you as a proud man; I feel no guilt! I have done nothing to feel guilty about! I have no regrets of being a Native American activist - thousands of people in the United States, Canada, and around the world have and will continue to support me to expose the injustices which have occurred in this courtroom. I do feel pity for your people that they must live under such an ugly system. Under your system, you are taught greed, racism, and corruption - and most serious of all, the destruction of Mother Earth. Under the Native American system, we are taught all people are Brothers and Sisters; to share the wealth with the poor and needy. But the most important of all is to respect and preserve the Earth, who we consider to be our Mother. We feed from her breast; our Mother gives us life from birth and when it's time to leave this world, who again takes us back into her womb. But the main thing we are taught is to preserve her for our children and our grandchildren, because they are the next who will live upon her. "No, I'm not the guilty one here; I'm not the one who should be called a criminal - white racist America is the criminal for the destruction of our lands and my people; to hide your guilt from the decent human beings in America and around the world, you will sentence me to two consecutive life terms without any hesitation... "If you were impartial, you would have had an open mind on all the factual disputes in this case. But you were unwilling to allow even the slightest possibility that a law enforcement officer would lie on the stand. Then how could you possibly be impartial enough to let my lawyers prove how important it is to the FBI to convict a Native American activist in this case? You do not have the ability to see that such conviction is an important part of the efforts to discredit those who are trying to alert their Brothers and Sisters to the new threat from the white man, and the attempt to destroy what little Indian land remains in the process of extracting our uranium, oil, and other minerals. Again, to cover up your part in this, you will call me a heartless, cold-blooded murderer who deserves two life sentences consecutively.... "Finally, I honestly believe that you made up your mind long ago that I was guilty and that you were going to sentence me to the maximum sentence permitted under the law. But this does not surprise me, because you are a high-ranking member of the white racist American establishment which has consistently said, "In God We Trust," while they went about the business of murdering my people and attempting to destroy our culture." [Please send these words to those with ears to hear...] --------- "RE: Urgent Peltier Action" --------- Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 17:55:15 -0500 From: "LPDC" Subj: URGENT PELTIER ACTION Mailing List: LPDC URGENT ACTION IN SUPPORT OF LEONARD PELTIER! NEW DEVELOPMENT - WE ARE GETTING CLOSER SENATE LIKELY TO INVESTIGATE FBI PUSH FOR INCLUSION OF PELTIER CASE! Dear Friends, There was a short announcement on NPR this morning stating that the Senate is planning to investigate the FBI. Congress has already been holding hearings on the withholding of documents in the McVeigh case and on FBI abuses in Boston. However, it seems there is a good chance that the Senate will investigate the FBI on a broader basis (as called for by Senators Grassley and Schumer) and we want to make sure Peltier gets included, if investigations indeed come to light. We called the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning and they said no investigations have been scheduled yet, but that Senator Schumer is vigorously pressing for them. Senator Schumer's office confirmed the same. Lucky for us, the Senate majority has shifted from Republican to Democrat, leaving Senator Leahy, who has an excellent human rights record, in charge of the Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee has the power to initiate the investigations and Senator Leahy is a likely candidate to assure that the Peltier case is examined..with our encouragement. Here is the action: 1. Write to Senator Leahy and encourage him to initiate the investigation and to assign time for a full examination of the Peltier case. (sample letter is pasted below) 2. Monitor the news - keep an ear out for any announcement of investigations. If investigations are announced before we receive confirmation that the Peltier case will be on the agenda, we will need to flood the judiciary committee phone lines. But until then, please stick with letters to Leahy and not phone calls (unless he is your Senator). He is a potentially powerful ally and we don't want to disrupt their office with thousands of phone calls right now -especially since things are chaotic for them with the sudden switch of power. 3. As before, send copies of your letters to Senator Schumer, Senator Grassley, and to the two senators of your state and the representative of your district. We know it's a lot to mail out - but this is an advantage we cannot pass up! 4. If possible, attach the following documents to each of your letters: 1. FOIA Status Report - download from our site: http://www.freepeltier.org/foia_status_request.htm#top (letter to Senator Dole) 2. Special Prosecutors Conspire to Withhold Evidence - download from our site: http://www.freepeltier.org/peltier_trial2.htm#top (FBI document) 5. Continue to organize and carry out phone campaigns one day a week, focusing on your two Senators and your district's representative. THANK YOU for all of your work. We have received copies of several of your letters to the editor which were printed in your local papers (if your letter was printed, we would appreciate a copy for our files) - and surely your letters to Congress are helping to push this along. Keep up all the great work and let us know how your Senators and Reps are responding. (If you are located outside of the U.S., please follow the International Action on our home page: www.freepeltier.org - thanks!) In Solidarity, LPDC Date The Honorable Patrick Leahy United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 Dear Senator Leahy, I want to begin this letter by thanking you for all of your fine work in support of civil rights and justice. Your courage and integrity are admired by many. I also want to congratulate you on your new position in the Judiciary Committee. I am very encouraged to see that you will be overseeing such an important government duty. I am writing today to express my firm support for "top to bottom" investigations of the FBI as called for by both Senator Schumer and Senator Grassley. There is an obvious pattern of FBI misconduct involving the withholding of evidence and obstruction of justice which must be examined and halted. Such conduct puts in jeopardy our nation's concepts of democracy, open government, and equal justice. I am especially concerned with the FBI's treatment of Leonard Peltier, the Native American rights activist who Amnesty International calls a "political prisoner" who should be "immediately and unconditionally released." Mr. Peltier has been imprisoned for over twenty-five years, following his highly controversial conviction of the 1975 murders of two FBI agents. During Mr. Peltier's trial, the FBI and U.S. Prosecutors emphatically swore that every FBI document had been handed over to the defense. Yet, years later a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit would force the release of over 12,000 FBI documents which had in fact been withheld. Had the jury been able to consider this evidence at trial, I have no doubt that Mr. Peltier would be free today. Among the documents was a formerly concealed ballistic test, which proved that the fatal bullets could not have come from the gun tied to Mr. Peltier at trial. The exposure of the test prompted the U.S. Prosecutor to admit during subsequent oral arguments, "we can't prove who shot those agents". Yet, a new trial was denied on technical grounds, even though the court found that, "There is a possibility that the jury would have acquitted Leonard Peltier had the records and data improperly withheld from the defense been available to him in order to better exploit and reinforce the inconsistencies casting strong doubts upon the government's case." The judge who authored the denial now supports Mr. Peltier's release. To make matters worse, the FBI continues to withhold over 6000 documents pertaining to the Peltier case today, come twenty- six years after the incident. We are convinced that these files contain even more critical information. We also note that Mr. Peltier's conviction is deeply rooted in the Pine Ridge "Reign of Terror." During this period, the FBI cooperated with vigilantes who killed over 60 members and supporters of the American Indian Movement and terrorized, assaulted and battered scores of others. Given all of the above, I am asking you to initiate a Senate investigation of the FBI, which will include a comprehensive examination of the Peltier case, including the subpoena of 6000 FBI documents still withheld today. Thank you for your time and consideration to this matter. Sincerely, (name) cc. Senator Grassly Senator Schumer Your Senators Your Representative Leonard Peltier Defense Committee PO Box 583 Lawrence, KS 66044 785-842-5774 www.freepeltier.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe, send a blank message to lpdc-on@mail-list.com --------- "RE: Native Prisoner" --------- Date: Sat, 9 June 2001 08:31:45 -0400 From: "Janet Smith" Subj: Native Prisoner News Tell a Native American Prisoner someone cares! -- - - - Peltier, Leonard #89637-132 Box 1000 Leavenworth, KS 66053 Birthday: 9/12/44 Ancestry: Ojibwa-Lakota -- - - - Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 11:37:52 -0400 From: "Janet Smith" Subj: PRISON STORY http//www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm Oshkosh Northwestern: Inmates repay society WRC encourages American Indian craftwork as therapy By John J. Archibald of the Northwestern The road to becoming a respected American Indian artist hasn't come easily. Madosh developed his talent in a new program at Wisconsin Resource Center that encourages American Indian craftwork as therapy. Madosh is an adult violent sexual offender. He will stay incarcerated past his sentencing date under Chapter 980 of state law because of the offense, now a sealed case. He belongs to a group of American Indian offenders who craft items to raise funds for the library of the new Intertribal Community Center in Menasha. All of this happens under the eyes of WRCs Native American Community Service Project that began in January. We've taken back from society so much, this makes me feel good because were helping the next generation of kids ... not end up in a place like this, Madosh said as he threaded a small red bead to adorn a keychain. The Native American Community Service Project follows a philosophy of restorative justice, said Byran Bartow, WRC director. The philosophy means that a sexually violent offender atones for crimes by giving back to society. This value also is a deeply held, long-standing American Indian belief. This approach to justice is one that the native culture has independently of our having it, Bartow said. I think the idea of supporting something like the Intertribal Community Center and its library is a good thing for us. Participants in the handicrafts program use either WRC craft fund money or their own donations to buy materials. They agree to donate their handicrafts to the Intertribal Community Center without pay. In return, the Center reports on how much money was raised for selling a particular item. Madosh paused from the keychain to look over other crafts. Spread on a table before him was a bag deep enough to hold a dictionary adorned with bead medallions that usually catches every visitors eye. Next to the bag were small and large pairs of leather moccasins and earrings. All of them had intricate beadwork for decoration. Other items the craftsmen have created are bone chokers for neck wear, dream catchers and hair ties. The total estimated value of their objects to date is $1,300. The project had its roots in healing circles and teachings conducted by Debra Morningstar Westenberger for the WRCs American Indian population. To her credit, she developed the Intertribal Community Center and approached WRC staff for ways to involve the institutions American Indians. One wish was to build a library so that the people that came there would be able to deal with different issues of life, such as drug and alcohol abuse, said Karen Moyle, a teacher at WRC who leads the community service project. In the native American teachings you teach when the time is right and according to the issues that present themselves, she said. Participants come four hours a week, on Monday afternoons and Wednesday evenings. Not every craftsman is American Indian but as Madosh says, American Indian isn't whats on the skin but whats in the heart. Their handicrafts are as diverse as their backgrounds. The group includes Potowatomi, Lakota, Winnebago, Navajo, Apache and Aztec craftsmen. No female offenders are in the group. For Madosh, beadwork connects him to the lessons of thread-to-bead that his grandmother taught him. She told a story with each material item she created. Madosh tells his fellow craftsmen a story, too, with each item. It (storytelling) calms you down. It makes you feel good, Madosh said. His work appears in collections in Arizona, Michigan, Chicago and Washington, he said. As he worked beads on to a thread, he told how the black, white, red and yellow beads represented the major nationalities of the world. Steven Burgess, 25, another American Indian inmate, said the story of the colors says when the earth was created the races were told to live in unity. The white has dominated so the people of the earth must return to their roots of unity. Burgess is an Ojibwa who also learned beadwork from his grandmother. He grew up on the Lac du Flambeau Reservation. The inspiration for craftwork of his heritage started the day he asked his grandmother about learning to dance. She said he had to have a dance outfit first, and the teaching began. Beadwork helps clear the mind, Burgess said. As a kid, I wished that I could have kept it up. He spoke while beading a strap for a necklace. Burgess got involved in alcohol and drugs and went to prison on a sexual assault charge. If I would have done this back then, who knows what would have happened, Burgess said. Madosh knows beadwork isn't a project to pass time. It is a living extension of his heritage. He points to the leather bag, the one with the deep pouch and beaded medallion on its cover. That bag over there; Ill be dead and gone and it will still be around, Madosh said. Janet Smith Owlstar Trading Post http://www.owlstar.com --------------------------------- Please especially remember Leonard. Leonard Peltier #89637-132, Box 1000, Leavenworth, KS 66053 --------------------------------- Standing Deer's new address: Robert H. Wilson #640539, Estelle Unit, 264 FM 3478, Huntsville, TX 77320-3322 ---------------------------------- If you know of a Native American inmate who would like to correspond with brothers or sisters on the outside - please drop me a line with whatever information about them they'd like shared. Janet owlstar@speakeasy.org Janet Smith Owlstar Trading Post http://www.owlstar.com --------- "RE: John Rustywire: Has Anyone seen any Thunder..." --------- Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 01:21:21 -0000 From: "John Rustywire" Subj: has anyone heard any thunder or seen any lightning? Mailing List: RezLife I wonder if there has been any thunder or lightning yet somewhere on the rez...I am wondering if it has come and gone... I wonder because I remember one time a long time ago, maybe by Agathla Peak by Kayenta or Cedar Ridge, or maybe by Grand Falls, or was it over by Borrego Pass way before there were any Beliganas (White Men) in the area, there were two brothers who travelled across the this land called Dinetah. One brother while camping with the other was introduced to relations, an old man, one they would call Che, explained to the boys that the Mountain Rising to the East, a mountain with black streaks was not a good place to visit, that it was not a safe place to go. This in the days when Holy Beings followed closely the people, the Dine' living within a place where it was bordered by Four Sacred Mountains. They came in many forms to teach, to talk and to warn people on how they should live. This was done through song, ceremony and teaching. An old man told these two young boys to be careful and that this mountain was not a place to be. When the boys sat in camp, they talked about going different places to visit the Arrow People, where they lived at the Head of the Earth. The one brother left that way on his own and the other sat around the fire, as he sat there he made bread by throwing the bread made from what is now called drop seeds and