From gars@speakeasy.org Sat Jul 21 03:40:34 2001 Date: 27 Jun 2001 00:08:51 -0000 From: Gary Night Owl To: Internet Recipients of Wotanging Ikche Subject: Wotanging Ikche--nanews09.026 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 026 O o O Es'te Opunvk'vmucvse June 30, 2001 O o O Ximopanolti tehuatzin, Mohawk ripening time moon O inin Mexika tlahtolli Ponca hot weather begins moon ( 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; Native Rights, ndn-aim, Red Road Newsletter and Rez Life 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.'" "From the Eastern Door we are in the final stages of the shaking of the earth, when the Great Spirit takes the earth in both hands and shakes it violently. Just this year (June, 1993) the opening of the eastern door took place in Cape Spear, Newfoundland, Canada, the furthest eastern pointin North America. The circle of the Medicine Wheel is now complete. The Wabanaki People (People of the Light) have joined the circle. We have joined under the following philosophy: "Heal you the self -- you help to heal the family, the family helps to heal the community, the community helps to heal the nation, the nations help to heal the world." "All the prophecies from the other nations now coincide and complement each other. It is time for us all to stop blaming one another, heal from our wounds, and move forward -- for the survival of the world as we know it is in our hands." "We must seek out and absorb the wisdom of our elders and use it for the betterment of others. The Great Spirit left a clear and legible path in eastern North American with petroglyphs and natural monuments. This knowledge is kept under guard by our elders and only entrusted to those native people who abide by the natural laws of the Great Spirit: respect, honesty, sharing, and caring. Without each one of these the others do not exist." "It is now time for moms, dads, grandmothers, grandfathers, and children to get involved in the healing of our world. Make it your business, too. __ MI'KMAQ NATION MESSAGE TO THE UN All the prophecies from the other nations now coincide and complement each other... By David Gehue, Spiritual Councilor, Mi'kmaq Nation +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | 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! In the last issue, my words in this editorial space pointed out how the South Dakota Nations were sacrificing a major sovereignty chip under the new gaming contracts. It should have been enough warning that Janklow endorses them! Imagine my surprise when the Thursday June 21 edition of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reflected the same perceptions as mine. When a mainstream newspaper notes a door closed on Indian Nations it wasn't just shut - it was SLAMMED! This week's editorial will be the Sioux Falls Argus Leader article, as it was run last Thursday. http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm Gaming contracts may steal political voice from tribes Editorial Staff Argus Leader published: 6/21/01 South Dakota's American Indian tribes are being prohibited from using their money to influence elections under gaming compacts they have been asked to sign by the state. While most tribal officials say they have no problem with the restriction, the notion of formalizing a plan to deny Indians a voice in the discourse of democracy is troubling. The state's request has its basis in two arguments. First,that tribes are sovereign nations and as such their money should be considered "public" money, the same way city, county or school money is considered public. Since the city of Deadwood was told it could not contribute money to promote its position in the campaign to increase bet limits in the town, the tribes shouldn't be able to contribute money to political campaigns either. The second argument comes from situations that have developed in other states, where multimillion-dollar gaming casinos operated by tribes are highly successful and have used some of their revenue to muscle growing amounts of political influence. Indeed, national figures from the Center for Responsive Politics, a group that tracks campaign financing, show that political contributions from Indian gaming sources have increased from about $117,871 in 1992 to $2,827,682 last year. Between 1992 and 1996, the center said, contributions from Indian gaming grew from 8 percent of total gaming contributions to 26 percent of those contributions. But in South Dakota, the money is nowhere near that large. State officials say only a few tribal contributions have been made to candidates here. And Jennifer Fyten, a lawyer for the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe, which operates Royal River Casino, says the tribe doesn't have a problem with the policy because "we have much bigger concerns to worry about services for our people than contributing to campaigns." And she is right. South Dakota's American Indians living on tribal lands are among the poorest people in the nation. They face some of the highest crime rates, along with higher than average rates for smoking, alcoholism and other health problems. They lack adequate nursing-home care for their elderly. In some of the most remote tribal areas, they lack telephone service. And South Dakota's tribal lands, unlike its cities and counties, struggle to attract business opportunities and other development that might boost the quality of life for people who live there. So while towns and cities compete for economic development aggressively, the tribes -- with reservation lands that were carved for them from some of the least desirable real estate in South Dakota -- find themselves looking at business development opportunities that sometimes struggle in controversy. Pine Ridge Reservation tried to host an industrial hemp growing operation that authorities shut down. The Rosebud Reservation has been torn by disputes over a large hog feedlot operating on land leased from the tribe. The quality-of-life issues facing South Dakota's American Indians are enormous. And while the federal government has more to do with providing certain services to tribes than the state does, we think tribes should have a chance to make their voices heard in the state's political marketplace, and financial contributions are part of that process. With American Indians at 8.2 percent of the state's population, it simply seems wrong to ask tribes to give up a chance to speak politically through financial contributions. Seven of the eight tribes that operate casinos in South Dakota already have agreed to the language. The Standing Rock tribe is negotiating its compact now. The fact that the tribes are agreeing so readily speaks loudly to the economic burdens their members face and the limits they see on their political power. But the fact is, they never should have been asked. Writing such language into gaming compacts is particularly awkward because doing so acknowledges that there wasn't a restriction on tribal contributions until they agreed to one themselves. It also feels uncomfortably like the state suggesting that the tribes trade a possibility of future political influence in return for more slot machines now. In short, it feels a lot like the way Indians were treated in past. And that's disappointing. All content Copyright c. 2000 Argus Leader. Since I am borrowing editorial comment this issue, please also consider the wisdom of the following from "WindSpeaker". Windspeaker Editorial April - 2001 This treaty is no more? We thought, we really, really thought, we could no longer be shocked by the often times farcical nature of the federal government's actions in Indian Country. But that was before we talked to some people involved in the on-going talks about long-term First Nation fishing deals in Atlantic Canada. Picture this: a scene right out of that silliest of all silly movies, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Department of Fisheries and Oceans Minister Herb Dhaliwal arrives in the Maritimes to announce he's searching for that holiest of holy grails, a fishing treaty with the First Nations affected by the Marshall decision. Chief Lawrence Paul responds in a pseudo-French accent: "Tell him we've already got one." Our point, dear reader, is that Minister Dhaliwal is missing a very, very, very elementary point. The Atlantic First Nations people have a treaty right to fish! And it's a treaty right that comes, not from the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, but from a) the Supreme Court of Canada, and b) the Constitution of Canada, and most important, c) from their treaty. Now, for those of you in Ottawa having a hard time following this, let's recap. Where do treaty rights come from? Say it with us. . . from treaties! Very good! And the Atlantic Indigenous peoples have had this treaty since 1760. When was Canada born? That's right, 1867. And 1760 comes before 1867, doesn't it? So do those above-mentioned Indigenous peoples get their right to fish from Canada? No. So where in God's green Earth does Mr. Dhaliwal get the idea they need his permission to fish? That's a legitimate question and a very important one. And a very serious question, too, because if the minister can't come up with an answer soon, then we're faced with the possibility of 34 Burnt Churches this year and that's not silly or funny at all. In all likelihood, it will be quite tragic because it's only through sheer luck that nobody was killed on the waters of the Miramichi last year. Oh and by the way, how is the investigation into the actions of the DFO officers who ran over top of that Burnt Church fishing boat coming? Can we expect anything soon? At least Rodney King got a trial. Once again we'll say that the Atlantic chiefs are being far more reasonable than anyone has any right to expect them to be. They're prepared to make deals that will ensure peace and stability on the waters and all they're asking is that Ottawa show some respect for their treaty. Why is that too much to ask? Copyright c. 2001 Aboriginal Multi-Media Society. Again - If you have not reviewed the clip of the Mi'kmaq boat being rammed please do. The video clip is up on two websites in RealMedia format: - http://www.owlstar.com/who_will_sing_for_us.htm - http://www.wintercount.org/whowillsing/ 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 ---------- - Makah Tribe's Matriarch - Mining Companies pressed Isabell Ides to Clean Up Basin - Crossings - Northern Cheyenne President: - Wyandotte Nation sues Possible Impeachment over Lost Land - Hopi Codetalkers - Tribe Says Long Fight Ahead want Reciprocal Veteran Services - Little Bighorn Observances - At Court's Mercy - This River runs through Crow Veins - Sentencing: - Camp Sovereignty Race at Issue in Hearings - Nault aggravating Problems - Fort Hall Police Officers - Mi'kmaqs fish in Harbour pass Analyzer Test - High Court puts - Florida Peltier Events Native Rights in Doubt - Native Prisoner - Aboriginal Rights are Meaningless -- Pen Pal Request - Hearings To Begin on - History: Carlisle Indian School Landmark Land Claim Ruling - Rustywire: The 'lectric - Colombian Indians Resist - Poem: An Answer That Never Comes an Encroaching War - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days - Coeur d'Alene Tribe - Native American Dancers Needed wins Lake Ownership - Upcoming Events --------- "RE: Makah Tribe's Matriarch Isabell Ides" --------- Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 13:39:34 -0400 From: "Janet Smith" Subj: MAKAH ELDER OBIT http//www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm Makah Tribe's matriarch dies at 101: 'She taught so many people so much' By Lynda V. Mapes Seattle Times staff reporter NEAH BAY, Clallam County - Isabell Ides' reservation home was a pilgrimage site for countless students, journalists, anthropologists and young people seeking to learn Makah culture. In her La-Z-Boy recliner, a blanket on her lap, she would tell stories and legends to any curious listener, patiently teach as much Makah as anyone wanted to learn or sing a tribal song in a voice creaky with age but full of heart. Sometimes Mrs. Ides would pick her way across the apartment in her walker and show family photos or her stash of dried salmon she kept in a back bedroom. Mrs. Ides, the Makah nation's last link with the 19th century, died Wednesday at 101. She was buried yesterday. She was one of the tribe's last fluent speakers of Makah and a master basket weaver. When archaeologists found remains of 3,000-year-old baskets in digs at Hoko and Ozette on the Olympic Peninsula, Mrs. Ides could tell them just what they were, how they were made and how they were used. "It's like losing a library," said Dale Croes, chairman of the archaeology department at South Puget Sound Community College, who read the eulogy at her funeral. "But not like losing it completely because she taught so many people so much." Said Greig Arnold, a member of the Makah Tribal Council: "She reminded us to keep in touch with our past and that it was important to know it in order to know what to do in the future. It was hard to leave her home without learning something." More than 400 people packed into the reservation's high-school gymnasium for a simple afternoon service with Shaker songs, hymns sung by her church's choir, a eulogy and a sermon. The gymnasium doors were thrown open to summer air that brought a sea breeze. Dozens of flower arrangements - delphiniums, daisies, pink roses, yellow carnations - and a photo of Mrs. Ides decorated her dark gray casket. Family members were everywhere: Mrs. Ides is survived by a sister, a son, five daughters, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and other relatives spanning six generations. After the eulogy, the lid of her coffin was lifted for a final good-bye. Some touched Mrs. Ides' body lightly as they passed, others looked long into her face, as if disbelieving someone who had lived among them for so long was really gone. Born Nov. 13, 1899, Mrs. Ides was a lifetime resident of Neah Bay. The daughter of Jesse and Napoleon Allabush, she attended schools in Neah Bay, Tacoma and Bremerton, where she learned to speak English. Her basketry can be found around the world in the homes of collectors who used to shop at her beachfront craft store. Mrs. Ides also helped identify many of the artifacts recovered from the Ozette Dig on display at the Makah Cultural and Research Center at Neah Bay. Her life spanned three centuries and so much change. As a child, she wove lidded baskets by kerosene lamp and sold them for 50 cents apiece at the store for groceries. "When she was little, they were still harpooning whales on the beach," said tribal member John McCarty. "There were no roads. You had to take a ferry to Port Angeles." When a storm washed boards ashore at the beach, her late husband, Harold Ides, built a home that still stands. Mrs. Ides often spoke of how she longed for that house when she moved into her apartment in Neah Bay. She missed watching the sea. Her husband died in February 1980 after 63 years of marriage. Ruth Claplanhoo, 99, Mrs. Ides' sole surviving sister, is now the oldest living Makah. She wonders whom she will speak Makah with now that Isabell, who lived next door, is gone. "I will be lonely for a long time," Claplanhoo said. Bill Steinkamp, 25, traveled from Bellevue to say good-bye to his great- great-aunt. "It is a difficult time for us because we are losing our elders," he said. After the family left to bury Mrs. Ides in the reservation cemetery, mourners threw themselves into setting up the gym for a feast to celebrate her life. Tables were arranged end to end across the basketball court, lined with metal folding chairs and dressed up with white paper rolled down their length. Then out came paper plates loaded with home cooking: smoked and kippered salmon. Dried and fried smelt. Fried oysters. Herring eggs, gathered in Canada from kelp beds. Homemade clover rolls and 10 kinds of homemade pie. Chocolate Bundt cake and yellow cake with chocolate icing. White bread still in the bag and gallon jugs of fruit punch. Friends and family would soon gather at the tables to tell stories into the night about Mrs. Ides, what she meant to them and what she taught them. Many said she will live on in the gift of all that she took the time to teach and share in 101 rich years. "They are what our community needs," Steinkamp said of the tribe's elders. "They are the cornerstone that keeps our faith and our traditional way of life alive in the new world." Janet Smith Owlstar Trading Post http://www.owlstar.com --------- "RE: Crossings" --------- Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 09:24:11 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CROSSINGS" Rapid City Journal June 16, 2001 Eli Charles 'Hehaka Ospula' Battese PORCUPINE - Eli Charles "Hehaka Ospula" Battese, 25, Porcupine, died Wednesday, June 13, 2001, at Pine Ridge. Survivors include his stepfather and mother, Mark Tilsen and Margaret Joanne Tall, Porcupine; two sons, Elijah Battese, Colorado Springs, Colo., and Gabriel Battese, Salt Lake City; four brothers, Ashly Battese, Portland, Ore., Flint Tall, Porcupine, and Nick Tilsen and Mark Tilsen, both of Lakeland, Minn.; and three sisters, Kimberly Tilsen, Lakeland, Danaj Edmond, Washington, D.C., and Rae Ann Tall, Porcupine. Burial will be at Tall Family Cemetery in Porcupine. June 19, 2001 Levi Edward Good Crow Jr. PINE RIDGE - Levi Edward Good Crow Jr., 70, died June 16, 2001, at the Pine Ridge Hospital in Pine Ridge. He was born May 1, 1931, to Levi and Viola (Cuny) Good Crow. A very loving stepfather, Sam Hairy Bird, also raised him. On Sept. 19, 1957, he married Delores Jean Tapio. From this marriage came three children, Corwin, Troy and Patty. Levi worked at the Pine Ridge Moccasin Factory from 1972 to 1986. Levi is survived by his wife, Jean, his son, Corwin, and his daughters, Troy and Patty. He is also survived by many members of his loving extended family who grieve his loss very much. They are Cassie Steele and family; Delbert Tapio and family; G. Wayne Tapio and family; Jackie Mousseau and family; Patricia Good Voice Flute and family; Betty Wilson and family; Joyce Goings and family; Bernadette Bordeaux and family; Schope Goings and family; Melody Talbot and family; Fern Hernandez and family; Orson Cuny and family; Victor Goings and family; and Duane Goings and family. He is also survived by four grandchildren, Warren Waters, Angie and Shawnna Good Crow, and Nicole Siers, all of Pine Ridge, and many nieces and nephews to whom he was like a father. Levi was preceded in death by both his parents, his sister Isabel, and one grandson, Derek Dillian. Levi was a very kind and loving person who loved all his family and his family loved him. He will be greatly missed by all of us. Interment will be at Holy Rosary Cemetery in Pine Ridge June 19, 2001 Emery M. Red Feather Sr. PORCUPINE - Emery M. Red Feather Sr., 69, Porcupine, died Friday, June 15, 2001, in Porcupine. Survivors include two sons, Emery Red Feather Jr., Manderson, and Patrick Red Feather, Springfield; one daughter, Delavina Red Feather, Porcupine; and one sister, Ernestine Joyce Bell, Pine Ridge. Burial will be at the Presbyterian Cemetery in Porcupine June 20, 2001 Cleo J. Brown-Antelope WANBLEE - Cleo J. Brown-Antelope, 61, Wanblee, died Saturday, June 16, 2001, at Rapid City Regional Hospital. Survivors include one son, Benjamin Howard Antelope, Hardin, Mont.; four daughters, Monica Mathis, Shady Cove, Ore., Toni Offutt, Eastview, Ky., Bonnie Rae LaPlant, Timber Lake, and Fidelia LaPlant, Whitefish, Mont.; five brothers, John Brown, Riverton, Wyo., Joe Brown and Victor Brown, both of Casper, Wyo., Art Brown, Kyle, and Gerald Brown, White River; 11 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Graveside services will be at 11 a.m. Friday, June 22, at Gethsemane Episcopal Cemetery in Wanblee, with the Rev. Daniel Makes Good officiating. June 22 2001 Dorothy Christine Waters OGLALA - Dorothy Christine Waters, 62, Oglala, died Wednesday, June 20, 2001, at Rapid City Regional Hospital. Survivors include her husband, Joseph Waters, Pine Ridge; four sons, Levi Two Dogs Jr., Denver, and Leroy Two Dogs, John Waters and Alan Waters, all of Pine Ridge; three daughters, Joann Two Dogs, Denver, and Juanita Two Dogs and Violet Waters, both of Pine Ridge; one brother, Ted Ten Fingers, Rapid City; two sisters, Virginia Ten Fingers, Rapid City, and Colleen Long Wolf, Oglala; and 25 grandchildren. Burial will be at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Cemetery in Oglala. Sioux Funeral Home of Pine Ridge is in charge of arrangements. --------- "RE: Wyandotte Nation sues over Lost Land" --------- Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 15:30:38 -0400 (EDT) From: IndigenousNews Subj: Wyandotte Nation sues over lost land Mailing List: Native Rights >From Lawrence Journal World Wyandotte Nation sues over lost land The Associated Press TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 2001 Kansas City, Kan. - The Wyandotte Nation filed suit Monday seeking more than 1,920 acres of land it claims were improperly seized by the federal government after the 1855 treaty that moved the tribe to Oklahoma. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, seeks monetary damages along with return of the land along the Missouri River just northeast of downtown Kansas City, Kan. Named as defendants are all parties currently claiming ownership of the land, Pohl said. That includes the Unified Government of Kansas City, Kan., and Wyandotte County; General Motors Corp., whose Fairfax assembly plant occupies part of the land; and several other businesses and individuals. Pohl said the lawsuit involves two treaties. Under an 1848 treaty, the Wyandottes acquired the land from the Delaware Tribe. The Wyandottes then ceded much of their land in Kansas to the federal government under the 1855 treaty. However, 1,920 acres were not part of that agreement and were improperly seized by the United States, according to the lawsuit. "Our title is superior to any title currently purported to be in effect," Chief Leaford Bearskin, elected leader of the 3,900-member tribe, said in a written statement. The Unified Government had not received a copy of the lawsuit by Monday evening, spokesman Don Denney said. But, he said, officials planned to "fight it to the best of our ability." The lawsuit is separate from the tribe's efforts to open a casino in the Kansas City, Kan., area. City and county officials support that effort, but Gov. Bill Graves does not. "While we certainly don't agree with this lawsuit and will fight it, we still intend to work in partnership with them to bring a casino to Kansas City, Kansas," Denney said. ===== To send news reports, subscribe or unsubscribe send email to IndigenousNews@webtv.net --------- "RE: Tribe Says Long Fight Ahead" --------- Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 05:50:00 EDT From: kaonefeather@aol.com Subj: Tribe Says Long Fight Ahead Mailing List: ndn-aim Tribe, KCK agree long fight over Fairfax lies ahead By RICK ALM - The Kansas City Star Date: 06/20/01 22:16 When the tiny Puyallup Indian tribe in Washington state sued more than a decade ago claiming historic title to hundreds of acres in downtown Tacoma, incredulous private landowners and local government officials didn't laugh for long. The impoverished tribe ultimately agreed to settle its federal lawsuit for $162 million -- plus a grant of nearby land that today is home to several tribal-owned businesses, including a marina and a thriving casino on Tacoma's waterfront. "The tribe was challenged before this," said Puyallup spokeswoman Kari Frank. "The settlement has provided the necessary building blocks for a secure future...health care, education, jobs." U.S. Interior Department officials hailed the 1990 Tacoma settlement as a blueprint for future tribal claims to ancestral lands with titles similarly clouded by the passage of time. Today in the Kansas City area, no one is willing to rule out a similar outcome for the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma. For nearly a decade, the Wyandotte tribe has sought, without success, judicial or legislative authority to erect a casino somewhere in Wyandotte County -- which the tribe left under treaty in the 1850s for its present-day reservation in Oklahoma. The tribe on Monday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., that raises those stakes to a new level by claiming legal rights to nearly 2,000 acres of developed real estate north of downtown Kansas City, Kan. The disputed land includes the 14-year-old, $1 billion General Motors plant, where 3,200 employees assemble Pontiac Grand Prix and Oldsmobile Intrigue automobiles. The plant was built on the site of a former municipal airport. General Motors and other corporate residents of Fairfax aren't commenting yet. Neither is the federal government, also named as a defendant in the action. Hal Walker, attorney for the Unified Board of Commissioners of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., said the local government is taking the tribe's case quite seriously and pledges a fight. "We can't let them take title to that property," he said. "I don't think they're going to put GM out on the street. But (the tribe's lawsuit) puts them in a direct negotiating relationship with the U.S. government." And at that point, Walker said, anything can happen, including a Puyallup-like settlement that was spurred and funded in large part by the federal government. "The potential is there for the U.S. government to designate a parcel of ground there as Indian country," Walker said. "And an act of Congress takes precedence over Kansas law." "This thing is going to be a contentious, expensive and long-term battle that will go a number of years and call into question a number of land titles," Walker said. The tribe also expects a long fight. The Wyandotte took the action, said Chief Leaford Bearskin, "to enforce rights that have been trampled on. We intend to pursue our rights through the courts until which time justice is served." `Land we all had' Despite its flood-prone history, the rich river bottom land of Fairfax has been heavily developed by commercial and industrial concerns since the World War II era. The disputed 1,920 acres -- including land added to Fairfax as the course of the Missouri River inched eastward -- roughly encompass all of the land north of State Avenue and east of Seventh Street Trafficway to the Missouri River. In addition to GM and hundreds of other owners of smaller parcels, the lawsuit affects the 10-acre, 400-employee Owens Corning fiberglass plant in a converted World War II tire factory, and the International Paper Co. plant that has manufactured milk cartons and other food containers on the site since the early 1950s. Back in the 1850s, however, Fairfax was only the latest home of the Wyandotte tribe, which had been pushed steadily westward for a century by expanding American settlement. Even the chief of a rival tribe agrees the Wyandotte's claim is probably valid. "It's land that our families had, land we all had," said Jan English of Prairie Village, principal chief of the Wyandot Nation of Kansas. "Based on my understanding of history, their facts are substantially correct." English said her own great-great-great- grandmother was one of those victims, evicted from her Fairfax homestead and the land given to newly freed slaves. The tribe split into two factions in the mid-1800s, when the Wyandottes opted to relocate to reservation land in Oklahoma. The Wyandots stayed behind, lost their formal tribal identity and were assimilated as U.S. citizens -- some on former tribal land given them. The Wyandottes acknowledged in the lawsuit that the tribe ceded most of its land in Kansas to the government under a treaty signed in 1855. But the tribe contends that treaty and other evidence make it clear that three of the tribe's 39 surveyed sections of land in Kansas were held back and never surrendered to the government. The Unified Government disputes that. "It's a long way from turning over the keys to those businesses to them," Walker said. "My reading of it is they have ceded all ground. There's no express language exempting those three (sections)." "Whether that happened on paper remains to be seen." Robert W. Pohl, the tribe's Overland Park attorney, contends the government over time auctioned or gave away all 39 sections of land to settlers, who later sold it themselves. Pohl said it took 150 years and the latest round of litigation to peel away layers of uncertainty about the land's history. Until now, he said, "I don't think anybody had taken the time to go back and read the records and the treaties and read what Congress did." It was the same story in Washington state, said John Bell, director of the Puyallup tribe's legal department. "There was no single issue that resolved everything," Bell said. He pointed to similar and complex disputes over old boundary lines and disputed land seizures "that deprived the tribe of a lot of land." A series of lawsuits over several years finally came to a head in the late 1980s, when the tribe challenged the ownership of the publicly owned Port of Tacoma. "The community came to realize they had to deal with these issues," Bell said. Casino goal The Wyandottes have long been at odds with their sister Wyandots as well as government officials over efforts to develop a casino in a former Masonic temple building in downtown Kansas City, Kan. That structure lies just outside the disputed area and adjacent to the tribe's historic Huron Cemetery. The Wyandots have disavowed gambling and are horrified at the notion of a casino next door to the tribe's sacred burial ground. In the early 1990s, Bearskin had proposed building a casino on stilts in the air space above the cemetery. It took an act of Congress to quell that notion. An Interior Department ruling in 1996 declared the two-acre cemetery site at Seventh Street and Ann Avenue to be reservation territory and thus qualified under federal law for bingo and casino-style gambling. Last year, lawyers for the state won an injunction blocking tribal contractors from remodeling the dilapidated former Masonic temple next door as a casino. A parallel effort to allow the tribe to develop a casino in partnership with the Unified Government and The Woodlands horse and dog track has been stymied for years by opposition in the Kansas Legislature. The Wyandottes recently lost a key decision when the 10th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled in March that the cemetery was not tribal reservation land. That ruling, which the tribe is appealing, appeared to dash tribal hopes for a Las Vegas-style casino that would have been permitted on land across the street from City Hall. Citing the lobbying argument this year that a taxed Wyandotte casino would enrich the state's threadbare treasury, Walker said the tribe's latest action will win it no new friends in Topeka. "If anything, it will probably entrench the people in the state capital even more," he said. To reach Rick Alm, call (816) 234-4785 or send e-mail to ralm@kcstar.com. http://www.kcstar.com/help/terms.htm All content Copyright c. 2001 The Kansas City Star ===== "COURAGE IS THE PRICE THAT LIFE EXACTS FOR GRANTING PEACE..." 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: Little Bighorn Observances" --------- Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 02:48:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Paul Pureau Subj: Little Bighorn observances Mailing List: ndn-aim http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?section=local&display=content/local/laststand.inc Little Bighorn observances Gazette Staff The cachet depicts ledger art of the Sioux and Cheyenne participants based on their eyewitness accounts. Postal employees from Garryowen Post Office will be at the battlefield visitor center Monday, June 25, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. to postmark and cancel the envelopes with a special cancellation stamp. Only 2,500 of the commemorative stamped envelopes were made. Each will cost $2.75. Also available at the visitor center will be 2,500 specially struck 125th Anniversary Commemorative Medallions. They sell for $15.95. Crow/Pawnee artist Patrick Hill of Crow Agency was commissioned to design the commemorative envelope. For the seventh year in a row, The Custer/Little Bighorn Advocate plans memorial services at Bighorn Battlefield National Monument to commemorate the battle's anniversary. All combatants will be honored during a service Saturday, June 23, from 4 to 5 p.m. at Last Stand Hill, according to William P. Wells, publisher and co-editor of the nonprofit organization's newsletter. It will be a respectful remembrance of all who gave their lives on June 25 and 26, 1876, he said. "We never get into political and social issues simply because it is a memorial service and nothing more," Wells said. Neil Mangum, superintendent of the battlefield, will be the first speaker. Other speakers will include George Armstrong Custer IV, great- great-grandnephew of the 7th Cavalry commander. Battle scholar the Rev. Vincent Heier of the St. Louis, Mo., Archdiocese will preside over the service. The public is invited to attend. Custer's Last Stand Re-enactment, an annual event, is held six miles west of Hardin. Performances are Friday and Sunday at 1:30 p.m. and Saturday at 1:30 and 5 p.m. For more information, visit www. custerslaststand.org Somewhere between 50 and 100 re-enactors plan to set up a period cavalry encampment Thursday through Sunday near Little Bighorn Battlefield as part of the battle's 125th anniversary. "It will be authentic to the time period, 1875-1876," according to Nora Whitley of Seattle. "The only concession we've had to make is Port-a- Potties." Whitley plays the role of Lydia Reed, Custer's older half-sister. Mrs. Reed was the mother of Autie Reed, who had joined his uncles for summer vacation on the plains. He died at the battle. In addition to Mrs. Reed, visitors can chat with her three brothers - George, Tom and Boston Custer, whose bodies were all found at Last Stand Hill. George Custer's wife Libbie plans to be there, as do Gen. Alfred Crook, who was part of the 1876 campaign, and William Spencer McCaskey, who took command of Fort Abraham Lincoln after Custer's death. Custer's hunting buddy, the Russian Grand Duke Alexis, is also set to make the trip. Camp will be laid out as it would have been in Custer's day, with separate areas for officers and enlisted men. The camp will be equipped with "suds row," where washer women take care of the laundry and where cooks will demonstrate the art of preparing food without modern conveniences. Critical to all cavalry campaigns were Indian scouts. Members of the Real Bird family will represent the Crow scouts who allied with the army to help defeat their powerful Sioux enemies. Their tepees will join the cavalry tents. The encampment is sponsored by the Custer Battlefield Historical and Museum Association, the Custer Battlefield Preservation Committee and the Frontier Army of Dakota. A small fee will be charged for admission, Whitley said. The encampment will be on land owned by the Preservation Committee near the entrance to the national monument. Take the road immediately below the battlefield entrance road, she said. The encampment should be easy to spot. In addition to living history demonstrations throughout the encampment, everyone is invited to the camp church service Sunday morning at 9. A new Peace Memorial will be unveiled Sunday, June 24, at Custer Battlefield Museum, a privately owned nonprofit facility operated by Chris Kortlander at Garryowen. The memorial will be dedicated as part of this weekend's events commemorating the 125th Anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. It will stand adjacent to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and include bronze larger-than-life busts of Sitting Bull and Custer. Inscribed on the monument is the notation: "On this site in 1876, the historic battle of the Little Bighorn began." The monument will also include a quote from Joe Medicine Crow, grandson of Custer's Crow scout Whiteman Runs Him, that says: "When we stand side by side in the circle of no beginning and no ending, the First Maker, creator of all things, is in the center. He hears our words of supplication and blesses us with his infinite love, which is peace itself." Kortlander said the new monument was paid for through private donations and from money generated by the museum. No government money was involved. It will be the first new monument on the battlesite since 1928, he said. Included in the new monument will be a time capsule that will be opened on the 200th anniversary of the battle. Speakers at the dedication Sunday at 10 a.m. include Rep. Dennis Rehberg, R-Mont.; Crow Tribal historian Joseph Medicine Crow; and Neil Mangum, superintendent at nearby Little Bighorn National Monument. A wreath will be laid on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and a 21-gun salute will be fired. Garryowen and the Custer Battlefield Museum are located off Exit 514 on Interstate 90 about five miles south of Crow Agency. The program at Little Bighorn National Monument on Monday, June 25, begins at about 6 a.m. with the traditional Prayer for Peace by Donlin Many Bad Horses, a Northern Cheyenne and a descendant of Little Bighorn combatants. Morning and afternoon presentations include talks by participating tribes; Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado and former Rep. Pat Williams will appear on the Northern Cheyenne program. The Roll Call of the Fallen begins at 3:40 p.m. The names of every soldier, warrior and civilian who fell at Little Bighorn will be read, many by descendants of battle participants. A flyover by Montana Air National Guard fighters and a wreath laying ceremony are scheduled at 5 p.m. The Little Bighorn Battle Memorial Run will begin Monday morning, June 25, at the Deer Medicine Rocks north of Lame Deer. The 45-mile run to the battlefield begins with a pipe ceremony at about 8 a.m. at the rocks, located on private land about five miles north of Lame Deer along state Highway 39. The Deer Medicine Rocks is where Sitting Bull conducted a Sun Dance 10 days before the battle and had a vision of dead soldiers falling. For more information, call 477-8720. A relay and march for wellness and justice will be held Monday morning beginning in Busby and ending at the battlefield. The walk is to honor participants of the battle, raise support for an Indian memorial and increase awareness of human rights issues on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. The public is welcome. For more information, call 477-6722 or 592-3530. On Tuesday, June 26, "Little Bighorn Reflections" will be held starting at 8:30 a.m. at Hardin Middle School auditorium. The symposium is sponsored by Friends of Little Bighorn, a non-profit organization working with the battlefield on fund raising. Participants include Robert M. Utley, Neil Mangum, Linda Pease, Paul Hutton and others. Registration is $50 at the door. The annual Phillip Whitemen Jr. Culture, Horsemanship and Rodeo camp begins Tuesday, June 26, near Lame Deer. Participants will live in tepees, learn about the battle, visit cultural sites and hear story-telling by Whiteman and cowboy poet Wally McRae. On Wednesday, participants will learn traditional horsemanship skills with Whiteman and rodeo champ Bill Parker. Whiteman, also a rodeo champion, will go over the basics of rodeo on Thursday, along with guest Clint Branger. The three-day camp is open to everyone and all age groups. For more information, call 477-8720. ===== 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: This River runs through Crow Veins" --------- Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 17:58:02 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="LITTLE BIGHORN RIVER" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm This river runs through Crow veins, U.S. history By Ron Franscell Denver Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 24, 2001 - I wish I was a river. I would go downstream. I would see beautiful rivers, But not better than me. - 1976 poem by a Crow Agency, Mont., elementary student CROW AGENCY, Mont. - The river runs in Marlon Passes' veins, as surely as it runs in the veins of willows on its bank. And it courses through the Crow tribe as surely as it courses through our historic consciousness, not water but memory. Every Crow tells a story about the river, about the daakkoo, the trickster turtles, or how it's possible but difficult to capture its elusive "flow" in the blood or simply how it can suck a child into its depths. And a few - only a few - tell stories about a great long-ago battle that took the name of this river: the Little Bighorn. Marlon Passes tells stories, too. He sips from the Little Bighorn. He sprinkles it on hot rocks in his sweat lodge and inhales its steam. A long time ago, he carried the river, bucket by bucket, to water willow saplings in his family's yard. As a boy, he would ride his horse onto the battlefield through a secret gate, pretend he was slaughtering Custer and cleanse himself in the river. And even at 44, he talks about wicked river creatures who lurk beneath the surface. Still, Marlon often bathes naked in a shallow pool at dawn. One morning, when the sun was barely up, a raft of white tourists floated around the bend toward him, so he sank into the water up to his chin, to cover himself. Before he could hail them, somebody saw his head floating on the still water and the boat quivered in panic. The tourists leaped off the raft and swam furiously toward shore. Their guide had told them about river creatures, too. Different meanings The Little Bighorn River flows through America's collective consciousness not as a geographical feature but primarily as a U.S. military debacle - although seldom as the greatest Indian victory of the Indian Wars - that happened 125 years ago Monday. MON Indeed, at the height of America's indignation over Lt. Col. George A. Custer's annihilation by Sioux and Cheyenne forces on June 25, 1876, some wanted to rename it the Custer River. Today, many shorten it to, simply, the Little Horn. Some Crows call it aaush bud shu, the Mean River, because it has swallowed so many of them. Whatever the name, it is 60 miles of water running through a historic, cultural, spiritual, social, economic, mythical landscape, as well as many contemporary Western issues. In Crow tradition, an unobstructed river is the most sacred because it is the least troubled. Its movement is its own magic, real but as mysterious as gravity or time. The Little Bighorn's water is simply snowmelt from the Big Horn Mountains or prairie rain, but its flow makes it holy. Believers among the Crow say the only way to capture the sacred current in a cup is to dip with it, not against it. Time is a current in Crow country, too. The flow of Crow history has been turned here and there, the way a boulder or deadfall might change the course of a river. In the past 100 years, the tribe has faced many obstructions that challenge not just their spirituality but their very existence. As reservations go, the Crow Reservation is large, about 60 miles wide and 40 miles long. About 70 percent of its 2.2 million acres are owned by the tribal government, or more than 10,000 individual Crow families; the rest is owned mostly by non-Indians. The Crow reservation is also one of the few where the tribe actually occupies its ancestral lands, largely because the Crows were whites' allies during the Indian Wars. And the Little Bighorn cuts diagonally across it, most of its length within Crow borders. But as time and the river flow through the "rez," the Crow population erodes, more land is sold to outlanders, children leave, language falls into disuse and the culture dwindles. In that, it's like other reservations. Ranching is the primary livelihood of most Crows, but the tribe owns vast reserves of renewable and nonrenewable resources, including land, sand and gravel, water and timber, coal, oil and gas, all of which generate tribal income through leases. Tribal elders face a new challenge in America's current energy crisis: whether to tap immense pools of coal-bed methane gas under their land - development that environmentalists say threatens the quality of the Little Bighorn River itself. Debate continues, on and off the reservation. "If mankind comes to a point where we can't drink this water anymore, that's where it all ends," Passes says as he sits on the sunny bank of the Little Bighorn, a few feet from his sweat lodge. An accountant for the Crow Housing Authority and a landed rancher, too, Passes counsels a cautious approach to Indian methane drilling. "God provided everything for us. There was a time we didn't know what money was," he says. "But now because of money, the tribe has division in itself. If (the tribe) pollutes the water, they can't chew the coin or eat the bills to survive." Still, the ancient Little Bighorn runs unobstructed by man, if not unpolluted by agricultural and development. Outsiders' plans to dam it for hydroelectric power were recently set aside, but human threats still exist. The U.S. Forest Service has recommended Little Bighorn Canyon, where the river spills out of Wyoming's Big Horn Mountains toward Montana, for Wild and Scenic River Status. The wilderness canyon, off-limits to motorized travel, is prime habitat for black bear, mountain lion, elk, moose and trout, and begs for protection. And some Crows refuse to drink or even swim in the Little Bighorn because they consider it too dirty. Other threats exist. One of them, ironically, is prosperity. From the spot where Custer fell, a few hundred yards north of the river, the gentle plains unfurl for miles in every direction. But just outside the battlefield gates, souvenir shops ambush tourists, a vacant casino lies waiting for new occupants and new gamblers, and other businesses have sprouted. Across the river to the south, in the outpost of Garryowen - named for Custer's battle song - a convenience store, gas station, trading post and museum promise free arrowheads and other Indian geegaws. The rest is mostly Crow land. But with high unemployment and a desperation for economic development not unlike non-Indian communities all over the West, tribal elders might soon be choosing between short-term prosperity and long-term preservation of both the natural landscape and the historic integrity of the battlefield - still the crown jewel in the Crows' tourist economy. "Preservation of historic sites like Little Bighorn Battlefield ... can be viewed as eco-tourism sites," battlefield superintendent Neil Mangum says. "The battlefield creates economic opportunities. ... The values and lessons learned at Little Bighorn help form and clarify our positions to this day. Each visitor who walks the battlefield, in his own personal way, can pause, reflect, and above everything else, learn. If we destroy the battlefield, we take away the ability to reflect and learn." A more insidious threat is the slow decay of Crow culture. Ninety percent of the last generation spoke the Crow language; today, only about 35 percent of Crow children speak it. Like bloodlines and great rivers, the language is being diluted from the outside as kids scramble parts of both languages, or speak English exclusively. Dr. David Yarlott grew up on the reservation and now teaches business at Little Big Horn College. He says some progressive members have considered videotaping sacred rituals and putting important cultural materials on CD- ROMs just to make the culture more accessible to youths. But when the college wanted to videotape a tobacco-planting ceremony last month, elders bridled. "It was not so much the telling of the story," Yarlott says, "but adding the visual. ... But still when (cultural erosion) comes up, the elders ask, "What are we doing wrong?'" Marvin Dawes stands among the willows at the confluence of the Little Bighorn and the Bighorn, a spot on the very edge of the Crow world, a place of perpetuity. "The water is a continuation," he says, a small hawk circling above. "Our thoughts must continue with the good days, just like the water." Dawes, 45, is instrumental in the future of the reservation. A husky Indian in Wranglers and a white, straw cowboy hat, he is the tribe's tourism coordinator, employing four native guides in a behind-the-scenes battlefield tour. He is also the grandson of a respected chief, a father and one of a handful of men entrusted to perpetuate Crow spiritual and cultural ways. He slips in and out of Crow when talking to friends he meets on the street or in the college hallways where he works. "Our way is what makes the Crow people who we are," Dawes says. "Without our beliefs we wouldn't be Crows. We would lose the true meaning of "us.' We want to keep our beliefs, but yet we have to get with today's trend to keep up with modern technology, education and being part of a much larger community." Medicine bundle rite Some 110 years ago, Christian missionaries ordered Marlon Passes' great- grandmother to throw her husband's medicine bundle into the Little Bighorn, an act of inflexible faith. She did. Last year, Marlon Passes and Marvin Dawes organized a Native American Church ceremony, near the spot where the medicine bundle was tossed, to bring traditional respect back to the land and to offer powerful prayers that Passes' children would always have this place to come to. The general Crow word for river is xaaxalaawa, the one that moves all the time. You can't step twice in the same river. "As a people, we look forward only to today because we don't know what happens tomorrow," Passes says. Ron Franscell can be contacted at rfranscell@denverpost.com Copyright c. 2001 Denver Post. --------- "RE: Camp Sovereignty" --------- Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 11:35:04 -0500 From: Carter Camp Subj: Camp Sovereignty Mailing List: ndn-aim Ah-Ho My Relations, It has been decided that Camp Sovereignty will be maintained as a symbol of the Sicangu resistance to the Hog factory. This means people will no longer be encamped there fulltime, but that Camp Sovereignty will continue to serve as a base for future protest and as a gathering place for people determined to protect our lands. Future activities include an indigenous women's meeting on the 21st of June and a possible Wacipi (powwow) in the near future. In addition I have asked that I no longer serve a the spokesperson for Camp Sovereignty, I believe we have come to the point at which local people can and should take over all leadership aspects of the camp and the resistance to the hog factory. Therefore I want to refer all future communication about the issue to Rosalie LittleThunder, wakinyela@yahoo. com and ask that all official Camp Sovereignty updates come from her. This does not mean that I'm through fighting the issue, it only means that I'll now serve as a volunteer worker at Camp Sovereignty, my wife will continue to cook there and my sons will still provide security if needed. It has always been my belief that local ndn people must lead struggles on their own homelands and I've stuck to that principle since the 1960's, there are some wonderful and strong folks here and they are now determined to see the hog factory closed down and cleaned up. They have my full support and I hope all of yours also. http://pathshop.com/camp_sovereignty , Finally I want to thank all of you reading this who responded to my request for help. Because I was rez broke and without the resources to do what was necessary, I had to call on you guys for the basics like gas money and more gas money. I even had to buy pioneer tools to work with, but you all came through like true friends. Thank you for trusting me, I have made it another guiding principle of mine to never take money for my movement work, I feel that if my people won't support me enough for me to eat and live while I work then I am not doing the job right. Of course this makes it tough when people come to me for help since I'm usually poorer than they are, but you my friends made this work possible and Camp Sovereignty a reality. 'Weebla-ha' is thank you in Ponca, and I offer it to all of you and I ask you to spread this 'weebla-ha' to all who we told about Camp Sovereignty over the internet. Please tell them that the struggle is not over here on the Rosebud, we still are pursuing the legal, political and humane struggle to close the pig factory. Thank You again my relations, Carter Camp ===== 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: Nault aggravating Problems" --------- Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 09:16:26 -0700 From: Jess Hansen Subj: Nault accused of aggravating problems of trouble-plagued Native band Mailing List: ndn-aim Wednesday, June 20th 2001 Nault accused of aggravating problems of trouble-plagued native band By JIM BROWN OTTAWA (CP) - "Political intervention by Indian Affairs Minister Bob Nault is only aggravating the social problems of the troubled Pikangikum First Nation of northern Ontario, say lawyers for the band. Douglas Keshen and Joseph Magnet pointed Tuesday to the bizarre trek into the bush by Dr. Michael Montour, a physician who practises part-time on the reserve, as the latest evidence of the crisis. "There is a deepening disaster there," said Magnet, a University of Ottawa law professor and co-counsel for the band in a lawsuit against Nault. "Lives are being lost. I'm very concerned about it." The remote community, located in Nault's riding of Kenora-Rainy River, has been plagued for years by a high suicide rate, chronic poverty, substance abuse and a host of other difficulties. It has also encountered managerial and maintenance problems that have disrupted the local water treatment plant, shut the school and delayed expansion of the electrical grid. Keshen, based in Kenora, maintained part of the problem is Nault's decision last month to place Pikangikum finances under third-party management, a move that sparked a dispute with Chief Louie Quill and the band council. "By taking away the band's finances it's added all kinds of additional distresses on the people," said Keshen. "They're not able to manage their own programs, so they're not able to function as a government. That's really what it comes down to." Quill has complained repeatedly that Ottawa refuses to make money available to run essential services. The Indian Affairs Department retorts that the money is available, but the council refuses to deal with the accounting firm appointed by the government to manage band finances. Federal officials also say the situation has been exacerbated by social divisions within the native community and a lack of political stability on the reserve. There have been three chiefs in the last nine months. The dispute was brought sharply into focus last week when Montour, a Mohawk from the Six Nations reserve in southern Ontario, disappeared into the bush near Pikangikum. After being found by searchers 2 days later, he explained he had gone on a traditional native spiritual quest to "offer his prayers for the people" of the community. He got lost and couldn't find his way back. Montour is to elaborate on his experience - and on his perception of the problems facing the community - at a news conference Wednesday in Winnipeg where he will be accompanied by Quill and the band council. Meanwhile, the lawyers are pursuing a suit filed last month asking Federal Court to set aside Nault's decision to remove financial control from the band. Magnet is preparing a motion seeking an accelerated timetable and an emergency hearing in light of the latest developments." Copyright c. The Canadian Press, 2001 ===== 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: Mi'kmaqs fish in Harbour" --------- Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 08:02:24 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="FISH PROTEST" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm Friday, June 22, 2001 Mi'kmaqs fish in harbour Natives mark National Aboriginal Day with symbolic protest By RICHARD DOOLEY -- The Daily News Proclaiming their intention to begin lobster fishing in St. Mary's Bay as early as Monday, about a dozen Mi'kmaq fishermen dropped lobster traps in Halifax Harbour yesterday in a symbolic protest over fishing rights. The protest, part of a National Aboriginal Day vigil in front of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans regional office in Dartmouth, is meant to illustrate the dispute between DFO and native fishermen since the controversial 1999 Marshall ruling allowing natives to fish to earn a moderate livlihood. DFO has rejected the Indian Brook band's plan to manage its fishery. The band plans to set about 800 lobster traps in St. Mary's Bay near Digby. Native fishermen argue their own conservation plans are more stringent than DFO's, and they are within their treaty rights to fish. "We will decide how much lobster we need," said Alex MacDonald of the Indian Brook fisheries association. MacDonald said the purpose of yesterday's protest is to exercise Indian Brook's right to manage and regulate its own fisheries under DFO's nose. The vigil, complete with native drumming and a procession to a point near the Dartmouth marina to launch a canoe laden with lobster traps, was accompanied by a team of observers from the Christian Peacemakers Team. The Peacemakers are a neutral observers group invited by the Mi'kmaq fishermen to observe the protest and fishing. The protest highlighted the fractured nature of National Aboriginal Day. While Mi'kmaq fishermen paddled across Halifax Harbour, the Canadian Navy honoured aboriginal veterans with a new exhibit at Admiralty House on Gottingen Street. The display celebrates native sailors who served in Canada's military and contains artifacts dating back to the War of 1812. There are 1,275 aboriginals in the regular force, and 300 in reserve units. About half of Canada's 3,500 Rangers, a northern and coastal civilian auxiliary group, are native. The Public Archives of Nova Scotia announced plans yesterday to develop an online guide to archival and library materials related to Mi'kmaq residents of the province. The searchable database will contain photos, maps, sound recording and video clips. Copyright c. 2001 The Daily News. Published by Halifax Daily News Group Inc., a division of Southam Publications, a CanWest company. --------- "RE: High Court puts Native Rights in Doubt" --------- Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 12:19:47 EDT From: sumerwcree1@aol.com Subj: High court puts Native rights in doubt Mailing List: Red Road Newsletter High court puts Native rights in doubt By Paul Barnsley Windspeaker Staff Writer Ottawa Native observers are saying the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling in the Mitchell case is a sign Canada has no intention of honoring its Section 35 recognition of Aboriginal rights. Grand Chief Mike Mitchell of Akwesasne (a First Nation community that straddles the U.S./Canada border near Cornwall, Ont.) had won victories in both the Federal Court of Canada and the Federal Court of Appeals before being forced into the Supreme Court of Canada when the federal government appealed. Mitchell claimed he had the right to cross the border without paying Customs duties because the border was imposed on his people in 1783 without their consent. He argued that Section 35 of Canada's Constitution, which recognizes and affirms existing Aboriginal rights, protected the long-standing right of his people to travel within their traditional territory. Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin, writing the unanimous decision for the court, ruled Mitchell had not demonstrated an Aboriginal right was there to assert. She criticized the lower court rulings in Mitchell's favor, saying, "While appellate courts grant considerable deference to findings of fact made by trial judges, the finding of a cross-border trading right in this case represents, in view of the paucity of the evidence, a 'clear and palpable error.'" The court stated decisively it has no use whatsoever for Indigenous claims of sovereignty. "Under English colonial law, the pre-existing laws and interests of Aboriginal societies were absorbed into the common law as rights upon the Crown's assertion of sovereignty unless these rights were surrendered, extinguished or inconsistent with Crown sovereignty," the chief justice wrote. "The enactment of s. 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982 accorded constitutional status to existing Aboriginal and treaty rights, including the Aboriginal rights recognized at common law. However, the government retained the jurisdiction to limit Aboriginal rights for justifiable reasons in the pursuit of substantial and compelling public objectives identity." Mitchell is now expected to pay the Department of National Revenue's outstanding $361.64 bill for unpaid duty, taxes and penalties. The federal government paid his legal bills for this appeal because the government wanted to take the case forward to its final conclusion so it could be clear what the law was. But Mitchell lost much more than $361.64. His reliance on the spirit of the government's words about respect for the First Nations' inherent right of self government caused him to expose his peoples' rights to the authority of a Canadian court, said Mohawk academic Taiaiake Alfred. Dr. Alfred, director of the University of Victoria's Indigenous governance program, is from Kahnawake, about an hour's drive east of Akwesasne. He sees the court decision as the end of one road and the beginning of another for Native people in Canada. "I don't know how anyone, at this point on, who still believes Aboriginal rights are a good thing. Who can put faith in Aboriginal rights after Mitchell?" he asked. "From Van der Peet (a previous Supreme Court decision) on , people were reading it in optimistic terms and saying, in spite of what it says about infringement, we've still got this. No! It's been closing. Look at it from Mitchell now backwards and look what it tells you. It tells you the Canadian government can gut Section 35 (1) and can override any presumed right that we may have on the basis of its determination of what the economic and political interest of Canada is. She's come clearly out and said that. Now, once people digest this, I don't know how anyone could still want to operate within Canadian law. It's time to completely disregard Canadian law as having any hope or any promise for the protection of our rights as peoples." Alfred said Native people have played the game by Canada's rules and the Mitchell decision and the (Atlantic fishing rights) Marshall II decision should be enough to convince anyone that politics has infiltrated the highest court when it comes to disputes involving First Nations and Canadian authorities. "It was taking a chance and being as accommodating as we can be and still getting completely shut down and completely denied. The implication of that is that the relationship between Natives and the state in Canada is going to be exclusively within the realm of politics and economics. And anybody who puts any further stake in Aboriginal rights is deluded or an assimilator himself. We're not the ones who have brought the situation to this point. We have played by the rules. Mike Mitchell has taken a lot of flack and is taking a lot of flack right now in our communities for putting our rights in jeopardy," he said. "He looks bad. If he'd won people would have said something different, but the fact is you have a person who was committed to the belief, number 1, that he was right, and number 2, that Canada was capable of recognizing historical fact and justice. But justice gets put aside in the interests of power." The decision underlines that band councils can't represent Indigenous nations effectively, Alfred said. "Within the context of Canadian law, he brought it forward as the chief of a band council. That doesn't impact on, nor does it affect at all, our position on our rights as a nation," he said. Alfred believes the court decision, reached after considering arguments by federal lawyers, makes claims by Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault that the government respects First Nations inherent right to self government ring hollow. "It says that the Liberals are correct, right? In terms of their understanding of their legal ground. They say that our authority is only administrative. They say our authority is derived from whatever legislation the government passes. According to their Supreme Court surprise, surprise-they're right," he said. Justice Ian Binnie wrote a section of the decision that Alfred finds even more troubling. Although the main decision was authored by the chief justice and dealt only with issues the court was asked to address, Binnie felt the need to go beyond that. McLachlin noted Crown lawyers had argued that "sovereign incompatibility"-the concept that only Canada can hold ultimate sovereignty over lands included in Canada, including the traditional lands of Indigenous peoples-was a compelling reason why the court should not recognize Mitchell's right to cross the border without paying duty. Since she had concluded that Mitchell hadn't proved that right existed, she felt no need to deal with sovereign incompatibility. Justice Binnie felt the need to deal directly with the sovereignty issue. "Counsel for [Mitchell] does not challenge the reality of Canadian sovereignty, but he seeks for the Mohawk people of the Iroquois Confederacy the maximum degree of legal autonomy to which he believes they are entitled because of their long history at Akwesasne and elsewhere in eastern North America," he wrote. And added something Alfred and others see as a chilling warning about future cases. "This asserted autonomy, to be sure, does not presently flow from the ancient Iroquois legal order that is said to have created it, but from the Constitution Act, 1982. Section 35(1), adopted by the elected representatives of Canadians, recognizes and affirms existing Aboriginal and treaty rights. If [Mitchell's] claimed Aboriginal right is to prevail, it does so not because of its own inherent strength, but because the Constitution Act, 1982 brings about that result." Alfred sees that as an outright rejection of the concept of the inherent right to self government. "Inherent right is just double-speak," he said. "Co-opting terminology. It's almost stupid to say it's a conspiracy . . . of course it is. The Supreme Court, the Cabinet, the federal departments, as if they don't collaborate and talk about coordinating their approach to these problems. Our people have become so deluded by colonialism. It's stupid now to talk about Aboriginal rights. Let's talk about organizing. What about confrontation of all of these ideas. Look at what's happening all over the Americas. Native people are standing up and challenging. It's the same thing in these other countries. Do we think we're special?" Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come also had harsh words for the ruling. "The Supreme Court has issued a very harsh ruling, one that is grounded in colonial thinking," he said. "It seems that the court is willing to overrule or erase over 2,000 years of Indigenous Iroquois Confederacy constitutional history, culture and trading practices on the basis of a few hundred years of recent political events." He argued that Canada is ignoring the real history of its interaction with Indigenous peoples. "It is supremely ironic that the Mohawk Nation, which fought successfully in 1812 to repel the American invasion of British North America-thus securing Canada's independence to this day-should now have the national status under which it fought against the American invaders so harshly denied," Coon Come said. Coon Come echoed a conclusion already reached by many who watch the evolution of Native law in Canada -the court has turned conservative and even anti-Indian. "The Supreme Court seems to be moving in a further direction, recalling its judgment in Marshall II, of narrowing the trade and commercial rights of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Our socio-economic conditions are terrible; as observed by the Royal Commission, First Nations Peoples have been economically marginalized and locked out. This Supreme Court ruling perpetuates this disturbing trend." --------- "RE: Aboriginal Rights are Meaningless" --------- Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 08:02:24 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="RIGHTS EDITORIAL" July-2001 Aboriginal rights are meaningless Taiaiake Alfred, Windspeaker Columnist Recently, on the pretext of ruling against Mike Mitchell, a Mohawk of Akwesasne, who asserted an Aboriginal right to conduct cross-border trade, the Supreme Court of Canada went much further and took the opportunity to deny the Mohawks of Akwesasne, and by extension Indigenous peoples as a whole, any rights at all outside of those accorded them by the Canadian government. In Mitchell v. MNR, the Supreme Court has explicitly denied that we have an existence that is in any way independent of Canadian law and society. That is a statement of major significance. Many of our people were upset when the Supreme Court of Canada gave its decision on the Mitchell case. To be sure, there were upsetting and even sickening words contained in the Supreme Court's decision. It always hurts to be hit in the face with the racism that bubbles just below the surface of polite Canadian society, especially when it is laid bare in clinically precise legal language. But beyond the Supreme Court justices' shocking ignorance of fact and the plodding, sophomoric attacks on history, there is nothing much surprising in the decision. Did anyone actually think that the Supreme Court of Canada would recognize Mohawk sovereignty? Spiteful denials of our rights by government lawyers and judges are nothing new. After a generation of jurisprudence on the question of our peoples' relation to the Canadian state, a time in which the trend and the vanishing point of our rights have been visible, we should not be surprised by what was said in Mitchell. All of the recent Supreme Court decisions on Aboriginal rights have given and taken away at the same time, yet our lawyers and our leaders have been looking at those decisions through rose coloured glasses. The problem is that we have wanted to see progress where there was none, and we have bought into the false promise of steady progress toward a just accommodation of our existence as peoples with that of the Canadian state. This decision surely puts that lie to rest. Am I being too cynical? Read the chief justice's words yourself: She wrote that the court has "affirmed the doctrines of extinguishment, infringement and justification as the appropriate framework for resolving conflicts between Aboriginal rights and competing claims, including claims based on Crown sovereignty." She is telling us here in no uncertain terms that any conflicts between the rights we claim and the Canadian government's claimed authorities, between our law and Canadian law, will be resolved by extinguishing our rights. Case closed. Aboriginal rights and title have been rendered meaningless. The vaunted section 35(1) of the Canadian Constitution has been exposed as an ultimately useless protection in the face of white people's material or ideological interests. The Supreme Court's decisions have been proven time and again, especially in Marshall II and now Mitchell, to be nothing more than transparent covers for government policy decisions, and obviously based on economic and political factors rather than on historical facts or sound legal reasoning (Mitchell explicitly links the interests of the Canadian state to the denial of the Aboriginal right). So now what? The lesson is very clear: politics and economics determine everything. The lesson also points the way forward. We must reconcile ourselves to the fact that our struggle is political. It is not about law but about power. Forget about appealing to the courts; forget negotiating self-government and land claims agreements; forget about Aboriginal rights and title. All of these can only lead our people toward an imminent vanishing point on a very short horizon. The horizon of our future generations can only be extended if we commit to take direct action in defence of our lands and rights, and begin to demand respect from Canada. Copyright c. 2001 Aboriginal Multi-Media Society --------- "RE: Hearings To Begin on Landmark Land Claim Ruling" --------- Date: Monday, June 25, 2001 4:24 PM From: "Janet Smith" Subj: CANADA LAND CLAIM STORY http//www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://ottawa.globaltv.com/ca/news/stories/news-83886620010624-130622.html >From GlobalTV - NEWS Hearings To Begin On Landmark Land Claim Ruling Outcome Will Affect First Nations People Across Canada, Says Lawyer REGINA, 2:16 p.m. EDT June 24, 2001 -- The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal will begin hearing arguments Monday on whether to set aside a court- ordered land entitlement claim considered a landmark by aboriginal bands across the country. "This case is extremely important for First Nations people everywhere, not just in Saskatchewan,'' said Jeff Rath, a Calgary lawyer representing the Athabasca Tribal Council in Fort McMurray, Alta., which has been granted intervener status at the hearing. "The court is dealing with the fundamental rights of First Nations people to land and resources that will go a long way to alleviating the poverty that plagues First Nations people in this country,'' said Rath. In November 1999, almost two years after the conclusion of a lengthy trial, Queen's Bench Justice Frank Gerein awarded the Lac la Ronge Indian band the largest single land entitlement claim settlement in Saskatchewan history. Gerein ordered that about 310,000 hectares worth $300 million be given to the northern Cree band. His 250-page written judgment said the amount was directly affected by Ottawa's failure to treat band members fairly in 1889 after it signed Treaty 6. Gerein said the federal government had agreed to provide a certain amount of land and then, after a lengthy delay, set aside an area which was less than the band's entitlement. Therefore, Gerein said the band's land entitlement should be based on its current population of 6,900 instead of its population of 484 when reserve lands were first surveyed. The federal government maintained it had fulfilled its obligation in 1964 when it provided the band an additional 25,600 hectares. "The significance of (Monday's) hearing is the interpretation of the treaty and the treaty land entitlement clause,'' said Regina lawyer Doug Kovatch, who worked on the Lac la Ronge claim for more than a decade. The Lac la Ronge band, whose legal quest for more land began in 1986, has the largest membership of the 70 Saskatchewan First Nations. It represents 17 reserves. If upheld, Gerein's ruling has far-reaching implications for bands who signed Treaties 4, 6, 7 and 8, which has prompted the Alberta government and a number of Alberta First Nations to ask for intervener status. Governments are concerned this decision could serve as a precedent that will significantly boost the cost of future settlements. In documents filed with the appeal court, the provincial and federal governments are arguing Gerein erred in concluding the band's land entitlement should be based on its population at the time when the Crown's treaty obligation is met. They maintain the correct figure is the band's population at the time when the reserve land was first surveyed. They are asking the decision be set aside and the smaller membership base be used to calculate the entitlement for land the band didn't receive after signing Treaty 6. Copyright c. 2001 by The Canadian Press. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Colombian Indians Resist an Encroaching War" --------- Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 09:23:57 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="COLOMBIA ALERT" http:.//www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12765-2001Jun17?language Colombian Indians Resist an Encroaching War Indigenous People Join To Search for Leader By Scott Wilson Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, June 18, 2001; Page A10 TIERRALTA, Colombia -- For the past several days, they have been arriving on airplanes and in caravans of cramped buses and wooden rafts, filling the central square of this frontier town with garish hammocks, tarps and the acrid smell of campfire smoke. More than 1,000 of Colombia's indigenous people have traveled to Tierralta, where the country's northern plains give way to lush mountains, to protest a war that is consuming their land, language and people. Their stand has taken the form of a largely symbolic search for Kimy Pernia Domico, a leader of the Embera Katio tribe that controls strategic stretches of northwestern Colombia. Domico was seized here June 2 by three gunmen presumed to be members of the right-wing paramilitary United Self- Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). He has not been seen since. The Indians gathered in the cluttered square -- their faces and legs marked with ritual tattoos, walking on bare, broad feet, speaking in languages that predate the Spanish colonization -- hold out little hope that Domico will be found alive. But in the coming days, without government sanction and with little security, they will venture onto the cattle ranches of Cordoba province, whose owners help fund the AUC, and seek the return of a man who tried to keep war and economic interests from overwhelming tribal land. "We want him given back to us -- dead or alive," said Luis Ondino Duave, 23, a student and Embera Katio member who traveled three days by bus from Choco province along the Pacific Coast. "We may be here for weeks, it all depends. If God permits, we will find him." As Colombia's decades-old civil war has expanded in recent years, so has the threat to the country's 700,000 Indians, who belong to 84 tribes and speak 64 languages. They live on more than 50 million acres of land granted to them by the government, much of it located in strategic, resource-rich regions coveted by the armed groups. In recent years, the government has signed accords with the Indians ensuring their autonomy and human rights, but tribal members say those agreements have been largely ignored as the war has sprawled into virtually every corner of the country. "The objective of this search is a call to the state to respect our autonomy and territory," said an Embera Katio leader who said he feared being identified by name. "The government must comply with these accords." The Latin American Association for Human Rights says that half of Colombia's indigenous tribes face extinction because of the encroaching violence. Displacement is fracturing families and diluting tribal languages, and forced recruitment into guerrilla ranks and selective assassinations by paramilitary forces are scattering tribes like the Embera Katio that have lived along Colombia's swift rivers and thick jungles for centuries. In southern Amazonas province, the leftist guerrilla army, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) requires each indigenous family to provide two people to its ranks, according to the human rights group. FARC seeks recruits as young as 14 who are prized for their knowledge of jungle terrain. In past three years, more than 1,500 Indians have been forced into guerrilla ranks, the human rights group said. Domico's disappearance followed a rash of violence against indigenous leaders by paramilitary forces and the FARC. The AUC, especially here in northern Colombia, has chosen to eliminate powerful tribal leaders who resist the right-wing group's territorial ambitions. At least 10 leaders of the Embera Katio and Zenu tribes in Cordoba, and neighboring Antioquia and Choco provinces, have been killed by the AUC in the past three years, according to the human rights association. Embera Katio leaders say 16 tribal members have been killed over that period, half by the paramilitary forces and half by the FARC. "For these groups, it is dangerous to have a leader who is much listened to by his people, someone who says, 'This is our territory, not yours,' " said an adviser to the two Embera Katio leaders who oversee tribal land between the Sinu and Verde rivers southwest of here. "We have come here to look for [Domico] in [the paramilitary forces'] house." Domico's plight is in some ways similar to that of the thousands of Colombians trying to remain neutral during the intensifying civil conflict, which is fueled by the vast profits the armed groups receive from the drug trade. Tribal members say that in recent months, Domico was resisting pressure from the AUC to begin growing coca -- the raw material used to make cocaine -- on tribal land. Tierralta sits on a volatile border between the two military forces, and in the past 18 months drug crops have sprung up on land once used to grow bananas, rice and timber. Last month, FARC forces operating along the Sinu River slaughtered more than two dozen farmers, sometimes using machetes, who were allegedly working AUC-controlled coca fields. At the same time, Domico was continuing a long battle against the government and international corporations over a dam erected against the tribe's will in Embera territory. After decades of study, a corporation comprising Canadian and Swedish interests began building the Urra Dam on the Sinu River six years ago. The tribe won a brief injunction suspending construction, but subsequent legal rulings resulted in the 1998 flooding of a fertile valley filled with the tribe's banana plantations. For the first time in their history, many of the 142 Embera Katio families living between the Sinu and Verde rivers were going hungry after the flooding devastated the fishing stock. Domico had been leading the crusade for government compensation, angering many powerful business interests. Colombian officials have shown little interest in the Domico case. Col. Henry Caicedo, Cordoba's police chief, said without offering any evidence that Domico's disappearance was related to involvement in the drug trade. He retracted his comments, but only after Abadio Green of the Indigenous Organization of Antioquia said: "If they kill Kimy [or] any other of our colleagues, the colonel will be responsible." Then, Cordoba Gov. Jesus Maria Lopez prohibited the indigenous caravan from entering his state on the grounds that it could interfere with a national ranching festival. He said he would do nothing to stop the procession, but offered no security. So those who arrived here did so under less than safe circumstances, and remain vulnerable during what could be a weeks-long demonstration. The main square, strung with hammocks and draped with scraps of plastic that serve as tents, offers the Indians little protection from paramilitary or guerrilla forces. A few army patrols stand guard as dozens of children, barefoot and dirty, play ball and tag in the streets. Around each person's neck hangs a laminated picture of Domico on a string, a crude credential meant to identify participants. Three hundred people arrived by raft from Alto Sinu, the Embera Katio region that is Domico's home, including Rigoberto Domico, a member of the tribe, his wife and 6-month-old son. "He was our leader, and we will stay until we find him," he said. "How long it takes is not important." Hundreds more arrived in a caravan of buses from Medellin to the south, braving perhaps the most contested stretch of highway in Colombia with little protection. "The government should be looking for Kimy's killers and arresting these paramilitaries," said Jennifer Harbury, an American lawyer who has accused the CIA of complicity in the 1992 death of her husband, a Guatemalan guerrilla. She made the trip from her home in Texas to search for Kimy, whom she showed around Washington two years ago. "These people should not have to risk their lives for this." Copyright c. 2001 The Washington Post Company --------- "RE: Coeur d'Alene Tribe wins Lake Ownership" --------- Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 07:59:12 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="COEUR D'ALENE LAKE" http://www.indianz.com/SmokeSignals/Headlines/showfull.asp?ID=law/6192001-1 Coeur d'Alene Tribe wins lake ownership case JUNE 19, 2001 In a slim but resounding victory, the Supreme Court on Monday upheld the Coeur d'Alene Tribe's claim to the southern third of Lake Coeur d'Alene in Idaho. "Its a big win for the Coeur d'Alene Tribe and for Indian Country," said Ray Givens, a lawyer who represented the tribe. The 5 to 4 decision, split along liberal-conservative lines, ends a seven-year dispute over ownership of the lake, considered a prized natural resource which draws millions of visitors to north-central Idaho every year. Although two lower courts have affirmed that the United States holds a portion of the lake in trust for the tribe, the state objected to tribal control over any part of it. Yesterday, however, the state offered conciliatory tones on the heels of its repeated defeat. "Although we had hoped for a favorable decision, we must accept the decision of the Court," said Attorney General Al Lance. "The Court's decision does not change the fact that the state of Idaho and the Coeur d'Alene Tribe share a common interest in proper management of one of Idaho's crown jewels, Lake Coeur d'Alene," he added. For the tribe, the decision acknowledges ownership of an historically and culturally important lake and river. The tribe once held domain to over 3.5 million acres of land, whittled down over the years to make way for white settlement. Yet the tribe had always sought to include the lake within its boundaries. So much so that President Ulysses Grant in 1873 issued an executive order to set aside a reservation including the lake. Subsequent actions by Congress also recognized the lake as held in trust for the tribe. But by 1889, the tribe had been convinced to relinquish the northern two-thirds of the lake, selling it for $500,000. Before Congress could ratify the agreement, however, Idaho officially became a state. Lance asserted Idaho's sovereignty over the entire lake based on the 1890 admission. The Court narrowly ruled otherwise. Writing for the majority, Justice David Souter said the evidence proved Congress intended to keep the southern third for the tribe when it finally approved the 1889 sale. "The manner in which Congress then proceeded to deal with the Tribe shows clearly that preservation of the reservation's land," wrote Souter. "Idaho's position is also at odds with later manifestations of congressional understanding." Disagreeing was Chief Justice William Rehnquist, joined in a dissenting opinion by Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy. Rehnquist argued that the majority wrongfully relied on Congress' actions following Idaho's admission into the Union to prove tribal ownership. "The very moment that Idaho entered the Union 'on an equal footing with the original States,' Congress and the President vested in Idaho the accoutrements of sovereignty, including title to submerged lands," wrote Rehnquist. "It is therefore improper for the Court to look to events after Idaho's admission." The decision affects about 5,200 acres of the lake, which the tribe has been managing since winning at the federal court level in 1998. "The tribe has adopted statutes for regulating the lake," said Givens. "Those will continue to be implemented." Christine Romano, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice, declined to comment on the case. The United States filed the lawsuit on behalf of the tribe, who then later intervened. Copyright c. 2000-2001 Noble Savage Media, LLC/Indianz.Com --------- "RE: Mining Companies pressed to Clean Up Basin" --------- Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 09:24:11 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CLEAN BASIN" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm Mining companies pressed to clean up Coeur d'Alene Basin Attorneys for Asarco Inc. argue that company unfairly singled out Betsy Z. Russell - Staff writer BOISE -- Mining companies must pay to clean up the poisonous metals they left spread through the Coeur d'Alene Basin, attorneys for the United States and the Coeur d'Alene Tribe argued Monday. But attorneys for Asarco Inc. said their company was being unfairly singled out. If its discharges were the only pollution in the basin, its attorneys said, there wouldn't be a problem. The closing arguments for the initial portion of a giant Superfund lawsuit came Monday just as word arrived that the U.S. Supreme Court had affirmed the tribe's ownership of part of Lake Coeur d'Alene. Tribal attorney Brian Cleary immediately made the high court's decision a centerpiece of his argument. "What we're left with is the tribe's ownership of the bed and banks of a contaminated lake ... and the need by the tribe to manage these sediments from now until the end of time, to make sure these metals don't come out," he told the court. "They're leaving the tribe as the manager of the largest tailings pond in the basin, and that will take money." The Environmental Protection Agency estimates it could cost up to $3 billion to clean up mining contamination throughout the basin. In the biggest Superfund lawsuit ever to go to trial, the federal government and the tribe sued five mining companies under the Superfund law to get them to pay for part of the cleanup. Three of the companies have settled, and of the remaining two, only Asarco is still actively participating in the trial. Hecla Mining Co. offered no closing argument Monday. "They're in settlement negotiations," said Asarco attorney Michael Thorp. "They haven't been attending the trial really since May 14." Thorp told the court that Asarco was being unfairly blamed for damage to fish, birds, water quality and vegetation that many mining companies and even other activities like logging and urbanization helped cause. "Asarco's operations were spread out over so much time and geographically spread out that the river could have handled it and deposited it at the bottom of the lake," Thorp said. "The problem is that it wasn't just Asarco." Instead, he said, "Seventy-three million tons of tailings were discharged, and the river couldn't handle it. Asarco, by our count, had about 16 million of that." Goverment attorneys countered that Asarco and Hecla were responsible for most of the heavy metals contamination in the basin. Tailings varied in their concentrations of pollutants, they said. "It's really the two companies that were responsible for the majority of the contamination in the basin," said Thomas Swegle, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice's environmental enforcement section. Thorp also argued that the lawsuit is unfair. "A lot of people when they come to this case think polluters should pay, mining companies did all this damage," he said. "But from the very beginning, when people downstream complained about tailings going into the river, the mining companies responded." Even early in the 20th century, the firms bought land downstream, purchased easements, built dams to hold back tailings, and dredged tailings out of the river, he said. In the 1960s, they began impounding tailings rather than dumping them into the river, and in 1986, mining companies settled with the state of Idaho for $4.5 million, with $500,000 of that paid by Asarco. "I just feel like, when's enough enough?" Thorp said. "How much do you have to do? Here 100 years later, let's try to pin it on Asarco, all of it. I don't think that's fair." Cleary said, "A lot of it's just legal issues wrangling. It's not going to hold up." Attorney David Askman, in the goverment's closing argument, told the court, "The bottom line is we demonstrated injury, and your honor, they agreed." He added that Asarco has few operations left in the Silver Valley. "They left a whole lot of waste that we're having to deal with today. It's fair to hold the people who put the waste there responsible." Cleary said the tribe has its own fairness issue, involving the lake that's the center of its cultural heritage. "Everything upstream relates to it," he said. "Water flows downhill. This water in particular happens to carry with it a pretty good load of metals that blanket the bottom of Coeur d'Alene Lake. This is the legacy of mining in the basin. The tribe has lived at the bottom of a sewer pipe for a hundred years." Cleary showed the court the first page of the Supreme Court's opinion, pointing out its references to the tribe's dependence on the resources of the lake. He said the opinion clearly bolstered the tribe's case. But Thorp said in his view, "It won't affect it at all." "We had conceded that the tribe has trusteeship over that part of the lake," he said. "I think the evidence shows that that area is not contaminated. It doesn't matter." He added, "Had they lost, it would've made a difference." With the two sides' main evidence and witnesses concluded, the court will take a break until July 9, when it will begin hearing the mining firms' counterclaim that the government itself shares responsibility for contamination because of war-related mining operations during World War II. "I think we have a really good case, frankly," Thorp said. "The Coeur d'Alene Basin was really unique during World War II. There were a lot of mines and mills in one location. The government really needed lead and zinc. I think we're going to be able to show they were in fact operating the mines, and they should get a share of liability for those years." Both sides expressed confidence as the trial moves into its next phase. The counterclaim portion is likely to run through the end of July, and then the parties will submit documents to Judge Edward Lodge by Labor Day before he issues a decision on whether the mining firms should pay. If the firms lose, a second trial would follow to determine the amount they should pay. Cleary said the U.S. Supreme Court decision affirmed that the tribe has always occupied the Coeur d'Alene Basin. "It has never given up on the need for its resources, it has never lost its cultural ties," he told the court. "It will remain in this basin for the rest of time. So will the contamination, unless something is done." Betsy Z. Russell can be reached at (208) 336-2854 or by e-mail at bzrussell@rmci.net. Copyright c. 2001 Idaho Spokesman-Review --------- "RE: Northern Cheyenne President: Possible Impeachment" --------- Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 08:02:24 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CHEYENNE PRESIDENT" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm Tribal leader's ouster sought By JAMES HAGENGRUBER Of The Gazette Staff Northern Cheyenne Tribal President Geri Small facing possible impeachment. The Tribal Council has a special meeting scheduled Tuesday to consider two complaints against the president accusing her of malfeasance. "It's nothing to take lightly," said Ernie Robinson, the tribal council's sergeant-at-arms. "We feel we are a very stable government, and we work hard at staying that way." One of the complaints was filed by Robert Bailey, who was fired this spring from his job as a department director for the tribe, said Serena Brady, tribal secretary. Bailey is contesting the firing, which was reviewed and approved by Small. Bailey is a former tribal councilman who unsuccessfully campaigned to be tribal president in 1996. The other complaint was filed by Raymond King and involves a dispute over a payment from the tribe, Brady said. Attempts to reach King and Bailey were not successful. Small said she has reviewed the complaints, and they are without merit. The tribe's constitution requires complaints to first be considered by the tribe's appeals board, not the council, she said. The hearing Tuesday will examine evidence behind the complaints. Brady said the meeting was called for by four council members: Rick Wolfname, Lee Lonebear, Joe Fox Jr. and Gilbert Littlewolf. If eight members of the 11-person council agree, a formal impeachment hearing will be scheduled. Small is the first female to serve as the tribe's president. She won 72 percent of the vote in November. "I think we're moving forward," she said. "There's always going to be some disgruntled people. I'm just trying to do my job." Updated: Fri Jun 22 03:45:52 CDT 2001 Central Time Copyright c. The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: Hopi Codetalkers want Reciprocal Veteran Services" --------- Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 09:06:23 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HOPI CODETALKER" www.pechanga.net http://www.navajohopiobserver.com/navajohopiobserver/myarticles.asp?P=428494 Hopi Codetalkers Want Reciprocal Veteran Services - Not medals Of Honor Story by Debra Moon Codetalkers during World War II, were a small select group of the military. They had a mission to do: get essential information to U.S. troops without the enemy deciphering their coded messages. They couldn't be captured, and they knew it. They had top-secret knowledge, and there was too much danger that the enemy could force it from them if they were captured. So, they took a vow to end their own life rather than be captured. They had a job to do, and they did it. Some say we owe our success in World War II to them. After the mission was over, they came home. And like so many veterans, found that they had to struggle for Veteran Services because of the bureaucracy surrounding the dispensing of services to our former military heroes. Hopi Veteran Codetalkers have been honored by the local American Legion Post, by the Tribal Veterans' Office, by the Hopi Veterans' Outreach Offices, the Prescott Medical Center, by Leon Nuvayestewa at the Hopi Tribal Department of Health, and even in Flagstaff by Veterans' Offices there. All of these agencies and offices have held celebrations, dinners, given awards and thanked Veteran Hopi Codetalkers for a job well done. However, on the National level, only Navajo Codetalkers have been recognized. Hopi Codetalkers have never even received a "thank you" nationally. "They can't buy what they need with a medal," says Cliff Balenquah, Hopi Tribal Council Representative from Bacavi and former Director of Veteran Affairs at Hopi. "They just want reciprocation, some very much needed Vet Services, like medical services, pensions, and disability benefits." But according to Balenquah, these services are very hard for Hopi Codetalkers and other vets, to obtain. Cliff Balenquah knows the system inside and out, literally. He was the first Director appointed by Hopi Tribal Council for the newly created Office of Veteran Affairs on the reservation in 1990. He found a bigger need, and through the treatment of his own trauma, discovered the possibility of creating a Veteran Outreach Office on the reservation as well. This office was created in 1992 with the help of Ken Hall, a Team Leader from the Veterans' Services Offices in Prescott, Travis Holtzclaw, also from Prescott, and Dr. Alfonso Batras, formerly in Prescott, but now the National Chief of Readjustment Counseling Services, RCS, in Washington D.C. "Alfonso recognized our unique need as Hopi," Cliff recalls, "he knew our beliefs and philosophies and helped to set up a counseling system for our vets." Cliff Balenquah became a "Readjustment Counselor" at Hopi. He worked diligently with Hopi Vets to fight for their rights and to assist them in a healing process from Post Traumatic Stress syndrome (PTS), a psychological and philosophical trauma often experienced by veterans of war. Balenquah would rather he had been called a Cultural Therapist, but the Federal Government assigned the title, Readjustment Counselor. He has studied and learned through working with vets, unique ways of honoring and treating Native American Veterans, particularly Hopi. Cliff practices Hopi traditions and knows a lot about the beliefs through teachings from his father and other relatives. He developed a Native American 12-step program and other treatments tailored to Native American beliefs. There are three living Hopi Codetalkers at this time. Originally, there were eleven. The three still alive are; Franklin Shupla from Polacca, Floyd Dann from Lower Moenkopi, and Travis Yaiva from Bacavi. Since they are Hopi men, they never really wanted recognition. Hopi culture does not agree with bragging or even telling others the good things you have done. According to Balenquah, "Being paraded around is not the point, but like so many other times, the Federal Government has equated Native American with Navajo. The other tribes that had codetalkers are not federally recognized, although there were Codetalkers from many other tribes, Hopi, Choctaw, Lakota and Cherokee to name a few." Hopi Tribal Vice-Chairman, Philip Quochytewa, was instrumental in the formation of the original Hopi Office of Veterans' Affairs. He worked toward the creation of the office when he was a Councilman for the Tribe together with Wayne Taylor Jr., now Hopi Tribal Chairman, who at that time, was Vice Chairman. Quochytewa is now meeting with members of Congress to gain Federal recognition of the Hopi Veteran Codetalkers. I It would be honorable for Washington to recognize all of the veteran WW II code talkers in our country. Our fallen warriors and those still alive, still deserving national recognition, and still in need of services. Copyright c. 2001 Verde Valley Newspapers, Inc. Navajo Hopi Observer Online is a service of Verde Valley Newspapers, Inc. --------- "RE: At Court's Mercy" --------- Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 07:50:16 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="AT COURT'S MERCY" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm 'We're at court's mercy' By TERRY WOSTER Argus Leader published: 6/21/01 RAPID CITY -- American Indians in South Dakota are at the mercy of courts because they have little money for lawyers and often little understanding of the system, the state's tribal government relations commissioner said Wednesday. Webster Two Hawk, a former chairman of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, told University of South Dakota researchers who are assessing racial fairness from arrest to sentencing, that a system of justice based on punishment is foreign to Indian people. "We are hellbent on punishing people," Two Hawk said during a public forum in Rapid City. "We are not interested in rehabilitation in society. Our Indian culture at one time was more aimed at bringing people together." Two Hawk said many Indian people don't understand the concept of plea agreements, don't understand the adversarial system and can't hire top defense lawyers. "We as Lakota people are at the mercy of the court because we don't have the money to defend ourselves," he said. Steve Feimer and Richard Braunstein of USD's Government Research Bureau are doing the study for Gov. Bill Janklow. The study is to decide whether race is a significant factor in decisions about which people are charged, prosecuted and sentenced after being arrested. A U.S. Civil Rights Commission report last March concluded that many American Indians think they aren't treated fairly in the court system. The current study will focus only on the state system, although some who testified at the forum said attention also should be paid to tribal and federal courts. Feimer said as many as 70,000 cases between 1994 and 1999 are being reviewed. "In the end, we hope to find out whether, for virtually the same crime and the same circumstances, is there any difference in sentences received and is race a factor," he said. Braunstein said the study will look at regional differences in outcomes, county budgets for the criminal justice system and other factors that might affect decisions on carrying a case through from arrest to sentence. It will examine why some cases are prosecuted while similar cases are dropped, whether Indians are involved in plea bargains more or less often than non-Indians and what kinds of punishments ultimately result in each case. "We'll let the data, not us, tell the story," he said. "We hope, as you do, that where we find problems, we can address them." About 25 people attended parts of the forum. Many think the study will identify racial disparity in sentencing and all other aspects of the criminal justice system. 'Money talks' Indian men and women understand they are at a disadvantage because they have little money and must rely on public defenders or court-appointed lawyers, said Zelda Gallegos of Rapid City. "If you have money, money talks. A good lawyer will cost good money," she said. "When the money starts to run out, they (Indian defendants) say, 'OK, plea bargain.' " She recommended more involvement by the Indian community in the court system, "not favoring any one race but looking at what's happening." Braunstein said he hopes the study will lead to a comparison of what's happening in the state court system and the federal court system. 'Indian from television' Marie Lange of Rapid City said Indian lawyers are needed to represent Indian defendants. Such people might not even need to be licensed by the state, if they understood the system and could be advocates for Indian clients. And stereotypes need to be smashed to give American Indians a fair hearing in the system, she said. "When you go in front of a white jury, they see that Indian from television," Lange said. Lange agreed with Two Hawk that the state court system lacks an understanding of the American Indian concept of restorative justice, which means the offender is treated within the community, not locked away. "The state court only deals with the law, not a culture or a way of life," she said. "We've never believed in incarceration." Lange also said that a system based on restitution and rehabilitation, rather than punishment, would bring more evenhanded treatment for Indian people. Up to 90 percent of the crimes by Indian people are alcohol- related, she said. The offenders need treatment and counseling, but they get prison time. "They end up in prison being treated for the symptom, not the cause," she said. Two Hawk said racial profiling, the practice of law officers stopping a disproportionate number of people from minority groups, should be studied for a broader answer to court problems for Indian people. "Maybe we need to be looking at it someplace, so we can stop this before it gets to court," he said. The current study doesn't include profiling, Feimer said. There isn't a store of information on that topic for the researchers to use. Proposals to create a profiling study were killed in the last session of the state Legislature. More serious charges Janet Thompson, a Rosebud Sioux Tribe member and former law officer and criminal investigator, said Indians sometimes are charged with felonies that would be misdemeanors for non-Indians. She also said few Indian people are judged by a jury of peers because few juries include Indian members. She suggested that courts be allowed to draw Indian jurors from across the state, rather than only from the county or court circuit. "If you have a Todd County case, people are all related, so that eliminates them," Thompson said. One of the complaints the U.S. Civil Rights Commission heard several times during hearings in Rapid City late in 1999 was about the inadequacy of defense lawyers for Indian people, said John Dulles, regional director for the federal commission. "Is there any hard data to help us understand how important a factor that is?" he asked. Feimer said the study will look at the outcomes when defendants have their own lawyer, a court-appointed lawyer or public defender, and no lawyer. Braunstein said it would be difficult to gauge the effectiveness of the lawyer. The years of experience could be noted, but that wouldn't necessarily show the effectiveness of the lawyer. Few studies have focused directly on American Indians and sentencing disparities, Braunstein said. The current one should be considered the first of a series that looks at the South Dakota experience on a yearly basis, he said. "There's so much that needs to be studied," he said. "I just don't think we're going to get as far as you want us to go." Gloria Tyon-Kozak of Rapid City, who helped organize the forum, said most people understand that the process will be long. "I know we can't resolve this problem in our generation," she said. "But this is a start." Reach Terry Woster at 605-224-2760 or twoster@midco.net All content Copyright c. 2001 Argus Leader. --------- "RE: Sentencing: Race at Issue in Hearings" --------- Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 07:59:12 -0500 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SENTENCING/RACE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm Sentencing, race at issue in hearings By JENNIFER GERRIETTS Argus Leader published: 6/19/01 Marletta Pacheco has to travel to California to visit her 35-year-old daughter in federal prison, where she is serving a 30-year drug sentence. The Lakota woman from Rapid City said she has no doubt that the system where her daughter was convicted and sentenced is not fair to American Indians. "People have to stop being racist and the system needs to look at the guidelines and how we unfairly fall under the guidelines," Pacheco said. In a hearing today in Rapid City, the U.S. Sentencing Commission will take testimony from tribal leaders and law enforcement officials and others on the issue of whether federal sentencing guidelines are fair to American Indians. The event was prompted by a March 2000 report to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights by the South Dakota Advisory Committee, which recommended that sentencing guidelines be assessed for their effect on Indians. Nine tribal chairs from South Dakota are expected to speak. The commission can recommend changes in the sentencing guidelines. If Congress does not take action to amend these, they become law. On Wednesday a similar forum hosted in Rapid City by Attorney General Mark Barnett and statistician Steve Feimer of the University of South Dakota will take testimony on whether sentences are applied fairly at the state level. Both events are being watched closely by American Indian people and others with concerns about the fairness of the justice system. Hazel Bonner, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at Oglala Community College, said her research shows discrepancies in the system for those who can't afford the best lawyers. Those people are often minorities. "We're tough on crime in South Dakota, but we get tougher on crime if the defendant is brown-skinned or poor," Bonner said. Her research has found Indians are less likely to get bail and more likely to be charged with more crimes for similar incidents, Bonner said. Neighboring Minnesota did a study of it's criminal justice system in 1993 and determined that minorities were not given as much access to the types of sentences that would provide for options other than incarceration. When they reworked their system, they locked up fewer people and had less crime, Bonner said. "People like to believe because South Dakota spends all this money and locks up all these people, we're safer, and it's absolutely not true," Bonner said. Bonner plans to testify at the state hearing and has submitted written statements and several of her research projects on the criminal justice system to the federal authorities she said. "My concern is they will look at only one area like sentencing, when there are discrepancies at many other levels such as the charges," Bonner said. A mother's story Pacheco said the hearing will be watched with interest by families such as hers. Pacheco said her daughter was charged and convicted at trial of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. She had been arrested with methamphetamines after police targeted her boyfriend, her mother said. "If they would have said, this girl needs treatment, she's a drug addict, I would not have any trouble with that. If they said she sold some to support her habit, I could understand that," Pacheco said. "To make her be a drug kingpin is just too much." The 30-year sentence was mandatory under federal guidelines, which took into consideration her convictions for minor offenses in tribal court, Pacheco said. Because tribal court doesn't guarantee defendants the same rights of due process or court appointed attorneys that state and federal courts provide, including those convictions in the federal sentencing formula is not fair she said. "It's not easy being an Indian in South Dakota," Pacheco said. Of Pacheco's four children and three step-children, five have been involved with the criminal justice system in some way, she said. Her nephew, Leighton Rich, committed suicide in prison earlier this year while serving a 25-year sentence for aggravated assault and being a habitual offender. "There's got to be a way to break this cycle," Pacheco said. A wife's story Those with relatives serving state sentences have similar concerns. They, too, will be watching for changes. "I don't know if it will help, but it certainly will bring attention to the problem and the fact that there is a problem," said Kandi World Turner, whose husband Chuck World Turner is serving a 25-year sentence in the South Dakota State Penitentiary for attempted manslaughter. Chuck World Turner, a Dakota-Lakota Indian, was highly intoxicated in 1997 when he used a steak knife cut the face of a Yankton convenience store clerk who stopped him from shoplifting. His wife said he admits that his actions were wrong, but she questions the system's fairness. "My husband will say that the best thing that ever happed to him was going to prison. It woke him up," World Turner said. "But now it could be 10 more years before he can go home to his family." In the grand jury testimony that led to his indictment on a charge of attempted murder, one witness described him as "creeping" during the attack "Indian-style," she said. World Turner pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of attempted manslaughter and a third drunk driving offense, because his lawyer told him it was his best option. She said she's had out-of-state lawyers tell her the charges didn't warrant more than an aggravated assault charge, which would have resulted in less prison time. "Chuck's not looking for sympathy, he just wants justice," she said. Reach reporter Jennifer Gerrietts at jgerriet@argusleader.com or 331-2312 Copyright c. 2001 Argus Leader --------- "RE: Fort Hall Police Officers pass Analyzer Test" --------- Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 04:01:44 EDT From: sumerwcree1@aol.com Subj: FORT HALL POLICE OFFICERS PASS ANALYZER TEST Mailing List: Rez Life If you have a breaking news story call 208-235-3152 FORT HALL POLICE OFFICERS PASS ANALYZER TEST * UPDATED * from dudeperry@hotmail.com 06/20/2001 We've known the National Bureau of Indian Affairs has been investigating the Fort Hall Police Department for weeks. And now, we finally have more information about exactly what civil rights abuses they're investigating. Elizabeth Vall Reporting Sources tell me BIA investigators administered voice analyzer tests, similar to a lie detector test, to two Fort Hall police officers, and both officers passed. Sources say those officers passed the test while corroborating claims that former Fort Hall police investigator, Clem Hildago, gave alcohol to a suspect during an interrogation ===== For Rezlife egroups http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rezlife --------- "RE: Florida Peltier Events" --------- Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 18:23:04 EDT From: AIMFL@aol.com Subj: PELTIER EVENTS Mailing List: ndn-aim Greetings: Florida AIM will hold two (2) events this week highlight the case of prisoner of war Leonard Peltier Tommorow at 6pm at CORE (1615 16th Street S in Saint Petersburg) Florida AIM will hold a showing of a brief documentary on Peltier and discuss the events of the shootout etc. On Saturday at 1pm Florida AIM will hold a demonstration rally at the Orlando federal building. We will caravan for those so desiring, from the Florida AIM State Office (136 4th Street N) at 10:30am. For more information please contact AIM at AIMFL@aol.com ===== 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: Native Prisoner" --------- Date: Sat, 23 June 2001 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: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 21:32:29 -0400 From: "Janet Smith" Subj: Native Prisoner Pen Pal Request Native Prisoner Pen Pal Request: ----- Original Message ----- From: Kathleen Burgess Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2001 1:01 AM My son's name is David Burgess, he was sent to the South Dakota State Prison in 1996 at age 15. He turned 20 years old June 22, 2001. His address is David Burgess #32391, South Dakota State Prison, PO Box 5911, Sioux Falls, SD 57106. He is doing 10 years for aggravated assault. I understand that you help Native American prisoners receive letters from penpals and was hoping that you could add his name to the list. Thank you. Kathleen Burgess Janet Smith 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 Smith Owlstar Trading Post http://www.owlstar.com owlstar@speakeasy.org --------- "RE: History: Carlisle Indian School" --------- Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2001 23:39:24 -0400 From: Barbara Landis Subj: History: Carlisle Indian School, June 1, 1888 INDIAN HELPER. [Editorial Note: These reprints are being included in this newsletter so that you might know the mind of those who ran institutions like Carlisle.] THE INDIAN HELPER ----------------------------- ~~ FOR OUR BOYS AND GIRLS ~~ =========================== VOLUME III FRIDAY, June 1, 1888 NO. 42 CARLISLE, PA. =========================== THE OLD STEAM MILL. --------- Puff, puff - puff, puff! Goes the old steam mill. Grinding away, night and day, Down under the hill. Grinding away, night and day Making the bread for the poor, Sending a blessing every hour, To the proud or the humble door. Puff, puff - puff, puff! I step to its cheerful sound. And hum my song, and jog along To its ceaseless beat and bound. The banks may fail, but it will not quail One breath of its iron will - And the cry "Hard times" seems idle rhymes It works but the cheaper still. Puff, puff - puff, puff! So bears the true heart on, Stopping to play, neither night nor day, Till its life work is all done. Like the old mill, grinding still, Something for rich and poor, Doing its best, making earth blest, With its good deeds evermore! Work, work - work, work! Is the brave heart's song. Work while you may, night and day, With a will all brave and strong, Looking about, and finding out What most needs to be done - At it then cheerily, lagging not wearily, Work, till the work be done! -------------- [contributed] TWO WAYS. --------- "Are you going home this summer?" asked Ben stopping and leaning on his lawn mower as he came up to his friend. "Not home to stay," answered Tom. "Not when you haven't seen your folks for five years?" "That's true, but-" He stopped, then grasped his mower again, cut the swath across the lawn and came back to his companion on another. "We shan't find any lawn-mowers out in Indian Territory," he said, "not in our part of it, anyway." Ben laughed out. "Do you like to run them?" he asked. And he made the Indian gesture of contempt. "Not when the sun is hot," returned Tom. "But I like the way it makes the grass look." He waited a moment, then said slowly, "I can't explain it to you, but I see it all." "What do you see?" cried Tom. "You're always seeing something." Tom cut another swatch while Ben watched him. "Somehow, we're like this grass," he said coming back, "or perhaps it's like us, it's getting civilized, it don't get tangled up any more." "So, you want to keep looking nice and you don't care for your home any more and your father and mother and brothers and sisters?" Tom looked at him reproachfully. "I'm going to take up my allotment," added Ben, "and I shall make a good farmer, I've been on a farm six months, I know when to put in the crops, only, I shall not work all the time, and I shall not care about a lawn-mower, it's good enough for me just as my father used to have it." "Then you love your father better than yourself," answered Tom, "for last week I heard you say you had come to liking ways you didn't like a year ago." Ben's lawn-mower started up suddenly and did quite an amount of work. "What ARE you going to do?" he asked finally. "I am going back someday. But not now, not for a long time. I am going to study and be a surveyor." "What's that?" "Why, to measure land and stake it off." "What for? You haven't any land this way." "But surveyors get money for measuring other people's land." "What does that belong to? What do you have to study to learn it?" ------------------------ (Continued on Fourth Page.) ========================================= (p 2) The Indian Helper. ----------------------------- PRINTED EVERY FRIDAY, AT THE INDIAN INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL, CARLISLE, PA. BY THE INDIAN PRINTER BOYS. ----------------------------- Price: - 10 cents a year. =============================== Address INDIAN HELPER, Carlisle, Pa. Miss M. Burgess, Manager. =============================== Entered in the P.O. at Carlisle as second class mail matter. =============================== THE INDIAN HELPER is PRINTED by Indian boys, but EDITED by The-Man-on-the-band-stand, who is NOT an Indian. =============================== The INDIAN HELPER is paid for in advance, so do not hesitate to take the paper from the Post Office, for fear a bill will be presented. ================================ Through a letter from one of our old boys now at Pine Ridge Agency, Dakota, we learn that most of our Carlisle boys there are still on the good road. The other day when Rev. Mr. Robinson and Rev. Mr. Cook were absent from the Agency, one of our former pupils Robert American Horse carried on the Divine services at their church, and in the Dakota language. ========= We have received many letters containing such complimentary remarks as this about our paper. "Renew my subscription for another year. I am well pleased with your paper; it is the bes