From gars@speakeasy.org Tue Jun 25 21:38:40 2002 Date: 26 Jun 2002 00:18:57 -0000 From: Gary Night Owl To: Internet Recipients of Wotanging Ikche Subject: Wotanging Ikche--nanews10.026 WOTANGING IKCHE -- Lakota -- Common News Kanoheda Aniyvwiya -- Cherokee -- Journal of the People Otapi'sin Atsinikiisinaakssin -- Blackfeet -- News for All the People Es'te Opunvk'vmucvse -- Creek -- People's New News Aunchemokauhettittea -- Naragansett -- Let Us Share News Ni-mah-mi-kwa-zoo-min -- Ojibwe -- We Are Talking About Ourselves Ha-Sah-Sliltha -- Ditidaht Nation -- News of the People Un Chota -- Susquehannic Seneca -- The People Speak Ximopanolti tehuatzin, inin Mexika tlahtolli -- Nahuatl -- For you we offer these words It-hah-pe-hah Ah-num pah-le -- Chickasaw -- Together We Are Talking Sho-da-ku-ye -- Teehahnahmah -- Talking Birchbark Acimowin -- Plains Cree -- Story or Account Native American News -- Language of the Occupation Forces Wotanging Ikche and Native American News Copyright c. 1996-2002 nanews.org ==>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 O +-----------------------------+ O o O | Much more happens in Indian | O o O VOLUME 10, ISSUE 026 | Country than is reported in | O o o o o O | this weekly newsletter. For | O o O June 29, 2002 | For daily updates & events | O o O | go http://www.owlstar.com/ | O | dailyheadlines.htm | Mohawk ohiari:ha/ripening time moon +-----------------------------+ Potawatomie msheke'kesis/turtle moon <================<<<< >>>>================> This newsletter is produced in straight ASCII text for greatest portability across platforms. Read it with a fixed-pitch font, such as Courier, Monaco, FixedSys or CG Times. Proportional fonts will be difficult to read. <================<<<< >>>>================> This issue contains articles from www.pechanga.net; www.owlstar.com; www.indianz.com; Tennessee Indian Affairs, Innu People Forum, ndn-aim, Frostys AmerIndian and Chiapas95 Mailing Lists; newsgroup: alt.native; 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.'" "It was when the white men found the yellow metal in our country, and came in great numbers, driving away our game, that we took up arms against them for the last time. I must say here that the chiefs who were loudest for war were among the first to submit and accept reservation life. Spotted Tail was a great warrior, yet he was one of the first to yield, because he was promised by the Chief Soldiers that they would make him chief of all the Sioux. Ugh! he would have stayed with Sitting Bull to the last had it not been for his ambition." __ Rain-in-the Face, Sioux +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | 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! I have included an article in this issue I really didn't want to, titled "PM had Solution to Native Problem". It is so incredibly biased and so very obvious in its open pandering to the masses who have bought into the notion that treaty obligations are "Indian Welfare." In the end I decided to include it for the very same reasons I run issues of "Indian Helper" transcribed by Barbara Landis. We must not, we can not, ever cease to be vigilant against those who believe the only answer to the so called "Indian Question or Indian Problem" is to force the Native population into mainstream Amerikkana through legislation or assimilation or both. Everything that can be done to make us disappear as a People has been done, short of outright slaughter, and the IHS and their involuntary sterilizations have proven even that is not totally unthinkable. It isn't just a matter of poor word choices by a few bigoted editors; but as this article shows it is a mindset of the entire dominant media that treaty obligations are "the Indian Problem". It was the same when theft of our Sacred lands were still the primary focus of the Department of the Military in both the U. S. and Canada. The blatant deliberate bias was to refer to every win by the invaders as a victory and every win by the Natives as a massacre. The "war on terrorism" that has become global in its manifestation has also resulted in the erosion of individual rights for even members of the dominant society. I can promise if you and your tribe are not watching every single move, every single legislative act, somewhere when you least expect it, some hotdog legislator will slip through a bill that will all but solve the "Indian Question" in the only way they can relate to... no more Indians. Dohiyi Ani Oginalii , , Gary Night Owl gars@nanews.org (*,*) P. O. Box 672168 gars@speakeasy.org (`-') Marietta, GA 30007, U.S.A. gars@olagrande.net ===w=w=== gars@sdf.lonestar.org ----------- News of the people featured in this issue ---------- - Don Yahola - Two Pequot Tribe - Beverly Axelrod gain Recognition as One - Crossings - NCAI's Hall wants - PM had Solution to Native Problem Trust Records Protected - Ottawa offers - Inside Mexico: A Rural Massacre Native Veterans Compensation - Tribal Lands at Border - Aboriginal Veterans plan Appeal turned into War Zone - Innu and Inuit vote on Voisey's Bay - Officials probe Fort Belknap - Inuit, Innu accept Inco Deals Shooting Death - Editorial: Election 2002: - Native Prisoner Kahnawake at the Brink -- Latest Injustice - Coon Come urges Landry against Manuel Redwoman to defuse Barriere Lake -- Petition for Alex Montana - U.S. won't allow - History: Carlisle Indian School Canadian Headdress in - Rustywire: Toponotes - Blackfeet Livestock Losses - Poem: For All My Life total $2 Million - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days - Fort Hall wants input in - Tribal Immersion Schools dealing with Pronghorn rescue Language - Editorial: - Preserving Lakota Language Miami deserve Sovereign Status Worthy Effort - Drought: - Scholars work to save No Water available to fight Fires Dying Indian Language - Many Farms Lake virtually Dry - NativeRadio.com may have to - Navajo School Boards pull the Plug walk out of BIA Meeting - Native America Calling --------- "RE: Don Yahola" --------- Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 08:43:01 -0400 From: tom kunesh Subj: Nashville: NA Community loses an honored Elder Mailing List: Tennessee Indian Affairs posted by Allison on June 21, 2002 at 22:29:48: Don Yahola passed away this morning at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. A citizen of the Creek nation of Oklahoma, he had resided here in Tennessee for many years. He helped to found the Native American Indian Association and the Alliance for Native American Indian Rights, and founded and hosted the Lebanon Powwow. He spent his life working on behalf of the Native people of this state, even when his health was failing. His wisdom, humor, and quiet courage enabled him to bring people together and gain much for our people. He will be missed. Please keep his family in your prayers. posted by Sheila : Daniel Gallegos called me and Grady Friday evening and said Family visitation for Don will be Sunday at Partlow Funeral Home in Lebanon at 2:00 pm. Partlow is across the road from the Wal-Mart in Lebanon. All Friends in the Native American community are asked to come by and pay their respects. Don will be greatly missed. http://www.nativenashville.com/wwwboard/messages/814.htm --------- "RE: Beverly Axelrod" --------- Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2002 13:35:09 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BEVERLY AXELROD" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27534-2002Jun22.html Beverly Axelrod The Associated Press Saturday, June 22, 2002; 6:45 AM PACIFICA, Calif. (AP) - Beverly Axelrod, an activist and lawyer whose list of clients included members of the Black Panthers, American Indian activists and radicals of the 1960s and '70s, died of emphysema Wednesday. She was 78. She worked with Leonard Garment on the Law Review at Brooklyn Law School and credited Garment, who became President Nixon's personal counsel, with introducing her to jazz and leftist politics. In 1952, Axelrod became president of the Modesto National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and as an attorney for the Congress of Racial Equality, she participated in voter registration drives in the South. Axelrod represented Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, author of "Soul on Ice." She also represented Jerry Rubin, co-founder of the Youth International Party, a radical street theater group, when he was called before the House Un-American Activities committee in 1966. Axelrod moved to New Mexico in 1968 and there she worked as a defense attorney for a Chicano land rights movement. In 1973, she was one of the lawyers representing American Indians at the Pine Ridge Reservation and served as principal negotiator between the Wounded Knee Defense Committee and the federal government. Copyright c. 2002 The Associated Press. Copyright c. 2002 The Washington Post Company. --------- "RE: Crossings" --------- Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 08:10:52 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CROSSINGS" Golden Triangle On-Line Obituaries The following obituaries appeared in the Cut Bank Pioneer Press, Shelby Promoter or Glacier Reporter this week. Melvin Heavy Runner Melvin Thomas Heavy Runner, 74, died at IHS on May 25, 2002, of natural causes. Services were held at the Methodist Church with burial with military rites in Willow Creek Cemetery. He was born Oct. 22, 1926, in Browning and was drafted at age 17. He served in World War II, helping capture one of Adolph Hitler's high ranking officers and helped liberate concentration camps. In 1966, he and Marie Last Star were married common-law. Heavy Runner worked on Hungry Horse Dam, in road construction, was in maintenance at Blackfeet Nursing Home and Housing, ranched, was a firefighter crewboss, owned his own business and other various jobs. He was a member of the Blackfeet United Methodist Church Board. He enjoyed hunting, horseback riding and storytelling. Survivors include his wife; daughters, Edna Old Chief and Gwen Hope; sons, Floyd Tinyman Heavy Runner, Everett Smarty Heavy Runner, Fredrick Francis Heavy Runner and Mark Heavy Runner; sisters, Illena Marceau and Virginia Valle; a brother, Jackie Heavy Runner; 24 grandchildren; 24 great-grandchildren; and numerous nieces, nephews and cousins. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Alfreda Wells Heavy Runner; a son, Roy Lee Fatty Heavy Runner; his parents, Jack and Irene Heavy Runner; and his grandparents, Old Man Heavy Runner and Petrified Rock For Nothing Wolf Chief. Day Family Funeral Home handled arrangements. Copyright c. 2002 Golden Triangle Newspapers. -=-=-=- June 19, 2002 LeDon Buckley Jr. Funeral services for Wewoka resident LeDon Buckley, Jr., are scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Sand Creek Church in Wetumka. A wake service will be held on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at Stout-Phillips Funeral Chapel in Wewoka. Rev. J. B. Fish will officiate the funeral services. Interment will follow on Saturday at the Sand Creek Church Cemetery, under the direction of Stout-Phillips Funeral Home of Wewoka. Buckley died Tuesday, June 18, 2002 at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City at the age of 45. He was born to LeDon Buck-ley and Mary Jane Fish Buckley in Holdenville on Jan. 16, 1957. Buckley's family moved to California for a number of years before returning to Oklahoma in 1990. He married Dinah Dionne on June 15, 1981 in California. Buckley was a self-employed roofer and worked in the housing industry prior to retiring due to health reasons. He was preceded in death by his parents. Buckley is survived by his wife, Dinah Dionne Buckley; two sons, David Buckley and Kenneth Buckley; one daughter, Monique Buckley; three sisters, Sandra Buckley, Oklahoma City, and Mary Ronnell and LaDonna Buckley, both of Seminole; and two brothers, Kenneth Buckley, Wetumka and Larry Buckley, Seminole. Pallbearers are Marsey Scott, Ronnie Whitetree, Sampson Fish, James Scott, Jeremy Fish, John Fish, Ben Buckley and Justin Johnson. Honorary pallbearers are J.R. Fields and Bunny Powell. Buckley June 20, 2002 Lonnie Mullinax Wewoka resident Lonnie Joe Mullinax died Wednesday, June 19, 2002 at the Wewoka Nursing Center at the age of 73. No services are scheduled. He was born to Joseph Mullinax and Rebecca (Brumlow) Mullinax on Jan. 2, 1929 in Holdenville, they both preceded him in death. Mullinax married Joyce Edmunds on June 12, 1949 in Holdenville. He was a retired insurance salesman, and a veteran of the Korean War. Mullinax is survived by his wife, Joyce (Edmunds) Mullinax; one son, Larry Mullinax, Norman; one daughter, Linda O'Donnell, Bixby; and three grandchildren. June 22, 2002 Joe McGirt Sr. Funeral services for Wewoka resident for 2 p.m. Monday at the Hitchitee United Methodist Church in Wewoka. Revs. Houston Tiger and Abe Jackson will officiate, and a flag service will be performed by the Seminole Chapter of the Vietnam Veterans. Interment will follow at the Hitchitee United Methodist Church Cemetery, under the direction of Stout-Phillips Funeral Home. Wake service will commence tonight at 7 p.m. McGirt died Thursday, June 20, 2002 at Veterans Hospital in Oklahoma City at the age of 60. He was born to Nathan McGertt and Winnie Harjo on Sept. 10, 1941 in Seminole County. McGirt was raised in Seminole County and he moved to California where he attended schools and graduated. He married Norma Barber, she precedes him in death. McGirt then married Wynema Davis on Sept. 10, 1981, she also preceded him in death in July, 1993. He was a veteran of the U.S. Army, serving in Vietnam. McGirt was a mechanic and retired from Sonny's Automotive of Tulsa in 1987, and returned to the Wewoka area in 1993. He was a member of the Wewoka Indian Methodist Church in Yeager. McGirt was also preceded in death by his parents; three brothers, Kenneth McGertt, Sebert "Sonny" Harjo, and Mose Lee Harjo; one son, Russell Noon; and two infant grandchildren, Brittny Denise Harjo, and Ashton James Harjo. He is survived by two sons, Joe McGirt, Jr., Tecumseh, and David McGirt, Oklahoma City; one daughter, Brenda Smith, Oklahoma City; five brothers, Gary "Joe Sam" Harjo, Larry Brown, Holdenville, Jimmy McGertt, Okemah, Charlie McGertt, Poteau, and Louis McGertt, Phoenix, Ariz.; two sisters, Rose Deer and India McGertt, both of Okemah; and four grandchildren. Pallbearers are Lewis Harjo Jr., Willie Chupco, Sam Starr, Anthony Factor, Ray Herrera, and Harlen Moses. Honorary pallbearers are Vincent J. (V.J.) Harjo, and Leonard Hulbutta Factor. Copyright c. 1999-2002 The Seminole Producer. -=-=-=- June 18, 2002 Jacob A. Brown Eyes PINE RIDGE - Jacob A. Brown Eyes, infant son of Corey Clifford and Lori Brown Eyes of Pine Ridge, was born and died Thursday, June 13, 2002, in Pine Ridge. Survivors include his parents; one sister, Corey Dawn Clifford, Pine Ridge; his paternal grandmother, Linda Clifford, Pine Ridge; and his maternal grandparents, Norman and Sarah Brown Eyes, Pine Ridge. A one-night wake will begin at 3 p.m. today at Slim Buttes Community Building. Mass of Christian Burial will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday, June 19, at the community building, with the Rev. Bill Pauley officiating. Burial will be at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Cemetery in Slim Buttes. Sioux Funeral Home of Pine Ridge is in charge of arrangements. Douglas T. Conquering Bear MARTIN - Douglas T. Conquering Bear, 44, Martin, died Friday, June 14, 2002, in Rapid City. Survivors include one son, Douglas Johnson Jr., Martin; two daughters, Jeanine Johnson, Martin, and Missy Thompson, Brigham City, Utah; two brothers, John Conquering Bear, Hisle, and David Conquering Bear, Sioux Falls; and two sisters, Margie Morrison and Wilma Leonard, both of Martin. A two-night wake will begin at 2 p.m. today at the Martin CAP Building. Services will be at 2 p.m. Thursday, June 20, at Martin CAP Building, with the Rev. Daniel Makes Good officiating. Burial will be at Inestimable Gift Episcopal Cemetery in Allen. Sioux Funeral Home of Pine Ridge is in charge of arrangements. June 20, 2002 Alden Christopher Arapahoe SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. - Alden Christopher Arapahoe, 33, Scottsbluff, died Sunday, June 16, 2002, in Pine Ridge, S.D. Survivors include one son, Hoksila Sky Arapahoe, Pine Ridge; his parents, Joanne Sierra and Emery Arapahoe Sr., both of Pine Ridge; five brothers, Carlos Hoof, Emery Arapahoe, Antonio Weston Sr. and Brian Jefferies, all of Pine Ridge, John Eder, Eagle Butte, S.D., and Joe Hoof, Mora, Minn.; three sisters, Mary Hoof, Rapid City, Adelyne Arapahoe, Pine Ridge, and Darlene Elk, Porcupine; one adopted brother, Donroy Brings Plenty, Pine Ridge; and two adopted sisters, Joyce Wheeler, Martin, and Marie Red Owl- Tail, Porcupine. A two-night wake will begin at 3 p.m. today at JoAnne Sierra's home in Pine Ridge. Services will be at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 22, at Joanne Sierra's home, with the Rev Emerson Spider officiating. Burial will be at Plenty Bear Cemetery in Allen. Sioux Funeral Home of Pine Ridge is in charge of arrangements. June 23, 2002 Dolores M. Tyon-Sitting Holy PINE RIDGE - Dolores M. Tyon-Sitting Holy, 61, Pine Ridge, died Friday, June 21, 2002, in Pine Ridge. Survivors include two sons, Steve Tyon and Clifton Clifford, both of Pine Ridge; one brother, Floyd Tyon, Kyle; and numerous grandchildren. One-night wake begins at 3 p.m. Monday, June 24, at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Pine Ridge. Mass of Christian Burial will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday, June 25, at the church, with the Rev. Bill Pauly officiating. Burial will be at Holy Rosary Cemetery. Sioux Funeral Home in Pine Ridge is in charge of arrangements. Floyd L. Rathman STURGIS - Floyd L. Rathman, 84, Sturgis, died Saturday, June 22, 2002, at Fort Meade Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Sturgis. Survivors include one daughter, Lois Rathman, Sturgis. Arrangements are pending with Carlsen & Aldinger Funeral Home in Sturgis. Frankee L. Thunder Horse WOUNDED KNEE - Frankee L. Thunder Horse, 7, Wounded Knee, died Wednesday, June 19, 2002, at Rapid City. Survivors include his parents, Amelia White Dress and Steve Bear Eagle, both of Wounded Knee, two brothers, Wanbli Bear Eagle, Wounded Knee, and Gilbert Thunder Horse, Wanblee; three sisters, Carolyn Bear Eagle and Tricia Bear Eagle, both of Wounded Knee, and Shirley Thunder Horse, Wanblee; and paternal grandfather, Paul Thunder Horse, Wounded Knee. Second-night wake will be today at Sacred Heart Catholic Hall in Wounded Knee. Mass of Christian Burial will be at 3 p.m. Monday, June 24, at Sacred Heart Catholic Hall, with the Rev. Jim Ryan officiating. Burial will be at Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery. Sioux Funeral Home in Pine Ridge Copyright c. 2002 The Rapid City Journal. -=-=-=- June 14, 2002 Delores Eskeets White CHINLE, Ariz. - Services for Delores White, 44, will be held at 10 a.m., Saturday, June 15 at the Potters House Christian Center. Pastor Artie Aragon will officiate. Burial will follow at Chinle Community Cemetery. White died June 10 in Phoenix. She was born Oct. 20, 1957 in Ganado, Ariz. into the Water Edge People Clan for the Meadow People Clan. White attended Chinle High School, Dine' College and Chinle Indian Health Service. Her hobbies included Computer Tech, softball, basketball and running. Survivors include her husband, Anthony White; sons, Aaron Pahe, Travis Pahe, Araelle White; daughters, Nedra Burbank, Andrea Pahe, Antoinette Pahe and Arielle White; father, Leonard Lee Eskeets; brothers, Micheal Eskeets and Myron Eskeets; sisters, Nora Wilson, Lavena Williams, Norma Etsitty and Leona Eskeets; and two grandchildren. White was preceded in death by his mother, Mary Francis Baldwin and grandparents, Richard and Mildred Baldwin. Pallbearers will be Bryan Tsosie, Alfonso Haven, Derek Benally, Patrick Ashley and Kevin Analla. The family will receive friends and relatives after the burial services at Chinle Christian Center. Tse Bonito Mortuary is in charge of arrangements. June 16, 2002 Marilyn Becenti Morgan PINEDALE - Services for Marilyn Morgan, 49, will be held at 11 a.m., Monday, June 17 at Cope Memorial Chapel. Kee Keyanna will officiate. Burial will follow at private land, Pinedale. Morgan died June 13 in Gamerco. She was born April 26, 1953 in Rehoboth into the Two Come to Water People Clan for the Mountain Cove People Clan. Morgan was a silversmith. Her hobbies included traveling, models and puzzles. Survivors include her mother, Elsie Becenti of Pinedale; brothers, Tony Becenti Sr. of Pinedale, Jack Becenti Jr. of Leupp, Ariz. and Harrison Becenti Sr. of Fort Defiance, Ariz.; sisters, Alice Begay, Helen Miller and Esther Largo of Pinedale; Stella Begay of Gamerco and Edith Livingston of Springstead. Morgan was preceded in death by her husband, Dennis Morgan; father, Jack Becenti Sr., sisters, Grace Becenti, Loretta Becenti and brothers, Ned Becenti, Virgil Becenti Sr. and Richard Becenti. Pallbearers will be Jimmie C. Begay Jr., Robbie Manulito, Randy Hayes, Jeremy C. Begay, Hayward Livingston and Horace Daukai. The family will receive friends and relatives after the burial services at Pinedale Chapter House. Cope Memorial Chapel is in charge of arrangements. James Charleston Baker MARIANO LAKE - Services for James Baker, 77, will be held at 11:30 a.m., today at Navajo Burean Mission, Mariano Lake. Jones Dehaiya will officiate. Baker died June 12 in Albuquerque. He was born Dec. 24, 1924 in Mariano Lake into the Bitter Water People Clan for the Water's Edge People Clan. Baker served in U.S. Air Force. He was employed with the railroad and fought in World War II. He worked at the sawmill and herded sheep. Survivors include his wife, Rosie Baker; sons, Rodger Baker, James Baker Jr., Harvey Baker and David Baker; daughters, Marie Baker, Irene Baker, Alita Baker and Theresa Baker; sister, Bessie Dick. Baker was preceded in death by his parents, Charley Baker and Nellie Charleston; son, Tex Baker and daughter, Susie Baker. Pallbearers will be Robert Baker, Harvey Baker, David Baker, Leyon Begay, Charleston Baker and Artemis Baker. The family will receive friends and relatives after the burial services at Navajo Bureau Mission. Cope Memorial Chapel is in charge of arrangements. June 17, 2002 Roger Charles Whitehair TOHATCHI - Services for Roger Whitehair, 51, will be held at 10 a.m., Tuesday, June 18 at Rollie Mortuary Palm Chapel. Burial will follow at Hillcrest Cemetery. A rosary will be recited at 5 p.m., tonight at Rollie Mortuary-Palm Chapel. Whitehair died June 13 in Tohatchi. He was born Aug. 5, 1950 in Rehoboth into the Bitterwater People Clan for the Tree that Mushrooms Out of People Clan. Survivors include his son, Roberto Shazam Yazzie of Florence, Colo.; daughter, Melissa Thomas of Hillsboro, Ore.; parents, Isabel and Henry Whitehair both of Tohatchi; brothers, Vincent Moreno of Auroro, Colo. and Henry L. Whitehair of Window Rock; sisters, Kathy Herrera of Gamerco; Lisa Higgins of Virginia Beach, Va., Annabel Whitehair of Gallup, Marlon Salinas and Henrietta Ceja of Chicago, Ill. and three grandchildren. Whitehair was preceded in death by his brothers, Alfredie Whitehair and Anthony James Whitehair. Pallbearers will be family members. Rollie Mortuary is in charge of arrangements. June 18, 2002 Peter L. Teller TSE BONITO - Services for Peter Teller, 69, will be held at 10 a.m., Wednesday, June 19 at St. Michaels Catholic Church. Father Gilbert Schneider will officate. Teller died June 13 in Fort Defiance, Ariz. He was born July 2, 1932 in Ganado, Ariz into Bigwater People Clan for the One Who Walks Around You People Clan. Teller was a rancher, baker in Chicago, carpenter for BIA in Fort Defiance. Laborer for Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Company. Survivors include his wife, Maggie Teller; sons, Lawrence P. Teller, Peter L. Teller Jr. and Alexander Teller both of Lower Greasewood, Ariz.; mother, Agnes Teller Owens of Cross Canyon; brothers, Joe L. Teller of Chicago, Ill., Abraham Teller of St. Michaels, Ariz., William Teller of Gallup, Tom Owens Jr. of Colorado Springs, Colo. Chester Owens of Shiprock; Richard Owens of Kinlichie, Ariz. and Leonard Owens of Rock Springs; and sisters, Helen Largo and Maybel Lily both of Cross Canyons, and Catherine Owens of Tuba City, Ariz. Teller was preceded in death by his father, Askie Teller and grandparents, Dick and Ason-Bah Teller. Tse Bonito Mortuary is in charge of arrangements. June 19, 2002 Lorena Ann Naize COTTONWOOD, Ariz. - Services for Lorena Naize, 49, will be held at 10 a.m., today at Upper Room Church, Tselani Springs, Ariz. Pastor Frank James will officiate. Burial will follow at Black Mountain Cemetery, Black Mountain, Ariz. Naize died June 14 in Chinle, Ariz. She was born Feb. 20, 1953 in Ganado, Ariz. into the Red Bottom People Clan for the Honey Comb Cliffdwellers People Clan. Naize received her GED and cosmetology certificate at Cal Poly, San Luise Obispo, Calif. She was a homemaker, weaver and made wedding cakes. Survivors include his daughters, Josefina Dominguez, Roberta Bitsui and Denielli Bitsui; mother, Elizabeth Naize; brothers, Johnny Naize, David Naize, Jimmy Naize, Reid Naize Jr., Joe Naize Sr. and Lee Begay; sisters, Sarah Naize, Arlena Naize, Rita Ortiz, Nancy Nez, Phyllis James and Virginia Gorman and one grandchild. Naize ws preceded in death by her father, Reid F. Neize Sr. Pallbearers will be Johnny Naize, David Naize, Reid Naize Jr., Jimmy Naize, Kenson Castillo and Peterson Tullie. The family will receive friends and relatives after the burial services at Naize Residence, four miles NE of Cottonwood Chapter House. Mt. Taylor Mortuary is in charge of arrangements. June 20, 2002 Rena Shorty Nelson AZUSA, Calif. - Services for Rena Nelson, 60, will be held at 11 a.m., Thoreau Church of God. Pastor David Nahkai will officiate. Burial will follow at Thoreau Community Cemetery. Nelson died June 13 in Covina, Calif. She was born March 6, 1942 in Thoreau into the Two Who Came to the Water People Clan for the Red Running into the Water People Clan. Survivors include his sons, Tim Nelson of San Jancito, Calif. and Willie Nelson of Azuza, Calif.; brother, Hoskie Shorty of Thoreau; sister, Bessie Yazzie of Smith Lake and two grandchildren. Nelson was preceded in death by her husband, David Nelson; parents, Frank and Anna Shorty; daughter, Fannie Nelson; son, Steven Nelson and brothers, Buddie Shorty, Herbert Shorty and John Shorty. Pallbearers will be Bill Chavez, Ivan Chavez, George F. Nelson Sr., Michael Platero, Nelson Willie and Derrick Yazzie. Rollie Mortuary is in charge of arrangements. Nellie B. Orllie TOHLAKAI - Services for Nellie Orllie, 86, will be held at 11 a.m., Friday, June 21 at Bethlahem Christian Reformed Church, Tohlakai. Pastor Bobby Boyd will officiate. Burial will follow at Green Meadows, Rock Springs. Orllie died June 17 in Gallup. She was born April 17, 1916 in Blackhat into the Red Running into the Water People Clan for the Bitter Water People Clan. Orllie was a homemaker, farmer and sheepherder. Her hobbies included rugweaving, cooking and sewing. Survivors include her sons, Steve Orillie and Faron Orillie both of Tohlakai; daughters, Aileen Redhouse of Kirtland, Fern Gonzales of Gallup, Jean Orllie of Tohlakai; Mary Shirley of Tohatchi and Rita Williamson of Scottsdale, Ariz.; parents, Hosteen Hatallie Begay and Nasbah Chischilly; sisters, Sarah B. Long of Rock Springs, Ruby Begay and Marie B. Yazza both of Tohlakai; 24 grandchildren; 28 great-grandchildren and nine great- great grandchildren. Orllie was preceded in death by her husband, Charlie Orllie; and daughters, Louise Orllie and Helen Orllie. Pallbearers will be Casey Tommie, Craig Orillie, Lebain Gonzales, Truman Orillie, Felix Benally, Brian Orillie and Ronald Martin Jr. The family will receive friends and relatives after the burial services at Bethlahem Christian Reformed Church. Cope Memorial Chapel is in charge of arrangements. Gloria M. Curley-Smiley PREWITT - Services for Gloria Curley-Smiley, 36, will be held at 10 a.m., at First Baptist Church, Thoreau. Pastor Bruce Gardner will officiate. Burial will follow at private family cemetery. Curley-Smiley died June 17 in Prewitt. She was born Jan. 3, 1966 in Albuquerque into the Towering House People Clan for the Tangle People Clan. Survivors include her husband, Leroy Smiley of Prewitt; mother, Pearl Jake-Tapaha of Prewitt; brothers, James F. Curley of Albuquerque and Nelson Curley of Prewitt; sisters, Sandra Adams of Albuquerque, Bernice Manning of Tohajilee, Corrina Smiley of Tohatchi, Ruth Ann Begay, Rita Yazzie and Mary Ann Curley both of Prewitt. Curley-Smiley was preceded in death by her father, James F. Curley Sr.; sister, Eunice Jean Curley; brothers, Jason F. Curley and Lorenzo Curley and sisters, Marian Curley and Barbara Delgarito. Pallbearers will be James F. Curley Jr., Matthew Curley, Jason Delgarito, John Jake Jr., Gene Manning Jr., Donovan Nan Martinez and Shane Lee Martinez. Rollie Mortuary is in charge of arrangements. Benjamin Johnson CHINA SPRINGS - Services for Benjamin Johnson, 42, will be held at 10 a.m., Friday, June 21 at the Cope Memorial Chapel. Rev. Dennis Gardner will officiate. Burial will follow at the City Cemetery. Visitation will be held from 3-5 p.m., today at Cope Memorial Chapel. Johnson died June 16 in China Springs. He was born Dec. 29, 1958 in Fort Defiance, Ariz. into the Towering House People Clan for the Red Running into the Water People Clan. Survivors include his mother, Rose Becenti Johnson of China Springs; brothers, Hoskie Johnson, Edison Johnson and Micheal Johnson all of China Springs; sisters, Fannie Morrison of Grand Canyon, Ariz., Alice R. Livingston, Martha Johnson, Rose A. Johnson and Colleen Johnson all of China Springs; and one grandchild. Johnson was preceded in death by his father, Chee Johnson; grandparents, Fannie Slim and Antonio Johnson. Pallbearers will be Donovan Jones, Jeffery Yazzie, Justin Yazzie, Micheal Johnson, Waylon Toledo and Edison Johnson. The family will receive friends and relatives after the burial services at Rock Springs Chapter. Cope Memorial Chapel is in charge of arrangements. Copyright c. 2002 the Gallup Independent. -=-=-=- June 22, 2002 Evelyn Red Thunder POPLAR -- Evelyn (Archdale) Red Thunder, 80, a homemaker and World War II Army veteran, died of natural causes Thursday at a Poplar nursing home. A vigil service is 7 p.m. Monday at Assembly of God Church in Poplar. Her funeral is 2 p.m. Tuesday at the church, with burial in the Red Thunder family cemetery. Clayton Memorial Chapel is in charge of arrangements. Survivors include daughters Anita Bauer, Linda Atchico, Carol Red Thunder and Kathleen Ventura, all of Poplar; a sister, Myrna Greufe; 10 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband, Joseph Red Thunder; an infant son, Joseph Red Thunder Jr.; and a great-granddaughter. Copyright c. 2002 Great Falls Tribune. --------- "RE: PM had Solution to Native Problem" --------- Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 14:10:46 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="PROBLEM SOLVED!" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.canada.com/search/site/story [Editorial Note: Read this week's editorial comments before you read this smarmy piece of drivel.] PM had solution to native problem Ric Dolphin Calgary Herald Saturday, June 22, 2002 [Photo Caption] Jean Chretien, right, was named an honorary chief of the Blood Indian band during a visit near Lethbridge in 1988.] Thirty-three years ago, a dashing young Indian Affairs minister named Jean Chretien figured he could solve the Indian Problem. In a White Paper released on June 24, 1969, Chretien proposed abolishing the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND), repealing the Indian Act, and giving Canada's 237,000 Treaty Indians the same rights and responsibilities as the rest of the population. Indian bands would be given full control of their reserves. In return, their members would receive the same services as other citizens from the same agencies and be required to pay income taxes like the rest of us. For a period of five years, the federal allotment to Registered Indians would increase to upgrade the housing and education for a population in transition. After that, a level playing field. Although Chretien presented it, the paper was conceived by his boss, Pierre Trudeau. The prime minister was new to office and still perhaps believed that egalitarianism might be applied universally in his "Just Society." "If it had been passed, it probably would've worked," says a retired top DIAND official, who served in the 1970s. "We probably wouldn't have the apartheid system we have now. As it is, I can't see any future now except entrenched entitlement." The late 1960s, of course, were the days of rampant idealism. Trudeau and his gang believed they could solve anything, and the Indian problem was a big one. Since the war, the conditions for Canada's aboriginals had gone from bad to worse, despite some apparent improvements in their treatment and status. Thanks in part to the lobbying efforts of the National Indian Brotherhood and the Indian Association of Alberta, natives had won their right to vote in 1960 even though they didn't pay taxes. And -- despite significant opposition from many of their own -- they'd also won the right to drink in bars. This last advance was as dubious a benefit as the advent of welfare. Social assistance had begun in earnest after the war as a means of taking care of a reserve population that was losing agrarian jobs to advances and consolidations in the agricultural industry. It didn't seem to do any good. A welter of Liberal government aid programs in the 1960s -- housing benefits, educational initiatives, various and numerous counselling programs for the increasing number of urban Indians -- had also failed to alleviate what amounted to ghetto conditions on reserve and off. And so, for a moment or two in 1969, Chretien's and Trudeau's White Paper seemed like a wonderful, egalitarian solution to a problem that had seemed unsolvable, and everyone loved it. Len Marchand, a Conservative MP and the only Indian in the House of Commons, felt it was the perfect tonic to decades of paternalism. "We cannot be treated like children forever," he said. Unhappily, the proposal came at a time when the petulant voices of children were their loudest. The youthful, anti-establishment politics of the day, demonstrated most theatrically in the Vietnam marches, had seeped north and become a popular, televisual force that mainstream politicians ignored at their peril. In Canada, this howl of youthful entitlement was embodied in the unlikely person of Harold Cardinal, a pudgy, horn-rimmed, buckskinned and politically ruthless 24-year-old Cree from the Sucker Lake Reserve near Slave Lake. With the help of some American activist friends, Cardinal wrested control of the IAA, disbanded the association's non-Indian advisory board, became the top Indian spokesman in the country and waged war on the federal government. That same year year, he penned a screed entitled The Unjust Society: The Tragedy of Canada's Indians. "The present policy of Indian Affairs towards assimilating Indians or making them nice little brown white men is doomed to failure," was a typical utterance. The first part of Chretien's White Paper -- the bit about turning over the control of the reserves to the natives -- was fine with Cardinal. It was the rest -- paying taxes and meeting the same welfare criteria as regular citizens -- that he didn't like. "We are 'Canadian citizens plus,' " he said, in a famous phrase that had a timely Quebecois sort of ring. "Canadian citizens will have to accept and recognize that we are full citizens but also possess special rights." These special rights included the pursuit of land claims, something that Cardinal and his activist friends, many of whom went on to lifetimes of being paid consultants for assorted tribes, would drag out for decades. As Colby Cosh points out in his excellent account of the era in the latest volume of Alberta in the Twentieth Century, the only whites that Cardinal would allow into his circle were the lawyers, who, in the ensuing years, have become permanent employees of the land claims industry. In 1969 other Indian lobbyists joined Cardinal in his cries and a brand new, hyperbolic word was hatched. "We fear the end result of the proposal will be the destruction of a nation of people by legislation and cultural genocide," said Walter Deiter, chief of the National Indian Brotherhood. Soon, all the mainstream politicians who had supported the White Paper were backpaddling in an attempt to avoid the genocide cataract. Chretien said the White Paper had been nothing but a trial balloon. The final embarrassment came in June of 1970 when Cardinal and a number of Indians in headdress marched into the cabinet room on Parliament Hill. Cardinal delivered his entire 100-page Red Paper on what the government should be doing for the Indians. "The Red Paper was rich in rhetoric about Indian self-determination and 'partnerships with government,' terms that would become very familiar in the bumpy decades ahead," writes Cosh. "But it was really the show -- the sight of ministers of the Crown taking their lumps from the Sucker Creek boy and his crew -- that people would remember." It was possibly the only time in his political career that Trudeau publicly ate crow. "It may be naive," he said of the White Paper, "It may be shortsighted or misguided." Given the events of the ensuing 32 years, what was probably more shortsighted and misguided was backing down to a bunch of theatrical activists. But that's politics and, hey, Jean's still there. Harold Cardinal served briefly and unsuccessfully in a senior position with DIAND, before writing another screed, pursuing a career in consulting, Indian politicking, running unsuccessfully as a Liberal in Athabasca in 2000, and occasionally popping up to lambaste those who would criticize his views on native entitlement. In the 32 years since Cardinal came in and wrecked the Liberals' perfectly reasonable plan, conditions on reserves do not seem to have improved. Native unemployment, alcoholism and suicide remain at ridiculously high levels, DIAND continues to exist, and its expenditures have risen exponentially. About the only difference I can see is that the DIAND bureaucracy has been reduced. Jobs that department people used to do are now farmed out to the native bands themselves. According to the retired DIAND official, and according to similar accounts from all over the country, this shifting of work has resulted in an explosion of corruption on the reserves. Band officials, operating without accountability, enrich themselves, often with the complicity of DIAND people. "There's definitely enough money out there for the needs," says the ex- official, " but it ain't getting to the needs. The culture of corruption is worse than it ever was." Perhaps Jean Chretien -- assuming he isn't too far lost in his own culture of corruption -- realizes how bad things have become in Indian country, as well as inside a government department that, for the same sort of political reasons that gave Cardinal his victory in 1969, has always escaped thorough audits. Certainly, Chretien's own Indian Affairs minister, Robert Nault, a crusty former railwayman from Kenora, is starting to make noises that sound a wee bit like the ones his boss was making those many years ago. The First Nations Governance Act, introduced last week, will impose strict rules on how Indian bands choose their councillors, spend their money and pick their executives. The chiefs, represented by the Assembly of First Nations, are squawking in ways that Harold Cardinal squawked 30 years ago. Their constitutional rights are being violated, etc. Speaking to the National Post, Nault dismissed the AFN as a "lobby group" that does not speak for most Indians. He indicated that he fully intends to push the bill through in the fall. Although it is the most significant change to the Indian Act in 126 years, the bill hardly begins to do what Chretien's White Paper could have done 33 years ago. But, in the Indian Wars and other skirmishes, Chretien has learned to be an incrementalist. Slow and steady wins the race. The brave new world of 1969 died on the order paper. Ric Dolphin can be e-mailed at dolphinr@theherald.southam.ca Copyright c. 2002 Calgary Herald. --------- "RE: Ottawa offers Native Veterans Compensation" --------- Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 14:10:46 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NATIVE VETS" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.canoe.ca/NationalTicker/CANOE-wire.Native-Veterans.html of up to $20,000 each June 21, 2002 OTTAWA (CP) -- First Nations veterans and their spouses have been offered up to $20,000 each from the federal government for benefits denied to natives who fought in the Second World War and Korea. About 1,000 former servicemen who returned to reserves and 800 surviving spouses are eligible for the package worth $39 million. The offer also extends to the estates of veterans or spouses who died after Feb. 1, 2000 when Ottawa struck a panel to study the issue. The gesture was denounced by some for excluding Metis soldiers of mixed European and native blood, and non-status Indians who lived off reserves. The offer also fell far short of compensation sought by native groups. Veterans Affairs Minister Rey Pagtakhan announced the offer in the Commons "on compassionate grounds" Friday just before the House rose for summer recess. The news came amid National Aboriginal Day celebrations. It followed years of political haggling and threatened lawsuits. Matthew Coon Come, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, welcomed the package, calling it "a first step towards resolving this issue which has been left outstanding by the government for far too long. "Now it is up to the veterans to decide if they will accept this offer or not." Pagtakhan said outside the Commons he hopes they do. "The idea is in fact for the First Nations veterans . . . to avail of this offer and no longer to worry about any court issue." Those who accept payment must sign a waiver exempting them from related lawsuits, Pagtakhan said. Some First Nations veterans, tired of waiting for compensation threatened earlier this month to sue. A federal court action begun in 1998 had been on hold while talks continued with the federal government. But First Nation veterans from across Canada voted June 6 to wait no longer. "I think minister Pagtakhan is really just coming out of the woodwork now and saying 'We don't want to go to court over this thing,' " said Cliff Chadderton, chairman of the National Council of Veteran Associations, which includes native vets. The offer Friday may tempt those who threatened court action, but it leaves in the cold about 2,000 Metis veterans and 2,000 non-status Indians who left their reserves, he added. "They suffered terribly after the war," said Chadderton, 83, who served with many natives in the Second World War. More than 500 aboriginal servicemen died in two world wars and Korea. Veterans will have to decide if $20,000 is enough to call off the planned lawsuit, said Perry Bellegarde, chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations. "Whatever they offer will never, ever be enough for the supreme sacrifice a lot of them have made and the injustices they faced when they came back. But it's a start." Veterans Affairs has proposed a meeting for early July to discuss the package. Talks with Metis and non-status Indian veterans are continuing, Pagtakhan said. Bellegarde's group, which has pushed for compensation, was seeking about $420,000 for each of about 1,000 veterans and 800 surviving spouses. Status Indian veterans received a maximum of $2,320 to settle land on their return from war, compared with $6,000 for non-native soldiers, the federation says. Spousal benefits, education and jobs were also denied. Metis and non-status Indian veterans got little or nothing, said Chadderton. The government has settled in recent years with other veterans denied benefits offered most uniformed servicemen. Ottawa offered up to $20,000 each for surviving merchant mariners. It also compensated veterans who served in Hong Kong in the Second World War and spent more than three years in Japanese prison camps. The offer to First Nations veterans is on par with settlements reached in recent years with those other groups, Pagtakhan said. Copyright C. 2002, Canoe, a division of Netgraphe Inc. --------- "RE: Aboriginal Veterans plan Appeal" --------- Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 08:24:22 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="VETS APPEAL" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.canoe.ca/NationalTicker/CANOE-wire.Native-Veterans.html Group plans appeal to UN over federal package for aboriginal veterans June 23, 2002 OTTAWA (CP) -- An association representing Canada's war veterans plans to lodge a complaint with the UN over a compensation package for aboriginal veterans announced this week by the federal government. The National Council of Veterans Associations threatened Sunday to file a claim denouncing the offer with the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva this summer. It says the government failed to provide adequate rehabilitation benefits for Metis and non-status Indians who are excluded from the deal. "This offer is not acceptable," council chairman Cliff Chadderton said Sunday. The package announced Friday offers status aboriginal veterans and their spouses $20,000 each for benefits denied to natives who fought in the Second World War and Korea. About 1,000 former servicemen and 800 surviving spouses are eligible, as well as the estates of veterans or spouses who died after Feb. 1, 2000, when Ottawa struck a panel to examine the issue. Veterans Affairs Minister Rey Pagtakhan announced the $39-million package in the Commons "on compassionate grounds" Friday, amid National Aboriginal Day celebrations. It followed years of political haggling and threatened lawsuits. "I would hope that the First Nations eligible will accept this offer," Pagtakhan said. Chadderton, who served with many natives during the Second World War, said the package falls far short of the amount sought by veterans and aboriginal groups. The Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations had asked for $420,000 for each surviving veteran or their spouse. The government offer also excludes some 2,000 Metis and 2,000 non-status Indians who lived off reserves. Chadderton said his organization wanted the government to create a grant for all aboriginal veterans, including Metis, Inuit and non-status Indians. Aboriginal veterans associations decided Saturday to reject the offer during a meeting in Ottawa, he said. "We met all day on this," he said. "I had our lawyers there and we decided that if the government was not prepared to extend the assistance to the Metis and the non-status Indians -- the ones not on the reservations -- that we would proceed with a claim to the United Nations." Since Parliament is no longer sitting, he hopes the claim will speed up a scheduled July meeting with Pagtakhan. The claim will be made through the War Amps of Canada, which has non-governmental status. It can be filed within 10 days, he added. "If he wants us to withdraw the claim, then he's going to have to be prepared to meet with us and talk about expanding the assistance that he announced in the House of Commons Friday." Matthew Coon Come, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, welcomed the package Friday but said it was still up to the veterans to decide if it was acceptable. "It's a first step towards resolving this issue which has been left outstanding by the government for so long," he said in a statement. Copyright c. 2002, Canoe, a division of Netgraphe Inc. --------- "RE: Innu and Inuit vote on Voisey's Bay" --------- Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2002 08:19:22 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="VOISEY'S BAY VOTE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.canada.com/search/site/story High turnout expected as Labrador Innu and Inuit vote on Voisey's Bay deal Canadian Press Monday, June 24, 2002 ST. JOHN'S, Nfld. (CP) A high turnout is expected as Labrador Innu and Inuit vote Monday on a benefits agreement associated with the Voisey's Bay mining project. Leaders of both aboriginal groups have endorsed the deals and recommended acceptance. Jack Shiwak, chief returning officer of the Labrador Inuit Association, said about 50 Inuit voted last Monday in the advance poll. "That's a heavy turnout for an advance poll and if the trend continues, I expect big numbers on Monday," he said. About 3,500 Labrador Inuit - 15 years old and up - are eligible to vote Monday at polls set up in 10 communities. A simple majority of 51 per cent would be enough to ratify the deal. But anything less could throw a wrench into Inco's plans to start work this summer on one of the world's biggest nickel discoveries. Winston White, a spokesman for the Labrador Inuit Association, doesn't think that will happen. "If this doesn't go through, the project can't proceed - simple as that. It holds it up," he said. "But my gut feeling is everything will go ahead. Of course, I still have some apprehension about it. It's hard to gauge. We might get just 51 per cent. You don't really know, eh?" Legislature members voted 28-18 Thursday to approve a statement of principles between the Newfoundland government and Inco Ltd. The historic deal to develop the proposed Voisey's Bay nickel mine in Labrador is worth $2.9-billion. The final agreement likely won't be signed until the fall. Copyright c. 2002 The Canadian Press. --------- "RE: Inuit, Innu accept Inco Deals" --------- Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2002 08:53:46 -0700 From: Larry Innes Subj: News: Innu and Inuit ratify Voisey's Bay IBA Mailing List: Innu People Forum list Inuit, Innu accept Inco deals Happy Valley-Goose Bay - Labrador's Innu and Inuit have accepted their benefits agreements for the Voisey's Bay development. The results were released Monday night. The president of the Labrador Inuit Association (LIA), William Barbour, says he's pleased with the outcome: * 1,952 or 51% of LIA members voted; * 82% of Inuit voters supported the deal; * a majority in each LIA community backed the package. The Innu Nation says 68% of the 600 ballots cast by its members supported the benefits agreement. Innu Nation president Peter Penashue says the agreements will give native people a say in development for the first time. Inco will pay the two aboriginal groups almost $300 million over the next 30 years. The positive results mean Inco can begin preliminary construction work at the mine site in northern Labrador. --------- "RE: Editorial: Election 2002: Kahnawake at the Brink" --------- Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2002 08:19:22 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="KAHNAWAKE ELECTION" http://www.easterndoor.com/ Editorial: Election 2002: Kahnawake at the brink By: Ross Montour, The Eastern Door To call this year's election pivotal would not be an overstatement. The future of Kahnawake must be considered, perhaps more than ever before because of the issues facing us. It is becoming clearer and clearer that the Federal Government of Canada is inexorably maneuvering Native people to the brink of what some have called the 'buffalo jump.' Just last week, the Minister of Indian Affairs tabled his First Nations Governance (FNG) legislation in Parliament. Some analysts are hoping it will 'die on the floor' once Parliament is suspended for the summer. While such optimists suggest that other issues could arise in the interim to distract the government from picking up the proposed legislation again in the fall, there is not guarantee it won't. Yet if it were only a matter of the FNG, that would be one thing, but it is not. If we ought to have learned anything in the last 125 years, it is that the Federal Government has been doggedly consistent in moving toward its originally stated goals. What are those goals? Simply this, no matter what the politicos of the day may say, the goal is to achieve 'finality' and 'certainty' in the doing away with of Native people and its fiduciary duty to them. The end goal is for the government to render us entities "no different from other Canadians." What a young Jean Chretien attempted in 1969, as Minister of Indian Affairs, with the 'White Paper' , he is still committed to accomplishing now. What his Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau said after the so-called defeat of the 'White Paper' is ringing truer than ever today. Trudeau told Native leaders of the day that the government was prepared to wait as long as it took to achieve its goals. However, the government did not sit idly as the years went by. No, the Federal government moved forward crafting each piece of its fabulous puzzle, laying each one separately but interlocking with all others along its chosen path. For our people, that path is an ever narrowing route to the end of our aspirations. How ironically fitting it is that some of us have chosen to liken the process to the buffalo jump. All around the stones have been studiously laid: the First Nations Land Management Act; the First Nations Fiscal Institutions Act; the Specific Claims Commission; the Self-Government negotiations process; and, now, the FNG - the work of Chretien's 'apt pupil', Robert Nault. Which brings us to the Canada/Kahnawake Relations (C/KR) agreement. Its proponents on council have told us that it has 'raised the bar' for such self-government agreements. They have told us that it will create, presumably to our benefit, a so-called 'third order of government.' It is also, they tell us, the only safe way to avoid the FNG. Even the Feds, as will our own leaders, speak about a 'legislative shield' being extended to those First Nations communities already involved in the self-government process. Be assured, the shield is no shield. If we believe that, we might as well be wearing a Ghost Dance Shirt. Ever since the C/KR has been unveiled, prominent councillors have gone on record, downplaying the significance of the Feds' insistence on the pre-eminence of the charter of Rights and Freedoms. If we believe their minimization, then we are sorely misled. The Charter is there for a reason. Its singular purpose, as far as we are concerned, is to be the hammer which crushes what little protection the Canadian Constitution affords us. We should be wary of those voices which seek to soothe us when they are asked what makes them think the government will do any better by us with a self-government agreement. These voices offer no tangible proofs. Instead, they offer platitudes about "our past accomplishments as Mohawk people." But understand this: No house can stand divided against itself. The Federal Government is no divided house. Can we say the same? We, the Mohawk people of Kahnawake cannot afford to be misled. We'd better know where our leaders stand because our future and that of our children's children will be affected by the choices we make today. Copyright c. 1997-2000 The Eastern Door. --------- "RE: Coon Come urges Landry to defuse Barriere Lake" --------- Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 15:07:25 -0400 From: "Frosty" Subj: Fw: Coon Come Urges Landry to Defuse Barriere Lake Crisis Mailing List: frostysamerindian@yahoogroups.com FW: Coon Come Urges Landry to Defuse Barriere Lake Crisis For Immediate Release Coon Come Urges Landry to Defuse Barriere Lake Crisis as Logging Mill Faces Closure Rapid Lake, Kitiganik, Quebec -- June 18, 2002 -- Mathew Coon Come, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, has intervened in the Barriere Lake logging stand-off with a personal appeal to Premier Bernard Landry. National Chief Coon Come's appeal comes as mill operations in the Grand Remous region face shutdowns as a result of the stand-off in the Algonquin territory. The crisis was sparked by the Federal government's decision last summer to walk away from the final stages of the Trilateral Agreement -- a groundbreaking land management plan for the territory. Earlier this year, Quebec also walked away from completing the Integrated Resource Management Plan (IRMP) for the territory. Without an IRMP, the Algonquin traditional way of life, which is dependent on hunting, fishing and gathering could be jeopardized by industrial forestry operations. National Chief Coon Come is urging Premier Landry to accept a compromise solution offered by the Algonquins of Barriere Lake (ABL) to defuse the logging crisis. "The solution proposed by Chief Wawatie [of Barriere Lake] will relieve the immediate pressure and remove the potential for conflict," National Chief Coon Come wrote. "Forestry companies operating within the Trilateral Agreement Territory, which are anxious to resume their forestry operations, will be able to re-start and the Algonquins will be able to continue the great progress made to date on the IRMP." The ABL have suggested a compromise whereby Quebec will use the approximately $1.5 million earmarked for the community through the Aboriginal Development Fund to complete the IRMP process. The Algonquins have made it clear that no logging will take place until the IRMP is in place. National Chief Coon Come believes that by accepting this compromise, Premier Landry can show Quebec's commitment to working with First Nations' people. I hope that your government will honour its legal and moral commitments to this First Nation. I believe the elements are there to build a solid nation relationship with Barriere Lake, similar to relationships Quebec is seeking to build with other First Nations/The Barriere Lake Trilateral Agreement, can and must become an important, positive example of co operative forest and resource management between government and Indigenous peoples." - 30 - For More Information Contact: Grand Chief Carol McBride (Algonquin Nation Secretariat) Phone: (819) 723-2019, or Russell Diabo (Advisor to the Algonquins of Barriere Lake) Cell: (613) 799-8160 Jean Larose (Assembly of First Nations) Phone: (613) 241-6789, ext. 251 --------- "RE: U.S. won't allow Canadian Headdress in" --------- Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 08:11:02 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BLACKFOOT" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20020619/localnews/56277.html Wednesday, June 19, 2002 Blackfoot Confederacy gathers U.S. won't allow Canadian headdress in; tribes see it as part of cross-border inequality By JENNIFER PEREZ Tribune Staff Writer On his way to a Blackfoot Confederacy meeting in Great Falls, Canadian Blood Chief Chris Shade called Canadian authorities to ensure his sacred eagle feather warbonnet could come with him. But when he got to the Sweet Grass port, the U.S. Border Patrol enforced a U.S. Fish and Wildlife regulation forbidding Canada's first nation people to transport eagle feathers into the United States. Shade, leader of the Blood or Kainaiwa Nation, had even provided the U.S. Customs Service documentation identifying him as a chief and saying that the headdress would be used for ceremony. But, unlike the United States, Canada doesn't have a mechanism allowing Canadian Indians to bring eagle feathers across its border for religious purposes. This type of issue illustrates why more than 300 Blackfoot Confederacy members and other Indians are uniting in Great Falls this week for the second annual confederacy conference. Members of the four nations -- Blackfeet of Montana and the Blood, Peigan and Siksika of Alberta -- are working on common issues; among them is breaking down this artificial boundary that divided the Blackfoot Nation in 1870. "Today, they're trying to separate us," said Earl Old Person, chief of the Blackfeet Tribe and chairman of the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council. "But that borderline is nothing. It's invisible to us." The confederacy's traditional territory was once bounded on the north by the North Saskatchewan River, on the east by the confluence of the North and South Saskatchewan River, on the south by the Yellowstone River and on the west by the Continental Divide. Like many Plains Indians, the Blackfoot has members in the United States and Canada, who travel back and forth regularly to visit family and attend religious ceremonies and powwow celebrations. "We do empathize with the chief but we must enforce the laws at the border -- this being one of them for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service," said Cherise Miles, U.S. Customs Service spokeswoman. Under the Bald and Golden Eagle Regulation Act, members of federally recognized tribes in the United States are given a permit to take eagle feathers across any border, which is recognized by Canada. But there is "apparently no mechanism under Canadian law that would allow the first band members of Canada to get a permit up there," said Bob Prieksat, senior resident agent with U.S. Fish and Wildlife. "If there was that, the United States would recognize it. Under our system, there shouldn't be any trouble for any member of a federally recognized tribe to get out or get in." Shade said he could've tried to smuggle the headdress into the states, but if he were caught, he'd lose it permanently -- which is far too great a risk for what he describes as his "guardian" and his "treasure." "It's with me for the rest of my life," he said, saying to lose the headdress is much different than losing something like a Bible, which can be replaced. The headdress's eagle feathers were given to his people by Fish and Wildlife in Alberta. The headdress was custom-made and given to him in a special ceremony, he said. "We don't poach them because we respect those eagles," because they're a "huge part of our culture," said Shade. There are more than 60 Indian tribes whose land straddles the northern border, said Blackfeet Susan Webber, of Browning, who is one of many confederacy organizers. "There's a lot of us on the border that have been artificially broken up," Webber said. "We have to come up with some kind of solutions that will be reasonable for everyone -- the governments and us." The confederacy plans ask the United States and Canada to hire Blackfoot individuals knowledgeable of traditional use and practices at border crossing stations. They would then educate existing non-Blackfoot border employees about the customs, ceremonies and social practices. Confederacy members hope to establish crossing protocol at forums with both countries this fall. Bringing traditional items across the border, dual membership and promoting economic development for the nations are just some of the issues the confederacy is focusing on. "It's really good to see that we're back together as a confederacy," said Siksika Chief Adrian Stinson. "It is truly historical," he said."Together we can learn from each other to better the life for our people. It's time to make ideas a reality." The four nations of the Blackfeet Confederacy are about 35,000 strong and must unite for their issues to be heard, said Darrel "Gordo" Horn, vice president of the Blackfeet Tribe. "With one voice, we can do a lot," Horn said. "With several voices we can not." Blood Tribe Councilman Jason Goodstriker said some of the most important issues on reservations are ensuring their people have jobs, housing and focusing on developing their economies. The Blackfoot confederacy is hundreds and thousands of years old, Goodstriker said. Patricia Guardipee and Roger Sinclair, of Great Falls and formerly of Browning, were two of the original 13 riders who rode on horse from Glieshan, Alberta, to St. Mary's Lake in 1995, one of the first attempts to reunite the confederacy. It's just been in the past few years, Goodstriker said, that the confederacy is getting aggressive and "common ground is being sought." "This group relates back in language and kinship ties way before either of the other governments were here," said Goodstriker, who added that the dialect of each nation differs slightly but there is only one practice of the Blackfoot spirituality. "Some tribes have been influenced by other tribes," he said. "We as confederated Blackfoot take special pride that we have things that are just Blackfoot." Tuesday's session included a pipe ceremony, confederacy song, and welcome from confederacy chiefs, sessions on the history and traditional structure of the confederacy, and speeches by tribal leaders. A powwow was held Tuesday night at the family living center at the fairgrounds. The celebration featured a grand entry led by veterans and flags, chiefs and royalty, as well as intertribals, a men's old style chicken dance special. The Blackfeet Tribe hosted this year's conference; next year it'll be hosted by the Blood Tribe, in Alberta, which is expected to be held in Lethbridge. Copyright c. 2002 Great Falls Tribune. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Blackfeet Livestock Losses total $2 Million" --------- Date: Sunday, June 23, 2002 3:10 AM From: mikola 18 Subj: "Blackfeet livestock losses total $2 million" Mailing List: ndn-aim http://www.billingsgazette.com June 23, 2002 "Tribe: Livestock losses total $2 million" BROWNING (AP) - "The early June snowstorm the dumped record snow along the Rocky Mountain Front killed nearly $2 million in livestock, the Blackfeet Indian Tribe announced this week. The tribe said an estimated 3,260 head of cows, calves, bulls, horses, colts, ewes and lambs were lost, based on a death loss survey of 124 ranchers and livestock producers in Glacier County. Total value was set at $1.9 million. Shortly after the storm ended June 11, a tribal official estimated more than 3,000 head of livestock might have been lost, but that figure was reduced dramatically the following day. Thursday's report is part of a Blackfeet Agriculture Disaster assessment that could lead to federal relief funds. There was no way to independently verify the figures. The report noted Blackfeet ranchers spent days counting carcasses and waiting for the snow, 6-feet-deep in places, to melt so they could reach the thousands of stranded cattle. It said the preliminary disaster assessment doesn't include snow or flood damage to private buildings, fences and irrigation structures, and carcass disposal and cleanup efforts also weren't included. Emergency measures were needed to get nearly 150 tons of hay to nearly 4,100 head of cattle to keep them from starving, the report said." Copyright c. 2002, The Billings Gazette ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 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: Fort Hall wants input in dealing with Pronghorn" --------- Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 08:17:17 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="PRONGHORN SLAUGHTER" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.imdiversity.com/villages/native/Article_Detail.asp?Article_ID=11444 Tribe Wants More Input in Dealing With Pronghorns Near Airport by AP, The Associated Press Pocatello, Idaho (AP) _ Three of nearly 50 pronghorn antelope that took up residence near the airport last winter were killed by city employees under the direction of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and airport management. The killings have angered citizens concerned about the safety of shooting in the area, and from the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, home to the pronghorns. "We were afraid an airplane would hit one the animals," said Lenard Nelson, airport manager. "We were simply protecting our passengers." He said the Federal Aviation Administration requires the elimination of the animals to keep the airport open. A kill permit for the removal of 10 pronghorns was issued by Fish and Game to airport management from April 29 to Aug. 15. It came about after hundreds of hours spent trying to drive the animals from the area. "We and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes worked pretty hard to get the herd busted up off the farmers' fields to keep the antelope off the runways," said Dexter Pitman, Fish and Game regional manager. "Antelope are extremely hard to drive and would run around us and back to the same spot they were time and time again." "Our concern is the airport is inside the boundaries of the reservation and we feel we should have a part in the decision made to control the antelope," said Blaine Edmo, Shoshone-Bannock tribal chairman. "From my understanding, capturing and removing the animals was too costly for us to afford. I also understand that with the capturing of antelope you generally have a high mortality on the animals you do catch and relocate," Edmo said. Pocatello city attorney Dean Tranmer reported there still are animals living near the airport. "The people that have been managing the animals are highly trained and have been taking all the safety precautions they can before killing the animals," he said. Tranmer said elk and bison from the Fort Hall bottoms have also wandered into the protected areas of the airport in the past. Copyright c. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Copyright c. 2002 iMinorities, Inc. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Editorial: Miami deserve Sovereign Status" --------- Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 14:10:46 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MIAMI" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.starnews.com/article.php?editmiami22.html,opinion [Editorial Comment from Owlstar Trading Post - Daily Headlines: http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm My position: Every Native person should stand by our Miami brothers. If you read the entire story, the BIA rescinded the Miami's treaty in 1897. Although the department admits now that this was wrong, they claim that now the 2400 Miami in Indiana are too dispersed to be considered a tribe. Of course they are dispersed. The U.S. government routed them from their homeland and forced them to scatter for survival by simply breaking their treaty over 100 years ago. Maybe if that wrong were undone and the lands that were stolen from their grandparents restored to the tribe, there might be a reversal of the dispersion, too -- the Miami could go home as a unified people. Do victim's rights not matter if the thief was the U.S. government? No matter that the theft of land was over 100 years ago, when it has been perpetuated and exacerbated by the theft of name and identity up to this very day. My appreciation to the Indianpolis Star for its stand and for encouraging its readers to stand for justice.] TODAY'S EDITORIAL Miami deserve sovereign status June 22, 2002 Our position: Hoosiers should stand with their native brothers and demand tribal status for the Miami. An exhibit opening today at the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis tells the history of Indiana's native people. Especially compelling is the story of the Miami Nation, which was granted tribal status by the federal government in an 1854 treaty, only to have it taken away years later, erroneously, by federal bureaucrats. We encourage every Hoosier to visit the museum to learn about the Miami's role in our history. Then we urge you to contact Sens. Richard G. Lugar and Evan Bayh and demand justice. It is time for Congress to do right by the Miami and restore their rights as a sovereign nation. Unfortunately, the Miami's future has gotten caught up in the latest debate over gambling. Lugar and Bayh are both opposed to any gaming expansion in Indiana and fear that that the Miami would attempt to open a land-based casino should their tribal status be restored. The senators should be assuaged by the tribe's pledge to give up all gaming rights in any legislation written to affirm its treaty. The issue fell to Congress this spring when the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling upholding the Department of Interior's rescinding of the Miami's tribal status in 1897. Despite eventually admitting that decision was based on a flawed interpretation of law, the department says the Miami are too dispersed to be considered a tribe in 2002. That position is unfair on its face. The tribe is 2,400 strong in Indiana and becoming more politically organized every day. Unfortunately, a couple thousand people don't wield much power in Washington. It will take all Hoosiers, standing with their Native American brethren, to right the wrong inflicted on the Miami Nation of Indiana. Copyright c. 2002 The Indianapolis Star. --------- "RE: Drought: No Water available to fight Fires" --------- Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 08:24:22 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NO WATER" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.gallupindependent.com/todaysnews.html#anchor5 Navajo drought: No water available to fight fires Jim Maniaci Dine' Bureau NAVAJO MOUNTAIN - This tiny community on the eastern flank of the highest spot on the Navajo Reservation provides a microscopic look at what the worst drought in modern history can do. Chapter President Leo Manheimer, backed up by Council Delegate Willie Greyeyes, told a group of touring officials that there is only enough water left in a 200,000 gallon tank for a maximum of four minutes of pumping by firefighters if a home was to catch fire. He added that a second tank, which serves the community-controlled BIA- funded elementary school and new public high school, only has only two minutes worth of water. Manheimer also implied that classes won't be able to open in the fall, if the fire safety rules are strictly applied, because the tank is supposed to be at least three-fourths full. He estimated springs that supply the main tank are producing about 20 gallons per minute, while about 30 gallons per minute is being taken out. Their normal inflow in the spring is about 70 gallons per minute, he said. With such a short fire-fighting water supply, the main housing area in a community of 632 people have the potential to be wiped out, along with two schools, a Head Start center, two churches and an IHS health station. The community's trading post closed more than a decade ago. Tuesday night the Coconino County Board of Supervisors issued its formal declaration of a drought emergency for the chapter, the first step toward getting federal assistance. "The resolution ratified last night states that the Navajo Mountain Chapter and the Navajo Nation are unable to provide a sufficient domestic water supply to meet the needs of local residents," according to a county statement issued Wednesday. On behalf of the chapter, which is the smallest unit of Navajo government, Arizona's largest county is asking the State of Arizona to provide water to residents, but not livestock or for farming. The statement said the state will determine if residents are eligible to receive assistance, and whether that assistance will be financial, physical resources or technical assistance. Federal assistance can only be provided once the state's resources are overwhelmed. Coconino County Supervisor Debbie Hill of Flagstaff compared the chapter's situation to "The canary in a mine." Old-time miners brought the birds with them into underground mines to warn of methane gas. The birds would collapse, instead of singing cheerfully, and thus saved the miners' lives. On Wednesday, county, state, tribal and federal officials assembled at the Peterson Zah-Navajo Nation Museum, Library and Visitor's Center in Window Rock for a pre-drought two-day tour. County Emergency Services Coordinator Jim Driscoll attended Wednesday's gathering in the tribal capital. The U.S. Interior Department's Reclamation Bureau provided a tanker to haul water, but the IHS quarantined it until it could be sanitized. Furious state, federal and county officials got on the phone Wednesday to help get the truck on the road. The Bureau also has asked Commissioner John Keys in Washington, D.C., for $75,000 to buy water for the truck. Navajo Tribal Utility Authority announced it would supply three weeks worth of water for the truck, but the precious liquid will have to be hauled about 47 miles one way from Shonto Junction. The northern half of the route is over rough washboard dirt roads. NTUA's Terry Thompson told the group that a plan to extend a water line from Inscription House to Navajo Mountain raises two major concerns. Additional housing built at the lower elevation community has put the supply wells near their capacity, and the terrain is filled with canyons to be crossed. Greyeyes said the current cost estimate for the major line extension is about $2 million. Fourth District Supervisor Hill hinted that Coconino County will consider all chapter residents to be county residents, even though the main community is about five miles into Utah. The only road into the chapter, BIA Route 16, comes through Coconino County. The eastern edge of the chapter is part of Supervisor Percy Deal's district in Navajo County. She said she expects many other reservation water systems will end up in the same shape, something NTUA hopes doesn't happen. Hill said the county is paying the tanker truck driver's salary and buying the fuel for the 47-mile trip to the junction of Ariz. Route 98 and the paved road into Shonto. "But this is only a stop-gap measure," she cautioned, until state and federal aid can begin. The chapter contains about 608 square miles, according to the tribal Community Development Division. There are about 135 children enrolled in the community-controlled elementary (former BIA) school and about 50 in the high school. Navajo Mountain's peak, about 10 miles to the west of the school-based community, is 10,384 feet high. The chapter's other claim to fame is Rainbow Bridge National Monument on Lake Powell. Copyright c. 2002 The Gallup Independent. --------- "RE: Many Farms Lake virtually Dry" --------- Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 08:24:22 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MANY FARMS LAKE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.gallupindependent.com/todaysnews.html Big lake virtually dried up Tour group sees drought horror Jim Maniaci Dine' Bureau CHINLE - Tribal staff, plus federal and state visitors, were shocked when they saw a dry Many Farms Lake, the first of five central Navajo Reservation watering holes they visited on the second day of a two-day tour. Before leaving the Junction Restaurant here Thursday morning, the group, as it did the morning before in Window Rock, discussed the worst drought in modern history. A key federal official said he is still convinced the situation is just as bad as its counterpart, a flood, and therefore the Federal Emergency Management Agency would respond affirmatively to an emergency declaration by Ariz. Gov. Jane Hull, New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and/or Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt. Dennis McKeown of the FEMA San Francisco Office told the group that on Tuesday, after hearing from the Arizona Emergency Management Department, he briefed FEMA chief Joseph Allbaugh about the drought. "He said to tell you the Navajo Nation's issues are important to him, personally, and he will work with you to do everything he can," McKeown said. Pointing the smoke in the sky to the south from the monster Rodeo Fire, he also explained the federal agency is like a fire department, saying, "We mitigate the immediate life-threatening situation, the life and property-threatening disasters." He clearly believes not enough precipitation is just as bad as too much, commenting, "Droughts fall within this category of a natural disaster, significant destruction." President Kelsey Begaye announced at Wednesday's assembly that Allbaugh will be in Window Rock the third week of July, which will be during the regular summer session of the Navajo Nation Council. His troops also are battling to get the council's Resources Committee, at a special meeting this morning, to support tapping into the tribe's $4.2 million Undesignated Reserve Fund for $1.9 million. The account is reserved by tribal law for emergency operation of the government, based on six months worth of the previous year's general fund. But by waiving the law with a two-thirds vote of the full membership, the council routinely raids it for deficit spending. On Tuesday, the panel rejected the request, which already has the support of two other council committees. The request is expected to be presented to the council either at the regular session or a special session that might be called for July 3 when U.S. Interior Department Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb visits Window Rock. Begaye's Chief of Staff, Derrith Watchman-Moore, spent three of her first five days dealing with the two-day tour, plus a Monday journey with the president, to the hardest-hit areas, the Cameron and Bodaway-The Gap Chapters on the far western edge of the reservation. The trip also included Begaye's home chapter of Kaibeto. She and Natural Resources Division departments emphasized that while droughts are a normal part of the weather cycle on the reservation, and therefore not a routine emergency, the current drought has reached epidemic proportions, and the tribe needs federal help. However, the help that FEMA would muster first requires the state governor to declare a state of emergency. And that doesn't happen until the local government levels, which would include the tribe, issuing their declarations first. U.S. Agriculture Department Secretary Ann Veneman already has approved emergency help from her people, but that is a more limited range of assistance. Under federal law, McKeown said FEMA can require other federal agencies to provide the emergency aid for their specialty, to avoid duplicating efforts. But first, he noted, the states have to show they cannot meet the need with whatever assets they can apply. Emory Chee told the group that normal rainfall is about 8 inches a year. "We have not had any normal precipitation in two years," he said. And temperatures are averaging 4 to 6 degrees higher than average, with the drought also causing daily winds where there used to be only seasonal breezes. Christopher Mike said the 900 windmills can't meet the need, especially when the runoff reservoirs dry up. He also noted the farm boards are voluntarily shutting down irrigation systems. Only a small parcel at Ganado Lake, less than a quarter of a square-mile, is getting that type of water. Tommy Thompson of NTUA said the utility's emphasis will remain on water for people, but that abandoned wells might be able to be reactivated for livestock, once they are turned over to a tribal department. Alex Becenti said the BIA Forestry Branch crews have already put out as many fires as in all of last year, which also was a dry year. Robinson Honani said the Hopi Tribe has cut its cattle allotments in half since the last major drought in 1996. At its cattle sales at Sun Valley it is receiving about 50 cents per hundredweight, he said. Gloria Tom said the lack of water is causing wildlife to come down into human-occupied lands, causing conflicts with people. She added that because of the drought, many fish were dying off - as was evident a little while later on the tour of a once large warm-water lake at Many Farms. It's so bad, her department may soon announce temporary lifting of fish limits at some lakes, plus a relaxation of the number of poles that can be in the water at one time. At Many Farms Lake, which is about 1,200 acres (almost two square-miles) at full pool, an estimated 10,000 bass and catfish perished. All that is left is a few acres about one-foot deep at the far northern end of the dam, near the spillway, where the few survivors gravitated, only to be dive-bombed by birds taking off from an island sandbar as if from an aircraft carrier. The odor of decaying fish can be smelled a long way off. And the aquatic carcuses lined the ever-decreasing shoreline like driftwood. The dead fish were so thick they looked like gravel on a road. Only six weeks ago, one of Tom's staff members said, it was a nice lake with several hundred acres of surface water. But the high temperatures, coupled with the extremely low humidity, have quickly evaporated the water. But the fish weren't the only dead animals. Cows who tried to reach the water often couldn't get unstuck from the gooey mud, and perished within a stone's throw of the life-giving liquid, as cloudy with silt as it is. But in the western reservation, the presidential tour on Monday found things even worse, almost as bad as the Sahara desert, with skulls and carcuses littering the landscape. At some watering holes, there was vegetation, but no water, so cows stayed away. The tribal Agriculture Department reports that there legally are supposed to be only 17,500 head of cattle, 12,500 head of sheep and 5,000 horses on the entire reservation. In actuality, there are an estimated 60, 000 horses, 35,000 cattle and up to 15,000 sheep. But the elders, especially, refuse to surrender their horses because of the cultural belief that the more horses there are the more rain there will be, the department explained. The legal limit is based on forage, which depends on rain and snow, so the overload of excess animals has helped eat away what vegetation still exists, resulting in conditions similar to what led to the devasting Dust Bowl in the U.S. in the early part of the 20th century. Horses, with only a single-chamber stomach, eat grass all the time and thus consume more greenery, while sheep, with a four-chamber stomach, are much better at digesting, so they don't devour as much, the department said. Today and tomorrow are the first of three animal auctions, with weigh- ins and treatment beginning at 8 a.m. both days at Crownpoint where the department hopes up to 4,000 head will be sold. The following weekend at Naschitti, the department hopes 5,000 head will be sold. The department did not have an estimate for the July 6 and 7 sale at Tuba City. The department also hopes to scheduled an auction at Chinle. Among the best forage left is the grass along the highways and in the roadside drainage ditches. During the tour, a Resources Ranger had to stop numerous times, sounding the high-pitched electronic siren to scare cows and sheep back into the forest. When the group stopped for lunch at the south picnic grounds of Wheatfields Lake, two families received citations from the Resources Ranger for having open campfires in the grills, which is a violation of the tribal fire restriction declaration issued several months ago. Copyright c. 2002 The Gallup Independent. --------- "RE: Navajo School Boards walk out of BIA Meeting" --------- Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 08:22:39 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BIA/NAVAJO" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.navajotimes.com/schoolbrd.html [Editorial Comment from Owlstar Trading Post - Daily Headlines http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm... The BIA has launched yet another of its paternalistic programs, this time aimed at the Navajo education groups. After many delays, over 100 Navajo people, including representatives from local school boards, came to a meeting held by the BIA's education group. But nobody from Washington showed up. Instead, local BIA functionaries came to "talk at" the Navajo groups -- but not to listen. In fact, the local groups were explicitly told they were there to listen to what Washington wanted them to hear -- but Washington wasn't interested in their comments or questions. This kind of paternalistic grandstanding started back when the reservations were formed -- this assumption that whatever the U.S. government deemed proper was, in fact, the best and only course, and that Indians' sole choice was to follow their lead. The Navajo education folks walked out on the presumption of the feds, and they won't be going back 'til somebody with real authority is there to listen to them. These Indians seem to be well and truly over the notion that their concerns are so flawed they aren't worth hearing--and good for them. It's way past time for Washington bureaucrats to get over it, too. - Janet School boards walk out of BIA meeting By Sararesa Begay The Navajo Times WINDOW ROCK June 20, 2002 Frustrated Navajo school board members who walked out of a Bureau of Indian Affairs education consultation meeting Tuesday said they protested because federal officials said "they were there to just listen." More than 100 members of the Navajo Nation, Navajo Area School Board Association, Association of Navajo Community Controlled School Boards and Native American Grant Schools were at the meeting which had been postponed twice by the BIA Office of Indian Education Programs. "The biggest impact we can have is staging a protest," said Freddie Howard, president of NAGSA and a council delegate from Tolani Lake and Birdsprings. "The fact we were being told that we were just a listening board, we are really tired of being treated like that ... I was glad to walk out." The walk-out occurred about 11:30 a.m. Pat Abeyta, a BIA Education Line Officer, told participants during the meeting that they were there to listen, not ask questions or make resolutions, said Lorena Zah-Bahe, executive director of ANCCB. "The proper people weren't there, we wanted Bill Mehojah of the Office of Indian Education Programs," Zah-Bahe said. "That's not right... (the Navajo Nation) has the largest representation within the BIA-OIEP." The board members will reconvene when William "Bill" Mehojah Jr., director of the BIA Office of Indian Education Programs, is present, Zah-Bahe said. Zah-Bahe noted that there were no BIA-OIEP Washington, D.C. officials present at the consultation meeting. "Instead they are using our own people to answer our questions," Zah- Bahe said. BIA-OIEP Crownpoint Agency officials who were present did not have knowledge or answers, according to Zah-Bahe and Howard. "They were sent here to do the dirty work," Howard said. According to a memo sent by the BIA, the "consultation meetings (are conducted) to obtain oral and written comments concerning potential issues in Indian Education Programs." Issues to be discussed included the BIA-OIEF proposal for a state plan for implementing the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, and negotiated rulemaking under the Native American Education Improvement Act of 2001, the BIA memo stated. Zah-Bahe said she is frustrated by the treatment of Mehojah's office and the BIA-OIEP Washington, D.C. office because the Navajo Nation is bypassed and overlooked when it comes to BIA educational programs. "They concentrate on South Dakota, Oglala, Mississippi Choctaw and other regions," Zah-Bahe said. "They tell us that Navajo students are low achieving in schools ... it's because they concentrate on other tribes." Council delegates Howard, Daniel Peaches (Chilchinbito/Kayenta) and Jerry Bodi (Nazlini) asked the participants to walk out of the meeting and reconvene when Mehojah is present. "Although the school board associations walked out of the BIA consultation hearing (Tuesday), the Division of Dine' Education was not part of this walk out," said Merlee Arviso, executive director of the division. "In fact, the chair of the education committee of the Navajo Nation Council provided a statement at the hearing." Several other BIA and school board members and administrators provided additional testimony at the afternoon session, Arviso said. Efforts to contact Mehojah were unsuccessful by press time. Copyright c. 1999-2002 Navajo Times/Navajo Nation. --------- "RE: Two Pequot Tribe gain Recognition as One" --------- Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2002 08:19:22 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="PEQUOT RECOGNITION" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=4549229&BRD=1641&PAG=461 [Editorial Comment from Owlstar Trading Post - Daily Headlines: http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm Among today's stories is the report that the BIA has recognized both the Eastern Pequot and Paucatuck Eastern Pequots, but as one unified tribe, rather than as two tribes. Already we're seeing promises of dissent and court fights. While it could be argued that the BIA did the right thing by recognizing the tribes' legitimate claims to rights as Indian people, I have to wonder -- was the decision to forcibly unify these two undeniably distinct political entities based on genuine concern about their common tribal origins - or is this another game of "let's you and him fight" that has been used against the Original People of this hemisphere with such success since the first European settlers landed. - Janet] Pequot tribe gains recognition By GREGORY B. HLADKY, Special to The Herald June 25, 2002 HARTFORD -- An unusual federal decision Monday granting recognition to two rival eastern Connecticut Indian groups as a single tribe drew warnings from critics about the potential for huge expansions of casino gambling. The decision by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs is virtually certain to face administrative and possibly judicial appeals that could take years to settle. BIA officials said they based their decision on evidence that the Eastern Pequot and Paucatuck Eastern Pequots are "actually two factions of one tribal group." The two factions share a 224-acre reservation in North Stonington and have fiercely disputed each other's claims to tribal recognition. Both have allied themselves with competing casino developers, including Donald Trump, who are eager to build what would be Connecticut's third major casino. Monday, Chief James A. Cunha Jr. of the Paucatuck Eastern Pequots said his people are "deeply gratified that the BIA has reviewed the record and has reached this decision ..We know who we are and we know that the evidence supports us." But state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2, harshly criticized the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs' decision to recognize the two tribal groups and threatened to challenge the ruling. Blumenthal and Simmons also warned that the BIA decision could serve as a precedent for federal recognition of other Connecticut tribal groups such as the Golden Hill Paugussetts in Bridgeport and the Schaghticokes in Kent. "Our first impression is that this decision seems to defy logic, fairness and fact," said Blumenthal. "Its ramifications could be tremendously far-reaching here in Connecticut ..It could support other tribal petitions (for federal recognition) that are now pending." Blumenthal said parties in the dispute now have 90 days to file a motion asking the BIA to reconsider its decision. He said that a court appeal would only be possible after all administrative appeals had been exhausted. Simmons said the BIA's ruling "affects all of Connecticut's residents" because of the implications for other groups seeking recognition as Indian tribes, which could then also build their own casinos. Blumenthal said he couldn't decide about appealing the decision until after he has conferred with municipal and state officials and reviewed the BIA decision. He and Simmons said the BIA's decision is the product of an unfair and flawed system desperately in need of reform. Gov. John G. Rowland, however, issued a statement saying he considers the federal recognition process to have been correct and proper. "Yes, he (Rowland) does think the process has been fair," said Chris Cooper, the governor's spokesman. In his statement, Rowland said "a very important milestone has been reached today with the final decision by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs." The governor said he "will continue to monitor the process to ensure an outcome that is fair to the people of the region, to the state and to the tribe." If the federal recognition stands, it would likely lead to the construction of a third tribal casino in eastern Connecticut. The Mashantucket Pequots and the Mohegans have both constructed major casinos on their reservations after receiving federal recognition. Neal A. McCaleb, assistant secretary of Indian Affairs, said his agency found that "the historical Eastern Pequot Tribe meets all of the mandatory criteria" needed to obtain federal recognition. According to the BIA's decision, "After the Pequot War of 1637 the surviving Pequots were temporarily placed under the supervision of tribes allied with the English. Those Pequots whom the colonial government removed from the supervision of the Eastern Niantic sachem Ninigret in 1654 were subsequently governed by two Indian rulers: Harmon Garrett and Momoho. The Colony of Connecticut purchased the Lantern Hill land (in North Stonington) for Momoho's Pequots in 1683. Since then there has been an unbroken history of state recognition and a reservation for this tribe." BIA researchers have found that the two groups have become divided along family and racial lines. Blumenthal said the fact the BIA chose to combine the two rival factions into a single tribal group for purposes of recognition could help an appeal. He said the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that "a tribe has to be a single entity ..which seems to be contradicted here." Copyright c. 2002 The Herald. Copyright c. 1995 - 2002 PowerOne Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: NCAI's Hall wants Trust Records Protected" --------- Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 08:11:02 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TRUST RECORDS" http://www.indianz.com/News/ NCAI's Hall wants trust records protected WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 2002 National Congress of American Indians President Tex Hall made an urgent request on Tuesday night to protect Indian trust records from potential destruction by convicted accounting firm Arthur Andersen. Due to its federal conviction of obstruction of justice, the company plans to shut down its auditing business and eliminate any records it may possess. In response, Hall asked Secretary of Interior Gale Norton last night to ensure that trust documents won't be destroyed. The company was hired by the Interior to perform work affecting members of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians of California. The goal was to provide an historical accounting. The company also was enlisted for two other projects. One involved high- dollar transactions totaling more than $1.5 billion in trust fund and another involved verification of Indian beneficiaries who might be owed money. Office of Historical Trust Accounting Director Bert T. Edwards warned last month that Andersen's then-pending trial could affect the work. He wrote in a status report that "the completion of the Andersen projects may also be impaired if transferred businesses have conflicts in the Cobell v. Norton litigation or Andersen ceases business." Norton did not respond to Hall's request, which he asked to be put on the record. Hall also expressed surprise about the Bush administration's attempt to remove court monitor Joseph S. Kieffer III. He asked Norton to address his concerns but she did not. Copyright c. 2000-2002 Noble Savage Media, LLC/Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: Inside Mexico: A Rural Massacre" --------- Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 01:07:19 -0400 From: joewest Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BORDER WAR ZONE" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.uniontrib.com/news/uniontrib/sun/news/news_1n16tohono.html Tribal lands at border turned into 'war zone' By Jerry Kammer COPLEY NEWS SERVICE June 16, 2002 SELLS, Ariz. - Much of the human and narcotics contraband that used to flow north through San Diego, El Paso and Nogales, Ariz., now goes through the Tohono O'odham Reservation. The Indians, whose Connecticut-size reservation is home to about 23,000 people, have been stunned by the intensity of the assault, which is scarring their communities and the desert around them. "They're being overrun by illegal aliens. They're being overrun by drug smugglers. And they're caught in a war zone," said Judge Pogo Overmeyer of the Tohono Nation Courts. Homes burglarized by illegals, deadly car wrecks caused by reckless smugglers, drug runners brandishing weapons as they demand help from local people - this is daily fare on the reservation, Overmeyer said. She noted that Tohono O'odham police reported seizing 33,000 pounds of marijuana during the first four months of the year. During the same period, the police located 1,877 vehicles that smugglers had abandoned on the reservation. One of the busiest smuggling routes through the reservation begins about 25 miles to the west, where taxis finish a 15-minute run from the Mexican town of Sonoyta by depositing passengers at a flimsy border fence. The path then slices through Organ Pipe National Monument, where U.S. Park Ranger Jon Young was fuming in late May about off-road damage caused by seven abandoned vehicles he had inventoried during an overflight. Young said he spends much of his time retrieving such vehicles, which typically are stolen in Phoenix or Tucson, driven across the border to be loaded with immigrants or drugs, and brought back north through roadless areas of Organ Pipe. "They'll drive the vehicle as far north as they can and then abandon the vehicle and walk out," Young said. Young spent much of the next day dealing with a surprise he found near a sport utility vehicle abandoned about 20 miles north of the border, near Highway 85, the main road to Phoenix. He uncovered 514 pounds of marijuana neatly wrapped in 23 bundles and stashed in the brush. "The (natural) resource damage these guys cause is huge," said Young, adding that smugglers have made Organ Pipe "a constant battleground." He ticked off an estimate of the damage the smuggler had clawed into the desert before two of his tires got punctured and he bogged down in deep sand: hundreds of destroyed creosote and sage plants, dozens of battered mesquite and palo verde trees, and several trampled saguaros, the solitary cactus symbol of the Sonoran Desert. "With the kind of rain we get - or don't get - it will take 100 or 200 years to repair this damage," Young said. The human toll can be devastating. Just last week, Border Patrol officials said 14 illegal immigrants died while crossing into the United States along this border region. The expansion of smuggling here has taken a toll on the Mexican side of the border, too. In a Sonoyta office building two blocks from The Good Samaritan taco stand, Ignacio Bojorguez wistfully recalled the tranquillity of the days before smugglers rushed to the area to avoid the heightened U.S. vigilance elsewhere. He was elected as part of a city council ticket that promised to fight the crime - the robberies and assaults - that the smuggling operations drag into town. "We have seen with sadness that they have taken away the town; the bad guys have won," Bojorguez said. Copyright c. 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. --------- "RE: Officials probe Fort Belknap Shooting Death" --------- Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 14:10:46 -0600 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SHOOTING" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20020622/ Officials probe shooting death on reservation Saturday, June 22, 2002 Tribune Staff FORT BELKNAP AGENCY -- A Fort Belknap tribal policewoman whose body was found in her home Thursday morning died of a gunshot wound, a Billings FBI official said Friday. Susan Rae (King) Gardipee died late Wednesday or early Thursday, confirmed Dan Vierthaler, special agent in charge of the agency's Billings office. Law enforcement has declined to say whether they're treating the case as a homicide, a suicide or an accident. "We're still investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting," Vierthaler said. Her body was sent to the state crime lab in Missoula for an autopsy. Tribal police Chief Rob Williams declined to comment Friday. Copyright c. 2002 Great Falls Tribune. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Native Prisoner" --------- Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 08:19:12 -0600 From: Janet Smith Subj: Native Prisoner Date: Monday, June 24, 2002 2:02 PM From: Brigitte Thimiakis Subj: Urgent: the latest Injustice against Manuel Redwoman To Manuel Redwoman's friends and supporters: Greetings, I would like to inform you about a serious matter concerning Manuel Redwoman. Once again, the MT Department of Corrections was caught lying about Manuel in an effort to make him appear unworthy of support. A state legislator recently called the DOC on our request, to ask why Manuel was still in Max and on Death Row in spite of a 46-month clear conduct and a very good record. [See footnote *] On May 28th, this legislator contacted me saying that the DOC had told him that Manuel was no longer in MAX. This raised our hopes high..... only to find out that this was a new blatant, shameless lie on behalf of the DOC. Manuel is still in Max to this date. He was not released at all, he is still on Death Row, still in isolation, UNJUSTLY and ILLEGALLY. As if this was not enough, the DOC official who claimed this also told the legislator another very serious lie. He lied to the legislator about Manuel's crime. How LOW can the DOC get when they intend to destroy a Native American prisoner's LIFE? When ALL they want is for him to stop fighting for his Constitutional Rights and the rights of his People? It seems they will stop at nothing, unless they are stopped. After one long year illegally locked up in Administrative Segregation, without due process, Manuel was transferred to Death Row in February 2002, after a drug testing result which came out positive because of the unprofessional and suspicious attitude of staff members. Thanks to outside pressure a second test was done and came out negative, proving that Manuel had not been on illegal drugs. Instead of releasing Manuel into general population, they are keeping him on Death Row for the sole purpose of isolating him and breaking his spirit, and in the hope that he might choose to give up on fighting for his civil and religious rights. Manuel is not a Death Row prisoner, he has only 6 points when a minimum of 23 points in a three year or a Death Sentence are needed to be held in Max, and he has a chance to parole in 2003.... next year. However the prison is determined to destroy him because of his lawsuit against the Prison In order to justify this cruel and unjust punishment, the Department of Corrections started a smearing campaign against Manuel. We can prove that this conspiracy was started by the prison administration when they tried to hide the illegalities some of the staff were responsible for: - Manuel has spent years in isolation without a due process. - In order to justify this, he has been accused of various incidents that are reported nowhere on the prison records and have no witness. These accusations do not stand and the prison was unable to prove them. - Staff members failed to report he was taking medication while he was tested for drugs, even though Manuel did ask them to report the 4 medications. Manuel was sent to Death Row right after the EMIT positive. It was then a struggle to have the prison do a confirmatory test in an outside lab and find out about the result, but we proved that it was a false positive. The initial positive results were brought up 2 weeks after the test, on the very same day when Manuel had a chance to be released from Max at the end of his unjust year in Ad/Segregation - this made the prison very suspect. It took a month and a half after the second test for Manuel to find out the final results in his favor.The prison kept them a secret. - Shortly after this, Bill Slaughter, Director of MT DOC, issued a letter which at first accused Manuel of being a threat to the Native American prisoners, then also stated that he was placed on Death Row for his own protection, which is contradictory and makes no sense.This letter was sent to supporters in response to their inquiries (and possibly to state officials/media) in an effort to discredit Manuel and justify his being on Death Row. We proved with documents that these were LIES. A letter from the Prayer Warriors Council proved that Manuel is well respected and appreciated, to the point he was elected on the Council for the 4th time running. A statement from a Unit Manager made it clear that Manuel was not on Death Row for his Protection and that whoever had said that had told a story! We sent a rebuttal to the DOC's letter and copies to a number of state representatives and senators in Montana, and to Manuel's supporters, so they find out the TRUTH, and know that this truth is based on original documents. - Now the DOC's last attempt to discourage supporters and state officials consists of a double LIE, about Manuel's current housing and about his crime. The behavior of the DOC is appalling. It is an insult to all those who believe in Justice and to the taxpayers in MT who are made to believe that their tax dollar is spent on a system based on integrity and rehabilitation. I am sending you this announcement and update for your information and in the hope that this smearing campaign against Manuel can be stopped. If you have any suggestions on how to help us and combat this outraging injustice, they are welcome. Thank you, Please contact us at thimiakischool@the.forthnet.gr Thank you for your time and concern. Respectfully, Brigitte -=-=-=- From: Brigitte Thimiakis Date: Monday, June 24, 2002 7:41 PM Subj: Petition for Alex ------- FORWARD, Original message follows ------- From: Valerie Scott URGENT!!! PETITION IN SUPPORT OF ALEX MONTANA EASTHAM UNIT, TEXAS Greetings, The Step 2 Grievances, concerning Mr. Montana's Disciplinary Case, have now been rubberstamped by the Grievance Board to uphold previous unit decisions. Policy violations by officials continue to be ignored, as is the motive for retaliation by Officer Hewett. However, this case is currently under review by L. Truhlar, at the Office of the Inspector General - Investigations Division TDCJ-ID, thanks to outside pressure from all of you. Mr. Montana's case is now at the crossroads, and it is vital that outside pressure be maintained. Therefore, we urge all of you to sign the following petition, demanding officials to conduct an independent, impartial hearing in this case: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ajm40/petition.html An update on this case, including the latest developments, can be found on NAPS' website, under Urgent Action/News, at: http://www.hri.ca/partners/naps. Copies of the original Step 2 Grievances, with their decisions, can be found on AIRR's website at: http://www.airr.org. Letters to TDCJ-ID officials listed at the end of the above update, would still be appreciated. I thank you for your continued support! Sincerely, Valerie Scott Director, NAPS ===== NAPS (Native American Prisoner Support) http://www.hri.ca/partners/naps/ --------- "RE: History: Carlisle Indian School" --------- Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 22:24:37 -0400 From: Barbara Landis Subj: May 24, 1889 INDIAN HELPER, Carlisle Indian School. [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 ------------------------- A WEEKLY LETTER FROM THE CARLISLE INDIAN SCHOOL TO BOYS AND GIRLS CARLISLE, PA. ============================ VOLUME IV NUMBER 40 ============================= FRIDAY, MAY 24, 1889. ============================= MY KINGDOM. ========== A LITTLE kingdom I possess, Where thoughts and feelings dwell, And very hard the task Of governing it well For passion tempts and troubles me, A wayward will misleads, And selfishness its shadow casts On all my words and deeds. How can I learn to rule myself, To be the child I should- Honest and brave and never tire Of trying to be good? How can I keep a sunny soul To shine along lifes's way? How can I tune my little heart To sweetly sing all day ? Dear Father, help me with the love That casteth out my fear. Teach me to lean on thee, and feel That thou art very near- That no temptation is unseen, No childish grief too small, Since thou with patience infinite Doth soothe and comfort all. I do not ask for any crown But that which all may win, Nor try to conquer any world Except the one within. Be thou my Guide until I find, Led by a tender hand, Thy happy kingdom in myself, And dare to take command. =====*~*===== AN INDIAN BOY IN OHIO WHISPERS HIS STORY OF A HARD ROW ON THE RIVER. -------- The Man-on-the-band-stand stood for a few moments with closed eyes, one warm day this week, and as he was thus apparently in deep thought, a little fairy came along and called out to him, "Grandpa, what are you thinking about?" "The old man, glad to have a chance to talk to his child said, "My dear, I am not thinking. I am looking off in the distance." "Why! How can you see with your eyes shut, Grandpa?" "My child! Th