_ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 13, ISSUE 019 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, WOTANGING IKCHE - Lakota - Common News Wotanging Ikche and Native American News Copyright c. 1996-2005 nanews.org Aboriginal/AmerIndian Perspective about the First Nations of Turtle Island May 7, 2005 Cree aligipizun/frog moon Blackfeet aapistsisskitsaato's/flower (blossom) moon Algonquin moonesquanimock kesos/moon when women weed corn +-------------------------------------------------------+ | Much more happens in Indian Country than is reported | | in this weekly newsletter. For daily updates & events | | go to http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm | +-------------------------------------------------------+ Otapi'sin Atsinikiisinaakssin -- Blackfeet -- News for All the People Ni-mah-mi-kwa-zoo-min -- Ojibwe -- We Are Talking About Ourselves Aunchemokauhettittea -- Naragansett -- Let Us Share News Kanoheda Aniyvwiya -- Cherokee -- Journal of the People O Es'te Opunvk'vmucvse -- Creek -- People's New News O o O Acimowin -- Plains Cree -- Story or Account O o O Tlaixmatiliztli -- Nahuatl -- News O o o o o O Agnutmaqan -- Listuguj Mi'kmaq -- News O o O Sho-da-ku-ye -- Teehahnahmah -- Talking Birchbark O o O Un Chota -- Susquehannic Seneca -- The People Speak O Ha-Sah-Sliltha -- Ditidaht Nation -- News of the People 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 Dineh jii' adah' ho'nil'e'gii ba' ha' neh -- Navajo Nation -- What's Happening among The People News Okla Humma Holisso Nowat Anya -- Choctaw -- People(s) Red Newspaper Hi'a chu ah gaa -- Pima -- The stories or the talk of the People s ch mA mL tL squee Lux -- Okanogan -- News from the People Native American News -- Language of the Occupation Forces ++>If you speak a Native American language not listed above, please send us your words for "News of the People." We'd rather take up this whole page saving these few words of our hundreds of nations than present a nice clean banner in the language of the occupation forces who came here determined to replace our words with their own. email gars@nanews.org with the equivalent of "News of the People" in your tribal language along with the english translation <================<<<< >>>>================> 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.owlstar.com; www.indianz.com; www.pechanga.net; Indian Trust ListServ, News and Information and Metis Mailing Lists: UUCP email IMPORTANT!! ----------- In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, all material appearing in this newsletter is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for educational purposes. <================<<<< >>>>================> This newsletter is a way of keeping the brothers and sisters who share our Spirit informed about current events within the lives of those who walk the Red Road. ++ It may be subscribed to via email by sending a request from your own internet addressable account to gars@speakeasy.org ++ It is archived at http://www.nanews.org <================<<<< >>>>================> +-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --+ + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + | As historian Patricia Nelson | | Once a language is lost, it is | | Limerick summarized in "The | | gone forever | | Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken | | * Of the 300 original Native | | Past of the American West... | | languages in North America, | | "Set the blood quantum at | | only 175 exist today. | | one-quarter, hold to it as a | | * 125 of these are no longer | | rigid definition of Indians, | | learned by children. | | let intermarriage proceed as | | * 55 are spoken by 1 to 6 elders;| | it had for centuries, and | | when they die, their language | | eventually Indians will be | | will disappear. | | defined out of existence." | | * Without action, only 20 | | "When that happens, the federal | | languages will survive the next| | government will be freed of | | 50 years. | | its persistent 'Indian problem.'"| | Source: Indigenous Language | +-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --+ | Institute | |http://www.indigenous-language.org| This issue's Elder Quote: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + ======================== "The BIA and [Indian Health Service] have us traveling all over the country chasing the pot of money at the end of the rainbow. We all know there is no end to a rainbow. I come here today asking you to honor our treaties. Our ancestors, when they signed the treaty, they smoked the cannupa and they swore to uphold these treaties," "In our treaties, there were agreements made, where the U.S. government agreed to provide us with education, health, agricultural resources, welfare, and help us to build our economy. Yet today, these entitlements are being separated and manipulated into discretionary services which can be exterminated at the stroke of a pen." __ Harold FraziePeiganr, Chairman, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | 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! Bush "cost saving" strikes at Indians again -- still -- yet -- once more. This time not through our pocketbooks or our spirituality, but by threatening a crucial part of our history, and even at our children's graves. See the article below from The Sentinel. However, whatever the government's intention, they may inadvertently be providing an opportunity for Indian nations to make a point. It might be in our best interests if the government does close the site and snatch the telling of our story out of federal spinmiesters' hands. Indian nations want to be taken seriously as nations, so it's time for more affluent nations, especially, to begin writing our own histories and preserving sites meaningful to us where possible. This is a perfect opportunity. Historical preservation strictures will diminish commercial interest in the property, and besides, don't tribes get first dibs on closed military base properties? It's time some of our tribes who can afford to do so (and there are several nearby) to step up and buy this property if and when the government releases it, and preserve it to tell the "assimilation or else" story from our own point of view. Read "Grave crisis could surface" below, and do what you can to prevent another atrocity on the graves of children who already paid a terrible price for the crime of being Indian. +/// Janet Smith owlstar@bellsouth.net /*/+ P. O. Box 672168 OwlStar Trading Post + / * Marietta, GA 30008, U.S.A. http://www.owlstar.com * + ------------------- Dohiyi Ani Oginalii , , Gary Smith (*,*) wotanging@bellsouth.net P. O. Box 672168 (`-') gars@nanews.org Marietta, GA 30006, U.S.A. ===w=w=== http://www.nanews.org ----------- News of the people featured in this issue ----------- - Carlisle Barracks - GIAGO: White Lawyers in danger of closing growing fat off Tribes - Grave crisis could surface - MOHAWK: Industrial Society - Government forces delay and the Culture Wars in Cobell Hearing - HARJO: Native Women aren't safe - Security of Indian Trust Computers in Indian Country at Issue - YELLOW BIRD: Whole-wheat Fry Bread - Bill against Recognition isn't so bad called Termination - Non-Indian Film - Judge sets hearing on Mohawk/Oka Crisis 1990 on Indian Trust Fund Security - Government considers First Nation - Suicide prevention to be 'Extinct' - Feds get flurry of appeals - Canada's Top Court won't rule on on Snowbowl 'Kemosabe' Slur - Tribal Leader slams Congress - Residential School Abuse Victim over Budget cuts awarded Damages - Hog Farm suit settled - Indian Church Leader - Rosebud Groups sues Utah over Peyote Raid oppose Farm settlement - Grandson of late Blackfeet Leader - Cultural beliefs killed at Party help American Indians - Judge criticizes FBI - Road development for holding back Peltier Docs worries White Mountain Apache - Native Prisoner - Mississippi Band of Choctaw -- Racial Identity an issue planning Tech Park at State Pen - Gila River Center - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days is nearly a secret - History: Carlisle Indian School - Tribe asks Judge to - Rustywire: stop Yucca Nuclear Dump Where Are You Grandfather? - Lawsuit to halt - Rustywire Poem: Borrowed Keyboards Kitt Peak Telescopes filed - Faces from the Land: - Indian Youth talk Tradition, A Photographic Journey Culture, Future - Upcoming Events --------- "RE: Carlisle Barracks in danger of closing" --------- Date: Friday, April 29, 2005 12:27 AM From: Barbara Landis [blandis@epix.net] Subj: Carlisle Barracks in danger of closing. /*That site has to be protected and presented from the point of view of the way Indians today understand it." */ G. Peter Jemison, Seneca, relative of Carlisle Indian School students, in an April 26, 2005 interview with the Carlisle Sentinel newspaper. Friends and Colleagues, As you know, I rarely use my HELPER list for political purposes, but we are faced with an urgent situation that merits your attention. The old Carlisle Indian School grounds may be in jeapordy of losing its protected status. The Bush Administration has placed the Carlisle Barracks, home of the school grounds, high on the military base closing list. If any of you are willing to lend your voices to our efforts to keep the barracks open, please visit this web page I made asking for your support. Please let me hear from you if you decide to take the initiative to add your voice to the mix. http://www.epix.net/~landis/brac.html Yours, Barb -- Barbara C. Landis Carlisle Indian School Research Pages http://www.epix.net/~landis Tel: 717.418.2158 (cell) --------- "RE: Grave crisis could surface" --------- Date: Fri 4/29/2005 10:53 AM From: Janet Smith [owlstartrading@speakeasy.net] Subj: Grave crisis could surface Grave crisis could surface By John Hilton April 28, 2005 Contingency proposals are being discussed to redevelop Carlisle Barracks if it shows up on the Base Realignment and Closures (BRAC) list next month. If needed, those plans for the future could prove more difficult to carry out because of the past. The post is the former home of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the first off-reservation boarding school exclusively for American Indian children. It opened on Oct. 6, 1879, and closed in the summer of 1918. Several buildings at the barracks are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In addition, a cemetery along Claremont Road contains small white grave markers for 186 American Indian children who died while attending the school. "It absolutely plays a role in any reuse strategy," says John Connolly, chairman of the south-central Pennsylvania BRAC Task Force. "It's very difficult to tear down one of these National Register places... Any developer who is planning a reuse plan is going to have to take that into consideration." The National Register of Historic Places is the nation's official list of cultural resources worthy of preservation. It was authorized by Congress under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. The Carlisle Indian School was listed starting in October of that year, although the congressional record indicates that then-Congressman George Goodling nominated the school three years earlier. American Indian historians say the presence of the Carlisle Indian School buildings should mean more than just an inconvenience to future development at the site. *Tell the story* American Indians have mixed emotions regarding the Carlisle Indian School, explains G. Peter Jemison, an accomplished author and member of the Seneca Nation of Indians. "On the one hand, people were forcibly taken there... and forcibly assimilated," says Jemison, who manages the Ganondagon State Historic Site in Victor, N.Y. "Naturally, that notion that somehow or another we were not good human beings and had to be transformed into somebody else - naturally that does not leave good thoughts." However, Jemison acknowledges with pride the prolific accomplishments of Carlisle Indian School athletes such as Jim Thorpe, who won two gold medals at the 1912 Olympics, Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Charles Albert "Chief" Bender and Olympic distance runner Louis Tewanima. Many other graduates of the school went back to their communities as teachers, musicians and leaders, says Jemison, who was recently appointed by President George W. Bush to a three-year term on the Federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. "It impacted many, many lives of Indian people all over the U.S.," Jemison adds. "It certainly has significance for our people." He wants to see the story of the Carlisle Indian School told in some form at the site. More importantly, he wants the real story told. "The story of Carlisle by those who write history is that this was a good thing to bring Indians into civilization," Jemison says. "That site has to be protected and presented from the point of view of the way Indians today understand it." Barbara Landis, a Carlisle Indian School biographer for Cumberland County Historical Society, wrote legislators about a year ago about the future of the barracks site. She remains concerned that the historic treasure could get caught up in wrangling over economics. "The Indian school is still a significant part of the Indian experience," says Landis, who frequently leads tour groups through the barracks. "When you say `Carlisle' it means something very significant to Indian people - no matter what tribe you're talking about." The barracks site was also granted a historic marker in 2003 by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. It reads: "This school was the model for a nation-wide system of boarding schools intended to assimilate American Indians into mainstream culture. Over 10,000 indigenous children attended the school between 1879 and 1918. "Despite idealistic beginnings, the school left a mixed and lasting legacy, creating opportunity for some students and conflicted identities for others. In this cemetery are 186 graves of students who died while in Carlisle." *No comment* Carlisle Barracks' spokeswoman Carol Kerr declined comment on the future of the cemetery and other historic Indian school buildings it maintains. A "confidential reuse committee" has been meeting to discuss contingency plans for redevelopment of the barracks should it be included on the BRAC list. Connolly says a reuse plan is likely to focus on ways to bring jobs and economic stimulation into the area. But he adds: "If the Army were to close the war college completely, there would have to be a plan for those (Indian school) buildings as well as that gravesite... before the Army could walk away." Copyright c. 2005 The Sentinel, Carlisle, Pa. --------- "RE: Government forces delay in Cobell Hearing" --------- Date: Monday, May 02, 2005 6:11 PM From: Indian Trust ListServ [listadmin@list.indiantrust.com] Subj: Cobell v. Norton - Government Forces Delay In Cobell Hearing Mailing List: Indian Trust ListServ Cobell v. Norton - Government Forces Delay In Cobell Hearing May 2, 2005 WASHINGTON, May 2 -- The government's failure to provide lawyers for a group of American Indians with vital information about computer testing at the Interior Department forced a one-day delay Monday in the opening of a court hearing into computer security at the department. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, appearing to be exasperated at times, ordered the hearings to begin Tuesday at 10 a.m. How quickly the case will move may depend on how much information the government can give the lawyers in advance of the hearing, he said. "We'll have to see what the government produces," he told the lawyers. Without that testing information, the judge said it is impossible for the lawyers to know how long the hearings will take. Dennis M. Gingold, the lead attorney for Native Americans seeking a full accounting of funds held in their government trust accounts, denounced the latest delay as a continuation of the government's pattern of "deception and disobedience" of court orders in the nine-year-old Cobell versus Norton class action lawsuit. Filed in 1996, the lawsuit seeks to force the government to give an estimated 500,000 Native Americans a full accounting of funds the Interior Department holds for them in individual Indian trust accounts. At issue in hearings that are expected to take several weeks will be whether the Interior Department's computer systems are secure from outside computer hacklers or improper manipulation by Interior employees. The account balances must be held to be secure in order for the government to make a proper accounting of the funds, lawyers for the Indians say. ---- Additional information on the case is available at www.indiantrust.com. Bill McAllister 703-385-6996 202-257-5385 (cell) To view the latest information concerning this case, go to www.indiantrust.com --------- "RE: Security of Indian Trust Computers at Issue" --------- Date: Monday, May 02, 2005 8:26 AM From: Indian Trust ListServ [listadmin@list.indiantrust.com] Subj: Cobell v. Norton - Security of Indian Trust Computers at Issue in New Hearings Mailing List: Indian Trust ListServ Cobell v. Norton - Security of Indian Trust Computers at Issue in New Hearings WASHINGTON, May 2 -- A nine-year-old class-action lawsuit that has forced the government to begin accounting for its mishandling of billions of dollars in Indian Trust assets enters another critical phase this week. A federal judge will begin a detailed examination Monday of the security of government computer systems that contain trust account information. "The outcome of these hearings will be crucial to the more than 500,000 Native Americans who have individual trust accounts maintained by the Interior Department," said lawyer Dennis M. Gingold, who has led the legal attack on the department's admittedly poor handling of the accounts. "Unless we can be certain that the accounts cannot be tampered with either by computer hackers or unauthorized people within the Department of Interior, we can have no certainty that the account balances are correct," said Gingold. "And without that certainty, there is no way the government can ever undertake the accounting that they have repeatedly promised the court and the Indian account beneficiaries," he said. "These people, most of whom live in the Western U.S., are among some of the poorest people in this nation," he said. "They have repeatedly been promised a full accounting of their trust assets. In this hearing, we will demonstrate that it is not possible for the government to render a complete and accurate accounting." The hearings before U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth have taken on new urgency with the recent disclosure that trust information maintained by the Bureau of Land Management is vulnerable to computer hackers. This admission by government lawyers came despite earlier assurances by Interior's top trust expert, James Cason, who had testified that BLM had the most secure computers in the department. Cason, an associate deputy Interior secretary, had told Lamberth that Interior officials had reduced the chances of computer intrusions to "near zero" and that their external security was "bulletproof." But in a recent filing the government acknowledged that Interior's own inspector general declared "given the poor state of network security... and the weak access controls we encountered on many systems, it is safe to say that we could have easily compromised the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the identified Indian Trust data residing on such systems." Alarmed by those findings, lawyers for the Indian plaintiffs immediately asked Lamberth to shut down any Interior computers housing trust data and keep all such computers disconnected from the Internet. "The IG Report on the inadequacy of the security of computer systems administered by BLM -- supposedly the most secure of all Interior computer systems -- demonstrates that the government has willfully exposed trust data to catastrophic degradation, corruption, and loss," Gingold said. "And it has covered-up its ongoing malfeasance; and has lied to both the US District Court and Court of Appeals in that regard." "Furthermore, the IG Report is powerful evidence that Cason committed perjury when he testified before Judge Lamberth on June 4, 2003, that Interior has reduced external vulnerabilities to near zero and that the perimeter security is bulletproof," Gingold said. Lamberth has said he may have to close portions of the hearing to prevent disclosure of computer security methods used by the government. The judge also has stated he will attempt keep the trial open because the public has a right to know how effectively Interior officials were performing their duties to safeguard trust data. Filed in 1996, the Cobell versus Norton lawsuit is a class action suit that seeks to force the government to provide individual Indian Trust account beneficiaries with a full accounting of how the government handled the proceeds of leases on their allotted Indian lands in the Western states. Numerous government studies have found serious problems with the government's handling of the accounts, some dating back to the inception of the accounts in 1887. Congress has ordered the Interior Department to make an accounting, but until the Cobell lawsuit was filed, the government had made virtually no effort to begin the task. Government officials have acknowledged that more than $13 billion has moved through the accounts since they were created. Lawyers for the Indian plaintiffs have said that the total does not include billions more that Indians should have received for government leases of the oil, gas, mineral, grazing and timber rights on some of the most valuable lands in the West. Many of the government leases of Indian lands were never recorded and records for many of the accounts have been lost or destroyed. The hearings before Judge Lamberth will convene at 11 a.m. Monday with testimony from members of the Interior Inspector General's staff. The hearings are expected to last for several weeks. ---- Additional information on the case is available at www.indiantrust.com. Bill McAllister 703-385-6996 202-257-5385 (cell) To view the latest information concerning this case, go to www.indiantrust.com --------- "RE: Bill against Recognition called Termination" --------- Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 08:59:46 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ANTI-SCHAGHTICOKE BILL" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410849 Schaghticoke status attacked by: Gale Courey Toensing / Indian Country Today April 29, 2005 KENT, Conn. - A bill recently proposed by U.S. Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-Conn. is targeted specifically at the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, but Indians around the country say it is reminiscent of past efforts to wipe out tribal sovereignty. The BIA's decision in January 2004 to grant federal recognition to the Schaghticokes, a 300-member tribe with a 400-acre reservation on Schaghticoke Mountain in Kent, has provoked legal battles, local concern and appeals to the Interior Board of Indian Appeals by the state and town. In February, Johnson took that fight one step further, filing a bill in Congress to repeal the tribe's federal acknowledgement. Schaghticoke Tribal Nation Chief Richard Velky has said the nation would like to open a casino in Bridgeport, Conn., or another welcoming host community. The fight against the expansion of Indian gaming in Connecticut is driving Johnson, who represents the state's 5th District, and other local, state and federal officials to rescind the Schaghticokes' federal recognition. Federally recognized tribes are eligible for federal funding for health, housing, education and economic development, including the lucrative profits generated by a casino. Although Congress has passed legislation to grant tribes federal recognition, it has never before been presented with legislation to strip a tribe of its federal status. The bill, called the "Schaghticoke Acknowledgement Repeal Act of 2005," was co-signed by Connecticut Reps. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District, and Christopher Shays, R-4th District. It claims the BIA's decision was "unlawful and erroneous, in violation of federal regulations and contrary to longstanding agency precedent." Johnson said the bill was a backup strategy should appeals of the BIA decision fail. She said she would try to get Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a personal friend and chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, to support the bill. McCain scheduled an oversight hearing for May 11 to discuss the tribal recognition process; not about specific legislation, but for an opportunity to air differences about the issue. According to spokesman Brian Schubert, Johnson plans to testify at the hearing. Johnson also said she recognized her bill has little chance of passing, but she would use it to "educate" her colleagues in Congress about "a broken recognition process that was twisted and manipulated by the BIA to reach an unlawful decision regarding the Schaghticoke." Divide and conquer Opponents of the bill described it variously as misdirected, terminationist, an attempt to divide and conquer, and a public relations gesture for Connecticut's 5th District voters. Schaghticoke Tribal Nation Vice Chairman Michael Pane said the government has always used such "divide and conquer" strategies to sow disunity among the tribes. "Other tribes should worry about this bill because if it passes, what's to stop another congressman from doing the same in his state? My position with other tribes is, 'Your problems and issues today are going to be mine tomorrow,"' Pane said. Johnson's bill is not supported by the Mashuntucket Pequots or the Mohegan Tribal Nation, who own and operate Connecticut's two casinos. "This is not the kind of bill this tribal nation would support," said Arthur Henick, spokesman for the Mashuntucket Pequots. "Indeed, we support the recognition process whether that comes by the administration, through the BIA, through the courts or through Congress. We also support the sovereign rights of Native American tribes, and that includes their own ability for self-governance and for making the kinds of economic development decisions that best support their own citizens," Henick said. Mohegan Tribal Chairman Mark F. Brown said legislation regarding tribal recognition should be directed at the BIA and the Department of the Interior. "It is no secret that people on both sides of the issue believe [the BIA] is severely under-funded and needs resources that can only be given to it by Congress and the administration. Because congressional offices do not have the historians, archeologists and genealogists necessary to conduct the complex research necessary to render a recognition determination ... the limited resources and energy available should be focused on funding and fixing the overburdened agency rather than trying to deal with individual tribes," Brown said. Larry Townsend, a former three-term council member and current veteran's service official of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, said he wasn't surprised by the bill's intention. "The bill is another delaying tactic. The Schaghticoke earned their recognition through the BIA process. But for those people, the BIA process only works when no tribes get recognized," Townsend said. Dave Kavalas, Johnson's chief of staff, dismissed allegations that the congresswoman has any big-picture intention concerning Indian rights. "Our concern and our bill is focused on the wrongful recognition of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation here in Connecticut, not on other tribes around the country," Kavalas said. Yet at a meeting in Salisbury, Conn. last summer and recently in Kent, where she unveiled the bill, Johnson said her larger goal is to address the issue of sovereignty. The Schaghticoke tribe's interest in pursuing a casino has prompted concerns statewide, but tribal land claims and questions about what the sovereign nation can and cannot do on its reservation have been equally worrisome in Kent. "In the end, we have to follow this through to where we begin to put back into the box this idea of sovereignty," Johnson said. "The bill is clearly terminationist in nature," said Kevin Gover, Pawnee, who headed the BIA from 1996 to 2001. "Other tribes should be, and will be, alarmed," said Gover, who is now with the American Indian Studies Program at Arizona State University. But the bill won't get past the Senate Indian Affairs Committee or the House Resources Committee, Gover predicted. "This bill is strictly for home consumption," he said. "She knows it can't pass, so she's just trying to show the folks at home how tough she is on the Schaghticokes," he said. Although Congress repudiated the termination policy in a 1994 law, Johnson's spokesman Brian Schubert said the repudiation is not legally binding because it's part of the findings and not the body of the law. "If Congress has the authority to recognize a tribe, Congress has the power to stop the recognition of a tribe, especially when the BIA process is so flawed. In fact, one of the seven mandatory criteria for recognition is 'Neither the petitioner nor its members are the subject of congressional legislation that has expressly terminated or forbidden the federal relationship,"' Schubert said. But just because Congress has the power to terminate a tribe doesn't mean it should or would, said Judith Shapiro, a Washington, D.C. attorney who has practiced Indian law for 20 years. Shapiro has represented more than two dozen tribes over the years, including the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation. "America at large tends to prefer its Indians to be quaint, not economically or politically powerful. The critical concern is that if there is even the beginning of a turn against tribal sovereignty, or more to the point, a return to terminationist policy - whether it be driven by greed, envy, racism, or any of the above, combined with plain hatefulness - it could be a cause for other tribes to worry about their own futures," Shapiro said. Copyright c. 1998-2005 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Judge sets hearing on Indian Trust Fund Security" --------- Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 08:47:03 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="DoI INTERENET SAFETY" http://www.indianz.com/News/2005/007814.asp Judge sets hearing on Indian trust fund security April 26, 2005 The federal judge overseeing the Indian trust fund ordered a trial on Monday to determine whether the Interior Department's computer systems are safe from Internet hackers. In a three-page order, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth scheduled an evidentiary hearing to begin May 2 at the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. He asked the Bush administration to submit a list of witnesses who will testify about the security of information technology systems that house billions of dollars worth of Indian trust fund data. Among those Lamberth wants to hear from is Jim Cason, the associate deputy secretary who is temporarily acting as the assistant secretary for Indian affairs. In court testimony, Cason has said the department has reduced the vulnerabilities of its computer systems down to near "zero." Since then, the department has disclosed that Indian trust data at the Bureau of Land Management is at risk to computer hackers. Earlier this month, the Inspector General conducted tests that uncovered a "poor state of network security" at the agency. "So we will hear Mr. Cason's explanation then at this evidentiary hearing," Lamberth said last week when he heard from the Cobell plaintiffs about their request to shut down the computer systems and disconnect them from the Internet. The plaintiffs called for the hearing in light of the IG's discovery. They say they have been kept in the dark about the overall status of information technology at the department. "The government has not been forthcoming with this type of information and they have seemed as a matter of practice put [officials] forward who know less about the facts than just about anybody else," Dennis Gingold, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told Lamberth. The plaintiffs will be getting some information as a result of Lamberth's order yesterday. The judge said Interior must turn over "all relevant reports, risk assessments, memoranda, and other documents" under a protective order issued last Friday aimed at protecting sensitive data. Among the reports that will have to be turned over are the results of the IG's tests. A Department of Justice lawyer acknowledged in open court last week that the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Business Center have been tested in addition to the BLM. It is not known how these agencies fared on the tests because Interior has not said anything about them. Government attorney Glenn Gillette told the court that tests are still being conducted at the Minerals Management Service, the agency that handles billions of dollars in royalty payments to Indian beneficiaries. "The testing of these systems exceeds the standards that normally are applied to these kinds of systems," he said. "The test is expected to come with vulnerabilities." "In fact, this is one of the purposes -- to find vulnerabilities and resolve them to ensure the security of your system," he added. Since computer security emerged as an issue in the case in November 2001, Lamberth has ordered Interior to shut down its systems on three different occasions. The Bush administration appealed the most recent order on the grounds that Lamberth exceeded his authority. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last December lifted the shutdown order but said Lamberth was well within his rights to act. "It is indisputable that the Secretary has current and prospective trust management duties that necessitate maintaining secure IT systems in order to render accurate accountings now and in the future," a three-judge panel wrote. The judges said they were removing the order because Lamberth failed to conduct an evidentiary hearing before issuing the preliminary injunction. The hearing is needed to ensure there is a "factual basis" for shutting down the systems, the appeals court said. Copyright c. 2000-2005 Indianz.Com. --------- "RE: Suicide prevention" --------- Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 08:59:46 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SUICIDES" http://www.argusleader.com//20050428/OPINION01/504280321/1052 Suicide prevention Survivors' responses to deaths will help save lives April 28, 2005 Who could blame the people of McLaughlin - who lost seven young people to suicide last year - if they just hunkered down in self-pity and hopelessness? Or residents of the Cheyenne River Reservation, which lost 17 people to suicide in 2002 and 2003? Or the Crow Creek Reservation, which saw five suicides in just the last two months of 2003?But that's not happening. Instead, even survivors hurting the most are working to keep others from suffering as they have: - Mary Hayes of Mclaughlin has begun leading youth trips, taking in troubled teenagers and raising money to help others. Her 16-year-old granddaughter, Billie Jean Left Hand, committed suicide just before the first of the year. Janet Collins of Eagle Butte is using a room in her husband's service station as an alcohol-free drop-in place for people 18 and older. She's calling it "Zo's Place," using the nickname of her son, Alonzo, who committed suicide in 2002. - Also in Eagle Butte, the Youth Project's Billy Mills Youth Center will complete its teen center this year. It will have basketball courts, an Internet cafe and an art studio. - At McLaughlin School, home-school coordinator Judy White Bill is developing the area's first youth drum and dance group. The school also sponsors a puppet show, "No More Suicide," for children in the first through fifth grades. The Crow Creek Sioux Tribe started a program, Peers Helping Peers, that trains five to 10 young people each week for 12 weeks and sends those students out to talk to 10 more students. There now are about 800 young people involved. - On the Standing Rock Reservation, suicide-prevention efforts include a wellness conference as well as other programs on both prevention and grieving.Some of this seems to have had an effect. On the Crow Creek Reservation, for instance, "They stopped their suicides, literally. I can't take credit. We started it, but they're (students) the ones that went out and did it," said Tolly Estes, suicide-prevention community coordinator with the Indian Health Service in Fort Thompson. But everyone knows that more is needed and that it will take an intensive, ongoing effort. There's a feeling of hopelessness on the reservations that is fed by a widespread poverty. That's led to substance abuse and gang affiliation and is complicated by a lack of adequate mental health services - as well as a cultural shying away from services that are available. Of course, money is an issue. It always is. But it's not the only issue. "When you get the government involved, then it's politics," said Hayes. "To me, it's up to the individuals." In that, at least, there are good signs. Even those hurting the most are trying to help others.It's an effort that mustn't stop. Too many young people are at stake. Copyright c. 2005 Argus Leader. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Feds get flurry of appeals on Snowbowl" --------- Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 08:47:03 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TOILET BOWL APPEALS" http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/articles/0426skiappeals26.html Feds get flurry of appeals on Snowbowl Mark Shaffer Republic Flagstaff Bureau April 26, 2005 FLAGSTAFF - Groups opposed to Coconino National Forest's approval of snowmaking and other changes at the Arizona Snowbowl ski area formed a virtual line Monday as the deadline passed to appeal the decision. Carl Holguin, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service regional office in Albuquerque, said five appeals had been received as of late afternoon. There may be others because letters postmarked by midnight Monday will be accepted, Holguin said. advertisement Among those whose appeals were received were the Sierra Club and Navajo and Hopi tribes, according to news releases Monday. The regional office has 45 days to evaluate the appeals and decide how to proceed. The decision in March to approve the use of treated wastewater that would be piped from Flagstaff to the ski area for use in snowmaking has been a particular bone of contention for northern and central Arizona Indian tribes, which consider the San Francisco Peaks sacred. "If the Forest Service decides to deny the appeals, there's a very good likelihood that this decision will be taken to federal court and the United Nations," said George Hardeen, a spokesman for Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr.. "The San Francisco Peaks represent the essence of what it means to be a Navajo person, and fighting this decision is one of the most important things of the Shirley administration." In a prepared statement, Hopi Chairman Wayne Taylor Jr. noted that the Peaks are in the process of being nominated to the National Register of Historic Places as a traditional cultural property of 13 Arizona tribes. "Limiting development and changes on the Peaks is a primary and overriding interest of the Hopi people," Taylor said. In her decision to approve the Snowbowl changes, Coconino Forest Supervisor Nora Rasure noted it was her mandate to ensure that multiple uses be guaranteed on public land. She also pointed out that the ski area is only 1 percent of the land in the 74,000 acres of the Kachina Peaks Wilderness Area. Rasure also said her decision was not based on supporting economic interests in Flagstaff. The Snowbowl, which just came off a record season with more than 180,000 skiers, provides 400 jobs and is an estimated $20 million industry. Forest Service officials said they received more than 10,000 comments during their environmental review of the Snowbowl proposal and more than half opposed the changes. Only four of 13 tribes signed a memorandum of agreement with the Forest Service concerning the ski area changes. "When tribal leaders got together in January to talk about this, one of the ideas was to pool their resources and buy out the Snowbowl. That's how strongly they feel about this," Hardeen said. The ski area is on federal land and has a long-term lease agreement with the federal government to operate. Copyright c. 2005, azcentral.com. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Tribal Leader slams Congress over Budget cuts" --------- Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 08:21:52 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CUTS HAVE ENDANGERED ELDERS" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=6375 Tribal leader slams Congress over budget cuts Rips on BIA, health care funding WASHINGTON DC Native American Times April 26, 2005 The head of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe was invited by lawmakers to speak about the proposed budget for the next fiscal year-and did he ever give an earful. Chairman Harold Frazier asked the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies to keep funding for Indian programs as is. Frazier said tribes are being "forced" to deal with the Bureau of Indian Affairs budgeting process, and that the system has "tribes fighting against other tribes" for money. "The BIA and [Indian Health Service] have us traveling all over the country chasing the pot of money at the end of the rainbow. We all know there is no end to a rainbow. I come here today asking you to honor our treaties. Our ancestors, when they signed the treaty, they smoked the cannupa and they swore to uphold these treaties," Frazier testified. "In our treaties, there were agreements made, where the U.S. government agreed to provide us with education, health, agricultural resources, welfare, and help us to build our economy. Yet today, these entitlements are being separated and manipulated into discretionary services which can be exterminated at the stroke of a pen." Frazier also criticized federal handling of Indian lands, saying what once was lush hunting grounds is now overrun by "prairie dogs and rodents." "There are no resources and authorities at the local agency level to better manage our lands. There is no relief from the BIA or [Department of Interior], who are the caretakers of our trust lands. There are limits on their responsibilities to that of financial management of income from trust lands," Frazier said. "To continue with the development of the Office of Special Trust will cause harm to both Indian landowners and tribal governments because we are the ones who are being sacrificed to fund a new and unnecessary bureaucratic department." Cuts in health funding have endangered the most vulnerable tribal members, Frazier said. "We receive 4.1 million for direct care for our hospital and clinics, when pro rated to each of the 7,092 patients that utilize the hospital; it averages $588.00 per patient per year. Millions of dollars are being appropriated but it is not put at the level where the diabetics are, over twenty-six million is held back at the central and regional levels. The funds come in forms of grants and are for research and we have been researched to death. It is time that these findings from the research are funded to cure the disease of diabetes. Where do the diabetics go when the grants run out of funding?" he asked. According to the American Diabetes Association, over 107,000 Native Americans and Alaska Natives receiving care from Indian Health Services (IHS) have diabetes and are 2.2 times more likely to have diabetes than non-Hispanic whites. Additionally, complications from diabetes are major causes of death in Native American communities. Officials have proposed a two percent cut in the BIA budget. "Our tribe cannot absorb these cuts; they are not cuts but amputations of basic services. History shows that the local agency level budgets shrink and the central office and regional office budgets grow. The increases need to go out into Indian Country where the majority of Indians live in poverty," Frazier said. "Many of our people don't have much, but they do have a prayer. We as a tribe pray that that the United States government will honor our treaties." Frazier, 38, is a former college rodeo star currently serving his first term as the tribe's chair. He was one of only 30 tribal leaders invited to give testimony regarding proposed cuts to the federal budget. Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Hog Farm suit settled" --------- Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 08:47:03 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HOG FARM/POLLUTION REMAIN - JUST CAN'T GET FATTER" http://www.rapidcityjournal.com//news/local/top/news01.txt Hog farm suit settled By Steve Miller, Journal Staff April 25, 2005 The Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the federal government have reached a proposed court settlement with the owner of two large hog farms on tribal land, which would allow the two existing farms to continue operating but would prevent the operation's expansion onto other sites. The agreement reached last week has yet to be approved by U.S. District Judge Richard Battey. Battey can approve the agreement, reject it or amend it. The settlement would allow the two existing farms, both west of White River, to continue operating for as long as 20 years. Each site has 24 hog barns, each of which holds as many as 2,000 hogs. Each site produces about 96,000 hogs per year. Under the agreement, Sun Prairie Partnership, a Nebraska affiliate of Bell Farms, a North Dakota partnership, would surrender rights under its lease with the tribe to build 11 more hog farms on tribal land. Sun Prairie signed a lease with the tribe in 1998 to build 13 large hog farms on tribal land. The action spurred protest from some tribal members and others. After a new tribal council and president were elected in late 1999, the tribe switched positions and, in 2003, it asked the BIA to shut down the hog farm. Sun Prairie sued to stop the shutdown. Nearly two years ago, Judge Battey ruled the lease was valid. Sun Prairie continued its lawsuit to prevent the tribe and the federal government from shutting down its operations. Top tribal and Sun Prairie officials on Monday hailed the agreement. "This was an important day for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and its members," tribal President Charles Colombe said in a news release. "Though the hog farm deal was not made during this term, this administration and council had to decide the issue. I commend the Rosebud Tribal Council for its leadership," Colombe said. The tribal council last Thursday voted 9-7 in favor of the agreement. Four members were absent. Bell Farms chief executive Greg Fontaine on Monday called the agreement a good compromise. "I believe it's a fair arrangement where everybody achieved some of their objectives." He said the agreement would not significantly change most terms of the firm's lease agreement with the tribe. Intervening on behalf of the tribe in the lawsuit were Concerned Rosebud Area Citizens, Humane Farming Association, South Dakota Peace and Justice Center and George England. The Journal was unable to reach representatives of those groups for comment Monday. Among provisions of the agreement: - Sun Prairie would pay rent to the tribe of $60,000 per year per farm. - Sun Prairie would pay the tribe $15,000 per year for water at the Cottonwood Farm and pay the tribe for water at the Grassy Knoll farm at the rate of $1.35 per 1,000 gallons per year for three years and $1.50 per 1,000 gallons thereafter. - Sun Prairie would pay the tribe $131,000 for past water use. - The BIA would pay $85,000 to Sun Prairie for a water well that Sun Prairie may need to install at Grassy Knoll Farm. - Sun Prairie would return control to the tribe of the other 11 leased sites. - Sun Prairie would institute certain environmental measures, to be approved by the tribe and the BIA, including sampling controls at the farms' waste pit digesters and monitoring wells. - Sun Prairie would conduct a pilot study to examine environmental and other effects of applying nutrient material from its waste control systems onto nearby agricultural land. If approved, the settlement would dismiss all pending legal proceedings over the hog farms. The settlement would also vacate the BIA's letter of Jan. 27, 1999, rescinding Sun Prairie's lease. Except as modified by the agreement, all other terms of Sun Prairie's lease would remain valid. Contact Steve Miller at 394-8417 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com Copyright c. 2005 The Rapid City Journal. --------- "RE: Rosebud Groups oppose Farm settlement" --------- Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 08:59:46 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HOG FARM" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2005/04/28/news/local/news08.txt Rosebud groups oppose farm settlement By Steve Miller, Journal Staff Writer April 28, 2005 Groups opposing two large hog farms on Rosebud Sioux tribal land are not happy about a proposed court settlement that would allow the two farms to remain but would prevent more farms from being built on tribal land. Concerned Area Rosebud Citizens, the Humane Farming Association and the South Dakota Peace and Justice Center object to the agreement reached last week between the owner of the hog farms and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, according to the groups' attorney Jim Dougherty of Washington, D.C. The three groups and rancher George England intervened on behalf of the tribe and the federal government in a suit brought by the hog farm owner, Sun Prairie Partnership, which is affiliated with Bell Farms, a North Dakota partnership. "This is a terrible compromise," Dougherty said Wednesday. "The reason is there really is no case here. Bell Farms/Sun Prairie has no claim legally against the government or the tribe." A tribal attorney said the federal government's decision to settle the lawsuit left the tribe little choice but to settle, too. Dougherty said the assent of the opposition groups may not be required for the settlement to be approved by U.S. District Judge Richard Battey of Rapid City. The groups were intervenors, not principal parties in the lawsuit. Eva Iyotte, co-chairwoman of Concerned Rosebud Area Citizens, also criticized the settlement. Iyotte lives near White River east of the hog farms. "We never planned on negotiating it," Iyotte said. "The fight is far from over. The people of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe deserve far better than having two sites. We have a right to have fresh water and clean air." Alfred Bone Shirt of the Grass Mountain Community near St. Francis said several tribal council members voted for the settlement against the wishes of their constituents. The council voted 9-7 in favor of the agreement April 21. "In reality, the people don't want this hog farm," Bone Shirt, a member of Rosebud Grassroots Resistance Against Oppression and Injustice, said. He said there are many unresolved environmental and cultural questions related to the hog farms. However, the tribal council felt forced to settle when the federal government indicated it would admit liability, leaving the tribe on its own, according to tribal attorney Steve Emery. Emery said assistant U.S. attorney general Tom Sansonetti told the council in February that the government would accept liability for acting illegally when it withdrew approval of the hog farm lease. The tribal council decided to settle to limit the tribe's liability, Emery said. The complicated dispute dates to 1998 when Sun Prairie signed a lease with the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Council to build 13 large hog farms on tribal land. The Bureau of Indian Affairs approved the lease, and two farms were built. The actions spurred protest from some tribal members and others. In January 1999, the head of the BIA voided the lease because he said it did not comply with federal environmental laws. After a new Rosebud Sioux Tribe council and president were elected in late 1999, the tribe switched sides and opposed the hog farms. The tribe and Sun Prairie then went to court. U.S. District Judge Charles Kornmann ruled in 1999 that the federal government and environmental groups could not interfere with the building and operation of the hog farms. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Kornmann's order, saying laws dealing with Indian affairs and environmental protection did not give Sun Prairie standing to seek the court order. In 2003, the tribe asked the BIA to shut down the hog farm. Sun Prairie again sued to stop the shutdown. The agreement to end the lawsuit was signed last week by officials with the tribe, Sun Prairie and federal agencies. If Judge Battey approves the settlement, all other pending litigation would end. Iyotte said if the court settlement is approved, her group will file another lawsuit, this time targeting the tribe and the BIA as well as Sun Prairie. Bone Shirt said his group would sue the tribal council members and the BIA. BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM Dougherty said Sun Prairie has not paid "a penny" in profits to the tribe, as the lease stipulates. But Greg Fontaine, CEO of Sun Prairie, said the hog farms have shown a profit for only one year. That year the tribe refused a check from Sun Prairie for its share of the profits. Under the proposed settlement, Sun Prairie would pay rent to the tribe of $120,000 per year for the two farms and would pay the tribe for water used. Contact Steve Miller at 394-8417 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com Copyright c. 2005 The Rapid City Journal. --------- "RE: Cultural beliefs help American Indians" --------- Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 16:52:04 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="URBAN INDIANS" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.abqtrib.com//0,2564,ALBQ_19858_3739409,00.html Traditions and transitions Cultural beliefs help American Indians who move off the pueblo find their way in the city, but leaving behind benefits - like health care and housing assistance - can be a difficult adjustment By Michael Halstead / Special to The Tribune April 29, 2005 Toni Fontenelle sits behind her desk at the Albuquerque Indian Center and smiles broadly as only a grandmother can. On the peach-colored walls hangs a picture of her grandson Logan, adorned in the ceremonial dress of the family's Zuni tribe. "What do you think of the walls?" asks Fontenelle, 56, scanning the pastel expanse and laughing. "My co-workers joke that I work inside of an Easter egg." Don't be fooled. Hidden among the dainty hues, benevolent smiles and charming family mementos is a gritty, steadfast survivor. Three years ago, after living in Zuni Pueblo for more than 50 years, Fontenelle moved with her son and grandchildren to Albuquerque, joining the city's escalating population of urban Indians. The massive, joyful show at the 22nd annual Gathering of Nations at The Pit today and Saturday shows off one side of the urban Indian experience, with participants coming from across the country to connect with family and tradition. But Fontenelle's move shows another side - one of difficult dislocation and loss of crucial safety nets. While observers say the vast majority of Indians move off the reservation into urban areas because of high unemployment rates and lack of professional job options, Fontenelle - who had worked for the Zuni Housing Authority for 14 years - gave up her steady job and moved for different reasons. "My people have a word for it," Fontenelle says, "but I'm afraid it's a pretty long word and doesn't translate very well to English. Let's just say I felt that someone or something had jinxed my family." A series of break-ins had Fontenelle looking for work off the pueblo. Then a fire that destroyed her home and left her grandson Troy Jr. with third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body finalized her determination to leave the village. "That was it," says Fontenelle. "Bad luck had overcome us, and it was time for a fresh start." The move came at a high price. By leaving, Fontenelle and her family gave up nearly all the benefits that came with living on the reservation: medical and dental coverage, pharmaceutical needs, housing and utility assistance, food assistance, transportation and sympathetic schools. Most of all, Fontenelle missed the Zuni way of life. "The security of living in the village," says Fontenelle, her voice halting and trembling with emotion. "The participation in our culture and our religion. Those are the things I miss the most." Fontenelle transitioned immediately to her job as an employment and training coordinator at the Albuquerque Indian Center. She also found support and treatment for her grandson's burns through the Shriners and their hospital in Galveston, Texas. But Fontenelle's son, Troy, 37, who fought wildfires in the summers while living on the pueblo, had trouble finding work. Troy Jr. dropped out of high school and turned toward drugs. Fontenelle, who in 1979 lost one of her legs in a wreck and suffers from diabetes, still struggles to get access to health care. "It's been difficult," she admits. "The flu swept through our house this year, and it was pretty scary. The children are covered by Medicaid, but the rest of us had to ride it out without any medication." Health care is a vital concern, activists say. The latest brief on urban Indians in the Albuquerque Indian Health Service area says Indians are 52 percent more likely to die from pneumonia or influenza and 420 percent more likely to die from diabetes than the general population. "Urban Indians make up over 75 percent of the nation's Indian population, " says Norman Ration, director of the National Indian Youth Council, from his office. "And in Albuquerque and the surrounding area, the urban Indian population is over 50,000 people." The latest Census Bureau estimate, from 2003, puts the population of Indians in Albuquerque at 20,000 to 25,000. Ration says that estimate is low and points to 50,000 metro-area residents who have registered with Indian Health Services. "That's bigger than any pueblo," he says. "That's 50,000 people without adequate health care. They get no help from the state and barely any help from the tribes." As far as help from IHS goes, Ration argues that urban Indians are allotted just 1 percent of the $3 billion annual IHS budget nationwide, with the rest channeled through the tribes. The disparity is felt strongly in Albuquerque, because of the large Indian population here, he says. Keith Franklin, president of the Albuquerque Metro Native American Coalition, says the health care problem is just one part of a larger epidemic that plagues urban Indians. "The pueblos have no industry save for the few that have gaming," says Franklin, standing in Ration's office. "A lot of these people are moving into the city with no college education or marketable skills. "That means poor-paying jobs, which in turn means moving to the war zone for affordable rents, which means alcoholism, drugs and depression. "Urban Indian women in Albuquerque have the highest percentage of mental disorders in the world." Franklin adds, shaking his head, "We're the first in the worst and the last in the best." While Fontenelle's family risked becoming another urban Indian statistic, it avoided many, though not all, of the pitfalls common to the American Indian population. Fontenelle is keenly aware of this. "My job is helping people transition from the pueblo to the city," she says. "It's heartbreaking what I see every day. People who are homeless and disoriented." Fontenelle finds great reward in her work helping fellow Indians make the adjustment she has had to make. "I know I'm fortunate that I didn't have to go through the kind of experience that some of my clients go through right now." The Fontenelles' string of bad luck seems to have come to an end. In September, Fontenelle bought and moved her family into a four-bedroom house off Unser Boulevard Southwest. Her son has steady work as a painter, and grandson Troy Jr. has successfully gone through drug rehabilitation and is in the process of completing his GED. "Our strong cultural beliefs have gotten us through many of these difficult times," Fontenelle says, "and on important days, religious days, we still make our spiritual offerings." Although she has left Zuni Pueblo, the Zuni way of life has not left her. "We go down to the Rio Grande and empty our burnt offerings into the current," she says. Copyright c. 2005 Albuquerque Tribune. --------- "RE: Road development worries White Mountain Apache" --------- Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 08:21:52 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ENCROACHING ON TRIBAL LAND" http://www.wmicentral.com/~2264&PAG=461&dept_id=505965&rfi=6 Rim Road development worries Tribe, Forest Service By: Donna Rescorla, The Independent April 26, 2005 HOLBROOK - The proposed development of Starlight Ridge Estates in Wagon Wheel has brought concerns about Rim Road from the White Mountain Apache Tribe and the U.S. Forest Service. Supervisors were asked, at their April 18 meeting, to approve letters to both government entities asking for their support of the development with appropriate consideration for the concerns of both agencies. Background material provided to the supervisors indicated the three concerns routinely expressed are emergency access, corridor preservation and trespass. County Engineer Dick Young said they have had several meetings with the Starlight developers and the White Mountain Regional Transportation Plan committee. Recently, he said, they received a strongly worded letter from White Mountain Apache Tribe Chairman Dallas Massey saying that any work done on the reservation would be seen as a trespass, not just an encroachment, on tribal land. In the letter to Massey, several options for the second access of the subdivision were given to the tribe for their consideration, with the suggestion that they might have other ideas. It was pointed out that the approved master plan for the subdivision includes a new corridor for the primary road alignment, moving it east of the reservation boundary. The letter to Ed Collins, Lakeside District Ranger of the Apache- Sitgreaves National Forest, states the county's strong support for the requested extinguishment of the Forest Service easement in the subdivision in favor of new public roads the developer is proposing to construct. The letters were approved and will go out under Chairman Jerry Brownlow's signature. In another road matter, supervisors approved spending up to $35,000 to furnish and install the four-leg video traffic detection system and new pedestrian signals at the Woodland Road/State highway 260 intersection. Supervisors were told ADOT wants to upgrade the intersection to video detection instead of the existing magnetic loops. Such a system is already being used at the Main Street/Snowflake Boulevard (State highways 77 and 277) intersection in Snowflake. The pedestrian signals are needed for the safety of Blue Ridge students. Supervisors were told the cost of the project will be shared equally with Pinetop-Lakeside which is also a partner in the reconstruction of Woodland Road. Copyright c. 2005 White Mountain Independent. --------- "RE: Mississippi Band of Choctaw planning Tech Park" --------- Date: Mon, 2 May 2005 08:28:19 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="EXPANDING DEVELOPMENT/EMPLOYMENT" http://www.neshobademocrat.com/~10185&SectionID=2&SubSectionID=297 Choctaws planning technology park By KENNETH BILLINGS Staff Reporter kbillings@neshobademocrat.com April 28, 2005 The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians will unveil the centerpiece of a planned technological industrial park when it hosts a business development conference here next month. The 2005 Choctaw TechVantage Conference, scheduled for May 2-3, will highlight the Choctaw Tech Parc as well as other properties owned by the tribe throughout the state to educate businesses and industries of the unique offerings available to companies looking for viable places to locate their businesses. TechParc is a planned 150-acre complex on the Pearl River Reservation designed around a high-tech philosophy to provide industries having more technologically advanced needs with the resources that would make relocating in the park more attractive. "The next wave is going to be the development of technology based jobs and higher skilled jobs so we are putting all of the pieces into place," said tribal Director of Economic Development John Hendrix. The TechParc will include much of the area occupied by existing buildings such as the American Greetings facility and the Chatha and Choctaw Electronics buildings on Industrial Road and will incorporate undeveloped land behind those facilities with buildings and infrastructure being constructed as needed. The development of the TechParc was designed with the technology concept at the forefront with even the name being designed with technology in mind. The plan will be implemented in four phases with renovation of the American Greetings facility being an integral part of the first phase. "We spelled the name with a 'C' to give it that techy feel because technology companies want to come into that kind of environment," said Community Development Coordinator Ivy Owen. "And that is how we are going to redesign the American Greetings facility, to give it that kind of atmosphere." American Greetings is scheduled relocate to the former U.S. Motors facility by June 15 and Owen said the building would then be converted into a technology based flex-space with the ability to lease to multiple clients ranging in size from 8,000 square feet to 120,000 square feet. Hendrix said the tribe is well on its way to being a center for high- tech jobs with medical equipment and aerospace companies having already reached agreements to relocate to reservation facilities across the state. One of the most appealing aspects being added which will be of interest to many industries when considering tribal facilities is a newly formed research consortium partnering the Mississippi Choctaws with the four major universities in Mississippi to provide technology services to industries and businesses who team up with the tribe. Companies such as Lockheed-Martin, University of Mississippi Medical Center and AAI have already committed to bringing in high-tech, high paying jobs and many others are already expressing an interest in partnering with the Choctaws to brings jobs and industry to the area. "The technology conference will bring in a lot of the people who have expressed interest here and they will be touring the facility," Hendrix said. Many of the tribe's existing partners and customers will attend the conference along with those who may possibly locate in the TechParc or one of the other tribal owned facilities across the state. The tribe owns facilities in DeKalb and Philadelphia as well as Carthage and on the Gulf Coast. Copyright c. 2005 Neshoba Democrat Publishing Co. Inc., Philadelphia, MS. --------- "RE: Gila River Center is nearly a secret" --------- Date: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 1:34 AM From: Chris Milda (_Akimel O`odham_) Subj: Gila River center is nearly a secret (Fwd) Masiling List: News and Information http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic//0217cr-edit17.html Gila River center is nearly a secret Feb. 17, 2005 12:00 AM In the heart of a land where ancestors farmed a millennium ago, the Gila River Indian Community has built a museum and repository for Native American artifacts. The Huhugam Heritage Center, which opened a year ago yet remains nearly a secret, is a joint effort with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and other tribes to provide a repository for pieces of the past unearthed during the digging of the Central Arizona Project. The mission of the museum is to ensure that the traditions of the Akimel O'odham and the Pee Posh Indians, as well as their ancestors, will endure. The Gila Indian Reservation is a fitting home for the repository and museum. At nearly 600 square miles, it is the largest reservation near the Valley and already draws visitors to its resort and casinos. The community's developments are well planned and high quality. Jon Czaplicki, an archaeologist with the Bureau of Reclamation, said the Gila community provided the best proposal for a museum. "They've got a really nice, top-notch staff there," he said. "We're quite comfortable with them having the responsibility of curating the collection." The bureau turned over more than 2 million items from the CAP dig, plus photos, maps and reports. Most of the items are prehistoric: ceramics, animal bones carved into tools, shells, axes, human figurines and projectile points used on weapons. In addition to the CAP artifacts, the Heritage Center offers a central facility to preserve items from the Gila community and other tribes as well. About 37,000 artifacts from Snaketown, excavated in 1935 and 1964, are being returned to the Gila community from the Arizona State Museum in Tucson. The Heritage Center's architectural beauty offers lessons from the past. In the middle of the complex is an outdoor ball court fashioned after the one excavated in Snaketown, believed to be used from A.D. 700 to 1200. The main gallery is a stylized replica of Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, with tile patterns on the floor duplicating where the walls would be in the ruins. Inside the buildings, the focus is academic and scientific. There are classrooms for workshops, laboratories for archaeologists and an archive maintained at precise temperature and humidity to preserve documents. At the heart of the center are the exhibits, such as the O'odham baskets collected by J.F. Breazeale, who also photographed the artists for his 1923 book, /The Pima Indian and His Basket/. Or the photography of Helga Teiwes, who worked among the Native Americans in the Southwest from 1964 to 1993. In a smaller building across the ball court, a room is dedicated to the trails used as trade routes by Native Americans between Arizona and California, centuries before the states were founded. Many of the trails were later used by Spanish missionaries, wagons and eventually modern highways. It is a statement to the tribes' endurance that the trade routes, like the unearthed artifacts, all make their way home to the community again. Copyright c. 2005 arizonacentral.com. --------- "RE: Tribe asks Judge to stop Yucca Nuclear Dump" --------- Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 08:59:46 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NO NUKE DUMP" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.newutah.com/~thread&order=0&thold=0 Tribe asks judge to stop Yucca nuclear dump Ken Ritter THE ASSOCIATED PRESS April 28, 2005 LAS VEGAS - A federal judge made no immediate decision Wednesday on whether an Indian tribe's 19th century claim to vast stretches of Western land should stop government plans for a national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. U.S. District Court Judge Philip Pro didn't indicate when he would rule on the Western Shoshone National Council's request for a preliminary injunction based on the Ruby Valley Treaty of 1863. After an hour of oral arguments, Pro said he'd make a decision "as soon as possible." Lawyer Robert Hager of Reno, representing the tribe, focused his plea for an immediate halt to the $58 billion project on Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman's disclosure last month that workers might have falsified data during site suitability studies. "Misrepresentations were made. Lies were made," Hager said, insisting that falsified data was used to gain presidential and congressional approval for the project. "At some point, it's got to stop, your honor, and it's got to stop with the courts." Bodman's March 16 disclosures came after the tribe's original lawsuit was filed March 4. In it the tribe claims that the Ruby Valley Treaty allows only settlements, mining, ranching, agriculture, railroads, roads and communication routes on Western Shoshone ancestral lands. Department of Justice lawyer Sara Culley called the tribe's challenge "a direct contradiction of a congressional mandate" and said it was filed prematurely and in the wrong venue. President Bush and Congress selected the Yucca Mountain site in 2002 after years of study. The Energy Department plans to transport 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste now stored at sites around the nation and entomb it beneath an ancient volcanic ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Constitutionality and site selection challenges are before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Culley said, and licensing will be handled by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "We don't have these decisions made," she told the judge. Culley said the Energy Department has some 1,600 people working on the project. But she said that since the repository was not expected to open for at least five more years, the tribe could show no "irreparable or immediate harm" from planning for the repository or for a rail line across Nevada to reach it. Hager said Shoshone prayer sites had been declared off-limits and ancestral remains had been removed from graves during site preparation. "Ongoing activity in the mountain is desecrating the mountain itself," he said. The Ruby Valley treaty recognized vast stretches of territory in present-day Nevada, California, Utah and Idaho as Western Shoshone tribal land. But an Indian Claims Commission decided in 1946 that the tribe lost the land through "gradual encroachment" during settlement of the West. Tribal members lost a Supreme Court challenge of that decision in 1985, and President Bush and Congress last year approved paying the tribe more than $145 million in compensation and accrued interest based on the 1872 value of 24 million acres. Tribal members are split on whether to accept payments or continue to press the fight over rights to the land. Copyright c. 2005 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Copyright c. 2005 The Daily Herald. --------- "RE: Lawsuit to halt Kitt Peak Telescopes filed" --------- Date: Tuesday, April 26, 2005 5:37 AM From: "Chris Milda (_Akimel O`odham_)" AkimelOodham@EarthLink.net Subj: Lawsuit to halt Kitt Peak telescopes filed (Fwd) Mailing List: News and Information http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410720 Lawsuit to halt Kitt Peak telescopes filed April 11, 2005 by: Brenda Norrell / Indian Country Today *Sacred Baboquivari Mountains defiled as telescope development and border patrols increase on tribal lands* SELLS, Ariz. - While San Carlos Apache led decades of court battles and protests to protect their sacred Dzil Nchaa Si An (Mount Graham) from massive telescope construction, many American Indians questioned whether the Tohono O'odham would battle in federal court the expansion of mammoth telescopes on Kitt Peak, the O'odham sacred mountain "Iolkam," near the U.S.-Mexico border. Kitt Peak crowns the north portion of the Baboquivari Mountains and is located in the tribe's Schuk Toak District. Their speculation ended in March, when the Tohono O'odham Nation filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the National Science Foundation seeking an injunction to immediately halt construction of telescopes on Kitt Peak. Further, the Nation requested that the BIA cancel the Kitt Peak lease. The suit names the Smithsonian Institution Astrophysical Observatory, Kitt Peak National Observatory and NSF Astronomical Sciences Director G. Wayne Van Citters as defendants. The Nation claimed the National Science Foundation manipulated the process for the environmental assessment and as a result, the mountain, known as "I'itoi's Garden," was not declared a sacred site. U.S. cultural and tribal self-governance laws were also violated in site preparation for the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS), the Nation said. The O'odham lawsuit states, "Since the announcement of plans to construct a new array of telescopes and related buildings, the Nation has asserted that further building would destroy the spiritual nature of the site." Pressing to halt VERITAS telescope construction, the O'odham claimed the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 was violated and stated that the environmental assessment and subsequent finding of "no significant impact" should have been sent out for review before a final document was issued. The final document alone was sent to the tribe, the Schuk Toak District, the BIA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "This was not done. In addition, the federal official who signed the finding of no significant impact relied on a defective cultural resources report that failed to identify Kitt Peak as an Indian sacred site. Therefore the finding of no significant impact violated federal law," the nation said. The United States' cultural laws were also violated. Under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, a federal project's Cultural Resource Report must be sent to the Arizona State Historic Preservation Office for review. However, that report was sent neither to SHPO, the Nation nor the BIA for review. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 stipulates that a copy of the biological report for the VERITAS project must be sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for review. However, the report was not sent to the USFWS, the nation or the BIA. Tohono O'odham Chairman Vivian Juan-Saunders said the telescope project has proceeded in defiance of tribal, state and federal laws. "I'itoi's Garden has cultural and religious significance to our people - we have no choice but to try to halt the construction of this project," Juan-Saunders said in a statement. The Tohono O'odham, entering the arena to battle a consortium of international universities and the Smithsonian Institution, took the legal action to halt telescope construction following years of pressure from O'odham spiritual leaders. The Papago Tribal Council, whose name was changed to the Tohono O'odham Nation in 1986, rejected the plan to build telescopes on the sacred mountain three times in 1958. "The tribe eventually agreed while voicing the cultural and spiritual significance of the mountain," Juan-Saunders said. However, the Tohono O'odham Nation said the National Science Foundation failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, National Historic Preservation Act and the Nation's right to self-governance. The BIA and the Arizona State Historic Preservation Office have asked NSF to comply with federal laws and regulations or halt telescope construction. In February, the BIA said VERITAS is not in "lawful compliance" because NSF did not comply with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Meanwhile, Curt Suplee, director of legislative and public affairs for the NSF, said the foundation hopes to reach an out-of-court resolution that will allow the complex to be built. The Nation has gained support from Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., who has asked the NSF to address the concerns of the Tohono O'odham, BIA and other agencies. "I am concerned about the apparent process by which the NSF has pursued and approved the construction of the VERITAS project on the Tohono O'odham Reservation, particularly in light of the Nation's express opposition and the concerns raised by federal and state agencies." Copyright c. 2005 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Indian Youth talk Tradition, Culture, Future" --------- Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 08:21:52 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SUCCESS CONFERENCE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.times-standard.com/Stories/0,1413,127~2896~2834980,00.html Indian youth talk tradition, culture and the future By Sara Watson Arthurs The Times-Standard April 25, 2005 McKINLEYVILLE - How do you keep the traditions of generations past while going to high school in 2005? Around 200 American Indian high school students from 14 schools throughout the North Coast gathered at McKinleyville High School to talk about how to achieve "success in both worlds." McKinleyville High sophomores Rachel Provolt and EmmileeRisling put together a daylong event to educate their peers on tribal sovereignty and related matters. The "Success in Both Worlds" conference takes place every other year. Along with a video created by Provolt and Risling, the recent event included speakers, dancing and sports. "As a Native American youth you need to be successful in both worlds. That means you need to be successful in keeping our culture alive and you also need to be successful in the Western way of living," said Tasha Norton, a Hoopa Valley High School junior of Hupa, Yurok and Karuk heritage. "That means going to college and coming back to help." Education is a big part of the message, Risling said. She said there's pressure to be educated in both traditional ways and on modern American terms, and education is a part of how. Erika Chase, a junior at Hoopa Valley High School and member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe, said she hopes to go into tribal politics. She saw the conference as a way to think about how she could affect the tribe's future. The conference included a screening of a video created by Risling and Provolt on the topic of tribal sovereignty, the theme of this year's conference. Risling said they were inspired to create the video, a Cedar Academy project, because they didn't know much about the topic of tribal sovereignty. Provolt noted that everyone they interviewed for the video had a different perspective. Some spoke on the legal complexities of how tribal law intersects with state law. For others, the phrase "tribal sovereignty" evoked thoughts not of the tribes' sovereign legal status but the ideas and traditions behind that -- in effect, the tribe's sense of identity. "It's the idea that you're part of something greater than yourself," said Hoopa Valley Tribal Chairman Clifford Lyle Marshall. Risling said she wanted to educate other youth on how to keep that idea going to secure a strong future for tribes. "If you want to be around, you've got to educate the youth about this," Risling said. She said the stereotype of American Indian youth is one of apathy and drug abuse. "We're trying to help kids know there is another way," she said. Risling, who is Hupa, and Provolt, who is Yurok, are the president and vice-president of McKinleyville High's Native American Club. Copyright c. 2005 Times - Standard. --------- "RE: GIAGO: White Lawyers growing fat off Tribes" --------- Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 08:47:03 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GIAGO: TRIBES RIPPED BY WHITE LAWYERS" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=6364 At rip-off time where were the tribal attorneys? Notes from Indian Country Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) April 25, 2005 Copyright c. 2005, Native American Journalists Foundation, Inc. Unless you have been living in a cave in Afghanistan you have surely read about two unsavory lobbyists named Jack "Casino Jack" Abramoff and Michael Scanlon. Under the guise of saviors of the Indian nations, Abramoff and Scanlon's subpoenaed email messages referred to their Indian clients as "monkeys," "morons" and "troglodytes" during and after the time they manipulated the tribes into contributing millions of dollars to their Republican action committees and public relations firms. About $4 million of the purloined money ended up in the hands of Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition who was also a high- priced communication consultant and a top Bush campaign adviser. He also served as chairman of the Georgia's Republican Party and is now a candidate for lieutenant governor in Georgia. It is estimated that Abramoff, with the help of his buddy Scanlon, ripped of at least six Indian nations for as much as $62 million. Somehow mixed up in all of these underhanded dealings is the Republican Congressman from Texas, the powerful Tom DeLay. Investigations have shown that DeLay paid his wife and daughter as much as $500,000 for serving on his political action committees and that he took golf trips to Scotland and visits to the Russia on some of the money donated to Abramoff by the Indian tribes. Abramoff and Scanlon stand accused of secretly organizing a campaign to pressure the Texas State government to shut down the casino owned by the Tiqua tribe near El Paso. After their scheme was successful they did an about face and solicited money from the Tiqua to allow them to lobby Congress and their friend Tom DeLay, to reopen the casino. Talk about working both ends against the middle. The Tiqua donated as much as $125,000 to $175,000 per month to Abramoff and Scanlon for their devious actions. Estimates have it that the Tiqua paid nearly $14 million to the two scam artists for what amounted to nothing for them. The Meskwaki of Iowa, with two factions fighting each other for control of the tribe, paid in as much as $50,000 to Abramoff, the Saginaw Chippewa $75,000 and the Coushatta of Louisiana $150,000. Each of these tribes paid for services that never arrived or were damaging to the tribes when they did arrive. All of these rip-offs, though sounding as familiar as the scams committed against the indigenous people by the Indian agents of yesteryear bring some questions to mind. Where were the legal advisors to the tribes through all of this? It is a fact that many white attorneys and accountants have grown fat and wealthy representing the Indian tribes and their newfound wealth. Starting in 1988 it was like an open season on the gullible and inexperienced tribal leaders. The sudden success of the Indian casinos offered nearly unimaginable opportunities for those lawyers and investment companies smart enough to take advantage of it. The casino management companies that sprang up overnight and the casino equipment manufacturing companies that soon followed, all grew extremely wealthy on the backs of the Indians' success. The scam of Abramoff and Scanlon was not a first. Many Indian nations spent millions trying to break management contracts with oftentimes scurrilous companies that ripped the tribes off by charging them far much more that is outlined in the Native American Gaming Regulatory Act. Where have the attorneys for these tribes been hiding and where are the enforcers of the NAGRA? When several Indian tribes started to show such huge profits from their casinos that the sums were absolutely unimaginable those who would divest the tribes of this sudden wealth sat on the fences like crows at a cornfield. They were like pigeons circling a slice of bread in the park. What you had here were tribal leaders that were not sophisticated in handling funds independent of the paternalistic Bureau of Indian Affairs. And funds in such vast numbers were mind boggling to them and their councils. Up to that point in our history we had been told nearly from cradle to grave how our finances would be doled out. We had land management through the Department of the Interior, trust funds through the BIA and health care provided by the Indian Health Service. Anything to do with money was handled by government officials. The only thing that saved many tribes from bankruptcy was the fact that so much money was coming in from the casinos that the ability to recuperate from heavy financial rip-offs was substantial. In other words, many tribes found financial success in spite of themselves. But in the meantime so many scams were worked against them that they never admitted to simply because of their embarrassment and guilt. And it has not ended. There are still vultures perched on the fences of wealthy tribes just waiting to wet their beaks. The tribes that became wealthy overnight did not have experienced advisors to warn them about the buzzards that would soon descend upon them. The BIA, the agency supposedly set up to protect the trust monies of the tribes, had been so incompetent in it own way that it was hardly the answer. And the NAGRA was so confused at the outset that it enacted rulings that did more harm than good. And to add insult to injury the different state governments saw an easy and unprotected source of income that they started to enact legislation to divest the tribes of a portion of their income. If the truth be known, the actions of Abramoff and Scanlon are just the tip of the iceberg and the federal government may consider it too late and too embarrassing to dig any further. ---- (Tim Giago is the founder and the former editor and publisher of the Lakota Times, Indian Country Today and the Lakota and Dakota Journals. He can be reached at giagobooks@iw.net) Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: MOHAWK: Industrial Society and the Culture Wars" --------- Date: Monday, May 02, 2005 7:36 PM From: Executive Manager [rcook@indiancountryactionnetwork.info] Subj: Mohawk: Industrial society and the culture wars - An ICT Perspective Mohawk: Industrial society and the culture wars by: John Mohawk / Indian Country Today April 28, 2005 It has been 40 years since Daniel Patrick Moynihan, former U.S. senator from New York, issued a report on the African-American family in the United States. In an alarming tone, he stated that about a quarter of the children born in the African-American community were born into households that had no father. Born out of wedlock, he thought, they faced a wide range of social dysfunctions ranging from being at risk for poor school performance, prison and perpetuating the cycle of matriarchal families. It was, he thought, a prescription for disaster. Fast-forward to 2005. Today, approximately the same percentage of white American females give birth to children under the same circumstances. A major difference is that no bells have gone off, no dire prophecies are set forward, no racism about the inherent weaknesses of the white race is discovered. Indeed, by statistical measures children raised in homes with a female head of household do quite well. Far better than expected 40 years ago, far better than theorized by those who don't actually pay attention to the fact patterns. Poverty is more of an indicator of how a child is likely to fare in life than is living, or not living, in a traditional family. There is, however, a loud drone of warning about the end of civilization coming from the religious right. Adherents to this viewpoint see threats to the traditional family everywhere, and have nominated themselves to save civilization by reasserting "family values." They represent just one phenomenon in American life, but a powerful and potentially destructive one. The changes brought by an accelerating industrial and "post-industrial" society have touched almost all people in the developed world, and the contradictions it has produced are still being played out. American Indian societies are also impacted by the changes. Over the past dozen or so years, the last Native elders in traditional societies have passed away. There may be a few remaining, but for the most part the people who grew up speaking the Native languages, participating in Native communities, and who were not forced into schools or who went to schools for only a short time are gone. They were socialized to a way of being in the world which most of us can only imagine, and their passing should serve to remind us of how things once were. Since time immemorial, traditional societies have existed which were dependent on elders. Indeed, true traditional societies develop leaders who serve the communities over long periods of time. Sometimes designated as chiefs, male or female, they sat in small groups of councils and presided over the community's business. A traditional society has a special place for its elders, but elders aren't simply old people. They are the old people who are steeped in the traditions, who have been paying attention to the community, who know how that community solves its problems. In semi-technical jargon, they are the keepers of the customs and customary law, the living encyclopedias of the group. In most Native societies, they were not elected but rather appointed through some process of acclamation, and they often served a lifetime. The ancient chiefs who were famous - Sitting Bull, Seattle, Crowfoot and Chief Joseph - were such people. Traditional societies are associations of families, although they define family in diverse and distinctive ways. In some societies, families were identified by the female line, some by the male line (i.e., matrilineal or patrilineal), but the families generally served similar purposes. Children were welcomed because they were insurance that when people grew old there would be someone to take care of them, and elders were treasured because they were the repositories of the knowledge of the history of the group and the customs of the larger group, the tribe or nation. Multigenerational groups cooperated with one another to assist in the group's survival for as long as human beings have existed on the earth, and almost certainly since even before that. Modernity is threatening to bring that to an end. It's not that there are any people who get up in the morning with evil intentions who want to dismantle traditional societies. The dismantling is entirely incidental, but it is nevertheless real. With the advent of industrial society, the family was no longer the primary social organization of production and social stability. Wherever people enjoy the benefits of old-age pensions and adequate health care for seniors, the birth rate goes down. People no longer feel the need to have a large number of children as a hedge against poverty and abandonment in old age. The multigenerational household begins to disappear. Old people prefer to be independent and not burden their children, and young people want to live beyond the watchful eye of their elders. They move away from home: often far away. Their lives are often determined by the marketplace where they can get the best wages, and they need an education for that. The old rules about who one can marry, and the necessity of producing children for the family, no longer apply. The institutions and ideologues of traditional societies often adjust poorly to these changes. Young men and women adopt behaviors appropriate to their newfound "freedoms," and the values of the old ways remain popular but the behaviors of the new ways are often inconsistent with those values. Arranged marriages, the bedrock of familial authority in traditional societies, fall by the wayside. Although both genders enthusiastically embrace the changes, young women are especially seen as adopting behaviors inconsistent with the old ways - they behave as though they have priorities other than marriage, child bearing and raising, and staying at home to nurture young and old. This is viewed as a moral failing, one that could destroy society at its roots. Contemporary Muslim societies are sometimes intensely conflicted on these issues, as are every other kind of traditionalist society. Recently, the West turned out en masse to bury a popular pope, but his positions on a wide range of issues including birth control, contraceptives and women's roles in society were out of sync with post- Industrial societies. His church in Europe has declined, as has the birthrate among the flock. The "morality" of medieval times does not meet the needs of people in today's affluent societies, although it is strong in poorer, more family- and tradition-based societies. Third World societies continue to embrace these ways, and the church is thriving there. The religious right opposes vaccines that could protect women from cervical cancer. They see such cancers as a consequence of a non- traditional lifestyle, and cancer as God's punishment for naughty behaviors. They oppose a range of stem cell research and abortion and even pain medication for terminal cancer patients for the same reason. They celebrate the benefits of the Industrial Age, but they cannot or will not adapt to the changes it has brought. ---- John C. Mohawk Ph.D., columnist for Indian Country Today, is associate professor of American Studies and director of Indigenous Studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Copyright c. Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved --------- "RE: HARJO: Native Women aren't safe in Indian Country" --------- Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 08:59:46 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="HARJO: SAFETY OF NATIVE WOMEN" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410844 Harjo: Congress: Make the streets safe for Indian women, too! Email this page Print this page by: Suzan Shown Harjo / Indian Country Today April 28, 2005 The streets of Indian country aren't safe for American Indian and Alaska Native women. Nearly 90 percent of the perpetrators of violent crimes against Native women are non-Indians - 60 percent are white men - and Native nations can't touch them. Congress created this haven for non-Indian criminals on reservations and it's up to Congress to fix it. The 109th Congress has a chance to do that very thing this year, when it considers reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. VAWA 2005 is being drafted now to address the deplorable situation of women in America, where physical abuse is a feature of one-quarter of all marriages and where one-third of women who are treated in emergency rooms are victims of domestic violence. While Native women also sustain injuries in abusive relationships, most of the men who assault Native women are strangers or acquaintances (80 percent) rather than intimate partners or family members (20 percent), according to a U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics report, "American Indians and Crime (1992 - 2002)," issued in December 2004. This statistical profile and a raft of other studies, including the 2000 National Violence Against Women Survey, report that: * American Indian and Alaska Native women are more than twice as likely to be victims of violent crime as other women in America. * American Indian and Alaska Native women suffer sexual assaults at a rate of more than three times that of women of other races. * More than one in three American Indian and Alaska Native women will be raped during her lifetime. * The rate of violent crime experienced by American Indian women is nearly 50 percent higher than that reported by black males, the second highest gender/race category victimized by violent crime. Most violent crimes are committed intra-racially, as with white-on-white crime. This is not the pattern in Indian country, where 88 percent of the perpetrators of violent crime against Indians are non-Indians. Why can't Indian governments punish these violent non-Indians and why should Congress step in? It's a long, complex history, but the short answer is that the federal government made this jurisdictional mess and should take every opportunity to clean it up. Over a century ago in the name of "Indian civilization," the federal government criminalized tribal traditions and took control of the reservations. When the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government did not have jurisdiction over Indian murders of Indians, Congress enacted the Major Crimes Act, authorizing federal jurisdiction over murder and other serious offenses involving Indian people. Congress expanded federal jurisdiction, effectively restricting tribal authorities, under the Assimilative Crimes Act and myriad gaming, environmental, repatriation, arts and other laws. Tribal jurisdiction and remedies were limited under the federal tribal termination policy. Starting in the 1940s, Congress gave selected states certain criminal and civil authorities over Indian offenses. In the 1968 Indian Civil Rights Act, Congress restricted the sentencing authority of tribal courts to a one-year imprisonment and a $5,000 fine. The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that Indian tribes cannot prosecute non-Indians in criminal matters. That brings us to the present situation, where Native nations cannot punish non-Indians who harm Indian women in Indian territory, or can only give them a slap on the wrist. There are many reasons why the federal and state governments aren't doing a better job at bringing these bad men to justice. Basically, it comes down to geography and connectedness. The federal and state agents don't live where the crimes are being committed and the victims aren't their neighbors. Only the reinstatement of tribal jurisdiction and remedies has a chance of reversing the epidemic levels of violence against Native women. In VAWA 2005, Congress can address the jurisdictional void that prevents Indian tribes from prosecuting non-Indians perpetrating these crimes. VAWA was signed into law in 1994 and reauthorized in 2000. VAWA 2000 mandates that protection orders from one tribe or state be afforded full faith and credit in outside jurisdictions. It also clarifies that Indian tribes have full civil jurisdiction to enforce protection orders, including authority to enforce any orders through civil contempt proceedings, the exclusion of violators from Indian lands and other "appropriate mechanisms." Some states do not comply with the federal mandate and exhibit hostility toward affording full faith and credit to protection orders issued by tribal courts. Alaska's executive branch has challenged a state judge's decision allowing enforcement of a banishment order issued by the Native village of Perryville. The Minnesota Supreme Court in 2003 rejected a proposed statewide court rule for the consistent enforcement of all tribal court orders. Advocates are working with legislators and staffers on the reauthorization of VAWA, which is set to expire this September. Advocates in Indian country would do well to work (and work fast) with the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and the judiciary committees to develop a bill that could stand alone or be folded into VAWA 2005. A meaningful VAWA provision for Indian country would restore tribal criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians in the area of violent crime against women. Proponents should be prepared for the inevitable discussion about review of tribal court decisions and opt-in/opt-out mechanisms. At the very least, Congress should provide necessary funding to study full faith and credit implementation problems, in particular with regard to tribal domestic violence protection orders, and should withhold certain federal monies (unrelated to domestic violence prevention and response) from states that refuse to comply with VAWA's full faith and credit mandate. VAWA's effect in Indian country would be strengthened by provisions ensuring tribal law enforcement officers' access to national databases that track criminal history; a national database of tribal protection orders and tribal adult sex offenders to track serial offenders who travel between different Indian nations; an increase in funding for tribal governments and programs providing infrastructure and services to survivors of rape, stalking and domestic and dating violence; and a tribal division within the Office on Violence Against Women to act as the liaison to tribal governments on issues unique to Indian nations and Indian women. Congress can continue with the same jurisdictional system that devalues Native women and handicaps Native nations, or it can fill the jurisdictional void with something that might just work. If Congress fails to act, the reservation streets will remain safe for violent non-Indians - and the Indian women and their children and grandchildren will suffer. How is that good for anyone but the bad people? ---- Suzan Shown Harjo, Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee, is president of the Morning Star Institute in Washington, D.C., and a columnist for Indian Country Today. Copyright c. 1998-2005 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: YELLOW BIRD: Whole-wheat Fry Bread isn't so bad" --------- Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 08:47:03 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="YELLOW BIRD: FOOD STUDY" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/opinion/11489297.htm DORREEN YELLOW BIRD COLUMN: A 'food study' for the rest of us April 26, 2005 My sister, Gloria, who is the best fried bread maker in the region and maybe the world, has changed her recipe. She is using whole-wheat flour instead of bleached white. It is healthier, she told us, as she placed one of those golden brown pieces on my plate. I smiled at her, took a big bite of her fried bread while she was watching, then slid the halfeaten piece under a slice of roasted meat. "It just doesn't have that real greasy fried-bread taste," I whispered to my other sister. And when Gloria wasn't looking, I threw it in the garbage. On my way back to Grand Forks after our little celebration and ceremony at home a few weekends ago, my sister, Lizzy and I talked about our propensity to cook meals too large and too high in calories. It is traditional for us to indulge in big family meals. Our lives revolve around ceremonies and the feasts of thanksgiving that follow. When the meal is over and we've cleaned up, we sit around the table laughing and talking until someone decides to have another piece of pie. Then, we're all eating again. It is something we've grown up with. We've changed roles with our mothers and aunts. Unfortunately, our activity level has changed since those days, too. While we were young, our activity level was much, much higher and included horseback riding, chasing cattle, walking and running up and down the hills and pretty strenuous work such as gardening. We had little candy and no fast food on the reservation. When we moved to Minot, we walked to school. In fact, we walked to or from school four times a day, since we came home for lunch. That meant four miles of walking a day. When we went any place such as volleyball or softball practice, we walked or rode our bikes. It was sometimes five miles across town, too - and, maybe twice a week or more. Always, when we grew up on the reservation, we participated in ceremonies. Food such as hardy soups, potato salad, fried bread and pie were served. That was part of our culture - our ceremonies. Funerals, weddings and powwows always included large, rich meals. I would say without hesitation that all the women and even my brothers in our family are good cooks. We all are surprised when we run into some friend who can't cook. It was something we were taught almost as early as we learned to do dishes. I have to cringe when I think about all the dishes I did as an 8-year- old and for a family of 13. We also were required to learn to cook - bake bread (Mother did that every week), dry and can foods and make all the fixings for meals. Well, those big meals have caught up with me. Last year, I decided to try the Atkins diet. It looked easy. I asked my doctor what he thought about it for me. Native Americans traditionally ate high-protein diets, I told him, and I thought it would be good. "Dorreen," he said in that doctor know-it-all voice, "you don't wash your clothes in the Missouri River, walk 10 miles a day, carry and haul wood, plant, sow and harvest a garden. That is why Native people did well on a high-protein diet." Well, he was right. But I did lose 20 pounds on the Atkins diet, but regained them after five months. I guess he reminded me too much of my mother - and I always had to put my hand on the hot stove then, too. Last week, I nearly dropped my "good flour" fried bread when I read that people who are overweight may live longer than those who are too thin. Huh? I thought. That must be a misprint. Haven't we heard all our lives that every extra pound takes so many years off your life? I should be in the minus years. In fact, I'm not even born yet! Well, before I could celebrate with a chocolate milkshake (which is good for you - calcium and chocolate, you know), I read on. Turns out that the new findings apply only to those people who are a few pounds overweight and EXERCISE. Oops. It's back to the way we used to live, with all that homegrown exercise. There's always a catch. Yet, I learned something. There is a happy medium. Those too-thin runway models probably are miserable ... they can't eat all the good foods, and now they're unhealthy to boot. A little exercise and making good choices (such as whole wheat fried bread) is a better way, and we need to teach our children and grandchildren that, too ... I guess. ---- Dorreen Yellow Bird's column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Reach her at (701) 780-1228 or dyellowbird@gfherald.com Copyright c. 2005 Grand Forks Herald/Grand Forks, ND. Copyright c. 2005 Grand Forks Herald. --------- "RE: Non-Indian Film on Mohawk/Oka Crisis 1990" --------- Date: Thursday, April 28, 2005 5:07 PM From: HistorysMsStory@aol.com Subj: Film on Mohawk/Oka Crisis --------- Forwarded Message --------- Date: 4/28/2005 3:25:20 PM Eastern Standard Time From: orakwa@paulcomm.ca Subj: MNN Another Arrow Coming Our Way - Film on Mohawk/Oka Crisis 1990 Mailing List: Metis EVERYTIME WE TURN AROUND THERE'S ANOTHER ARROW COMING OUR WAY. NOW SOME NON-NATIVE OUTFIT IS GOING TO FILM THE "MOHAWK OKA CRISIS OF 1990!" MNN. April 28, 2005. A guy named Claudio Luca of Group Cine Tele Film in Montreal is embarking on a project funded by Canada and Quebec. He is recreating the Mohawk Oka Crisis of 1990. That's when Quebec sent in the paramilitary troop of the Quebec Police (SQ) who opened fire on Mohawk men, women and children in Kanehsatake on July 11th., 1990. This attack in the `Pines' escalated to the point that Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney sent thousands of Canadian Army soldiers to surround three of our Mohawk Territories - Kanehsatake, Kahnawake and Akwesasne. The reason for the Mohawk resistance was we did not want the golf course of the nearby municipality extended over our burial and ceremonial grounds. Now they want to exploit our misfortune. They have made no attempt to determine our feelings about their project. The funders, producer, writers and researchers are non-native. Let's hope the Mohawks will not be portrayed by non-native actors! Canada and Quebec, the financiers, are colonial powers. They have continually suppressed indigenous points of view. This kind of bias violates international human rights law. The way we responded to the attack on our cultural integrity at Oka was entirely our collective invention. These non-native entities have no right to what we created. The constant one-sided way of looking at our issues proves that they do not understand what we were doing. They continue to violate the respect that is due to all human beings. As one of the people who was involved and remained to the last at the Kanentoken Treatment Center, they do not have my permission to replicate my actions. International audience. Since this is being created for French television it is a transparent attempt to present us in a biased way and to prejudice international opinion. We are appalled at their insensitivity towards everything that we Kanienkehaka have suffered. Since both Canada and Quebec live on our territory, they are obligated to ensure that our interpretations are presented. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, adopted on December 18, 1992 is supposed to safeguard us. We never gave them permission to depict us through a story written exclusively by non-native writers, filmed by non- native filmmakers for a non-native audience. This is cultural exploitation at its worst. The Euro-Canadian and European public will be mislead. This film should not be made because the entire Mohawk population own this story and they need our permission to use it. They forget that we are people. This is our story. It is not just a commodity to be packaged and sold to the highest bidder. They cannot change facts or add fictitious characters to suit their needs as has become the established custom in previous dealings between our cultures. Misappropriation of our image. It is obscene the way people try to profit from the one-sided depiction of our lives, our tragedies and our struggles. If they respected our humanity and took the trouble to get to know us, they would understand the harm they are doing by appropriating our image, our actions and our events. If the story is ever to be filmed, it will be by the Mohawk people being totally in charge of everything. Their theft of our culture by filming this event brushes aside the central issue. They think we have no intelligence. This is why they feel free to exploit us. What is it that makes them think that the Mohawk people are of no consequence to their production? What makes them think that it is cool to ignore what we have to say? Why do they think it is open season to use our struggles for their commercial and political purposes to entertain and shock their audience? We do not want to be used. They would not want to be used this way either. If they had suffered a personal tragedy as significant and of the same consequence as ours, they would not want to have it exploited either. Would they not feel violated? They should read up on colonialism. They are participating in the abuse of our people that has been going on for 500 years. When will this stop? If they really wanted to help our people, they would do what needs to be done to give us a voice. Instead, they are telling the story they want to hear. The story that they wish was there, instead of what really happened. This is called `twistory'. The Europeans took our land and our resources. Now they are taking advantage of us again. Our issues need to be addressed. We must stand together as Mohawk people. This is one of the most basic rules of our culture. It is one of the rules that the non-native culture, with its totalitarian habits, seems to have the most difficulty understanding. We believe in respect and honesty. Stop production. It would be in the best interests of the Mohawk people and the Canadian public to stop this production completely. All we ask for is to be treated in a respectful way. Since they can't seem to understand our rights according to our cultural values, we are asserting them on terms that they can understand. We have copyrighted our story. So now the rights belong to us under Canadian law. A copy of the Copyright Certificate of Registration, No. 1024217, dated October 20, 2004 has been sent to them. It is duly registered under Canadian law and internationally recognized in over 130 countries. The right to this story belongs to us. We lived it! Kahentinetha Horn MNN Mohawk Nation News Kahntineta@hotmail.com --------- "RE: Government considers First Nation to be 'Extinct'" --------- Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 08:21:52 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BONES RETURNED TO "EXTINCT" SINIXT" http://www.indianz.com/News/ 'Extinct' First Nation gets ancestral bones back CBC News 27 April 2005 NELSON, B.C. - RCMP in British Columbia have returned some human remains that washed up on the shores of the Arrow Lakes to a First Nation that's supposedly extinct. In March, the bones of two people were found near a traditional burial ground of the Sinixt First Nation in the West Kootenay region. The federal Department of Indian Affairs declared the Sinixt people extinct in 1956 for the purposes of the Indian Act, so the provincial government asked two neighbouring First Nations if they wanted the remains. But Marilyn James, the appointed spokesperson for the Sinixt or Arrow Lakes Indians, stepped forward to claim the bones instead. "Because of our distinction of extinction, it's very hard for people to officially make contact with us," said James, who estimates there are still 6,800 Sinixt descendants alive in British Columbia and Washington state. RCMP in Castlegar released the bones to James last week. "You can tell when bones are happy and they're not very happy," James said of the bones, which hikers discovered washed up on the shore. Similar remains have been found occasionally near the Arrow Lakes over the past 15 years. Copyright c. 2005 CBC. --------- "RE: Canada's Top Court won't rule on 'Kemosabe' Slur" --------- Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 08:59:46 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="RACIAL SLUR CASE REJECTED" http://www.indianz.com/News/ http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/04/28/ranger-court050428.html Supreme Court rejects hearing 'Kemosabe' appeal CBC News 28 April 2005 OTTAWA - Canada's highest court has refused to hear arguments on whether the word "Kemosabe" - a term used in The Lone Ranger TV series - is a racial slur. Nova Scotia's Human Rights Commission had turned to the Supreme Court of Canada to clarify the use of the word in the workplace after a woman filed a complaint. Dorothy Kateri Moore complained to the commission in 1999, saying her boss and a co-worker at Play it Again Sports in Sydney discriminated against her by calling her Kemosabe. The term was the name Tonto gave the Lone Ranger on the 1950s TV show. The commission appointed a board of inquiry to look into the complaint. In February 2004, the board ruled that Moore hadn't clearly shown she was offended by the remark so discrimination didn't take place. The commission argued that the board of inquiry erred in placing an undue burden on Moore to prove she found the term offensive, and appealed the ruling to the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal. The three-member appeal court panel upheld the board's decision, writing that Moore had not shown the word was "notoriously offensive." But the commission appealed that decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, hoping it would clarify what the term "notoriously offensive" meant. "We're disappointed," Mayann Francis, chair of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, said in a release. "We thought this case might help establish clearer guidelines for dealing with discrimination and the cultural differences one finds in a diverse workplace." "This is about much more than the use of one word. It's about establishing standards that are clear to employers and to employees, standards that protect and encourage diversity," Francis said. Ann Smith, a lawyer for the human rights commission, said that "people need to understand what that phrase means in order to determine what is or is not considered acceptable behaviour in the workplace." "What I consider 'notoriously offensive' you may not. We wanted some legal standard that would help people," she said. Since the highest court in Canada will not hear the appeal, she added, the commission will look for other ways to clarify the parameters. Copyright c. 2005 CBC. --------- "RE: Residential School Abuse Victim awarded Damages" --------- Date: Sun, 1 May 2005 16:52:04 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ABUSE VICTIM" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.cbc.ca//04/29/sask-residential050429.html?ref=rss Residential school abuse victim awarded damages CBC News April 29, 2005 REGINA - Canada's highest court has increased the award for an aboriginal man from Saskatchewan who was sexually abused by a residential school administrator more than a quarter of a century ago. The victim, who can't be named, was assaulted in the mid-1970s by the school's administrator during after-hours boxing practices. The boy was 14 or 15 years old at the time of the assaults. The issue before the Supreme Court of Canada was the amount of damages. The victim was originally awarded $407,000 by a Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench judge, with about $300,000 of that for lost earnings - also know as pecuniary damages. The total amount was later reduced to $86,000 by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, which said, among other things, that the man wasn't entitled to lost wages for time he spent in jail. But on Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the man should get a larger share - but not all - of the pecuniary damages he was seeking. The judges did not set an exact amount, and said if the two sides can't agree they should go back to court to settle on a number. The man was one of the victims of the notorious pedophile William Peniston Starr, who as residence supervisor oversaw students on the Gordon First Nation in the 1970s. Starr spent time in prison for sexually assaulting a number of male students. Hundreds of other students would later accuse Starr of abuse. The man at the centre of the lawsuit wasn't a student at Gordon, but came into contact with Starr while he was running an after-school boxing program. He said he was subjected to acts of masturbation by Starr on two occasions. In later years, the man struggled with alcohol abuse, joblessness and conflicts with the law. He sued the federal government in 1997. The man's lawyer, Tony Merchant, hailed the decision, saying it represented justice for his client and will also help other residential school abuse victims receive proper compensation. Copyright c. 2005 CBC. --------- "RE: Indian Church Leader sues Utah over Peyote Raid" --------- Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 08:59:46 -