_ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 13, ISSUE 026 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, 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 June 25, 2005 Pomo butich-da/moon when bulbs mature Assiniboine wahequosmewi/full leaf moon Potawatomi msheke'kesis/moon of the turtle Yuchi cpaconendzo/blackberry ripening moon +-------------------------------------------------------+ | 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 Mailing List; 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: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + ======================== "We think that Native Americans are the most regulated segment of the American population," "Being Native American just adds multiple layers and layers or regulations and bureaucracy into your life." __ Steve Moore, Native American Rights Fund in Boulder, Colo. "I don't want to subject any more of my people to exposure to uranium and the cancers that it causes," "As long as there are no answers to cancer, we shouldn't have uranium mining on the Navajo Nation," "I believe the powers that be committed genocide on Navajo land by allowing uranium." __ Joe Shirley, President of the Navajo Nation +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | Indian Pledge of Allegiance | The Indian Pledge of Alleg- | | iance was first presented | I pledge allegiance to my Tribe,| on 2 December '93 during the | to the democratic principles | opening address of the Nat- | of the Republic | ional Congress of American | and to the individual freedoms | Indian Tribal-States Relat- | borrowed from the Iroquois and | ions Panel in Reno, NV. NCAI | Choctaw Confederacies, | plans distribution of the | as incorporated in the United | Indian Pledge to all Indian | States Constitution, | Nations. | so that my forefathers | | shall not have died in vain | Walk in Beauty! Night Owl +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | Journey | In the summer and early fall | The Bloodline | of 1998 the Treaty Unity Riders | | rode a thousand miles on horse- | For all that live and live by law | back, carrying a staff and | We Stand, we Call, We Ride | praying each step of the way. | For All that fear and fear by sight | | We Hear, we Listen, we Ride | These prayers were offered for | For all that pray and pray by strength| each of us, and that the Unity | We Feel, we Move, we Ride | of all Peoples might happen. | For all that die and die by greed | | We Hurt, we Cry, we Ride | Tatanka Cante forwarded this | For all that birth and birth by right | poem on behalf of all the Unity | We Smile, we Hold, we Ride | Riders that we might stop and | For all that need and need by heart | ask if the next words we say, the | We Came, we Went, we Rode. | next act we make is for the good | | of the People or is it from ego | Treaty Unity Riders | for self. +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ O'siyo Brothers and Sisters! There are precious few cases of one Native nation helping another. In this issue you will read that the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community of Prior Lake, MN is loaning the Oglala Sioux Tribe of Pine Ridge, SD $38 million to continue funding services and operations. Granted this is a case where the helping nation is Dakota and the assisted nation is Lakota, both camps of the great Nakota-Dakota-Lakota confederacy; but it shows we don't have to rely on the dominant society to bail us out of every situation.... That's refreshing. The governments of Canada, The United States and Mexico deliberately put our nations and our people in postions of need and servitude. They never intended any nation would rise to a position to help another, and intentionally fomented discord among our people to discourage such help if it did become possible. In the US the BIA has made sure the status quo was not challenged by insuring the needs of Uncle were served in every tribal election--and nobody but Uncle would be there to help if a nation tried to fly higher than Uncle deemed advisable. The more our Peoples depend on each other and less on the "Great White Father", the greater are our chances to realize some real sense of sovereignty. It will always be a "limited sovereignty", but self-reliance means the limitations on that sovereignty will be imposed more by choice than by forced designation. I thank the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Mdewakanton Sioux Community for demonstrating the outstretched hand does not have to obligate itself further to the powers in Washington, Ottawa and Mexico City. 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 ----------- - Oglala Sioux Tribe - Treaty Rights at stake in Court secures $38M Loan - METZGER: - Indians lack access Regents face tests on Mount Graham to Legal Services - Camp works on - Tribes open door to Lawsuits instilling Native Pride - Reform of Indian Trust - Architect: NMAI suffers from management imperative flawed Design,Vision - Trust Reform Costs put at $3B, - YELLOW BIRD: thanks to Bush Horseback Riders blaze Trail - NA Leaders to release - Alaska Tribes: Not on our Land Trust Settlement Principles - IRS alters policy on - Government effort Native Corporate Dividends to skirt Internet Ban - First Nation prepares for - ICT: U.N. Indigenous Focus Forest Jobs battle presents Opportunity - Inuit self-government - Wabanaki Tribes gets nod from Commons join EPA Clean Air Suit - Birdtail Sioux - Shinnecocks launch Reserve Offices occupied legal claim to Hamptons Land - Aboriginals facing - Energy Wars: Return of the Navajo 'Legislative Genocide' - New Mexico will no longer - Aboriginal Group offers subsidize Uranium Mining Police cultural training - Canyon de Chelly Residents - Woman Sentenced for living in a Time Warp Selling Feathers - Construction of Kitt Peak - Peltier Lawyers seek release telescope complex halted - Native Prisoner - Nez Perce honor 'Warriors' -- Struggle to practice who fought for rights Traditional Ways - Elders provide support - Verse: Hawaiian Book of Days for NA Students - Rustywire: The 'lectric - Cherokee Doctor: - Spiritdove Poem: We can defeat Youth Suicide Summer of Reflection --------- "RE: Oglala Sioux Tribe secures $38M Loan" --------- Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 13:37:53 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TRIBE-TO-TRIBE LOAN" http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2005/06/18/news/local/news04.txt Tribe secures $38M loan By Jomay Steen, Journal Staff Writer June 17, 2005 PINE RIDGE - For the people on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council has secured funding to continue operations and services of the tribe. On Friday, the OST Council secured a $38 million loan with the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community of Prior Lake, Minn., in a special session in the tribe's council chambers. Fourteen council members voted to approve and finalize negotiations between Pine Ridge and Minnesota tribal delegations on the 15-year, $38 million loan at 6.5 percent fixed interest. It was not unanimous. Two council members, Valerie Janis of Oglala and Kathy Janis of Wounded Knee, rejected the loan plan. Walt Big Crow, chairman of the OST Finance Committee and Wakpamni District representative, said he had been dreaming about the vote the previous night. Although afraid of the repercussions if the loan hadn't been approved, Big Crow was confident about the vote. "There has been a lot of dialog and a lot of information distributed about this," he said. President Cecelia Fire Thunder agreed. "There were a lot of questions that we answered, and there was a lot of education for the people so they could understand the enormity of the debt," Fire Thunder said. Since entering office, the executive officers and council have been under tremendous pressure due to what Fire Thunder described as the tribe's "financial crisis." "This loan is going to bring everything back on track," she said. Garfield Steele, Wounded Knee District representative, said with 85 percent unemployment on the reservation, the $20 million casino improvement loan would open 100 to 125 new jobs on the reservation. The $18 million would keep nearly 800 tribal employees working. "It secures the existing jobs that we already have, and we won't have to lay anyone off," he said. Craig Dillon, Lacreek District representative, said the tribe has been stumbling along in a financial fog until this point. A former tribal finance committee chairman, Dillon said that for years the tribe continually played catch up when paying the bills. Dillon said that changed when Fire Thunder and Crystal Eagle Elk, newly- elected treasurer, came into office and realized the tribe's enormous debt. "They used the word that no one in Indian Country likes to hear, and that is `no.'" Dillon said. The Shakopee loan will reach the tribe's accounts June 29. Austin Watkins Sr. wanted to make clear that the money has already been earmarked to pay bills and improve the tribe's casino. "We're not spending it on anything else," he said. Earlier in the meeting, Paul Little, Oglala District representative, had wanted Alex White Plume to oversee the meeting. "We have some important cases to decide on today and I don't want people to come back to us and say the meeting was lead by a president who was suspended," Little said. Little had disagreed with OST attorney Peter Capossela's findings that Fire Thunder and Eagle Elk should remain at their jobs until a tentatively scheduled June 29 hearing. Capossela said he gave his best legal advice on all tribal procedures. "I do stand by the advice I gave," he said. Fire Thunder said she had not been served with a complaint in hand until June 10. As is law, Fire Thunder would have 20 days to prepare for a hearing. Under the law and advice of tribal attorneys, she and Eagle Elk will remain at their jobs. Will Peters, Pine Ridge District representative, said Little's discussion only added to the confusion. The council had planned to vote on the loan, not deal with the suspension hearing of Fire Thunder and Eagle Elk. "If you want to, do your politicking in the committees," Peters said. Contact Jomay Steen at 394-8418 or jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com Copyright c. 2005 The Rapid City Journal. --------- "RE: Indians lack access to Legal Services" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 08:17:21 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NO LEGAL RESOURCES" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.in-forum.com/ap/index.cfm?page=view&id=D8AMTPVG0 Indians lack access to legal services By CHET BROKAW Associated Press Writer The Associated Press June 13, 2005 Jessica Hinsley didn't know where to turn for help after Standing Rock Sioux Tribe officials took her 1-year-old daughter. The girl had been hurt in a fall at a day care center, and a tribal judge kept asking why Hinsley's three children had to be in day care. Hinsley, a 23-year-old who is going through a divorce and works full time while attending college, had trouble finding a private lawyer who could take her case. But then she found out Dakota Plains Legal Services had a new lawyer on the reservation, which straddles the North Dakota- South Dakota border. The lawyer, Judith Roberts, went to work and quickly got the infant returned to Hinsley. "They wouldn't listen to me or anything, and then once I got an attorney, which is Judy, that's when they pretty much had to listen," Hinsley said. "I didn't even know we had a legal service or else I would have gone there a long time ago." Many Indian reservations across the nation have a shortage of lawyers and other legal services, said Ron Hutchinson, executive director of Dakota Plains Legal Services, which has six offices in South Dakota and one just across the border in North Dakota. Dakota Plains is part of a network of nonprofit organizations nationwide that provide legal services to low-income people with the help of federal funding. Some, like Dakota Plains, primarily serve American Indians. Court-appointed attorneys and public defenders help poor people charged with crimes, so the greatest unmet need is for civil matters such as divorce, child custody, wills, land issues and commercial disputes, Hutchinson said. And while Indians need legal help in state and federal courts, one of the greatest needs is in tribal court, where many people represent themselves without hiring a lawyer, Hutchinson said. An 1994 American Bar Association study estimated that three-quarters of the nation's low- and moderate-income families facing civil legal issues handle those problems without getting formal help. Legal aid lawyers estimate only about 20 percent of Indians' legal needs are met, Hutchinson said. "The bottom line here is we don't have the resources to help everyone who needs help. We don't even come close," he said. Help is on the way, thanks to a grant from the American College of Trial Lawyers, a national organization of courtroom attorneys. The $50,000 grant is intended to let Dakota Plains set up an Internet site to provide a wide range of information related to Indian legal issues, including forms and instructions for those who represent themselves in tribal court. Jimmy Morris of Richmond, Va., president of the American College of Trial Lawyers, said poor people need adequate legal services so they are not at the mercy of people who can afford lawyers. "There is an appalling need for legal services to the poor everywhere in the country," Morris said. "But it is particularly acute among Native Americans." Steve Moore of the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder, Colo., said there is a lack of legal resources to help Indians in tribal, state and federal courts. "The word `crisis' I think doesn't overdramatize the situation," Moore said. Indians not only have to deal with state and federal laws and regulations, but they also are subject to tribal laws on reservations and a host of tribal and federal programs for housing, health and other issues that apply only to Indians, Moore said. That means Indians likely will need legal help to deal with the many regulations that apply to them, Moore said. "We think that Native Americans are the most regulated segment of the American population," Moore said. "Being Native American just adds multiple layers and layers or regulations and bureaucracy into your life." The Native American Rights Fund handles high-profile cases for tribal governments and other organizations, disputes that focus on Indian rights, tribal sovereignty, voting issues, land and other issues. But it also works with organizations like Dakota Plains Legal Services to help develop and improve tribal laws and court systems, including traditional systems of resolving disputes, Moore said. The grant for Dakota Plains will address those issues. Hutchinson said the project will emphasize improving services to Indians who represent themselves in tribal court. The new Internet site will include forms and instructions on how to handle the most common legal problems, he said. The project will supply information to help private lawyers better represent Indian clients and will gather tribal laws and previous tribal court rulings from the Sioux tribes. Dakota Plains operates seven offices with a budget of about $1.3 million for routine help provided to Indian clients. It has 20 case handlers, but only seven are lawyers. Many cases are handled by paralegals. The project will provide an improved set of instructions and forms, which now vary widely among tribal courts, Hutchinson said. If the South Dakota project succeeds, it can be adopted in tribal courts in other parts of the nation. "What we hope is that this will become a model project that other programs across the country can build on for their own tribal court systems," Hutchinson said. Joe Steinfield of Boston, a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers who chaired the committee that approved the grant, said the project stood out from the four dozen or so other candidates because it has a chance of accomplishing much where the need is great. Steinfield said most lawyers have little idea of the legal challenges American Indians and tribal courts face. Hinsley is just happy that Dakota Plains gave her the legal help she needed to get her daughter back. The girl had medical and developmental problems before her fall at day care, so Hinsley believes the best thing she can do is wrap the child in love. Copyright c. 2005 Forum Communications Co. Fargo, ND. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Tribes open door to Lawsuits" --------- Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 08:47:13 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY AT RISK" http://www.pe.com//PE_News_Local_D_immunity13.66ab5.html Tribes open door to lawsuits CASINOS: They waive immunity in some contracts, but beating them in court isn't easy. By JONATHAN SHIKES / The Press-Enterprise June 12, 2005 Indian tribes and the firms they do business with will be carefully following a lawsuit filed by a restaurant operator against the owner of the Morongo Casino. They will be focusing on how the case might affect sovereign immunity, a federal legal standard that protects tribes from being sued in U.S. courts unless Congress intervenes or a tribe gives its consent. Observers say that with more banks, developers, management firms, restaurant operators, slot-machine makers and others doing business with tribes, more disputes are likely to be seen in coming years. "I think it is inevitable," said Michael Lombardi, a tribal consultant who works exclusively for the Augustine Band of Cahuilla Indians in Coachella. Tribal gaming has grown into a $5 billion industry in California since the first state-tribe compacts took effect five years ago. The tribes employ more than 57,000 people and do business with everyone from family firms to Fortune 500 companies. To give companies some legal recourse in the event of a dispute, the tribes routinely agree to waive their sovereign immunity. The N9NE Group, which has accused the Morongo Band of Mission Indians of illegally seizing on June 1 its two upscale restaurants, three-story nightclub, rooftop bar and gift shop, is relying on the waiver to support its right to sue. But it won't be that easy. Such waivers are often complex and limited in scope, which makes it difficult to enforce them in court, say attorneys such as Marc Homme, who is battling a Coachella Valley tribe on behalf of a developer who remodeled the tribe's casino. "They say, 'You can drive my car, but only on Wednesday and Thursday, and you have to ask me first,' " he said. "Vendors and contractors are not used to that system. You don't have waivers when you are contracting with a normal business." Howard Dickstein, a Sacramento attorney who represents several tribes, said the tribes, like other governments, have a right to invoke their immunity. Other Means Used Many have alternative forms of dispute resolution, such as tribal courts or arbitration, that they prefer to use when conflicts arise, he added. Morongo's waiver gives N9NE the right to sue in federal court only if it has already tried to settle the dispute via arbitration, according to a copy of the waiver filed in court. It also lays out a set of complicated and specific conditions. N9NE's attorneys have said they plan to use the arbitration procedure but have asked a U.S. District Court judge for a temporary restraining order first in hopes of getting the tribe to immediately stop using their property. Chicago-based N9NE, which claims that Morongo terminated its lease and locked out its 300-plus employees, also says the tribe seized its business records, equipment, fixtures, food inventory, signature style and wine cellar. The tribe says N9NE violated its lease agreement first, invalidating the sovereign-immunity waiver. Judge Virginia Phillips has scheduled a hearing for today. "The tribes we represent have scores of contracts with limited waivers that give a business the right to sue for breach of contract," Dickstein said. "Some provide for mediation or arbitration. Some provide for where the suit can be enforced. Some call for federal, some for state courts, and they are usually limited to just one party," he said. "This is an evolving area." Sovereign immunity is the only thing that makes lawsuits involving Indian tribes different. "Once you get past that, it's like any other case," he added. Lombardi said there is already a "prejudice" in the business community that "Indian tribes can do whatever they want. But tribes get sued all the time." It's not in the best interest of the tribes to have bad relationships with outside vendors, he added. "Most of the time, when they enter into deals like this, they have iron- clad legal agreements, usually thought out carefully in advance." Sammy Ladeki says his relationship with the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, which owns two large casinos in the Coachella Valley, is so good that he's not even sure if his contract with them includes a waiver. "It's all built on respect and honesty," he said. The Ladeki Group, based in La Jolla, owns the Sammy's Woodfired Pizza chain, with a location in the Agua Caliente Casino in Rancho Mirage. Ladeki also runs the Prime 10 Steak House at Agua Caliente and, until recently, an Asian restaurant called Rappongi at the Spa Resort and Casino in Palm Springs. As for Morongo, he called the lawsuit "unfortunate," but added that he doesn't think other companies would be discouraged from doing business with Indian tribes. Money and Risks Homme said "respect and honesty" aren't enough when dealing with tribes. "It's very risky doing business with the tribes," he said. "But there is so much money out there, people are going to do it anyway." California has seen a number of suits against Indian tribes dismissed because the judges didn't have jurisdiction over the tribes, he said. For instance, Las Vegas-based American Vantage Cos. sued the Table Mountain Rancheria Band of Indians in 2000, saying the tribe breached the company's consulting contract at the Table Mountain Rancheria Casino & Bingo near Fresno. A federal judge dismissed the case even though the tribe had signed a limited waiver of sovereign immunity. An appeals court upheld the dismissal. Homme's client, Palm Desert-based DCD Development, sued the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, owners of the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, in 2002, claiming that the tribe owed it more money for cost overruns on the remodeling project. The tribe's position "was that because it was extra work, it wasn't covered by waiver," he said. A Riverside County Superior Court judge agreed, as did the appeals court. "They said, 'You have no claim. Tough luck, tough luck.' We never even got to the issue of whether the money was owed or not," Homme added. He is appealing again. His advice to other companies: "If you sign a waiver, you better take it to an attorney and negotiate. Don't just sign the tribe's form." Reach Jonathan Shikes at (951) 368-9552 or jshikes@pe.com Copyright c. 2005 The Press-Enterprise Company. --------- "RE: Reform of Indian Trust management imperative" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 08:17:21 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TRUST FUND MUST BE FIXED" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2005/06/14/news/editorials/edt01.txt Reform of Indian Trust management imperative By Ken Rogers for the Tribune June 14, 2005 The U.S. Department of the Interior, along with Congress, needs to provide a strong remedy to the Indian Trust problem, in reforms that result in accountability and security, that result in a cure. The reforms come in response to an ongoing 1996 class-action lawsuit -- Cobell vs. Norton -- that alleges long-term mismanagement, resulting in losses on the part of the Indian people of $1 billion. The federal government has held Indian lands, along with grazing and mineral rights, for more than 100 years. The management of those resources has been at least shoddy, if not fraudulent. It's hard to tell which because of poor record-keeping on the part of the government, even in this time of high-speed data management. And the accompanying loss of trust revenue was felt often, not always, by very poor people scratching out a living on marginal land. The federal government acknowledges the mismanagement. The question is what to do about it. Recently, the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and U.S. House Resources Committee held a hearing in Bismarck to get comments from tribal members. People speaking at the hearings wanted three things: Settlement, accountability and for the federal government to do the job right. Not unreasonable requests. It's important to keep in mind that the lands and the rights in the trust belong to the Indian people. It's not a matter of the federal government dipping into the U.S. Treasury to provide funds for a government program. The Interior Department has been charged with managing the trust, much like a banking institution would in another situation. It isn't about politics or culture. It's about accounting and business. The secretary of the interior and Congress need to move with good haste in proposing practical and fair reforms. Copyright c. 2005 The Bismark Tribune. --------- "RE: Trust Reform Costs put at $3B, thanks to Bush" --------- Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 08:25:37 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MORE BUSH WHACKING" http://www.indiantrust.com/~Detail&Article_id=316&Month=6&Year=2005 Trust reform costs put at $3B, thanks to Bush Indianz.com June 13, 2005 The federal government has spent nearly $3 billion over the past decade to fix the broken Indian trust, according to an appropriations bill introduced on Friday. The figure is significantly higher than the amount confirmed by Congress just three years ago. In an appropriations bill passed in 2002, members of the House said they provided more than $614 million to fund trust reform efforts at the Interior Department. The following year, the amount was beefed up to more than $700 million. "These funds could have been better used to fund health and education programs in Indian Country or directed towards reforming the outdated trust systems in the department," the House Appropriations Committee wrote in a bill passed in 2003. But thanks to the Bush administration, the costs of trust reform have exploded dramatically. With hundreds of millions going into historical accounting and other activities, the Senate Appropriations Committee came up with a new figure last week. "Over the past decade, nearly $3,000,000,000 has been invested in management, reform, and improvement of Indian trust programs," the committee wrote in a report accompanying the Interior Department fiscal year 2006 bill. The Senate's version of the bill was introduced on Friday. The increase is due to the administration's decision to beef up the Office of Special Trustee. Since President Bush took over the White House, its budget has grown from to $109 million in 2001 to a proposed $270 million in 2006, a whopping 147.7 percent increase. Meanwhile, the White House has not sought significant increases for the Bureau of Indian Affairs since 2001. This year, in fact, a decrease of nearly $110 million was proposed. The trend has not gone by without some objection. Tribal leaders point out that OST was designed, by law, to oversee but not implement trust reform. That has changed now that OST is in charge of probate, accounting, realty and a host of other projects. "In the BIA budget, the costs of OST-BIA reorganization are effectively punishing tribes for the department's own trust mismanagement -- a double injury to individual and tribal trustees hurt by this mismanagement," National Congress of American Indians President Tex Hall said in recent testimony to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Key lawmakers agree with the assessment. "It is lamentable that the funding for an [historical] accounting appears to have come directly from programs that affect the daily lives of Indians," said Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona), the chairman of the committee. Lawmakers have reacted by trimming OST's budget. Both the House and the Senate cut the agency to $192 million instead of the $270 million sought by the White House. The House and Senate also restored many of the cuts to the BIA programs. There are differences, however, which will have to be reconciled by a joint conference committee once the Senate passes its version of the bill. The House passed the budget by a vote of 329-89 on May 19. The full text of the relevant portion of the Senate report is as follows: Over the past decade, nearly $3,000,000,000 has been invested in management, reform, and improvement of Indian trust programs. Ongoing reforms and expenditures are highly dependent on court activity related to the ongoing Cobell v. Norton case and negotiations between the Department of the Interior, tribal governments, the plaintiffs and the courts. Copyright c. 1998-2005 Indianz.com. Copyright c. 2005 Blackfeet Reservation Development Fund, Inc. --------- "RE: NA Leaders to release Trust Settlement Principles" --------- Date: Thursday, June 16, 2005 10:30 AM From: Indian Trust ListServ [listadmin@list.indiantrust.com] Subj: Cobell v. Norton - Media Advisory Mailing List: Indian Trust ListServ HISTORIC UNION OF NATIVE AMERICAN LEADERS TO RELEASE SETTLEMENT PRINCIPLES FOR TRUST REFORM AND RESOLUTION OF COBELL V. NORTON WHEN: Monday, June 20, 2005 at 1:30 PM Eastern WHERE: National Press Club 13th Floor, Murrow Room 529 14th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. WHAT: Prominent national Native American leaders will join the lead plaintiff in the landmark Cobell v. Norton case to announce a set of principles intended to be the basis of legislation that could end the contentious, nine-year court battle over the governmentt's breach of its fiduciary duty to account for the property of individual Indians, held in trust and managed by the government. NCAI President Tex G. Hall, and ITMA Chairman Chief Jim Gray of the Osage Nation joined with Elouise Cobell, lead plaintiff in the watershed Cobell lawsuit, and formed a national working group that developed these Principles that also would reform the government's trust practices that affect hundreds of Indian tribes. In the course of the Cobell proceedings, cabinet secretaries of both parties have been held in contempt. A settlement would avoid accounting costs that the government claims could total $14 billion. The trust funds belong to an estimated 500,000 individual Indians - monies that are the proceeds from the government's sale and lease of resources from the Indians' own lands. The courts and Congress have found that the government has mismanaged the trust for over a century, breached its duty, and never accounted for the monies in the trust. This lack of accounting and trust mismanagement continues today. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), vice-chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA), chairman of the House Resources Committee, and Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), ranking member of the House Resources Committee, have asked Indian Country to speak with a unified voice and provide a set of principles that would guide the lawmakers' drafting of legislation that would provide a fair and just resolution to this most critical issue facing Native Americans. They have said they plan to introduce such legislation this summer. The legislation would reform the federal government's inept Indian trust management system. WHO: Tex G. Hall, "Red Tipped Arrow," President of National Congress of American Indians and Chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation of North Dakota Jim Gray, Chairman of the Inter-Tribal Monitoring Association and Principal Chief of the Osage Nation of Oklahoma Elouise Cobell, lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, founder and Executive Director of the Native American Community Development Corporation and a member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana Sharon Clahchischilliage, Executive Director of the Navajo Nation Washington, D.C. office John Echohawk, Executive Director of the Native American Rights Fund and a member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma --------- "RE: Government effort to skirt Internet Ban" --------- Date: Saturday, June 18, 2005 4:09 PM From: Bill McAllister [bmcallister@cox.net] Subj: GOVERNMENT FAILS TO KEEP SECRET ITS EFFORT TO SKIRT INTERNET BAN COBELL LITIGATION TEAM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: GOVERNMENT FAILS TO KEEP SECRET ITS EFFORT TO SKIRT INTERNET BAN WASHINGTON, June 18 - A federal judge has rejected the government's effort to keep secret an effort by Interior Department officials to evade an order directing the department to cut its computer connections to the Internet. The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth came late Friday in the nine-year-old Cobell versus Norton class-action lawsuit over the government's admitted mishandling of individual Indian trust accounts. It is the latest in a long series of victories that the Indian plaintiffs have won in their legal fight for a full accounting of their government- held trust assets. Lawyers for the Indian plaintiffs had accused the government of attempting to evade a previous order by the judge to cut Interior's computer connections to the Internet because of its lax computer security. Alarmed by a computer hacker's ability to invade the Interior computers and alter Indian trust records, the judge had set strict conditions for any reconnections of the machines. In an apparent effort to get around the judge's order, the Interior department had planned to use a "Lotus Notes remote dial-up" system, the Indians' lawyer said. They cited a 2004 memo from an Interior lawyer as proof of this plan. Justice Department lawyers countered by attempting to quash use of the memo. They claimed it was protected by lawyer-client privilege and that that it should be stricken from the court's public record. Lamberth rejected that claim, noting that government lawyers had failed to prove the memo was confidential. Moreover, the judge noted that the government had an ongoing common law obligation "to fully and accurately inform the Indian Trust beneficiaries about Interior's management of the trust." One of the issues that the beneficiaries had a right to know about was the Lotus Notes program, he said. "It has become abundantly clear in the course of this litigation that the security of Interior's IT (information technology) systems and the data housed on those systems is of vital interest to the Individual Indian Trust beneficiaries," Lamberth wrote. "...Records of transactions involving trust assets, appraisals of trust land and the progression of ownership of the trust corpus are stored on Interior's IT systems," he said. "If this data is corrupted or lost, the beneficiaries will have no way of knowing the value of their trust assets or what the government is doing with those assets." The judge warned that "loss or corruption of trust data guarantees that Interior will be forever unable to render the full and accurate accounting of the Trust mandated by this court, by the Court of Appeals, by federal statute and by Interior's common-law fiduciary duties as trustee-delegate" for the Indians. The ruling came as the judge continued to hear evidence of the continuing lax security of Interior's computers. The plaintiffs want him to issue a new order blocking Internet connections with any computers holding trust data and to shut down other computers until their security problems are resolved. Filed in 1996, the Cobell versus Norton lawsuit deals with individual Indian trust accounts that were established in 1887. These accounts are supposed to hold the proceeds of government-arranged leases of Indian lands, mostly in the West, for oil, gas, minerals, timber and grazing. Numerous government studies have shown that the accounts were mismanaged from their inception. Bill McAllister --------- "RE: ICT: U.N. Indigenous Focus presents Opportunity" --------- Date: Monday, June 13, 2005 7:22 PM From: Executive Manager [rcook@indiancountryactionnetwork.info] Subj: U.N. indigenous focus presents opportunity U.N. indigenous focus presents opportunity Copyright c. Indian Country Today June 02, 2005. All Rights Reserved by: Editors Report / Indian Country Today June 2, 2005 The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, now an annual event held every May in New York City, is an excellent focal point for a spring educational season or "teach-out" on international indigenous peoples. Native and Ethnic Studies programs and students' groups should seriously consider the challenge of just such a spring campaign. The number of serious and informative cases of Native people confronting various degrees of greedy corruption is quite astounding. As well, excellent examples of communities doing trend-setting ecological and educational programs also emerge consistently. The methods and strategies by which Native peoples are attempting to rebuild and protect their nations are highly creative and instructive. Hundreds - sometimes more than 1,000 - of indigenous delegates and allies come to New York City every year, at sacrificial expense to their communities, to attend the sessions at the United Nations. Once there, they participate in the various commemorative dinners and other sponsored side events. As the seasons progress, more networking, long-term planning and mutual strategic work becomes possible. A Declaration of Indigenous Rights, debated now for a generation, continues to be a tool of convergence for discussion, even though most all nation states have shied from endorsement, complaining mostly about territorial demarcations made evident by Native populations, particularly when these overlap national boundaries. The difficulty in achieving proper international protections has always been, of course, expected. The language is debated and parsed and the promised covenants, always in the future, remain a ball in play in the forward-moving pelota or lacrosse game that is the U.N.'s indigenous recognition movement. Nevertheless, the fact of holding permanent U.N. sessions on indigenous peoples' issues is a tremendous and highly useful victory by the most accosted and betrayed communities in the American hemisphere. The May sessions in New York are dictated properly via U.N. bodies after three decades of sustained and intense work by indigenous delegates and their allies with U.N. organizations, dignitaries and the many highly- involved legalistic bodies and committees. The thinking that has guided the sessions on the indigenous side has been commendable to superb, with an experienced circle of Native and non-Native non-governmental organizations leading growing layers of U.N. associates and luminaries, in common, through myriad commissions and conference cycles of the august international body. This results in an Indigenous Forum every year at the U.N. This is much to the good. Native nations big and small, whether economically enabled or destitute, now come to the U.N. every May. This is a major accomplishment and a tremendous sacrifice for dozens and dozens of Native peoples' circles of both professional and traditional leadership. As people meet and traditions over time are shared by the various cultures, the pressure of difficult isolation, which has limited and plagued Native nations globally, is broken. A new potential for communications and thus to be heard, to be understood in the context of Native kinship nationhood, opens up. "Poco a poco," Anita Menchu, the younger sister of Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Maya leader Rigoberta Menchu Tum, told the assembled at the Ingrid Washinawatok El Issa (Flying Eagle Woman) commemoration event. Held at U.N. Plaza, this event is in the central current of the social cohesion of the many veteran activists who have strengthened the U.N.'s work. Anita Menchu offered that "little by little, we achieve our objectives to have the voices of indigenous peoples be heard." At the Flying Eagle Woman commemoration, just one of several special events, numerous Native delegates from throughout the Americas attended. A Lakota Sun Dance staff was held at honor by Chief Joe American Horse, while a Veterans' Song was offered along with several prayers and tributes. Many speakers evoked the memory of the transcending and undefeatable spirit of struggle that was and is Ingrid Washinowatok, and all marveled at her example as a person whose career mirrored and always fed the international movement for Indian dignity and cultural/spiritual survival. Katsi Cook, Mohawk midwife and a mentor of the young Menominee activist, spoke of "the brilliance that is Ingrid." The Ingrid memorial event is always a spiritual highlight to what is a growing opportunity, once a year, for Indian peoples and the full range of indigenous peoples to shape and organize a living temporary embassy to the U.N. in New York City. It is just the opportunity for a growing international congress and convening of delegations far and wide, and for boosting the sheer presence of so many indigenous peoples in New York City. It is an event that should not be so easily ignored by the media. The North American tribes, particularly the powerful Eastern woodlands confederacies but without excluding any Native nation, would do well to help host and engage this U.N. process more vigorously as the hosting peoples of these lands. This international movement has great leadership development possibilities, including the engagement of a young tribal ambassadors program at the U.N. The universities and high schools that engage themes of international human rights and development, modernization, American social studies and indigenous studies should consider listening to the various lectures and discussions featured during this season that are useful in helping indigenous peoples' stories to emerge. Important strategic exchanges can happen at these intense international events. While the U.N. covenants come slowly and lack teeth, the way leading to them is filled with potentials and possibilities for networking tribes and communities to more prominence and more clout in the media and among institutions of concern. This hard-gained opportunity for Native peoples to share the spotlight at the U.N. could be missed if the northern tribes don't engage it directly and recognize and assist the international delegates, and the forum itself, during its moment of international attention. Better organization of sessions that can lead to more effective action in economics and social life improvements, while financing and contributions to Native communities, will be crucial in seasons ahead. Copyright c. 2005 Indian Country Today. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Wabanaki Tribes join EPA Clean Air Suit" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 08:17:21 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="TRIBAL HEALTH AT RISK" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://business.mainetoday.com/newsdirect/release.html?id=1867 WABANAKI TRIBES JOIN SUIT CHALLENGING U.S. EPA COAL-POWER PLANT DE-LISTING & Hg RULE. Contact: Tribal Legal Counsel, Douglas Luckerman, 781-861-6535 Penobscot Nation Dept. Natural Resources, John Banks, Director,207-817-7330 Penobscot Air Program, Eric H. Nicolar, Manager, 207-817-7336 Tribal Press Release WABANAKI TRIBES JOIN SUIT CHALLENGING U.S. EPA AIR TOXICS CLEAN AIR MERCURY SOURCE DE-LISTING AND CAP AND TRADE RULE: EPA's Illegal Rule Places Tribal Health and Resources at Risk: Violates Clean Air Act & Trust Responsibilities to Tribes June 14th, 2005 Indian Island, Me. - Today the four Native American tribes within Maine announced they plan to file suit as an intervener in the D.C. Federal Court of Appeals challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) recent decision to remove power plants from the list of industrial air pollution sources requiring strict controls for mercury and other toxic air pollutant emissions. The Wabanaki Tribes, including the Aroostook Band of Mikmaq, Houlton Band of Maliseet, Passamaquoddy Tribes at Pleasant Point and Indian Township, and the Penobscot Nation, have joined the Clean Air Task Force, Natural Resources Defense Council, the Ohio Environmental Council, the United States Public Interest Research Group, and the Natural Resources Council of Maine in petitioning the court to force the EPA to reconsider the de-listing action after it failed to do so during the administrative step in the Mercury rule finalization process. 14 States have also joined to sue the EPA separately in the federal court for the same de-listing rule reconsideration. The 1990 Clean Air Act requires that EPA set the most technically feasible protective limits on air toxic emissions, like mercury, using a maximum achievable control technology standard (MACT.) MACT standards are based on the control ratios of the best 12% operating facilities within the industry. In the United States, coal-burning power plants are the largest unregulated source of mercury emissions to the air. The electric utility industry releases about 48 tons per year of this pollutant, and more than 350,000 tons per year total of all air toxics. Under a MACT, the annual limit would have been reduced to as little a 7 tons per year. The EPA's rule would reduce mercury to only 14 tons per year and take three times as long to achieve. Some of the worst emitters could escape upgrading their plants at all if they are able to buy enough credits to avoid cleaning up. The Wabanaki tribes have known for years that they have been negatively impacted by mercury contamination in their food chains. A large part of tribal subsistence comes from fish and other fish-eating mammals, but tribes have had warnings in place limiting subsistence intake for numerous years. Most of the tribes have or are developing air quality programs and have the capacity to better gauge the effect of the mercury rule. Tribal professional staff had been anticipating a stringent rule, similar to other source categories emitting large amounts of mercury. But when the EPA proposed its weak "cap-and-trade" plan in March of this year, the tribes started consulting with one another about what to do. "The agency has failed on many points, so we organized and discussed the inadequateness of the rule, and how it would further harm our tribal members and future generations," stated Eric Nicolar, Air Quality Manager for the Penobscot Indian Nation. In April the tribes jointly decided that something had to be done legally to protect Wabanaki people and tribal natural resources. The EPA has a federal trust responsibility to protect Native Americans and tribal resources. Under Presidential Executive Order 13175, tribes are supposed to be consulted, when major environmental rules are developed that will have `substantial direct effects on one or more Indian tribes. The rule language discussed Native Americans as a target group, based on their larger reliance of fish subsistence, and were used as part of a risk/benefit analysis for the rule, but the EPA took the position that they weren't an impacted population and didn't need to be consulted. Later, after tribes had complained, a one time meeting was held in Denver, CO., and the Agency subsequently maintained that adequate consultation had taken place. Penobscot Chief, James Sappier stated that, "there is no doubt the rule has tribal implications, but that the Executive Order had been violated because the Agency had to consult with tribal officials early in the process of developing [this] proposed regulation incorporating tribal concerns, for which they failed to do." Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that can affect the brain development of fetuses in the womb, and in young children causes significant learning problems. Mercury emissions settle onto the land and water, where it changes chemically and is taken up into the food chain as methyl-mercury. More than 40 states have issued fish advisories telling women of childbearing age and young children to restrict consumption of fresh water fish due to mercury contamination. One in six women of childbearing age has mercury levels in their blood that are considered unsafe for developing fetuses. This means, nationwide, as many as 630,000 infants are exposed each year to mercury levels that put them at risk of serious cognitive and developmental harm. Recent studies show that mercury concentrations are increasing in fish and some non-aquatic mammals and other animal species. Hot spots near older plants are also poisoning nearby fish and wildlife at elevated rates. "Mercury and other toxins are slowly killing us, and everyone else, detrimentally impacting our culture in ways which we are unaccustomed," further stated Chief Sappier. "Fishing for our family and community is very important in tribal culture. It is one of the social and cultural ties that bind our tribal communities together. That link has been stretched very thin because of mercury contamination," stated Brenda Commander, Chief of the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians. "The rule is grossly illegal," said William Phillips, Chief of the Aroostook Band of Mikmaq, who added, "It is important that the EPA upholds their federal trust responsibility to ensure that water and air will be protected. We have been the muffler tribes for all toxic chemicals and metals that go in the air for too long and we expect the EPA to protect our future and the health and safety or our children. Our trust is not blind." - Eric H. A. Nicolar - Contact Eric Nicolar at Penobscot Nation (207) 817-7336 Copyright c. 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. --------- "RE: Shinnecocks launch legal claim to Hamptons Land" --------- Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 08:25:37 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SHINNECOCK LAND CLAIM" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.newsday.com/~apconnecticut&track=mostemailedlink Shinnecocks launch legal claim to Hamptons land BY KATIE THOMAS STAFF WRITER June 16, 2005 To shouts of glee and the rhythmic taps of skin drums, Shinnecock tribal leaders burnt sacred sage over a stack of legal documents Wednesday and then strode into the Alfonse D'Amato Federal Courthouse in Central Islip to formally file their land-claim lawsuit against Southampton Town. As they did, the Shinnecocks said they were fulfilling the wishes of generations of tribal members, who believe much of the town was wrongfully taken from them more than a century ago. On a day of celebration, the Shinnecocks also acknowledged that the "catalyst" that allowed the leaders to file the lawsuit Wednesday -- the legal costs, along with a two-week television and radio ad campaign launched Tuesday -- are being paid for by two Detroit-based casino developers. "This day has been decades in the making," said tribal chairman Randy King outside the courthouse. Gateway Funding Associates, a company backed by casino investors Marian Ilitch and Michael Malik, signed an agreement with the tribe more than a year ago to pay for the lawsuit and other "economic development" initiatives in exchange for a part of any future proceeds, said Tom Shields, a spokesman for Gateway. Although Shields said the investors would back any project the Shinnecocks decided to pursue, he acknowledged "a casino opportunity is one of those things they would be willing to support." In remarks after filing the lawsuit, King hinted that the possibility of building a casino on tribal land enabled the Shinnecocks to file the suit, which seeks billions of dollars in monetary damages and the reclamation of about 3,600 acres of property, including the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, National Golf Links of America and the campus of Southampton College. "It is only now that we have the wherewithal to bring these claims forward," he said. King would not say what the tribe would do with the land should it win the suit. "That's our decision and we will let you know as soon as we make it," he said. Shinnecock tribal members have long held that the area in question was wrongfully taken from them in 1859, when the Long Island Rail Road sought to run its line east to Montauk and a group of private investors asked New York State to break a 1,000-year-old lease the tribe had made with Southampton Town that covered the land the railroad wanted to cross. Presented with a petition allegedly signed by 21 Shinnecocks, the state legislature approved the change. Tribal leaders now question whether the signatures were legitimate. Legal experts have said the lawsuit -- which names New York State, Suffolk County, Southampton Town, the Long Island Rail Road, Long Island University and others -- is a long shot because the tribe is not federally recognized. Others have speculated that the suit is being used as leverage to get approval to build a casino. Shields said Ilitch and Malik were not discouraged by the long-shot attempts to build a casino. "Casino gaming is an emerging industry, so a lot of states are at a different point of development. New York is in one of those early stages," he said. "It's a gamble, but any good developer, I think, has to take gambles." Michael Cohen, a lawyer for Southampton Town, said Wednesday that the "town is going to vigorously contest the claim." Kevin Quinn, a spokesman for Gov. George Pataki, who is also named in the suit, said "we will take whatever steps may be necessary to protect the interests of property owners and taxpayers on Long Island." Also named in the suit were a handful of private businesses, including Parrish Pond Associates, the developers of a housing project in 2000 that was vigorously opposed by Shinnecock members, who said the land involved was sacred. Michael McKeon, a spokesman for the tribe, said the suit would not evict any homeowners, but would seek to reclaim any empty lots still owned by the development company. A woman who answered the phone at Parrish Pond Associates Wednesday said she knew nothing of the lawsuit and declined to comment. Outside the courthouse Wednesday, about 100 Shinnecock members reveled in their historic moment. As three teenage boys sang a traditional "honor song" to the accompaniment of skin drums, the rest of the crowd ululated with joy. It was a public display that was unusual for the normally private community. "The spirit is with me today," said one woman, who declined to give her name. She said she had lived on the reservation all her life. Saundra Dennis, 55, a Shinnecock member, watched the festivities with a smile. "Unfortunately it had to come to this type of action for us," she said. Dennis said the potential development of a casino and the land claim were separate issues, but acknowledged that the financial help from developers made the land claim possible. "It is a catalyst," she said. Staff Writer Rachel Leifer contributed to this story. Copyright c. 2005 Newsday Inc. --------- "RE: Energy Wars: Return of the Navajo" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 08:17:21 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="PROTECTING TRIBAL MEMBERS" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/News/2005/21-30/24news01.htm Energy Wars: Return of the Navajo Navajo Nation Bans Mining, Processing Of Uranium On Navajo Land By Nathan Diebenow Associate Editor June 15, 2005 CRAWFORD - Indians still exist, but more importantly, they're flexing their muscles. The U.S. energy industry suffered a blow in late April when Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr. signed the Dine' Natural Resources Protection Act which bans the mining and processing of uranium on Navajo land as well as re-enforces the sovereignty of the Navajo people. The DNRPA is designed to protect the water resources of the Navajo Nation, as well as the health of its citizens, 15,000 of whom are residents in the Church Rock-Crownpoint region of New Mexico. "I don't want to subject any more of my people to exposure to uranium and the cancers that it causes," Shirley said during the signing ceremony before about 50 people who had gathered in the Crownpoint Chapter House. "As long as there are no answers to cancer, we shouldn't have uranium mining on the Navajo Nation," he added. "I believe the powers that be committed genocide on Navajo land by allowing uranium." President Shirley was referring to over half a century of unexplained cancers and other health effects due to his people mining the radioactive ore on their land for the energy industry, as well as for U.S. government's nuclear weapons arsenal. Despite the few Navajo who stood to gain income from the mining of their land allotments where ore is located, the reservation has overwhelmingly supported the Act. The Navajo Tribal Council, in fact, voted 63-19 on April 19 to approve the prohibition, sponsored by George Arthur (Burnham/San Juan/Nenahnezad), chairman of the Resources Committee. "Members of these communities have already given enough lives to the uranium industry. New mining, whether it be conventional or ISL, would likely devastate a new generation of Navajo citizens," said New Mexico Environmental Law Center Staff Attorney Eric Jantz in a written statement. "Dozens of communities have passed resolutions declaring their opposition to new uranium mining, and thousands of Navajo have signed petitions against new mines," he continued. "We and our clients applaud the Navajo Tribal Council for exercising its inherent sovereignty to protect its valuable resources and the health of its citizens." Officials for Hydro Resources Inc. cried unfair for not receiving as much face-time as the Eastern Navajo Dine' Against Uranium Mining to explain the mining process with the Council. However, HRI has tried to gain federal permits for the last decade to begin in-situ leach uranium mining southwest and east of Crownpoint and uranium processing north of the defunct United Nuclear Corporation's uranium mill. Activists said that saving the quality of their drinking water and air is more important than the price of uranium, which has more than doubled over the past two years, from less than $10 per pound to over $23 per pound. HCI is a subsidiary of Dallas-based Uranium Resources Inc. The Law Center added that this victory is significant because earlier this year the Nuclear Regulatory Commission okayed HRI's license for the first of its four proposed mine sites around Church Rock and Crownpoint. That being said, HCI might still challenge in federal court the right to mine on allotments on the grounds of the definition and scope of what constitutes Navajo land. Human Experimentation The Navajo ban of uranium mining has both important social and historical significance as well, because for over 80 years, Navajo miners and their communities have suffered the effects of radiation poisoning under close watch of the U.S. government. Since 1920, the tribe prior to exposure to uranium radiation was also exposed to radium from mining the ore on their reservation. Four inactive uranium mill sites and over 1,200 abandoned uranium mines are on the reservation. Most of these mines are unreclaimed. The largest quantities of uranium were mined in the Four Corners area where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah converge. The Navajo reservation itself is equal to the size of West Virginia and home to 275,000 of the 350,000 people scattered around the world. According to Dine' (the name of the Navajo people use for themselves) linguists, uranium is known as "leetso" - meaning yellow brown or yellow dirt. From this dirt, the first atomic bombs were developed at the secret Manhattan project in Los Alamos, N.M., and tested at the Trinity Site at Alamogordo, N.M. The Dine' mined more than 13 million tons of uranium ore from their land to the U.S. between 1945-1988, according to Jaime Chavez, organizer for the Water Information Network. "During the 1940s-80s, there were a lot of open pit uranium mines and a huge flux of cancers happening. The widows were coming together saying, `What's going on?' They made the connection that all the husbands had worked in the uranium mine, and sure enough, they were," said Lori Goodman, treasurer of the nonprofit, activist group Dine' Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment (CARE). As more and more miners came forward with their stories, Goodman said, the U.S Congress passed the Radiation Compensation Act in 1990. Under this Act, the U.S. government was supposed to compensate individuals with diseases from exposure to radiation connected with the federal government's nuclear weapons testing program. The Act was also designed to compensate the medical costs attributed to the lung cancers of Navajo uranium miners exposed to radiation on the job in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, or Wyoming from 1947 to 1971. "We all thought it was taken care of, but we were also seeing that our elders who were never uranium miners were also dying of the same cancers as the uranium miners. They lived off the land. We were asking questions of the public health officials. We were going into communities, and what came out was that the uranium miners were supposed to get compensated, and they weren't. At that point, politics took over," said Goodman. The Act, it was found, discriminated against the very people it was trying to help. For instance, Goodman said, "laws said that you have to have a marriage certificate in order to be eligible to receive this compensation, and our people back then had traditional marriages. They didn't have marriage licenses. They were being eliminated right there, and there were questions of cultural significance to smoking. The government officials would ask them, `Do you smoke?' And without the proper interpretation, it was taken as they were smoking cigarettes when in fact the miners were talking about ceremonial smoke that you don't inhale. It's done once or three times a month. So they were automatically eliminated, put off the record." As a result of community activism, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) introduced an amendment of 1990 RECA, S.1515., in 2000, that added the mill workers who processed the ore to the qualification list; expanded the diseases, which were mostly cancer and respiratory illnesses; and expanded the geographic coverage for "downwinder claims." The bill also lowered the radiation exposure thresholds for eligibility for more individuals on the reservation. Unfortunately, the RECA 2000 bill President Clinton signed was an unfunded mandate. Uranium miners were given IOUs, the RECA Trust Fund was empty, and RECA regulations were not written on time. No one so far has been compensated under 2000 RECA, even after a lawsuit was filed against U. S. Attorney General John Ashcroft which charged that the Department of Justice failed its obligation to implement RECA regulations within 180 days of the amendment's enactment. Shockwaves ran through the Navajo reservation again when in February 1995, the Department of Energy's Office of Human Radiation Experiments published Human Radiation Experiments: The Department of Energy Roadmap to the Story and Records. The Roadmap exposed the U.S. government's role in conducting and sponsoring Cold War human radiation experiments, some of which included Navajo uranium miners. "They would find out how long it would take these miners to get cancer and then from that point in time find out long they would die," said Goodman, referring to the U.S. government. "At the same time the government was telling us that they didn't know that radiation was harmful, so they were blameless was what they were trying to say." 2005 Energy Bill "As soon as President Bush came into power, he wanted to start uranium mines again, and in fact with his first energy bill, he had $30 million for energy companies to start uranium mining again. It's in this one again, " said Goodman referring to latest energy bill drafted by House Energy Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas). Goodman referred to the House energy bill as the "dark side" version, "with every tax credit for industry, every restriction on environmental protection, every means possible to make it possible to extract energy resources - no matter what the people think or what the impacts might be." Goodman noted that the Senate energy bill, which hit the floor this Monday, is "less destructive than the House version;" however, both the Senate and House bills, she said, contain similar so-called "Indian energy" sections. "They try to encourage energy production on Indian lands by getting the tribal governments to develop their own sets of rules. Then the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) can just rubber stamp approval of individual projects that are developed under those rules. It will make it harder for communities, groups or individuals to challenge decisions under federal environmental and cultural protection laws." As one lawyer used by Dine' CARE noted in an email to The Lone Star Iconoclast, "In addition, Title V of H.R. 6 could remove the application of federal laws, such as NEPA and the National Historic Preservation Act, from energy development decisions on tribal lands. "The bill affects land both on and off reservation. It provides that once the Secretary of the Interior approves a tribal energy resource agreement providing a process for making energy development decisions, individual energy projects would proceed without federal approval," he continues. "Since no federal action would occur, the existing guarantees of environmental review and public participation under NEPA would be lost. Concerned tribal community members and communities adjacent to the project would lose the mechanism that they have now to make their voices heard." In other words, the Bush Administration is moving lock-step with the philosophies of globalization and the free market by removing any and all governmental regulations and safeguards that protect the community interests, agreed Goodman. When asked if she thought it would be fair to compare the plight of the Navajo with its uranium mines to the Venezuelans with their oil reserves with regard to U.S. foreign policy, Goodman said, "That is very accurate. We all remember how U.S. removed (President Hugo) Chavez. But the community united brought Chavez back." Goodman added that a few tax credits for building renewable energy production are included in the House bill, but both versions fail "to emphasize energy conservation as a way to increase our `security' or `energy independence.' Everything is focused on producing more energy." Joan Claybrook, Public Citizen President, responding to the House Energy and Commerce Committee's draft energy legislation in a statement, said, "(This bill) offers more of the same failed proposals that have doomed energy legislation in the past two Congresses. It showers nuclear and oil companies with subsidies, gives polluters a break from protecting the environment and promotes further electricity deregulation while doing nothing to protect consumers from high energy prices." Claybrook noted that oil prices continue to soar despite Congress passing a billion-dollar subsidy in October 2004 to encourage more domestic energy production and its March 16 budget vote to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. "You would think that such a radical change in federal oil production policy (the successful Senate vote represented the first time in 24 years that the Senate has approved the measure) would send a clear signal to oil traders in New York, " she said. "But the prices of oil and gasoline have only skyrocketed since the vote, raising doubts about the claim by the Bush administration and Congress that giving energy producers what they want will somehow lower prices for consumers." Coal Plants There will be a potluck and rally on this Saturday, June 18, at Shiprock Park in Shiprock to help stop the proposed Desert Rock Power Plant in the Four Corners area. According to Dine' CARE in a letter to the editor of The Albuquerque Tribune, three Navajo chapters (Burnham, Sanostee and Two Grey Hills) have passed community resolutions directly opposing the plant. Other chapters (Newcomb and Sheep Springs) are making motions to officially oppose it as well, the letter said, jointly written by Anna Marie Frazier, Dine' CARE Coordinator, and Sarah Jane White, Dooda (No) Desert Rock Committee President (Burnham/Sanostee Chapters). "All but one of the local communities oppose the power plant. Our people living in this area suffer rates of asthma, reproductive disorders, cancer and other illnesses that are far in excess of national averages," said the letter. "Do you really imagine the communities are going to vote for more pollution and its associated destruction?" Proposed by Sithe Global, LCC, of Houston, Desert Rock is a coal-fired plant that would emit 3,400 tons of mercury and ozone into the air. The plant is planned to use a hybrid dry cooled coal-fired electric power- generating technology, south of Farmington in northwestern New Mexico. The project development agreement was entered into with Dine' Power Authority (DPA), an enterprise of the Navajo Nation. The Navajo, however, are expected to not see one watt of energy from this plant due to the agreement, although 80 percent of the tribal revenue comes from coal royalties and tax. About one billion ton of coal reserves are within the tribal lands. Two coal fired power plants (Four Corners and Page) and three mines (Peabody, BHP, and PNM). Total permitted for mining is 95,724 acres and total disturbed is 16,767 acres. Goodman said that probably 30 percent of Navajo don't even have electricity. Their primary source is wood and also some use coal. The Navajo people are not so reliant on these plants for jobs either, she said. "I wouldn't say very much. I mean, I have nine brothers and sisters. None of them work for any energy company on Navajo land. There aren't that many jobs. Peabody Coal Company has 50 employees," she said. "When you factor in how much is the community benefitting. Are we getting any return? When you factor those in, those 50 people that work there, that's nothing because all the energy goes off the reservation. There are two other power plants already in the area from which the Navajo people have received negative health consequences. Goodman said that 40 years ago when the Four Corners Power Plant, which is one of the biggest polluters, Peabody failed to live up to its promises to make life easier for the people. "They were saying that if you move, we'll build you a new house. `We'll make sure you have electricity and water in your homes,' Goodman said. "Well, 40 years later, they are still living the same way they did, and so the community is saying, `Hey, we're not going to be fooled the second time around.'" Goodman added that the landscape is a bit ironic: the Navajo homes, many of which use solar power panels, are located right next to the transmission lines leading from the plant. "It's really quite the picture - families with no electricity and no running water, and they have just one panel of solar that they use and in the background are these huge shovels and drag lines coming toward their homes. That's the picture," she said. A draft of the environmental statement has yet to be released, probably at the end of the summer or the fall, said Goodman. "They are planning that it will all go through, and they'll start to build in 2006, and the plant will be in operation in 2008." In The Name Of Sovereignty When asked of the other challenges facing the Navajo people, Goodman said, "It's funny you should ask. It's like an energy war happening here now. With Bush and with Chaney's secret meeting with the energy cartel, they've sliced up Indian lands here. It's very interesting in who all is investing in these projects." The U.S. government under the Bush administration, as well as the U.S. energy industry, has changed its tactics and language to compel the Navajo and other Native Americans to secure natural resources from their native lands. "Now they are talking about giving in the name of sovereignty: `We want the Indian people to decide for themselves. We want them to make their own environmental laws,' said Goodman. "It is like they only recognize our sovereignty when they put toxic waste on our lands, and then when we go out to fish and hunt for ourselves then our sovereignty is not recognized. In the name of sovereignty they put in the Four Corners Power Plant." "Once you turn it over to the Indian people, then the federal government can't come in," she added. "It allows the energy companies to come in and just wreck the place, and we can't make them clean up. They won't clean up. It's not in the name of self-determination. It really is termination. They don't want to be responsible and at the same time, the time is right for the companies to come in and rape the land with no legal recourse. They are not responsible." Goodman said that the healthcare costs for treating the symptoms of air and water pollution are "killing us." In Shiprock, N.M., there are two power plants nearby. "Shiprock is sort of like in a bowl, and the pollution just hangs there. The asthma and upper respiratory problems are sky high," she said. "They're taking the healthcare monies and giving it to the corporations to poison us to death," she said. This past March, the Republicans defeated $1 billion for Indian health, housing and education, Goodman said. The Navajo Nation's Indian Health Service is currently 55 percent funded and the vacancy rate of doctors and nurses is 20 percent, she added. "We live in scary times, just because for an administration that really harps on Christian values that's certainly not reserved for all people, they have no knowledge of history - nuclear testing again - and that is scary," she said. Goodman said she doesn't know if the tribal government can stand up to the multinational corporations or the U.S. government because "they have to be thinking about not pissing them off." However, she still has hope. "It's going to take citizen activism to fight off the energy companies, and people have done that before and they are ready to do it again. It has to be done because what we learned from doing the RECA, it's only shame in the eyes of the world is what makes them back off, so there's a need to be as public as possible for what's taken place," she said. "We had some major projects that we've accomplished that gives me hope. What it really is is that they don't really know what we're going to do. They're so set in what people with money do to protect themselves that they don't know what people without money do." Goodman said that Dine' CARE is continuing to build coalitions working on similar issues with Anglo activists like the San Juan Citizens Alliance. "We understand that race is always used to divide us," she said. "We've learned something from working in the uranium mines. Right now we have asthma. We're not willing to project all that garbage on our children. No way. It's the stand people are making right now," she added. INFO www.blackmesais.org/index.html dinecare.indigenousnative.org www.ienearth.org ww.nmenvirolaw.org www.desertrockenergy.com www.peabodyenergy.com/index-ie.html Copyright c. 2004 The Lone Star Iconoclast. --------- "RE:New Mexico will no longer subsidize Uranium Mining" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 08:17:21 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GREATER PROTECTIVE VIGILANCE" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.gallupindependent.com/2005/june/061305uranium.html New Mexico will no long subsidize uranium mining By Kathy Helms Dine' Bureau June 13, 2005 WINDOW ROCK - This year's bipartisan Energy Policy Act crafted by U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. and U.S. Rep. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., does not contain provisions found in last year's bill which would have subsidized uranium mining in Church Rock and Crownpoint. Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. praised the two legislators last week for protecting the Navajo people from further harm caused by uranium mining and processing through their work on the Indian Energy Title portion of the act. Earlier provisions contained in the Nuclear Title would have encouraged uranium mining near the Navajo Nation. Shirley said, "I want to express my great appreciation to Sens. Domenici and Bingaman and their staffs for listening to concerns of the Navajo people. This helps to protect Navajos from the harmful impacts of uranium mining, and is what Navajo people have sought for themselves through the recently enacted Natural Resources Protection Act of 2005." The Navajo Nation Washington Office said more vigilance is needed to prevent uranium provisions from being added as amendments to the act as it continues to work its way through Congress. Within the Indian Energy Title portion of the bill language was included to provide opportunity for increased independence to develop tribal energy resources and broaden the availability of electricity to Native communities. The law would make the Navajo Nation eligible for potentially billions of dollars in grants, low-interest loans and loan guarantees for energy resource development and environmental protection, according to the president. The Indian Energy Title contains two provisions of benefit to Navajo, including extending the eligibility of Dine' Power Authority to receive grants and assistance for development of the Navajo Transmission Project, and extending authorization until 2011 for the Navajo Electrification Project. Neither provision provides appropriations. The Indian Energy Title also would create the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs to promote tribal energy development, reduce energy costs, enhance tribal energy infrastructure, and provide electrification to tribal lands. The title authorizes $1 million for Federal Power Marketing Administration assistance on tribal land and additionally promotes using energy efficient technologies and shared savings contracts in housing on tribal lands to promote energy efficiency. The full Senate is expected to take up the Energy Policy Act this month. "I am proud of this energy bill," Domenici said after gaining nearly unanimous support (21-1) from the Energy and Natural Resources Committee on May 26. "It's been a long five months but we are sending a bill to the floor that does more for conservation, diversification, technology and efficiency than Congress has done before. "This committee found a path to compromise on tough issues, and there will be more difficult decisions to make when we get to the Senate debate, " he said. According to Bingaman, on the supply side the legislation supports the development of clean energy technologies and also contains some strong energy-efficiency provisions. The bill would modernize and expand the nation's electricity grid and encourage the design and deployment of advanced nuclear technologies, clean coal technologies, and hydrogen technologies as a means of moving America away from its dependence on foreign oil. Copyright c. 2005 the Gallup Independent. --------- "RE: Canyon de Chelly Residents living in a Time Warp" --------- Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 08:41:20 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="U S PARK SERVICE POLICIES" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.thenavajotimes.com/id=1118958290&archive=&start_from=&ucat=1& Living in a time warp Canyon de Chelly residents protest against U.S. park service policies By Marley Shebala Navajo Times June 16, 2005 WINDOW ROCK - A group of Canyon de Chelly residents are tired of living in a time warp. Clara Gorman, who lives near Spider Rock, said the U.S. National Park Service, which oversees Canyon de Chelly National Park, prohibits canyon residents from living in modern houses. "We are not allowed to have modern homes because it's a monument," Gorman said. "But to me, it's like being deprived of life. I'd like to live there comfortably. But we're only allowed to live in a hogan with a dirt roof." She said the reason for the park service policy barring modern homes is for the benefit of tourists. "It's like we're being on display for tourists," Gorman said. Gorman was among about 20 adults and children who staged a protest, walking from the mouth of the canyon to the Holiday Inn to publicize their concerns. The protest took place on June 1, Navajo Nation Memorial Day. The date is also significant because the Treaty of 1868, signed at Hwe'e'ldi , was signed on June 1. The issues reveal a clash between efforts to protect and preserve the canyon and the desire by families who live in the park to improve their living conditions. Between 50 and 80 families have homesteads in the canyon, according to park officials. Lorraine Izzo, another canyon resident at the protest, said the canyon is important to the Navajo people because it is where the Long Walk started. "My parents say my nali's (paternal grandparents) mom came back from Fort Sumner," she said. "I'm a descendant from that generation. That's why the canyon is important to me and why I'm willing to voice my opinion." Elaine F. Leslie, who agreed to speak to the Times because the park's superintendent, Scott Travis was out of town, said many of the park policies and regulations are based on Navajo law, including the prohibition of modern homes within canyon boundaries. Leslie said in 1931 the Navajo Nation, Congress and President Herbert Hoover determined how best to protect and preserve the canyon, including the prohibition of modern homes and power lines. She said an agreement was signed that made the U.S. park service responsible for administering the canyon, including the protection and preservation of natural and cultural resources, visitor safety, and the safety of canyon residents while they are utilize their land leases. Izzo, however, said she and other residents have been treated "like we know nothing, like we're children," when they have attempted to speak to Travis and Leslie about their concerns. "People are afraid to stand up against them. They're afraid they're going to get arrested," she said, referring to the arrest of Justin Tso, a former horseback tour operator. Tso was arrested March 8 by Navajo Nation Ranger Joe Watchman and U.S. Park Ranger Chris Blacksheep. He was taken to a federal jail in Flagstaff and charged with threatening Park Ranger Melissa Bergman because she was inspecting his horse corrals without his permission. On April 14, Tso pleaded guilty to one federal charge of threatening a federal officer and was fined $500. "I feel like, well, if the bilagaanas (white people) have no respect for the Navajos then they need to leave the area," Izzo said, referring to Travis, Leslie, and Bergman. The Navajo Times contacted Travis' office last week and was told he was on travel. Leslie said she would answer questions and respond to the allegations. Leslie denied the accusation by Izzo and Gorman that the park service was arresting people for speaking out against it, adding that the park service provided rangers to escort the protestors from the mouth of the canyon to the Holiday Inn. "We embrace First Amendment rights," she said. "And this group had concerns to express." Management plan changes Gorman said she, Izzo, and their fellow protestors are also concerned about a proposed canyon management plan that Travis is developing. She said Travis only held a couple of meetings with canyon residents about the plan. Gorman said she asked Travis for a copy of the plan and wanted to know who was working on it. She said Travis named several Navajo government departments, including the land office, parks and recreation, historic preservation, and the speaker's office. Gorman said she went to those offices and couldn't find anyone who was working with Travis on the plan. Martin Begaye, parks manager for the Navajo Nation's Division of Natural Resources, said he is aware of efforts by the National Park Service to update the Canyon de Chelly management plan. But Begaye, the tribe's top official in charge of park administration, said Travis has not talked with him about it. He, too, has heard the park service wants to extend its jurisdiction over the canyon residents' land use, Begaye said, adding that the Navajo Nation would oppose this because the park service would be "overstepping" its authority. Begaye added that he's received numerous complaints from canyon residents about the park service's management of the canyon. But he said he refers people making complaints to the Chinle Chapter and its council delegates because that's the process outlined in the 80-year- old agreement between the Navajo Nation and federal government. Izzo and Gorman said they have sought help from the chapter and were told to work with the park service. She said they have written a letter to the council's Resources Committee asking to be allowed to tell the delegates about their concerns. Izzo noted, "The park service is supposed to just look over the canyon. It still belongs to us. It's our home." Leslie said the park service has been working for several years on a canyon management plan that would restore and protect natural and cultural resources and also assist canyon residents with their farms. She said Travis has contacted several Navajo government offices, where partnerships have already developed with the Navajo rangers, Navajo police, and the Division of Natural Resources. "We are not kicking people out of the canyon," she said. "But we are administering visitor use, which is based on federal enabling legislation, and Navajo Nation and park service policies." Copyright c. 2005 Navajo Times Publishing, Inc. --------- "RE: Construction of Kitt Peak telescope complex halted" --------- Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 08:41:20 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/dailystar/80189.php Construction of Kitt Peak telescope complex halted By Lourdes Medrano ARIZONA DAILY STAR June 17, 2005 Three miles before the Kitt Peak summit, in a secluded canyon of thick brush, oak trees and pines, lie dormant traces of a planned four-telescope complex caught in a clash between scientific research and Indian land preservation. Workers graded part of a 25-acre site, installed power lines and poured concrete foundations before a lawsuit filed by the Tohono O'odham Nation seeking to stop construction prompted the National Science Foundation to halt its $13 million venture. "There is no longer a preferred site. We've gone back to square one," said Amy Northcutt, deputy general counsel with the science foundation. The Tohono O'odham Nation maintains that because the mountain is sacred to its people, the project is subject to the National Historic Preservation Act, which requires consultation with the tribe and the Arizona State Historic Preservation Office. The decision to voluntarily stop the work, rather than fight in federal court, will mean working closely with the tribe in producing an environmental and cultural assessment of the area, Northcutt said. About $1 million has been spent on the abandoned Horseshoe Canyon site. Scientists said delay of the project could hurt its mission and give competitors an edge. Work continues on the scopes off-site. Trevor Weekes, the project's leading scientist, said he's optimistic construction on the mountain will resume soon on what would be the most advanced system of its kind in the Northern Hemisphere. Tribal and environmental concerns are making it increasingly difficult to conduct scientific research in the United States, he said, and scientists more and more are turning toward Mexico, Canada or Europe to do their work. The science foundation assumed it was in compliance with all federal requirements, Northcutt said, since Kitt Peak National Observatory already operates on Tohono O'odham land under a 1958 lease with the agency. The site is part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, and it supports 22 optical and two radio telescopes from eight research institutions. The project, which eventually would include seven scopes, is called the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System, or VERITAS. Its objective is to detect gamma rays coming from black holes, quasars and exploding stars. Tribal Chairwoman Vivian Juan-Saunders said the work suspension is an important victory for the tribe. For far too long, Juan-Saunders said, the concerns of tribes over development of their sacred sites have been ignored. "This is an era of new determination. We're not going to accept the attitudes of years past," she said, adding that the 1958 lease may have been a product of its times. The tribe signed the Kitt Peak lease during an era of termination, when the federal government stripped tribes of their protected status as Indian nations. The policies, which also pushed to acculturate Indians into mainstream society, led to widespread loss of tribal land and other abuses. "Today, we are asserting our sovereignty by questioning the violations of federal laws," Juan-Saunders wrote in an e-mail after the tribe filed suit in U.S. District Court in late March. She also has said the terms of the lease need to be revisited. Last week, Juan-Saunders wouldn't say if the tribe's goal is to stop the project permanently, but she noted: "We expect them to follow the law and afford us proper consultation." Despite the tribe's withdrawal of its motion to halt construction because of the voluntary work suspension, Juan-Saunders said litigation will continue. She would not discuss the legal grounds. Charisse Carney-Nunes, assistant general counsel for the science foundation, said the agency is seeking dismissal of the suit because the work stoppage turns it moot. She expects the tribe to oppose the foundation's move in court later this month. Tribal leaders previously were notified about construction plans, she said. But the foundation and its collaborators now will involve Tohono O'odham members in a more formal process to determine the cultural value of the site. "We are being very deferential to ensure that the tribe is on board every step of the way," Carney-Nunes said. Project leaders will conduct interviews with tribal members who are knowledgeable about cultural and historical resources, she added. Other state tribes also are being informed about the project. Kitt Peak is the second site chosen for the VERITAS project, Weekes said. A consortium led by the Smithsonian Institution turned to the site after a plan to build the project in the Santa Rita Mountains fell through for various reasons, including tribal and environmental opposition. Richard Green, the Kitt Peak observatory director, said he looks forward to a continuing long-term, productive relationship with the tribe. Observatory employees say the area provides jobs, open-house nights and free passes for the Tohono O'odham, while the Indian arts and crafts sold to tourists in the visitor center generate about $40,000 a year for tribal members. ******************** In court documents, the Tohono O'odham Nation describes Kitt Peak - nestled in the Quinlan Mountains about 55 miles southwest of Tucson - as a traditional cultural area known as "I'itoi Garden" worthy of inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. The tribe's assertions prompted both the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Arizona State Historic Preservation Office to push the National Science Foundation to halt construction and address cultural concerns. In the creation story of the Tohono O'odham, the universe gave birth to the world thanks to I'itoi, the deity who lives at Baboquivari Peak south of Kitt Peak. Science foundation documents that now are part of court records acknowledge the importance of the two peaks to the Tohono O'odham people, formerly known as the Papago Tribe. "Both of these mountains figure prominently in tribal legend as the homes of ancient Papago gods." Mildred Antone, a Tohono O'odham who lives in San Pedro village near the base of Kitt Peak, said she grew up hearing stories of spirituality emanating from Kitt Peak. They are old legends important to the Tohono O'odham, she said, legends that can be discussed only at certain times and with certain people. "It's a very sacred mountain," said Antone, 69. "Very sacred." Antone said the tribal leaders in the Schuk Toak District - part of the 2.8 million-acre reservation - who signed a perpetual lease with Kitt Peak scientists may not have fully understood the impact of the giant telescopes. "Kitt Peak observatory never should have been built," she said. "The one thing that keeps bothering me, is that they want to keep building and building and building," she said, referring to the proposed telescope complex. "They keep desecrating the mountain over and over again." Daniel Lopez, a language instructor at Tohono O'odham Community College, said traditional Indian beliefs about the natural and spiritual worlds hold all mountains as special places. "We have names for the mountains, we have songs, we sing about them," Lopez said. K. Tsianina Lomawaima, interim director for the University of Arizona's American Indian Studies program, said the relationship between tribes and land is as profound as that between two people. "Land, landscape and specific sites have a life of their own and a destiny and will of their own," she said. "It's a very delicate subject," she said. It also is a topic embroiled in legal conflicts as tribal sacred places collide with development. In recent years, more and more tribes across the country have waged legal battles to stop what they see as desecration of their land. In Northern Arizona, a ski lodge operation in the San Francisco Peaks, which 13 tribes regard as sacred, long has been a source of tension. In Southern Arizona, scientific development of Mount Graham, sacred to the San Carlos and White Mountain Apache, has pitted the tribes against astronomers. - Contact reporter Lourdes Medrano at 573-4347 or lmedrano@azstarnet.com. Copyright c. 2005 Arizona Daily Star. --------- "RE: Nez Perce honor 'Warriors' who fought for rights" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 08:17:21 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="FISHING RIGHTS WARRIORS HONORED" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.idahostatesman.com//506140336/1001/NEWS Nez Perce honor 'warriors' who fought for fishing rights 'It changed the whole country. It was the beginning of co-management of fisheries' Tim Woodward The Idaho Statesman June 14, 2005 RAPID RIVER - Elmer Crow and Bill Snow swapped jokes Monday beside the river where they came close to trading gunfire 25 years ago. The occasion was the 25th anniversary of a standoff over the tribe's right to fish for salmon in its homeland. The confrontation, one of the most intense in recent Idaho history, came close to bloodshed and is sometimes referred to as the "Second Nez Perce War." Members of the tribe held the commemoration to honor those who took part and because they want Idahoans to remember their battle to exercise the fishing rights guaranteed in their Treaty of 1855 with the U.S. government. Concerned over declining returns of salmon to the Rapid River hatchery, the state banned fishing for salmon in the summer of 1980. Crow and 31 other members of the tribe defied the ban by fishing anyway. Law enforcement officers were prepared to use deadly force to stop them; the fishermen vowed to fight to the death to preserve their treaty rights. Respective arsenals included clubs, knives, rifles and shotguns. Snow, now retired, was an Idaho Fish and Game officer at the time. "It could have been wicked," he said. "The state had snipers up on the hill ready to shoot us," Crow told a crowd of about 200 at the commemoration. "Unbeknownst to them, we had snipers on the hill behind their snipers." "It was hard times," Wilfred Scott, then tribal chairman, added. "I think we had more firepower here than we have in Iraq today." At the heart of the confrontation was one of the smallest salmon returns ever at the Rapid River hatchery. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game ordered fishing closed, a ban members of the tribe saw as an infringement on their treaty rights and way of life. Salmon are an important element in the tribe's culture and traditional spirituality. Nez Perce leaders had restricted fishing to weekends, imposed a limit on the number of fish taken per family and maintained that its practices weren't to blame for the low return. "We knew we weren't the reason the fish were being wiped out," said Virgil Holt, then a 29-year-old fisherman and now chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe's Fish and Wildlife Commission. "It was the dams and the management that were hurting the fish runs. We weren't responsible for either." The Rapid River hatchery was built in 1964 to compensate for salmon runs lost to Idaho Power Co., dams on the Snake River. Bloodshed was avoided when law enforcement officers opted to use citations rather than bullets. "If a person on either side had done something crazy, Rapid River would have run red," Holt said. "There were some scuffles and clubbings, but that was about the size of it. We were ready to die if we had to. Instead, we got tickets." Sonny Bybee was among those ticketed. He was jailed twice in Grangeville and released on bail within a few hours both times. "Then I went fishing," he said. Monday's commemoration was a far cry from the tensions that existed 25 years ago. Law officers and members of the tribe chatted amiably and exchanged gifts. Members of the Umatilla and Warm Springs tribes attended in support of the Nez Perce. Spiritual leader Horace Axtell gave an invocation entirely in the threatened Nez Perce language. The mountains where snipers once lay in wait rang with the sounds of Native American singing and drumming. Six of the Nez Perce fishermen have died since 1980, but 14 journeyed to Rapid River to be honored along with descendants of the original 32. "This is part of our heritage, part of our spiritual being," Crow said. "We're here to honor those warriors who stood their ground." Though the confrontation itself is history, some of the factors that led to it remain. The state and tribe continue to have differences over licensing for steelhead fishing in the Clearwater River, approaches to hatchery, wolf and grizzly bear management. "I thought we were right then, and I still think so," Snow said. "But I respected the Nez Perce people for standing up for their treaty rights. And I respected the Fish and Game officers for doing what they believed in." Crow respectfully disagreed. "What happened here 25 years ago didn't just change Nez Perce country," he said. "It changed the whole country. It was the beginning of co- -management of fisheries. Our Nez Perce fisheries department is a good example. It started with three people. Now we have 260." Today, the state and tribe both decide how many fish will be taken on Rapid River. With returns lower than expected so far this year, according to tribal fisheries manager Dave Johnson, the number allowed for the tribe and general recreationalists has been set at 1,300 each. That's down from 7,000 each last year, he said. An estimated 6,000 fish are expected to return this year. At this time of year in 1980, only about 600 adult fish had returned to the hatchery. The "Second Nez Perce War" ended peacefully in 1982. Illegal fishing charges were dismissed when Idaho District Judge George Reinhardt ruled that the tribe's treaties - another in 1863 affirmed its fishing rights - gave its members the right to fish in their ancestral streams regardless of the state's actions. "It was scary here 25 years ago with all those guns around," Linda Crow, Elmer's wife, said. "We were all worried, but the men were doing what they felt they had to do. And they made a difference." Aaron Penney remembers coming to Rapid River as a boy, one year after the treaty rights challenge. "Watching my dad fish, just the way I'm fishing now," he says. "Fishing's always been in my family." Many of Philip Johnnie Jr.'s uncles were involved in the fishing rights conflict 25 years ago. "Every year I come to fish. I remember our warriors who sacrificed their lives so we can fish," he says, raising his fist in memory of those who have died in subsequent years. "I'm here to represent them - who were representing me (back then)." Copyright c. 2005 Boise Idaho Statesman. --------- "RE: Elders provide support for NA Students" --------- Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 08:31:39 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="ELDERS SUPPORT" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.smokymountainnews.com//06_05/06_15_05/fr_elders_support.html Elders provide support for Native American students SMN June 15, 2005 Tom Belt and Freeman Owle were two of the lucky ones. As young Native American students in the 1970s, they left their home communities to venture onto college campuses and found safety nets of support to help them make the transition to being successful college students. Belt, an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, was one of just 24 Native American students on a University of Oklahoma campus of 20, 000-plus. But there was support for those two dozen students through the campus' native student office and through several off-campus organizations, he said. Owle, raised in the Birdtown community on the Qualla Boundary, is an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. He became a student at Western Carolina University in 1974 and left four years later with bachelor's and master's degrees. "There was no designated place on campus for Cherokee students to gather, and so we began to gather in the social work department and a faculty member there became our unofficial counselor," Owle said. "We all made it through simply because someone cared enough to tell us we could really do it." Now, three decades later, Belt and Owle find themselves in positions to help present-day Native American students find their place on Western's campus and achieve academic success. Since January, both men have been working as "elders-in-residence" on the campus through the university's Cherokee Studies Program. The part-time positions allow Belt and Owle to serve as mentors, advisers and friends to the approximately 150 Native American students at Western. The positions are funded through the Cherokee Studies Program's Sequoyah Initiative, a three-year project designed to increase the participation of Cherokee scholars, artists and leaders in the university's intellectual and cultural life. The Sequoyah Initiative is being funded in its first year through a $200,000 grant from the Cherokee Preservation Foundation. Western's elders-in-residence program is one of just a handful of such programs in the nation, and the Cherokee Studies staff believes it is the only one in the Southeast, said Tom Hatley, Western's Sequoyah Distinguished Professor of Cherokee Studies. The population of Native American students on Western's campus includes about 100 students who are members of the Eastern Band. For those students, and many other Native American students, making the transition to college can be a difficult maneuver, Owle said. "The Cherokee community is very close-knit," he said. "Everyone knows everyone else and there's a certain amount of security there. Once you leave that community and come to a university, you begin to search for that community and, in most cases, you don't find it. It's a cultural shock. Students can fall through the cracks." Although it's only 28 miles from the Cullowhee campus to downtown Cherokee, in psychological terms the distance can seem much longer for Cherokee students and other Native American students at Western, Belt said. Non-Native American students usually find it easy to identify with the university they attend and immerse themselves in campus life, but "Native American students haven't been able to cross that bridge, yet," Belt said. "Native American students need to identify with the university in some way. It sort of gives them permission to be here and think, `I'm not in someone else's world.' "The university doors have always been open to Cherokee students, but they haven't always stayed," Belt said. "Our job is to help them understand they can function and succeed here. When they feel a part of the university, they will excel." "Students sometimes don't know they have options if they make a bad grade. We want to help them access advisers and tutorial programs that will aid in their academic studies," Belt said. In addition to his position as elder-in-residence, Belt works as a counselor's aide in a treatment center for Native American youth with chemical dependencies. A fluent speaker of the traditional Cherokee language, he also taught a course in Cherokee linguistics at Western during the spring semester. Owle is an accomplished storyteller, Cherokee historian and stone carver who has lectured throughout the eastern United States. His duties on Western's campus also include serving as a guest lecturer in various academic departments and helping student teachers learn about the ways and beliefs of the Cherokee people. Both Belt and Owle can be reached through the offices of the Cherokee Studies Program at 828.227.2303. Copyright c. 2005 Smoky Mountain News. --------- "RE: Cherokee Doctor: We can defeat Youth Suicide" --------- Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 08:31:39 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SUICIDE PREVENTION" http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=6606 Cherokee doctor: We can defeat youth suicide Walker testifies before Senate Sam Lewin June 14, 2005 A Cherokee expert in combating suicide rates among Native youth believes that a return traditional ways is the best method of defeating the epidemic. R. Dale Walker, MD, the director of One Sky Center: American Indian/Alaska Native National Resource Center for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, made his comments during testimony to the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. The committee is working to make possible changes to the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. The One Sky Center was established in 2003 as the first national resource center dedicated to improving the prevention and treatment of substance abuse and mental health among Native people. Figures show that suicide is the third overall cause of death in America for 10 to 24 year-olds, the second cause of death for American Indians and Alaska Natives aged 15 to 24 and the third cause of death for Native American children aged 10 to 14. During a 12-week period from November 2004 to February 2005, eight young Native American adults committed suicide in separate events on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota and South Dakota. All but one suicide was related to alcohol. Each young adult used hanging as the method to die. Several weeks later the Red lake tragedy occurred. Citing these events, Walker told the committee that suicide is tragic enough to boggle the mind, and that there is a need for more dialogue on the issue. "The idea of a child - a sacred human being in tribal culture - ending their own life is an unthinkable act; often leaving loved ones in a state of great disbelief, shock, and denial. As we know, unfortunately, our Indian children are committing suicide across Indian country; in some communities, at alarming rates," he said. "In some tribal communities, the topic and discussion of suicide is still considered taboo. However, due to this crisis, tribal people are asking for help. Thankfully, this is what brings us here today: to save our young ones, our next generation. Many questions have been raised about teen suicide, and the most important questions center around how to address it, and how to prevent it." Walker cited a list of factors that contribute to youth suicide. "Suicide, of course, is among several, causally related behavioral problems, including community conflict, family fragmentation, gangs, youth violence, alcohol abuse, abuse of illegal drugs like methamphetamine, and abuse of prescription drugs. Such physical illness as diabetes is causally related as well. Closely associated are demoralization, loss of vision, and clinical depression," Walker testified. "There are many valid theories about the causes (drivers) of that group of problems, including poverty, racism, lack of law enforcement, lack of skills learning, loss of culture, services deficiencies, and lack of community leadership." Walker came bearing solutions to the problem. He said that the methods used at One Sky Center offer an idea. "The One Sky Center is helping to lead a cultural movement toward identification, acceptance, and implementation of culturally appropriate substance abuse and mental health services that work in the American Indian and Alaska Native world. This activity spans awareness raising, coalition building, motivation enhancement, resource development (such as inventories of best practice), broad dissemination, training, and technical assistance," Walker said. Some of the programs that come from that effort include Circles of Care, Sweat Lodges, use of botanical medicines, and specific programs like the Red Road to Recovery, a model that officials say has helped thousands of American Indians lead clean and sober lives. In 2001, the U.S. Surgeon General acknowledged that culture is a major factor in treating substance abuse and mental illness. While stressing that there is a solution to the teen suicide problem, Walker said it wouldn't be easy, and would need serious cooperation. "Because of the complex historical, cultural, familial, economic, and legal foundation of American Indian reservations and Alaska Native villages, tackling the task of providing proactive behavioral health services for Native youth and their families is equally complex. Knowledge of behavioral health issues of Native children and youth is necessary," Walker told the committee. "However, just as important is a deep appreciation and understanding of Native culture and the experiential grasp of Native life on tribal reservations and villages. Only by blending this knowledge, knowing, and experience within the behavioral health framework, will inroads be made to Native American communities to reduce the risk factors that contribute to youth violence and suicide and to heal devastated families and communities. In other words, to respond to the behavioral health needs of Native youth, children, and families, a culturally tailored and community specific approach combined with evidence-based best practices in behavioral health must be initiated at a community level in Indian Country." Walker closed with three recommendations: - Strengthen and increase the capacity of behavioral health services to levels available in the broader community. - Create a powerful mandate to align and coordinate policies and services at the federal and local levels - a mandate powerful enough to overcome the enormous "silo" tendencies of all agencies. - Creation a long-term intervention program for communities going through emergencies/crises, to deal with the crisis and to seize the opportunity, which a crisis provides. Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Treaty Rights at stake in Court" --------- Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 08:25:37 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GRAND TRAVERSE HUNTING RIGHTS" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.leelanaunews.com/editorial.php?id=1561 Treaty rights at stake in court by Eric Carlson June 16, 2005 A major federal court case is shaping up over whether members of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians (GTB) can hunt according to their own rules and fish on inland lakes without regulation by the State of Michigan. Depositions from expert witnesses were taken this week in Lansing and last week in Traverse City. The case is slated to go before a federal judge in Kalamazoo in January 2006. The GTB and four other Michigan Indian tribes claim that an 1836 treaty gives them the right to regulate their own members' hunting and fishing activities throughout the eastern Upper Peninsula and much of the Lower Peninsula north of the Grand River - including all of Leelanau County. The area encompasses some 13.8 million acres, or roughly 37 percent of the acreage in the state. The dispute between the state and the tribes revolves around language in the 1836 Treaty of Washington reserving the right of tribal members to hunt and fish in the area they ceded to the U.S. "until the land is required for settlement." The 1836 treaty led to Michigan's statehood in 1837. The state is asserting that Michigan has been "settled" for some time and that hunting, fishing and other rights retained by the tribes in the inland areas covered by the treaty have expired in virtually all non- reservation areas. Litigation over the meaning and effect of the 1836 treaty began in the 1970s in connection with disputes over tribal members using large mesh gill nets on the Great Lakes. Courts found that the Great Lakes could never be "settled" within the meaning of the treaty and, therefore, the tribes' right to fish in those waters would always exist. The courts did not, however, address the question of inland hunting and fishing rights. The GTB has been issuing its own hunting and inland fishing licenses to its members free of charge since 1996, similar to other Michigan Indian tribes asserting rights under the 1836 treaty. The GTB also operates its own Natural Resources Department, which is staffed by professional biologists and conservation officers who often work in cooperation with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and various federal agencies. But "the tribal (natural resources) laws allow greater opportunities to tribal members than state law in terms of season, species, and regulations, " according to Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, who in 2003 filed pleadings in federal court asking for judicial resolution of the issue. "These greater opportunities are extremely controversial among the public and needlessly expose tribal members to the risk of prosecution under state law." Indeed, in 2002, then-Leelanau County prosecutor Sara Brubaker brought charges against a GTB member for the "unlawful taking of an antlerless deer without a valid (state) permit," and for "recreational trespass" on private land in Leelanau Township. But the charges were dropped after tribal attorneys threatened a lengthy and expensive federal court appeal and the defendant pleaded guilty in GTB Tribal Court to "hunting in a closed area." Michigan DNR deputy director Jim Eckdahl - who was among the witnesses being deposed in Lansing this week - explained that the upcoming federal court case is intended to take the inland hunting and fishing rights issue out of a legal limbo. He said handling the issue case-by-case in local courts would only result in conflicting rulings that would all end up in a federal court anyway. "The state and the tribes have agreed to maintain the status quo for now until we can get the heart of the issue resolved in federal court," Eckdahl told the Enterprise this week. "We believe this is the most reasoned and rational approach to resolving the issue," Eckdahl said. "Simply stated, the tribes believe they have these inland hunting and fishing rights and we, the State of Michigan, believe they don't." An attorney who has represented the GTB for some 25 years in matters related to treaty rights, Bill Rastetter, said he appreciated Eckdahl's approach. But he disagreed strongly with assertions made by the president of the Benzie Fishery Coalition, Edward McIntosh, who wrote a "Readers Forum" item on the issue that appeared in the June 2 edition of the Enterprise. Rastetter said McIntosh's opinion piece contained "false statements that are likely to result in retaliatory discrimination against individual Indian people." He said McIntosh's assertion that the case could "affect private property rights" amounted to "fear mongering" reminiscent of what happened in the 1970s. McIntosh "falsely asserted that ... the tribes are making the claim that they have the unilateral right to cross your land, camp on it, hunt on it, trap on it and `gather' on it, so long as the land is not inside a city's boundary or part of a working farm," Rastetter said. "No such claim has been made by the tribes," Rastetter said. "The fact that an expert witness during a deposition answers a hypothetical question to the effect that such activities are theoretically within the tribe's treaty-reserved rights does not mean that the tribes have made any such claim in the litigation." Rastetter also pointed out that harvest levels by tribal members are minimal. He said approximately 500 deer were taken by all five tribes throughout the 13.8 million-acre cession area, compared to more than 50,000 deer killed just in car accidents. "We non-Indians are occupying land the tribes conveyed so Michigan could become a state," Rastetter said. "In exchange, we should not begrudge the tribes continuing to exercise their treaty-reserved rights on the approximately 4.5 million acres of public land within the 1836 treaty cession area." Copyright c. 2004 Leelanau Enterprise. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: METZGER: Regents face tests on Mount Graham" --------- Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 08:31:39 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="METZGER: MOUNT GRAHAM" http://www.owlstar.com/dailyheadlines.htm http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2005/06/15/64673 Opinion [MOUNT GRAHAM] Regents face tests on Mount Graham The regents' divided and contentious decision now begs a transparent and inclusive review. By Dwight Metzger June 15, 2005 Just as good science requires more than a litmus test, good policy at the University should be accountable to review by many factors. In the wake of the Board of Regents' approval of closing General College, we would be wise to take a look at another controversial policy that has failed to pass such tests. In October of 2002, when the Board of Regents voted to join in the Mount Graham telescope project, against the objections of Western Apache people to whom the mountain is sacred, it imposed a set of "conditions" to salve its guilt. It suggested that Minnesota would help the Apache people and that their "conditions" could somehow mitigate the long-endured harm caused by the telescopes, a situation identified by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as one of the most egregious examples of religious intolerance by government in the United States. The regents' divided and contentious decision now begs a transparent and inclusive review, having completely failed its conditional criteria. In nearly three years since the University committed $10 million to the telescope ($5 million from billionaire Stanley Hubbard and $5 million of public funds yet to be realized), the paltry and disingenuous efforts by the University of Arizona to follow through on the apparently good intentions of the regents have fallen flat. In April 2004, the San Carlos Apache Tribe rejected as bribery the universities' offer of cash designed to get tribal buy-in to the development of their sacred peaks. This tactic is not unfamiliar to the Apache people, who, since 1992, have resisted similar overtures by the University of Arizona lawyers and public relations flaks who would stop at nothing to convert Mount Graham's relic old-growth forests into a telescope city. In that year, when Mount Graham was a raging international scandal, the University of Arizona initiated a strategy to divide and conquer the Apaches by offering money to the tribe and painting the traditional religious practitioners as "isolated ou