_ __ _____ __ _ __ ___ ____ _ __ ___ ' ) / / ') / / ) ' ) ) / ) / ' ) ) / ) / / / / / / /--/ / / / ___ / / / / ___ (_(_/ (__/ ( / (_ / (_ (___/ '__/_ / (_ (___/ ' ____ _ , ___ _ , ___ / ' ) / / ) ' ) / / ' VOLUME 15, ISSUE 047 / /-< / /--/ /-- __/_ / ) (___/ / ( (___, WOTANGING IKCHE - Lakota - Common News Wotanging Ikche and Native American News Copyright c. 1996-2007 nanews.org Aboriginal/AmerIndian Perspective about the First Nations of Turtle Island November 19, 2007 Kiowa Tepgan P'a/Geese going Moon Hopi Kelmuya/Fledgling Raptor Moon Lakota waniyeto wi/Moon when Winter Begins Pomo Kasi-sa/Moon when Cold begins +-------------------------------------------------------+ | 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.indianz.com; www.pechanga.net; www.indiancountrytoday.com; Mailing List: Mohawk Nation News, Native Poetry; UUCP Mail 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 Quotes: + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + "Hate crime against Native Americans is so widespread as to be considered normative by community members." "In spite of the extensiveness of racial victimization, fewer than 5 percent of victims report incidents to police." __ Duane "Chili" Yazzie, Navajo - Shiprock Chapter President +- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -+ | 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 Over 50% of this issue is comprised of a series of articles in the "Native Justice" section. There's a very good reason. The Denver Post ran a superb series on the problems with Native Justice that should be a "must read" for anyone who cares about the failure of Indian Justice; and that should be not just anyone in Indian Country, but everyone in North America. You are encouraged to go read the complete articles in the Denver Post and view the full graphics and video clips; and listen to the audio clips that accompanied the series. The root cause of law enforcement problems on US reservations is the dismissive, paternalistic view the dominant society takes of Indian culture, and the rights it assumes over Indian communities. The more obvious symptom of this attitude is the Indian Affairs system of managing Indian lands (which has resulted in a massive theft of Indian resources). The robbery of the right to justice was more insidious. Both the theft of property and the theft of justice started with the attitude that the savages can't adeqately protect themselves, so the "superior white government" must take their right to control their communities away and manage them from afar. The "superior goverment" has done such a poor job of helping that the culture that had sustained Native communities for hundreds of years foundered within a generation. The children have grown up poorly prepared to thrive in any society, and without control from their own people (because the community is forbidden to control them). The dominant society won't control them because they have more important priorities. Small wonder that the result is a core in many Native communities of real savages that the self-righteous dominant society can point to as the reason they sustain their version of management. And thus an ugly, and deadly circle emerges that Indians are expected to accept. On the few occasions when Native communities have tried to assume self-determination, the dominant government subdued them by force or subterfuge. And so we have communities riddled with violence and fear, arrogant federal officials who don't have time for something so trivial, and local officials paralyzed by policies that forbid them to take effective action. Young children are being victimized, raped and killed. There's an epidemic of violence against women. Substance abuse runs rampant from grandparent, to parent, to child. Shouldn't those of us in Indian Countries (in the US and Canada) support the women, elders and warriors who DARE to say "We ARE a nation. We were here before you. How dare you say our laws do not work when it is clear that yours do not either?" ' ' Gary Smith (*,*) wotanging@bellsouth.net P. O. Box 672168 (`-') gars@nanews.org Marietta, GA 30007, U.S.A. ===w=w=== http://www.nanews.org ----------- News of the people featured in this issue ----------- Editorial Section: - Tim Giago . Indian Country, Indian Law in S.D. Newspaper Hall of Fame - After Seven Years, - JODI RAVE: Scientific Heritage Virginia Tribes still Waiting - Ganienkeh! - CNO Chief rallies support Wake up smell the Swamp Elms among Tribal Leaders - Tohono O'odham complicit - Meetings slated in Border Oppression on Blackfeet Water Settlement - Prosecutor: - Udall: Navajo `Cancer-Free' Tribes need local control before Uranium - Native Justice - Navajo Communications Director: -- 1885 Law at root of Media Accuracy Jurisdictional Jumble - Civil Rights Panel -- Promises, Justice broken learns about Border Town Racism -- Inaction's Fatal Price - Zuni want answers -- Principles, Politics collide from School Board -- Which way to turn? - Navajo Veterans - Rustywire: Tahzii march in Washington, DC - Lee Goins Poem: - Mormons, Mayans and Mystery Autumn in Cherokee - Planet heading to Low-Water Mark - Upcoming Events --------- "RE: After Seven Years, Virginia Tribes still Waiting" --------- Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 07:52:10 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="RECOGNITION FOR VIRGINIA TRIBES" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=LNA/ MGArticle/LNA_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173353498088&path= After Seven Years, Tribes Still Waiting Lynchburg News & Advance November 14, 2007 For more than seven years, leaders of six Virginia Indian tribes have taken their fight for federal recognition to Congress. And for more than seven years, that Congress has found one reason or another to put off that recognition. It is time to end the delays and give those tribes the recognition they so rightfully deserve. The House of Representatives has approved legislation benefiting the Indian tribes, which include the Monacans, who are based in Amherst County. Now, Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, a Democrat, is taking up the fight in the Senate - a fight in which his Republican predecessor George Allen had sided with the tribes. Can Webb make a difference? He's certainly trying, as Media General News Service reported last week. "This is long overdue based on simple dignity and fairness," Webb told reporters at a Capitol news conference. Webb was joined by Virginia tribal leaders and Rep. James P. Moran, D-8th, who sponsored the bill passed in the House. Webb has described himself as a "steward of American history" in the Senate and said his research has led him to conclude that the Virginia tribes deserve the same sovereign status enjoyed by 562 other tribes around the nation. While he did not give new evidence of progress for the bill, he did take note of the opposition to it that has raised the specter of casino gambling to block the measure. "To me," Webb said, "that sort of an issue pales in comparison to the issue of dignity and cultural identity here." The Virginia tribal leaders have said they are not interested in casino gambling operations. But that has not satisfied the opposition that has unfairly used that to oppose sovereignty for Virginia tribes while ignoring it in the past for tribes from other states. Federal recognition would make the people of the tribes eligible for federal grants for education, health care, housing and other areas that could improve their lives and livelihoods. The recognition would also provide the formal respect they are seeking for their heritage and identity. Tribal leaders are optimistic about the bill's ultimate success. "I am as positive about where we are at this point as I have been at any time in the past eight years," said Chief Kenneth Adams of the Upper Mattaponi. In a written statement, Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine took note of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown and lamented the Virginia Indians' current status four centuries after that event that was so widely celebrated earlier this year. "It is especially shameful that Virginia's tribes have still not received equal status with the other federally recognized tribes in the United States," Kaine wrote. The time has come for Congress to treat Virginia's Indian tribes with the same respect and dignity it has granted other tribes around the nation. Their long wait should be nearing its end. Let's hope Sen. Webb can help them achieve that important goal. Copyright c. 2007 The News and Advance - Lynchburg, VA. Copyright c. 2007 Media General. Part of the GatewayVA Network. --------- "RE: CNO Chief rallies support among Tribal Leaders" --------- Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2007 07:10:42 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="CONGRESSIONAL INTERFERENCE IN FREEDMEN SUIT" http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=9150 Principal Chief Chad Smith Rallies Support among Tribal Leaders to Oppose Congressional Interference in Litigation over Freedmen DENVER CO Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma November 14, 2007 Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith urged tribal leaders Tuesday to tell Congress that the citizenship status of about 2,800 descendants of former slaves in the Nation should be decided by the courts instead of politics. At a press conference with National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) President Joe Garcia, Chief Smith unveiled a plan to rally support to oppose H.R. 2824, a bill that would sever U.S.-Cherokee relations and cut nearly $300 million in federal funding for crucial social services such as health care, housing and education for young, elderly and infirm Cherokees. Authored by California Congresswoman Diane Watson, H.R. 2824 aims to punish the Nation in response to a March 2007 vote of the Cherokee people to require every citizen in the tribe - whether African-, Caucasian-, Asian- or Hispanic-American - to have at least one Indian ancestor listed on the 1906 federal census known as the Dawes Rolls. More than 500 other Indian tribes in the United States also require their citizens to have Indian ancestry. The March vote disenrolled about 2,800 Freedmen descendants who had been citizens in the tribe for about a year due to a Cherokee Supreme Court ruling that allowed citizenship for descendants of people listed on the Dawes Rolls as non-Indians. "Rather than follow past court decisions or wait for current federal and tribal court cases to be decided, Congresswoman Watson is pushing a scorched-earth policy that will cut vital services like day care, cancer treatment clinics and housing aid for Cherokees," Smith said. "It is outrageous to propose terminating the existence of an Indian Nation. This is an uncalled for response to a legal question of treaty interpretation. Not since the Termination Era of the 1950s, when the federal government's official policy was complete destruction of indigenous peoples, have we seen such a piece of legislation," Garcia said. On the internet (http://www.cherokee.org/mystory), the Nation has asked individuals to submit stories about their own reliance on the Cherokee Nation's government-to-government relationship with the United States through vital social services. The Nation has also been showcasing its diversity, which includes thousands of African Americans and about 1,500 Freedmen descendants. All are citizens because they each have an Indian ancestor listed on the Dawes Rolls. Litigation over Freedmen citizenship issues continues in federal and tribal courts. Until all litigation is resolved, the approximately 2,800 Freedmen descendants have been reinstated to citizenship in the Nation with full social services assistance and the right to vote. H.R. 2824 will hurt many of those who receive such federal assistance. To help Freedmen descendants become citizens, the Nation will fund genealogical studies to assist them in learning whether they have an Indian ancestor listed on the Dawes Rolls, no matter how long it takes. Here are five other undisputed facts to know about this issue: 1. The March 2007 vote requiring Indian ancestry for citizenship had nothing to do with race and everything to do with who is a Cherokee. 2. The Cherokee Nation has complied with the Treaty of 1866 with the United States, and numerous courts and commentators have confirmed this fact over the last 140 years. The Nation believes the Treaty never granted citizenship to Freedmen and their descendants and that the Congress clarified that today's Freedmen descendants are not entitled to citizenship through the Five Tribes Act in 1906. Regardless of what Congress believes, this issue is before the courts. 3. Two percent of Cherokees held slaves before the Nation voluntarily emancipated them in 1863 - two years before the end of the Civil War. 4. Two-thirds of Cherokees fought for the Union during the Civil War. 5. In addition to cutting social services for Cherokees, H.R. 2824 would eliminate 6,500 jobs in Oklahoma. This article was submitted to Native Times by the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. For more information, go to http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/PressKits.aspx. Native American Times. Copyright c. 2005 All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Meetings slated on Blackfeet Water Settlement" --------- Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2007 07:56:02 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BLACKFEET WATER RIGHTS" http://www.indianz.com/News http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ article?AID=/20071113/NEWS01/711130311/1002 Negotiations continue for water rights By KARL PUCKETT Tribune Staff Writer November 13, 2007 HAVRE - Flows from the St. Mary River figured prominently at the first of four meetings the state is conducting in northcentral Montana on a proposed water compact. It would settle the Blackfeet tribe's federal reserved water rights while attempting to protect users who hold rights under state law. Negotiations broke down last winter but they're back on, and a big reason is a proposal by the tribe that it would agree to a 50,000 acre- foot allocation of water from the St. Mary's - as long as the allocation does not harm the Milk River project. The Milk River project takes water from the St. Mary's and delivers it to municipalities of this community and Chinook, as well as eight irrigation districts. State officials on the Montana Reserved Water Rights Compact Commission, which negotiates on behalf of the state, are conducting the meetings. They said the St. Mary's allocation represents a major step forward in the negotiations. "Our hope is to have it finished next year in Congress," Chris Tweeton, who heads the commission, told a small group attending the meeting Monday at the Duck Inn. The state Legislature and tribal government also need to approve the compact. The compact sets the tribe's federal right to use water in several major drainages in northcentral Montana. Two major differences from last winter's compact and the new deal is how water is quantified in the Birch Creek drainage, which is on the southern end of the reservation. State users had complained they would lose water so changes have been made in response, state officials said. The St. Mary's 50,000-acre-foot allocation is the other big change. It's supported by the state and tribe but the federal team involved in the negotiations is opposed. Doug Oellerman of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, who heads the federal team, said there's not enough water in the St. Mary's to support an allocation of 50,000 acre feet to the tribe year after year. More study is needed to find out how much of an additional allocation the river could support, he said. The 50,000-acre number should not be included in the compact sent to Congress, he added. But state officials said the language in the compact leaves open the possibility that the 50,000-acre feet of water could come from another source other than the St. Mary's - such as the vast amount of water stored in reservoirs by the United States government. The allocation from the St. Mary's is extremely important to tribal members because, under an old treaty between the United States and Canada, the Blackfeet didn't get any water. Don Wilson, who directs the tribe's water rights efforts, said after the meeting that he was extremely disappointed in the stance by the federal negotiators, saying "they've slammed the door in our face." In the negotiations, the federal government represents tribal interests because it holds assets, including water, in trust for the tribe. "I think the United States is misrepresented," Wilson said. The state and the tribe have been in negotiations for more than 20 years and Tweeton said the stars may be aligning to finally get a compact approved by Congress. Next year is an election year, he noted. "We have senator standing for election," he said. And the president is a lame duck, he added. Two previous water rights settlements with tribes were settled under similar conditions, he said. About 15 residents attended the meeting. Meetings continue today in Valier, followed by two more in Browning and Cut Bank on Wednesday. Questions were raised about guarantees the Milk River project wouldn't be harmed by the proposed St. Mary's allocation to the tribe. State negotiators assured those in attendance that the compact contains language that the St. Mary's water, or 50,000-acre feet from another source, would not be allocated if it hurts the Milk River project. "It's a principle both sides are willing to commit too," Tweeton said. Randy Reed, the president of the Paradise Valley Irrigation District, which is served by the Milk River project, said the compact is an improvement over the first one. "As long as the compact doesn't harm the project, I'm good with it," Reed said. Reach Tribune Staff Writer Karl Puckett at 791-1471 or kpuckett@greatfallstribune.com. Copyright c. 2007 The Great Falls Tribune. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Udall: Navajo `Cancer-Free' before Uranium" --------- Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 14:45:10 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="YELLOW DEATH" http://www.gallupindependent.com/2007/november/111507kh_udlurnm.html Udall: Navajo `cancer-free' before uranium By Kathy Helms Dine' Bureau November 15, 2007 WINDOW ROCK - The good news is that Navajo cancer rates are below the national average. The bad news is that there essentially was no cancer on the Navajo Nation before uranium mining, Rep. Tom Udall said. About 250,000 Navajos are served by Indian Health Service, according to Dr. Douglas Peter, director for Navajo Indian Health Service, including former uranium workers, downwinders, and those that live near abandoned mines. "We live with them, we work with them, and we're there to provide the best health care we can to them," Peter told a group of congressional leaders last week during a Uranium Roundtable conducted by Tom Udall, D-N.M., in Washington. "There's a lot known about the health effects" from uranium, Peter said, including published studies from post-Chernobyl, post-Three Mile Island, Hiroshima, and historical studies in the United States. Yet, scientific studies unique to Navajo to discover overall effects "would be difficult because the numbers are not sufficient enough to draw conclusions," he said. While Navajo cancer rates are all below the U.S. rate overall, "I believe Navajo rates of lung cancer would be essentially zero without the history of uranium mining," he said. Udall, whose father brought the original legal cases that connected radon and lung cancer, told Peter, "One of the most powerful arguments the lawyers had in court was the Navajo population was basically a cancer-free population. While the increase in Navajo cancer is still below the national average, Udall said, "that increase is due to outside forces on the Navajo Reservation. That's important for us to understand. ... They were a cancer-free population until they came into contact with the industrial forces of our society." Peter agreed, saying, "Obviously the presence of smoking among Navajos is far lower than the U.S. population. As I stated, there would be essentially no lung cancer had there not been uranium mining among Navajos at this point in time, given what we know of the history from then till present. I won't get into the other types of cancer." He said he concurred with recent testimony on the health effects among Navajo provided by Dr. Doug Brugge at an Oversight and Government Reform hearing chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman. "There remains much to be examined in concert with other federal agencies and working with the Nation," Peter said. "You can look at those living within a certain number of miles of waste sites, or more specific, you can look at all of those who may have ingested unregulated water, but then you have to determine the amount of ingestion. Those who live within certain miles of former milling sites, those living within certain miles of the 1,300 abandoned mine sites, they're potential candidates for studies," Peter said. According to Brugge, associate professor in the department of public health and family medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, "There has been too little research on the health impacts of uranium mining in Navajo communities." The one study under way, conducted by Dr. Johnnye Lewis of the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, will mostly address kidney disease and not birth defects or cancer, Brugge said. "I am deeply saddened by the fact that so little has been accomplished over those decades to eliminate the health hazards faced by the enormous quantities of uranium waste on the Navajo reservation. "Clearly, uranium ore is a toxic brew of numerous nasty hazardous materials. Uranium, itself highly toxic, gives rise to a series of other radioactive decay elements that are found in raw, natural ore. Most significant among these are radium and thorium, both of which are highly radioactive," Brugge said. During testimony before Waxman's committee, Brugge said that when radium decays it produces radon gas, a potent toxicant. "Because it is a gas that becomes airborne, when radon decays it transforms into a series of highly radioactive `radon daughters' that can lodge in the lungs." The primary heavy metal toxicants in uranium ore include uranium itself and arsenic, as well as vanadium and manganese. During the first phase of processing uranium, most of the uranium is removed, leaving behind mill tailings which retain most of the other toxic contaminants from the ore, he said. The milling of uranium is an industrial process that involves crushing and grinding of the rock and the addition of acids and organic solvents to facilitate concentration and removal of the uranium. "Hence, uranium mill tailings and mill tailings effluent are not only highly radioactive, but they are acutely hazardous," he said. The health effects of uranium and its associated radioactive decay products and heavy metals that rise to the level of proven or near-proven causal links include: * Radon, which causes lung cancer, "and in fact, it is the primary source of lung cancer among Navajo uranium miners," Brugge said. * Uranium, which as a heavy metal causes damage to the kidneys and birth defects; * Radium, which causes bone cancer, cancer of the nasal sinuses and mastoid air cells and leukemia; and * Arsenic, which causes lung and skin cancer, as well as neurotoxicity, hyperpigmentation and hyperkeratosis of the skin. "There may also be many other negative health effects from exposure to uranium and its byproducts. In short, there is a clear causal link between uranium exposure and human health. The Navajos continually exposed to uranium and its byproducts even today face grave threats to their health," Brugge said. He also referred to the tailings spill in the Navajo community of Churchrock, saying it remains the largest industrial release of radioactive wastes in the history of the United States. "In 1979, only months after the Three Mile Island release, a dam holding back a tailings lagoon maintained by United Nuclear Corporation failed, sending 94 million gallons of radioactive and acidic wastewater and 1,100 tons of toxic and radioactive mill waste into the Puerco River. "This release, which was substantially larger than the release at TMI, flowed into a low-income, largely Native American community. This incident has been virtually ignored in the press and scientific literature. "For the people in Churchrock and other Navajo communities contaminated for decades with uranium ore tailings there are no `good' options, too much harm has already been done. But there are ways that we can gradually make things better so that maybe the children and the grandchildren of the Navajo uranium miners are not still grappling with this toxic legacy," Brugge said. A good start would be to provide sufficient resources to secure or remove contamination at these hazardous waste sites and to do so in a manner that prevents additional exposure to nearby residents. "Congress must fund the Navajo Nation and federal health agencies to provide resources for health studies among the tens of thousands of Navajo community members who still live next to abandoned mines and/or who were exposed to uranium from the contaminated dusts brought home by their working relatives. "As terrible as the health effects that we know arise from toxins in uranium tailings, there are almost certainly additional ways that the health of Navajo people living near uranium mill and mine waste has been affected. If we are to understand the full extent of this injustice, we will also need additional health studies," he said. Copyright c. 2007 the Gallup Independent. --------- "RE: Navajo Communications Director: Media Accuracy" --------- Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2007 07:56:02 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MEDIA NEED TO BE FAIR AND ACCURATE" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://216.109.157.86/press_release/\ Navajo%20Nation%20Communications%20Director%20Calls%20On%20Newspaper%20 To%20Report,%20Opine%20Accurately,%20Completely,%20Fairly%20About%20 Conference.htm NEWS FROM THE NAVAJO NATION OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT & VICE PRESIDENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 13, 2007 NAVAJO NATION COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR CALLS ON NEWSPAPER TO REPORT, OPINE ACCURATELY, COMPLETELY, FAIRLY ABOUT CONFERENCE WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. - On Tuesday, Navajo Nation Communications Director George Hardeen issued this as a letter to the editor of the Farmington Daily-Times. We appreciate the opportunity to respond to its Nov. 11 story and editorial column. With finger of blame pointed directly at the Navajo Nation and its leaders for the third time in a week, the Farmington Daily-Times delivers acrimony and assumption to its readers rather than facts and details. Despite two weeks of "investigating," and already proclaiming that a federal investigation is warranted, the newspaper reports with certainty that "answers remain elusive," "identities remain unknown," participants "may have paid their own way," and information "could not be confirmed." One's left to wonder what "claiming ties to the Navajo Nation" really means. Yet, regardless of the paucity of its investigation's findings, its editorial voice blusters with a wind that fans a fire of emotion the newspaper itself lit. Without a thought, editor Troy Turner casually dismisses a point-by- point deconstruction of the poorly-crafted news story that launched this imbroglio. In doing so, he shows readers not to expect the Daily-Times to take criticism, only dispense it. Meanwhile, he accuses Navajo officials of a deficiency of communication, accountability and ethics, professional standards that the Daily-Times proves itself wanting of in its coverage of this story. Here's why Mr. Turner and the Daily-Times are wrong: . Despite its claim to have sent 55 Freedom of Information Act requests to schools, the newspaper has yet to report a confirmed number of Navajos who attended the Hawaii conference, what organizations they represented, report any interviews with federal officials, or cite any document to support its alarming assertion of widespread wrongdoing. Instead, it substitutes lots of opinion for fact, in both its news columns and on its editorial page. Whose duty is it, if not a newspaper's, to gather and then check and double-check information before publication? How else does a newspaper ensure accuracy, the mother's milk of journalism? Only through diligent confirmation and verification does a newspaper earn and maintain its credibility with readers, especially with a story that alleges misuse of funds or illegal activity. The Daily-Times has not done this. If it had, there would be no question a week later about how many Navajos attended the conference, at what cost, or who paid for them. The Navajo Nation government did not send the majority of participants, despite the newspaper reporting that it did without correction. So what obligation does the Navajo Nation now have to call every school district in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah to find out how many participants they might have sent? None. That's the newspaper's job, and the Daily-Times hasn't done it. . From the start, the Daily-Times' stories have been based on speculation that has not been independently corroborated or verified. Nonetheless, Mr. Turner asserts that the Navajo Nation should be ashamed, said high Navajo attendance at the Hawaii conference should be considered a "crime," and pronounced the Nation guilty of enough waste to require a federal investigation. With such generalities, one wonders who would be prosecuted. In calling for such an investigation, Mr. Turner turns to someone else to do his newspaper's legwork to get to the bottom of what it apparently can't quite figure out. How, then, is the Daily-Times accountable to readers when it cannot report the very information it says justifies a federal investigation? How is it accountable when it holds the Navajo Nation responsible for the free, independent and legal actions of its citizens who are not its employees? . The portrayal of the National Indian Education Association conference by the Daily-Times is that it was a waste of time and money, and that attendance was for frivolous reasons only. In fact, Mr. Turner writes that thousands were spent to "wine and dine as many as 400 Navajo representatives" even though the newspaper has not published a single statement from anyone who said they enjoyed wine while dining. Doesn't such a representation tend to defame and ridicule Navajo officials, educators and citizens when not even the Daily-Times has reported whether it's remotely true or not? . Mr. Turner states there has been a lack of cooperation from the President's office although he and other reporters in his newsroom are fully aware that I spoke to reporter Cory Frolik four times over three days prior to publication of his first story. Mr. Turner sarcastically and disparagingly writes that President Shirley is "rumored to still hold office but has refused interviews to prove it," although his reporter has not once attempted to reach him or me since his first story was published. Still, Mr. Turner has no hesitation to try to turn public opinion against the President. Meanwhile, when traveling to Washington, D.C., last week, the President was interviewed by KNDN-Farmington, the AP Albuquerque bureau, and the Los Angles Times. The President makes himself available to local, regional and national reporters regularly, as a Google search would show. He speaks to the Navajo public on the radio every week, and makes public appearances every week both on and off Navajoland. The Daily-Times once published verbatim Q & A interviews with President Shirley each quarter until Mr. Turner signed on as editor and the practice was dropped. For Mr. Turner to now accuse the President of being inaccessible is preposterous when his own reporters let weeks and weeks go by without a phone inquiry to his office. . In every case and in every story, it is a professional journalist's job to separate fact from rumor by confirming information. If it checks out, report it. If it doesn't, then, obviously, don't. Yet the Daily-Times has failed to do that with this story. With uncertain figures based on incomplete information, it rushed to judgment, and now unfairly faults Navajo Nation leaders as unaccountable, unethical and unresponsive without having spoken to anyone but the man on the street. The Daily-Times should figure out what its story is. It should figure out who its news sources are. And then it should report professionally and responsibly to its readers. At the same time, its editor should stop taking wild swings at Navajo leaders and educators, and provide his newsroom and community with the leadership he was hired to provide rather than the rancor he's broadcasting now. George Hardeen, Communications Director Office of the President and Vice President The Navajo Nation --------- "RE: Civil Rights Panel learns about Border Town Racism" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2007 07:36:35 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="BORDER TOWN BRIEFING" http://www.indianz.com/News http://www.daily-times.com/news/ci_7455530 Local officials: Border town briefing inconclusive By Alysa Landry The Daily Times November 14, 2007 WASHINGTON, D.C. - The United States Commission on Civil Rights may seek more input about racial discrimination in border towns following a federal briefing last week that local officials call inconclusive. Shiprock Chapter President Duane "Chili" Yazzie and Farmington Police Chief Jim Runnels attended the Washington, D.C., briefing to provide insight into relationships between American Indians and their Anglo neighbors. But the topic was too broad to cover in the three-hour meeting, Runnels said. "The overall problem was far bigger than they thought," he said. "We were talking about health care, business, law enforcement - it was too broad of a scope to accomplish anything. We need to narrow that focus." The commission invited a panel of six people from American Indian reservations and border towns across the nation to deliver statements last Friday. It targeted people who have personal experience with discrimination or those with a broad national outlook, commission director Kenneth Marcus said. Attendees included representatives of the Navajo, Anishinabe, Chippewa- Cree and Paiute tribes, and an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. Two of the six panelists were from San Juan County. The commission has a history in Farmington, but did not target the area, Marcus said. The commission produced two reports on racial violence in the area since 1974. The first report summarized the murders of three Navajos by three Farmington High School students; the second, produced in 2004, was a look at the area 30 years later. The 2004 report found "significant progress in race relations between the Navajos and whites in Farmington," but Yazzie claims hate crimes and police brutality still occur - namely, the 2006 beating of William Blackie and the Farmington Police officer's shooting of Clint John. "Hate crime against Native Americans is so widespread as to be considered normative by community members," Yazzie said in his statement. "In spite of the extensiveness of racial victimization, fewer than 5 percent of victims report incidents to police." American Indians often don't report crimes because they are afraid police do not take victimization seriously and they fear police misconduct, he said. Navajos still are subjected to verbal, financial and physical abuse, Yazzie said, but the border towns of Farmington, Gallup and Cortez, Colo., are addressing them. "The common forms of discrimination we see today appear to be less aggravated and fewer in number than what we experienced in the 1960s into the 1970s," he said. "Some have surmised that perhaps this suggests the perpetrators have only become more adept and have more refined their culture of hate." Runnels called Farmington's relationship with American Indians tenuous at best and violent at worst. Members of four American Indian tribes frequent the city, and officials are making strides to correct wrongs, he said. "There are still examples of discrimination among Native Americans, but progress is being made," he said. "While racism and injustices will continue in Farmington and the entire world, there is an understanding in the Farmington area that the Native American people are an integral part of the community and should be afforded the rights and respect that they deserve." The commission will compile panelists' suggestions and report its findings to Congress, but it may take longer than a year before results are available, Marcus said. The commission refused to comment on its findings when reached by phone Tuesday. The Commission on Civil Rights paid travel expenses for both Runnels and Yazzie to attend last week's briefing. Alysa Landry: alandry@daily-times.com Copyright c. 2007 Farmington Daily Times, a MediaNews Group Newspaper. --------- "RE: Zuni want answers from School Board" --------- Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2007 07:10:42 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="SUPERINTENDENT WILL NOT MEET WITH UPSET PARENTS" http://www.gallupindependent.com/2007/november/111407kf_znischlbrd.html Zuni want answers from school board By Karen Francis Dine' Bureau November 14, 2007 ZUNI - Parents and community members resorted to protesting actions by Zuni Public School District Superintendent Dr. Kaye Peery prior to a school board meeting Tuesday. About 20 people held up home-made signs and yelled "Textbooks not SUVs" for almost two hours before the meeting started. Some of the parents spoke to the Independent prior to the protest and meeting because they said they have not been able to meet with the superintendent herself. "We get no official word from the government or the school about what is going on," Dan Simplicio, a parent, said. "The community is literally left in the dark here." However, in an interview just before the school board meeting, Peery said, "No one has been in to see me about those issues." Other parents, though, had the same complaint that Peery has not met with them to discuss their concerns despite several attempts. "She's never been at any of our meetings. She doesn't want to meet with us," Natalie Gasper said. "This is the first time we have come across a superintendent who will not attend any type of meeting," she added. Straddie Edaakie agreed. He said, "There's so many things that have come up, yet when we ask for more information, no information is available. Our children should be number one, not themselves." Edaakie said that he was not aware of the problems in the school district until he went in to speak to a teacher about his concern with the lack of progress that students are making. He discovered that some classes did not have textbooks and many classes were being taught by temporary substitutes. "Looking further into it, I was shocked to find out what was going on," Edaakie said. "It's pretty hard to talk to the superintendent right now. She's too busy for everybody. Period." Edaakie wondered how the school could meet adequate yearly progress without the resources available to teach the children. Gasper had the same question as Edaakie. "How can our children learn when they don't even have certified teachers in the classroom?" she asked. She said substitute teachers have been in the classrooms since the beginning of the year, and that when children ask questions, "teachers just yell at them." "All their work is just Xeroxed and copied from what the teachers have," Gasper said. "How are they expected to learn without books, teachers?" The superintendent said that no formal requests have been made by the parents regarding educational assistants and textbooks, which were the subjects of several of the signs held during the protest. "Nothing has been denied," Peery said. "I don't know where all this is coming from." Still, the parents are concerned that school funds are not being used to benefit the students. "There seems to be a lot of free spending but in the wrong places. They have redecorated offices and provided new furniture for incoming staff," Edaakie said. Simplicio had concerns that Peery created the position of assistant superintendent, which he said uses more of the school's important resources on administrative staff rather than on teachers or classroom resources. Gloria Aguilar, who has a child in Zuni schools, said that "an enormous amount of money has been spent to renovate and create spacious offices at central offices for the superintendent and her assistants, i.e., new wood furniture, soundproofing the superintendent's offices, three new Toyota Hybrid SUVs which are only used by the three and a combined salary of $348, 000." Aguilar said that while the superintendent spends lavishly on herself and her assistants "our students at Zuni High School have had to use discarded desks and work stations that came from an elementary school." Peery admitted that she had renovated and expanded her office, which she said had previously been in an old storage closet. "There was no confidentiality. The superintendent needs a place to have meetings," Peery said. "The desk was held together with Scotch tape." She also said that no new administrative positions have been created since she came on board as superintendent a year and a half ago. Instead, the positions of director of curriculum and director of human resources were restructured and renamed. The parents had even more concerns with her leadership. The employee with the school district said that, "the morale in the district is at an all time low. Parents, students and staff are made to feel that they do not have a voice because when they do try to speak up, there is fear of repercussion, reprisal and retaliation." Simplicio said that one of his former students, who now attends Twin Buttes High School, was admonished by the principal for an interview he did with the Zuni governor for the school newspaper. "Consequently the superintendent and the assistant superintendent made inquiries into who the student was and told him not to do those types of interviews for the school newspaper," he said. To Peery, the problem is that there is a lot of misinformation getting to the community. "I think there's been a lot of misinformation and we are requiring a lot more accountability. The state and federal government are requiring more accountability," she said. The lack of information made available to the public was also mentioned by Simplicio. Without communication from the school district, "we have a tendency to get word from the rumor mill," he said. "The leadership is so lax in this area." Copyright c. 2007 the Gallup Independent. --------- "RE: Navajo Veterans march in Washington, DC" --------- Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2007 07:56:02 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="NAVAJO VETERANS MARCH" http://www.indianz.com/News http://www.daily-times.com/news/ci_7446154 Navajo veterans take part in Washington, D.C. parade The Daily Times November 13, 2007 More than 60 Navajo veterans gathered Saturday at the nation's capitol to participate in a Veterans Day parade. The parade commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which spans 246 feet and includes more than 58,000 names of soldiers who either died during the war or who are classified as missing. The Navajo veterans who attended the parade represented all branches of the U.S. military. The Navajo Nation banner was carried by Lola James of Ganado, Ariz., and Trophix J. Knight, both of whom served in the Iraqi War. American Indian veterans were honored along the parade route, receiving cheers and applause as they passed by thousands of people lining the streets, according to a Navajo Nation Washington Office press release. The day-long event included a ceremony at the Pentagon, featuring Navajo veterans Jake Singer and Jack Jackson Sr., the release states. The ceremonies concluded with a reception at the Grand Hyatt in downtown Washington, D.C., which was opened by a Navajo prayer. An all-night American Indian prayer service was held at the National Mall, and ended Sunday morning. Copyright c. 2007 Farmington Daily Times, a MediaNews Group Newspaper. --------- "RE: Mormons, Mayans and Mystery" --------- Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 16:23:31 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MORMON HISTORICAL ACCOUNT" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.sltrib.com/faith/ci_7483717 Mormons, Mayans and Mystery The Book of Mormon's version of history continues to be challenged - and championed - by skeptics and faithful By Peggy Fletcher Stack The Salt Lake Tribune November 17, 2007 LDS biologist Trent Stephens thinks he may have triggered the change in the Book of Mormon's introduction that became public last week. Stephens' efforts came after a lifetime of hearing Mormon leaders and members talk in glowing terms about the link between American Indians and the Book of Mormon's small band of Israelites who sailed from Jerusalem to establish a civilization in the Americas. After centuries of warring among themselves, the book says, the last ones standing were known as "Lamanites." To the LDS faithful, Lamanites were real people with a real history. Every Mormon prophet since the church's founding in 1830 has taught that Indians descended from Lamanites. The perceived link explains the church's initial outreach to Indians in the northeast and later in Utah. It is why the church created an Indian Placement Program, urging members in the 1950s to care for those they saw as part of their religious family. Mormon missionaries working in Central and South America have always told potential converts the Book of Mormon is their ancestors' story. Sometime in the past decade, Stephens learned about DNA evidence suggesting American Indian origins were in Siberia, not the Middle East. It was no crisis of faith for Stephens, a former Mormon bishop and Idaho State University professor. He found lots of ways to explain the discrepancy. Besides, Book of Mormon text makes no claims about lineage. The book's 1981 introduction was the only text that said "Lamanites were the principal ancestors of American Indians," and that could be changed. On March 23, 2004, Stephens told his LDS stake president in Pocatello that critics were using DNA evidence against the book, pointing to the introduction's wording. The leader recognized the problem and took it to the LDS Area Authorities, who took it to the LDS Missionary Committee in Salt Lake City. Sometime last year, LDS authorities instructed Doubleday, which published the only unofficial version of the Book of Mormon, to change its introduction to read: "Lamanites were among the ancestors of the American Indians." The move didn't satisfy critics, such as Simon Southerton, a former Mormon excommunicated for the arguments in his book, Losing a Lost Tribe: DNA, Native Americans and the Mormon Church. "The change raises more pressing questions for those seeking the truth. If science was right all along about the dominant Siberian ancestry of American Indians, are they also right about the timing of their entry?" Southerton wrote in an e-mail from his home in Australia. "There is abundant evidence, some now coming from the DNA research, that their Siberian ancestors arrived over 12,000 years ago. How does such a date fit with other LDS beliefs?" DNA is not the only challenge to the Book of Mormon's version of history. Mormon founder Joseph Smith said the book was written in "Reformed Egyptian," which he claimed to translate from the writings on gold pates he unearthed in Upstate New York. Non-Mormon scholars have never heard of such a language and wonder why Jews would use the language of their oppressors rather than Hebrew to record their sacred history. The book mentions metals, elephants, horse-drawn chariots, wheat, and Non-Mormon archaeologists take the whole thing "as a complete fantasy, that this is a big waste of time," said Michael Coe, an emeritus professor of Mesoamerican studies at Yale, in last spring's PBS documentary "The Mormons." "Nothing can ever come out of it because it's just impossible that this could have happened, because we know what happened to these people. We Mormon scholars at Brigham Young University's Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship and at FAIR (The Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research), though, think they have an answer for every critique. They've spent decades collecting relevant pieces of archaeological, geographical and linguistic evidence to prove it. Finding correspondence: For the past 55 years, John Sorenson has inhaled every detail of Book of Mormon life and history. It was Sorenson who first proposed that the scripture's action likely took place in Guatemala and southern Mexico, rather than encompassing both North and South America. This idea, known as the limited geography thesis, better explained the book's description of a "narrow neck of land" and the Land Northward and Southward, and helped solve some of the earlier archaeological challenges and is now the consensus view. Sorenson, 83, retired from BYU's anthropology department about 21 years ago but still comes every day to the school's Museum of Peoples and Cultures. He is completing what he says will be his final work, tentatively titled, The Mormon Codex. "The intent will be to show that only a Mesoamerican native from about fourth century A.D. would have known enough to write what's in the Book of Mormon," Sorenson said. "I have hundreds of correspondences between the [Mormon] text and archaeology. I will put down the most persuasive, cogent ones of those with the aim to demonstrate that it was written by an eyewitness in Mesoamerica." Metals were used much earlier than most archaeologists believe, for example, and 50 purported horse bones have been found, some of which may be old enough to fit the scripture's time frame, he said. Then there's the question of naming. "We are dealing with the names, horse, cattle, goat, and sheep, but that's in English," Sorenson said. "There are a variety of animals native to the Americas that could qualify as bearing those names." To find clues, Sorenson has poured over Mesoamerican scholarship and matched it with Old World findings, suggesting a connection between the two. Sorenson belongs to a renegade group of anthropologists known as "diffusionists," who believe numerous voyages carried people and animals to the New World. Last year, he collaborated with Carl L. Johannessen, a non- Mormon geographer at the University of Oregon on a paper, "Biological Evidence for Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Voyages." In it, they cited 99 plant species that appeared in both the old and new worlds before the Spaniards' arrival. Such views are scorned by most conventional archaeologists, Sorenson said, but it doesn't deter him. "I don't have time to wait for it all to become clearer to everyone else, " he said. "I need to publish everything I've learned." On the ground: While Sorenson and the Maxwell Institute are careful about declaring a certain site to correspond directly to a Book of Mormon city or story, Joseph L. Allen is more confident. Allen, a retired teacher in the LDS Church Educational System with a doctorate in Mayan studies, has been leading Book of Mormon tours for 40 years. He has taken more than 200 trips to Guatemala and southern Mexico with groups eager to walk where scriptures say important episodes happened. More than 80 percent of the book's action takes place between the Land of Nephi and Zarahemla, which are described as being about 30 days of travel apart, or some 250 miles, he said. "It is a small area." Allen believes the book's final battle took place in Veracruz, Mexico, not in New York where Smith said he found the plates. He sees many connections between the Mayan civilization and Nephites and Lamanites. He see the myth of Quetzequatl, the white god who appeared in the Americas, as a possible link to the Book of Mormon tale of Jesus Christ appearing in the New World after his resurrection. "We've learned more in last 30 years about the history and geography of the Book of Mormon than in previous 170 years," Allen said. "The best days of this research are still ahead of us." Despite such enthusiasm, Allen knows it is not archaeology that persuades readers to believe in the scripture's authenticity - it is faith. "When all is said and done," he said, "it's a spiritual book." That's why Stephens, the Idaho biologist, works so hard to explain the lack of DNA evidence for Lamanites. He sees a parallel between the Mormon text and the Bible. Biblical writers viewed themselves as the stars on God's center stage, a favored people. To everyone else at the time, the Hebrew prophets and people were little more than a footnote in the epic histories playing out around them. Though some biblical names, places and episodes have been identified by archaeologists, scientists have not found any hard evidence that the Exodus of Israelites from Egypt even took place. The same could be true of the Book of Mormon, said Stephens, co-author with Jeff Meldrum of Who are the Children of Lehi: Lamanite Identity, DNA and Native American Origins, is due out later this year. "It tells the story of a small group of people among a lot of other groups who were largely unaware of this tiny colony," he said. "How small would a subpopulation have to be before it would be completely missed?" On top of that, Stephens doesn't believe every group arrived via the Bering Strait. "To think that over a 30,000 year history, every hominid came in one single migration over a few year period is ridiculous," he said. "There's an arrogant naivete' about how accessible the Americas were before Columbus." Mormons, too, have their own arrogance, he said. The revised wording in the Book of Mormon's introduction "should cause members to rethink their perspective on Native American traditions," Stephens said." I do think it will change people's minds, but it will take it a long time." --- PEGGY FLETCHER STACK can be reached at pstack@sltrib.com or 801-257-8725. Send comments about this story to religioneditor@sltrib.com. Copyright c. 2007 The Salt Lake Tribune. All Rights Reserved. --------- "RE: Planet heading to Low-Water Mark" --------- Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:19:47 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="DROUGHT IS PERMANENT CRISIS" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/Environment/article/277417 Planet heading to low-water mark In her latest book, activist Maude Barlow says drought is now a permanent crisis Peter Gorrie ENVIRONMENT REPORTER November 18, 2007 Last Tuesday, on the sun-drenched steps of the state legislature building in Atlanta, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue bowed his head and prayed for rain. "We have come together, very simply, for one reason and one reason only," he said. "To very reverently and respectfully pray up a storm." Georgia is just one of many places around the world badly in need of a long, soaking downpour. Toronto has just experienced one of the driest summers on record, but it was nothing compared with the parched conditions in many parts of the United States, Australia, Asia and Africa. Down in Georgia, Perdue acknowledged that part of the problem is wasteful consumption of a precious resource. But he and most others there figure they're just enduring another dry cycle. The main question for them is whether the skies will open before their shrivelling reservoirs go bone dry. Their plea to God: Send a cloudburst sooner rather than later. Nice try, says Maude Barlow. But they're on the wrong track. Barlow, a long-time advocate for environmental, social and political change, sets out her reasons in a new book, Blue Covenant and highlighted them in a recent interview. The current shortages aren't a low point in a normal up-and-down pattern, she says. The global crisis, she says, is a new permanent threat - more serious than climate change; "like a comet aiming at Earth" - that humans can hope to fend off through hard choices, not divine intervention. Everywhere, Barlow says, we've so plundered, polluted and degraded the customary fresh water supply, near Earth's surface, that there's no longer enough to go around. Two billion people lack sufficient and safe water. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says 36 states are in some stage of crisis. In response, humans dig deeper into the planet, sucking up groundwater supplies far faster than nature can replenish them. We also drain the Great Lakes and other large water bodies, and cook up ecologically devastating schemes to move huge quantities. Even more water is transferred around the world in food and manufactured products. China, for example, diverts glacial melt water from Tibet, which spawns five major rivers and supports hundreds of millions of people. Instead, the supply goes to Chinese factories so they can churn out shower curtains and running shoes for us. Closer to home, at least three barrels of water are embedded in each barrel of synthetic crude shipped from Alberta's oil sands. That's how much it takes to mine and refine the sticky bitumen. If production quintuples, as planned, "Alberta will run out of water," Barlow says. The Great Lakes are near record low levels, thanks in part to the 4 trillion litres removed every day that aren't replaced. Climate change and the water shortage feed each other, Barlow says. Deforestation, paving and other means of altering natural surfaces makes matters worse by disturbing the hydrological cycle - remember those elementary school drawings of water evaporating from trees and falling back as rain? In developing countries, the traditional, well-meaning solution - pouring in money to dig more wells - no longer works, Barlow says. The groundwater they're tapping is running out. "We need to link the ecological, poverty and human rights concerns," Barlow says. Otherwise, "we'll just hook up more people but continue to pollute the surface water they should be using." There, and here, the only hope lies in conserving and protecting water, and creating green spaces where rainwater can be stored and kept in the cycle, Barlow says. "I see this as salvageable if we catch it in time." That means stopping pollution, planting trees and recreating wetlands, installing green roofs, replacing leaky pipes, abandoning crops that demand too much water - whether they're grown for food or to make ethanol. It means keeping water under public and community control, rather than letting corporations acquire and sell it for profit. And it means banning large-scale exports, such as a scheme to pipe water from northern Manitoba to green up desiccated lawns and golf course fairways in Texas and Arizona. "We have more water than others, but if we allow it to go as energy has... we won't be a country with lots of water." She takes hope in what she views as a growing international movement to protect water. But it faces formidable odds. The biggest might be an idea with a stranglehold on humans - "the notion of unlimited growth; that you can just keep growing and there's no price to pay." With all this: Is there enough water? "I don't know," Barlow replies wistfully. "Oh Father, we acknowledge our wastefulness," Governor Perdue advised God last week, adding that "we're doing better." But, it seems, not nearly enough. Copyright c. Toronto Star 1996-2007. --------- "RE: Tim Giago in S.D. Newspaper Hall of Fame" --------- Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2007 07:10:42 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="GIAGO FIRST NATIVE INDUCTED IN S.D. NEWSPAPER HALL OF FAME" http://www.indianz.com/News/2007/005874.asp Tim Giago in S.D. Newspaper Hall of Fame November 14, 2007 Tim Giago, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, was inducted into the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame last week. Giago founded The Lakota Times newspaper on the Pine Ridge Reservation. It became Indian Country Today, which was the largest independent Indian newspaper before being purchased by the Oneida Nation of New York. Giago went on to start The Lakota Journal before his retirement in 2004. He continues to publish his "Notes from Indian Country" column in media outlets across the nation, including Indianz.Com and The Huffington Post. Giago is the first Native American in the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame. Copyright c. 2007 Indianz.com. --------- "RE: JODI RAVE: Scientific Heritage" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2007 07:36:35 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JODI RAVE: FIRST LABORATORY FOR NATIVE STUDENTS OPENED" http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/11/14/jodirave/rave25.txt Native News Scientific heritage: University of Montana opens country's first laboratory for Native students By JODI RAVE of the Missoulian November 14, 2007 Michael Ceballos couldn't believe there wasn't a national Native research institute somewhere in the United States, so he set out to create one. On Tuesday, Ceballos placed his first order for laboratory chemicals and science equipment as he and University of Montana students begin working in, arguably, the country's first university research lab created for Native graduate and undergraduate students. "The idea behind the Native American research labs is to provide hands- on research experiences, both laboratory and field experiences, for Native students who have come from economically disadvantaged communities or from tribal colleges where you often don't have access to instrumentation and expertise," said Ceballos, a research assistant professor at UM. Four students - recipients of a MILES grant, part of the Howard Hughes medical program - are now at work in three new laboratories on the University of Montana campus, combining a hands-on and cross-disciplinary setting with state-of-the-art research instrumentation. "Science is data, it's documentation, it's everything that's necessary for tribal development to occur," said Madonna Peltier-Yawakie, president of Turtle Island Communications, a telecommunications and engineering company in Brooklyn Park, Minn. "If there are going to be Native Americans who are skilled in those areas, they have to have access to those kinds of facilities." Too often, the opportunities for Natives to learn hard science slip away in high school, said Aaron Bird Bear, American Indian student services coordinator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "The preparation level of students coming from rural schools that are predominately American Indian enrollment - they're always coming with a huge hurdle of math to catch up with," said Bird Bear. "It usually impedes them from enrolling in foundational course work like chemistry. You see these kinds of barriers that keep American Indians from participating in the sciences." He said of the 193 self-identified undergraduate Native students at UW- Madison, 43 are majoring in science or engineering. Brian Hall, a UM doctoral student in pharmacology and a former Blackfeet Reservation high school student, said he wasn't prepared for molecular biology when he got to college. "It was an eye-opening experience," Hall said. "My biology class was really very simple and macro. What did we do? We studied the Linnaean classification system. There was nothing molecular." Flo Gardipee, also a UM doctoral student, earned an undergraduate degree in wildlife biology. She is looking forward to working with Native undergraduates in the new research labs. "It's going to provide a place where we can take on some projects and have some independence and work in a comfortable environment," she said. "I'm proud of Michael for getting this started. This is awesome." Ceballos, an Alfred P. Sloan Scholar, is completing a doctoral degree in integrative microbiology and biochemistry. He brings two active research awards to UM, including grants from the National Science Foundation and NASA. "The university has made it a priority to assist Native Americans to enter careers in science," UM President George Dennison said. "The establishment of the laboratory will help immensely because it will provide a safe place for experimentation and guided learning." Across the nation, about 400 Native students complete university degrees in science and engineering each year, said Don Motanic, a trustee for the American Indian Science and Engineering Society Foundation. "The big issue is that of those graduates, only about 10 percent remain connected with their community," said Motanic, an InterTribal Timber Council technical specialist in Portland, Ore. The next step is for tribes to create more jobs for these science and engineering students to return home to, said Peltier-Yawakie. Ceballos, a Choctaw and Cherokee descendent, said those numbers might change if Native students were taught early in their education about the amazing science accomplishments achieved and practiced among indigenous peoples, which is a part of "true Native heritage." "Natives have been involved in science for thousands of years and have achievements comparable to anything in Western Europe," Ceballos said. "If you look at ... all these great achievements in Native history, not many Natives know about them. Why aren't they being taught these things, especially in reservation high schools, about the grandeur of Native history in respect to science and engineering?" Bird Bear said he pursued an undergraduate degree in physical oceanography precisely because of what he didn't learn in high school. "I went into the sciences, mostly because I couldn't stand the social studies curriculum of K through 12," he said. "Celebrating European- American domination and achievement wasn't really something I had a stomach for. The sciences were just a really clear path of procedure and protocol." Reporter Jodi Rave can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at jodi.rave@lee.net. Copyright c. 2007 Missoulian, a division of Lee Enterprises. --------- "RE: Ganienkeh! Wake up smell the Swamp Elms" --------- Date: Wed Nov 14 7:17 From: 'orakwa' Subj: MNN Ganienkeh! Wake up smell the swamp elms HEY! GANIENKEH! WAKE UP AND SMELL THE SWAMP ELMS MNN. Nov. 13, 2007. It looks like the many former and current victims and their families were relieved that the atrocities of Thomas Delaronde, Mary Swamp and Laureen Delaronde of Ganienkeh have become public. Thomas, Mary, Laureen and their `plotters' allege that MNN committed "treason" by writing the facts and posting it in a place where the world can see it. What treason? The Great Law is about freedom of speech. This is suppressed in Ganienkeh. [HISTORIC "GANIENKEH" - the attempted...] MNN did not encourage a "takeover". It called upon people to save an important project which should have grown and prospered into a model of Indigenous sovereignty and human rights. Instead it has been turned into a closed isolated cult-like camp of `mindless groupies'. Accusing MNN of advocating a "takeover" proves that Ganienkeh has become a private corporate enterprise of three conspirators and their paid worshippers. Thomas, Mary and Laureen did not tell us why so many people left Ganienkeh. The excuse is that "not everyone could adapt to a life without running water, electricity, modern conveniences and the worries of not knowing what would happen next". What about those who did adapt? Why did they leave? Anyone who asked about accountability for projects and behavior were isolated and ignored. The questioners were made to feel unwanted. This neglect eventually filtered down to their children who left to save their children from scorn. These deliberate psychological abuses are violations of the entire philosophy of the Great Law. In some instances so-called "seers" were consulted to create a type of "witch hunt" against these questioners. One person was singled out as practicing "bad medicine". Spreading these false stories among their supporters was meant to create hatred and fear of this person. Eventually the grandchildren were infected with the same garbage. The family, relatives and grandchildren then had to leave. The founders like Karoniaktajeh were adamant about keeping out superstitions such as "witchcraft and sorcery". They condemned these practices as "mind control" strategies of the church and the government. When the "disciples", Thomas, Mary and Laureen, were seen "blessing" the water in Ganienkeh, many questioned their "beliefs". Other atrocities include denying firewood in wintertime to a young mother with a newborn baby on direct orders from Thomas; denying access of a parent to see their child or be "shot" trying; belittling young married couples who were having marital problems; and young people succumbing to outside addictions such as drugs and alcohol being ostracized rather than helped, labeling them as "too much trouble". Such cases of neglect are all violations of the Great Law. The Ganienkeh Indian Project was created so that Indigenous peoples could grow and develop to their fullest. We had to address all the issues that afflict our people. Ganienkeh was not meant to be the private estate of a few privileged "schemers", Thomas, Mary and Laureen. Those who stole money and property from Ganienkeh were often welcomed back without much scrutiny. These were often close associates and family members of Thomas, Mary and Laureen. Rather than punishing the guilty, often the friends or relatives of the "thieves" were beaten. Guilty by association! A non-native professional employed in the community stole what was said to be over $1 million. He had gained the trust of the "social set" [Thomas, Mary and Laureen]. Investigators tracked him to Hawaii where he lives in luxury. Viable projects were either deliberately failed and neglected or turned down. Agricultural projects that should not only feed but financially help the community fell by the wayside. Beef cattle were allowed to inbreed depleting the herd's bloodline. Goat farming became a laughing stock. They were left un-milked for up to three days on a number of occasions. Farming projects were mismanaged by the "clique" [Thomas, Mary and Laureen] who controlled the funding. Workers were expected to be productive using equipment that was obsolete 50 years ago. [Doesn't this sound like Indian Affairs?] Requests for modern equipment to improve production went unheeded by the "gang of three". Other good projects were proposed such as canning, a bakery and a butcher shop. They were all ignored. It was easier to reap the windfall of cash from slots and cigarettes. It was too much trouble to create alternative and self-sufficient ways to carry the community through tough political times like illegal state and federal tax assessments on gas, gaming and cigarettes. Workers began to neglect their responsibilities. If the "cabal" [Thomas, Mary and Laureen] didn't seem too concerned about how things ran, then why should they, especially for their low wages and no benefits? Many came to Ganienkeh from all across Turtle Island with nothing. They hoped to escape the oppression, destitution and despair of "reservation" and city life. Ganienkeh was a ray of hope. No drugs, no alcohol, no foreign laws to deny them their identity! They left behind a "black hole" they dreaded returning to. Consequently they had to tread lightly, fearing expulsion from Ganienkeh by the "junta". Many grew tired of the rhetoric and seeing only a select few benefiting from everybody's hard work. They left [of "their own free will", as the "grand manipulators", Thomas, Mary and Laureen, often said]. It's true that a small minority was expelled for violating the Great Law. The vast majority left due to mistreatment, abuse, neglect and atrocities committed against them by these three who fancied themselves as `plantation slave owners'. There were free thinking and knowledgeable people who came to help Ganienkeh, who thought it would benefit all Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island. They wanted to see the fulfillment of Karoniaktajeh's idea of a national identity on the world stage for all true people to learn from. In the eyes of the "divine rulers", such far-sighted people posed the biggest threat to their little empire. These "would-be string pullers" had to stop these kind and generous people from helping. When these "tyrants", Thomas, Mary and Laureen, could not maneuver the Great Law for their own benefit, they descended to violence! No peace, power and righteousness here! Only blind rage, hate, jealousy, revenge, gossip, greed, threats and laziness! 8,000 to 10,000 people did not give up their voice. They were muted through fear and they had to leave. Thomas, the leader of the "dictators", often speaks of the "kawatsire", family, as the foundation of the Great Law. Many of their own blood relatives want nothing to do with them. Why? The trustees on the "Turtle Island Trust" recently released a letter throwing their support behind Thomas Delaronde. They thanked him and his "henchwomen" for what they have done for Ganienkeh. One trustee is a close "personal" friend of Thomas. He refuses to be swayed in his support for this distorted and deformed-minded man. A few years ago when people who had "adapted" to the lack of modern conveniences were being pushed out, they paid a visit to him. They told him of Thomas, Mary and Laureen's corruption. The trustee told them, "You're upset now. You'll get over it". In the early 90's some Onondaga families asked Ganienkeh to help them reacquire land by using the Turtle Island Trust. They refused. It has become the toy of Thomas and his "sidekicks", Mary and Laureen. No one else need apply. The Grand Council of the Iroquois Confederacy sanctioned the establishment of Ganienkeh in 1974. The Confederacy has an obligation to see that this project continues its original intent, with the backing and support of the Mohawk people. Thomas and his "groupies" have stated that they will not recognize the Confederacy. Says the forked-tongued self- admirer, "There are no longer any true Onkwehonweh left. They all follow the Indian Act or federal Indian law". This is not true! Thomas, Mary and Laureen closed down the school. Almost $1 million worth of books, materials and manuscripts were destroyed or burned. Text books were sold for 25 cents each. They felt there was no need to educate the children on world history and current events. Just like some famous book burners in the past, their actions are not original. It's popped into the minds of so many tyrants throughout history all around the world. Ganienkeh is only 33 years old, still in its infancy stage. It's prone to mistakes like any child. The other 8 Mohawk communities are "elders" by comparison. The Confederacy as a whole has a very mature mind. Thomas and his "preschool dynasty" have become big spoiled brats. They come and go as they please. They answer to no one. They're like those kids who murder their parents because they don't want to be accountable for their actions. It's time for us to gather our minds among the roots of the great swamp elm and to counsel. Once again we must save this great project that can still be a model for other Indigenous nations to follow. Public problems require public debates. The only solution to this is through an open and transparent procedure as prescribed by the Great Law. [To help and comment: ganienkehrestoration@hotmail.com] Kahentinetha Horn MNN Mohawk Nation News See `Ganienkeh' http://www.mohawknationnews.com/news/news4.php? en=en&layout=mnn&category=17&srcurl=/news/news3. php%3Flang%3Den%26layout%3Dmnn%26sortorder%3D0 --------- "RE: Tohono O'odham complicit in Border Oppression" --------- Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 07:53:02 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="MOHAWKS INFLAMED OVER TOHONO O'ODHAM TRIBAL COUNCIL COMPLICITY" http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/ Tohono O'odham Council complicit in border oppression Mohawk Nation News: Article by Brenda Norrell, with inserted comments by Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, and Indigenous Border Summit participant November 15, 2007 MOHAWKS INFLAMED OVER TOHONO O'ODHAM TRIBAL COUNCIL COMPLICITY IN "BORDER" OPPRESSION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE - U.S. welcomes rich and kills the poor THE GATE, TOHONO O'ODHAM NATION (Arizona) Nov., 8, 2007 - Indigenous delegates to the border on Tohono O'odham Nation land were outraged by the federal agents, hovering customs helicopter, profiteering contractors, federal spy tower, federal "cage" detention center and watching the arrest of a group of Indigenous Peoples, mostly women and children, by the US Border Patrol on an Indian Nation. "We saw it all firsthand in America," said Bill Means, Lakota and cofounder of the International Indian Treaty Council on Nov. 8, when an Indigenous delegation went to the [so-called] "US/Mexico" border here, south of Sells, to document human rights abuses [including murders, rapes, torture, deaths] for a report to the United Nations. "We are going to take this wall down," Means said, after viewing the construction of a "border vehicle barrier" by contractors and National Guard on Tohono O'odham land. [This wall is something to see. It is iron posts filled with cement, sunk 5 ft. into the ground and 6 1/2 ft. high. it is going to be electrified.] Speaking a few hours later to the Indigenous Peoples Border Summit of the Americas II in San Xavier, Means called for solidarity of Indigenous Peoples throughout the world to halt the arrests of Indigenous Peoples who are walking north in search of a better life, and solidarity to bring down the US/Mexico border wall."One inch of intrusion into our land is not acceptable!" Mohawk Mark Maracle told the Border Summit. "I became very angry when I saw those guys rounding up our people. It is a violation of our Great Law to witness what we saw today and do nothing about it." [We felt so powerless. What could be do. They had all the guns!] The delegation included Mohawks, Oneida, Navajo, Acoma Pueblo, Hopi and O'odham. Near the border, at the scene of the arrests of a group of Indigenous Peoples, Mohawks stood before US Border Patrol agents and yelled at them about the illegality of their actions. They held their fists high in solidarity, as the Border Patrol packed nearly a dozen Indigenous Peoples into one vehicle. The delegation also viewed the federal spy tower next to Homeland Security's migrant detention center known as "the cage" on the Tohono O'odham Nation. The first stop, however, was the abomination of the new wall being constructed on O'odham land. Kahentinetha Horn of the Mohawk Women Title Holders said she saw the callousness of the Tohono O'odham district official [Marla Henry mhenry_ ckd@yahoo.com] standing before them and speaking in favor of the border barrier. [Marla asked, "What people are you talking about?" "Your People", we all said. She smiled the whole time]. "This is completely illegal," Kahentinetha said, adding that it violates human rights and international law. Kahentinetha was outraged at the arrests of the group of Indigenous Peoples, who appeared to be young Mayans from Oaxaca, Chiapas or Guatemala. "We stood in front of the Border Patrol yelling at them," Kahentinetha told the Indigenous Border Summit. She described how the Mohawks stood with fists held high in solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples who were arrested earlier in the day. "We tried to pass some of our strength on to them to fight." The Indigenous delegation documenting the abuses planned to intervene in the arrests, but the Border Patrol crowded the group into a vehicle and left quickly. Mohawk warrior Rarahkwisere, among those disheartened to see the arrest of fellow Indigenous Peoples on Indian land with the help of Indigenous people, was shaking with anger. He pointed out, "These brothers and were not drug runners or criminals. These were men, women and children walking in search of a better life". [They have the same rights as anyone else? This fence is being erected by people who claim to support a "free market society". They really want low labor costs. Today some live well and others are pushed to starve. These people are not just economic migrants eager to get into the US to sponge off welfare. They are being forced to flee. The multinational corporations are spraying toxic chemicals on their homeland.] Jay Johnson Castro of Del Rio Texas, leading protests against the imprisonment of migrant children at Hutto prison in Texas and the border wall in Texas, was in the delegation."I hear 'sovereign nation,' but I didn't see sovereign actions [by the Tohono O'odham]." Castro said the buildings near the border on the Tohono O'odham Nation are labeled "Homeland Security and Tohono O'odham Nation. They are partners [in crime! Partners in genocide!] Maracle said the atrocities that the US government is falsely accusing migrants of doing, is what the invaders did when they arrived on Turtle Island: rape, robbery and murder. [We do not believe that toddlers and 9 year olds are committing such crimes]. "If we don't stop and grab hold of our destiny, there is not going to be one for our children." Maracle said. "All the nations need to come together and stop what is happening here. I know from past experience with the Mohawk Warrior Society where our power lies. It is with the people. Don't ever forget that." Chris George, Oneida from Canada, said, "When the Border Patrol came up, they treated us like as enemies." The Border Patrol imemdiately asked the summit delegation "Who authorized this delegation to be at the border and who is your leader?" [Did they think we were a bunch of martians or something?] "No one authorizes us to do anything. Creation brought us there". George warned, "Don't let the United States government tell us who we are. We are Haudenosaunee, People of the Longhouse." Lenny Foster, Dine' (Navajo) and advocate for Native ceremonial rights for inmates, said that what he witnessed was "brutal, vicious and evil." He said Dine' know that all human beings have five fingers. He said that he did not recognize the district official and federal agents as having five-fingers. "They were robots." Foster said that the Tohono O'odham district official [Marla Henry] who led the tour was defending the [colonial] policies of genocide. Describing how the Indigenous Peoples were arrested and quickly rushed into a small vehicle, Foster said, "It reminded me of Gallup, N.M. and how they round up our people, stacked them up like cords of wood." Foster was at the dirt path leading to Mexico, also known as The Gate, years ago when the American Indian Movement protested the violation of human rights there. He remarked on the heavy buildup of police and agents, from the BIA, Tohono O'odham Nation, US Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs agents and the National Guard. They were all working with the contractors constructing the wall, while a white customs' helicopter hovered menacingly overhead. At the same time, on the Mexico side [of the "imaginary line"], two men sat under a tree. An attorney for the O'odham in Mexico was prevented from crossing into the United States portion of Tohono O'odham land by the US Border Patrol. This man held a letter from Tohono O'odham Nation Chairman Ned Norris requesting to meet with him today. Norris stated that the attorney could enter the Nation by way of "The Gate" that we were at. The Border Patrol officer at the scene refused to allow the attorney to enter, over-ruling Chairman Norris. He said the attorney must have a US visa and not just a letter from Norris. [This goes to show how some Indians are letting themselves be puppets of the low ranking "foot soldiers" of the U.S. government.] The attorney waited there in the company of a Tarahumara who held a US visa. Foster pointed out that the Mexican federales or police, who arrived on the other side, could do anything with these two people who were left there. "They could even be torturing them now." Means also pointed out that the delegation was "tailed" or followed from the tribal capitol of Sells. Means also said that the Berlin Wall had come down, but now there are other walls to divide the people [that are being built all over the world]. At the border wall, Means said one of the workers announced proudly, "The Israelis are helping us put up the wall." Border wall contractor Boeing has hired a subcontractor, Elbit Systems, an Israeli defense contractor, who helped build the Apartheid Wall in Palestine. Means said the U.S. "gated communities" have expanded into a "gated country" where the government welcomes the rich [and kills the poor]. [We were down there during the "Remembrance Day" weekend. Is this the world the soldiers sacrified for?] Mohawk Nation News Note: An international summit must be called immediately. These kinds of borders are allegedly being planned worldwide. We've been informed that a wall is being planned on the "imaginary line" known as the Canada-U.S. border. This is a violation of Indigenous law, human rights and international law. This plan to control all of mankind and the natural world must be stopped immediately! Direct your criticisms to: Marla Henry mhenry_ckd@yahoo.com; Verlon Jose, Chairman of Tohono O'odham Legislative Council, Box 837, Sells, Arizona 85634, verlon.jose@tonation-nsn.gov; and to your local Congressmen, Senators, media, file international complaints; To help, contact: Mike Flores MNN Mohawk Nation News http://www.mohawknationnews.com/ kahentinetha2@yahoo.com & katenies20@yahoo.com --------- "RE: Prosecutor: Tribes need local control" --------- Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2007 07:36:35 -0700 From: Gary Smith Subj: NA News Item - - - - - - -- - - - - - - filename="JUSTICE REQUIRES LOCAL CONTROL" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://durangoherald.com/asp-bin/article_generation.asp? article_type=news&article_path=/news/07/news071113_5.htm Prosecutor: Tribes need local control By Joe Hanel | Herald Denver Bureau November 13, 2007 DENVER - The complicated justice system in Indian Country is "the last revenge of George Armstrong Custer," said Colorado's top federal prosecutor. Before Custer fought the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where he died with his cavalry, he spoke some last words to his Indian agent: "Keep everything exactly the way it is until I return." U.S. Attorney Troy Eid told the story Monday at the National Congress of American Indians convention. Eid said the Indian law-enforcement system was created by a government bent on eliminating the tribes. "The entire purpose of this system was to be a short-lived system where the federal government would play a limited role for one, maybe two generations," Eid said. But the system survives today. The federal government remains responsible for prosecuting major crimes on Indian reservations. Eid, who said he was speaking for himself and not the Department of Justice, said the system should be reworked. "We need to go toward options that provide local control," Eid said. The nearest federal district judge to Colorado's Ute tribes is 360 miles away, in Denver. Eid is the top prosecutor on the Ute reservations, but he was appointed by the president, not elected from the tribes, he said. He spoke during a panel discussion on law-enforcement troubles in Indian Country. Congress will attempt some changes next year, said John Harte, a senior aide to the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Harte unveiled a "concept paper" and asked for comments from Indian leaders. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., plans to turn the paper into a bill to be introduced next year. The paper calls for increased powers for tribal police departments to enforce all laws on their reservations. It also has several ideas to increase the responsiveness of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Dorgan's paper can be read at indian.senate.gov. jhanel@durangoherald.com Copyright c. 2007 The Durango Herald. All rights reserved. --------- "RE: Native Justice" --------- Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 09:03:14 -0700 From: Janet Smith [owlstar@bellsouth.net] Subj: NA News Item -- 1885 Law at root of Jurisdictional Jumble -- Promises, Justice broken -- Inaction's Fatal Price -- Principles, Politics collide -- Which way to turn? filename="INDIAN JUSTICE: JURISDICTIONAL JUMBLE" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_7422829 indian justice 1885 law at root of jurisdictional jumble By Michael Riley The Denver Post November 11, 2007 Much of the law that governs America's Indian lands starts with a trade-off. In the 18th and 19th centuries, tribal chiefs signed treaties giving away their rights over vast stretches of territory, and in turn the federal government took on specific obligations. Much of Indian Country policy since has been an effort to resolve the inevitable tensions: the federal government as guardian of Indian interests versus the tribes' view of themselves as sovereign peoples. Nowhere is the myth of sovereignty so apparent as the sphere of justice. Shocked that the murderer of a Brule Sioux chief was set free under tribal custom, Congress in 1885 gave the federal courts power to prosecute the most serious crimes in Indian The reach of that power was codified in a series of court cases and laws stretching over the next 90 years, which limited tribal court sentences to one year and stripped tribes of any authority to arrest or prosecute non- Indians. One result was to create perhaps the most complicated jurisdictional regime in the country. It's the only legal system under which the race of the victim and perpetrator determines the court of jurisdiction. Police working on or around Oklahoma's patchwork reservations have to carry GPS devices because the change by a few feet in the location of a crime can determine whether it's under state, tribal or federal authority. Another result was to short-circuit the relationship between prosecutors and the communities they serve. There are no elected district attorneys accountable to the community. And it's among the rare arenas where federal prosecutors routinely deal with ordinary violent crime, usually the purview of state courts. It's a job the federal system wasn't designed to do, experts say, and in many cases does poorly. Blurred lines of responsibility Take the case of the investigation of major crimes. With several agencies potentially involved - both tribal and federal - major investigations offer an opportunity for broad mutual support. Instead, they are hampered by cross-cutting jurisdictional lines, poor communication, thin resources and a vast lack of accountability. Strictly speaking, the FBI is responsible for serious Indian Country crime. In practice, lines of both authority and responsibility often blur. Both tribal police and the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs have the authority on some reservations to investigate felony crime, alongside the FBI. The agencies often cooperate, but there are few hard-and-fast rules to allocate cases, and with all three elements badly undermanned, serious crimes tumble through the cracks. For those felony crimes that are fully investigated and forwarded to U.S. attorneys for prosecution, two- thirds are rejected out of hand. If both the victim and defendant are American Indian, the cases can be taken through tribal court and the suspects charged with any crime covered by the tribe's legal codes - including murder, arson, rape and drug trafficking. But limitations on sentencing effectively turn all of those crimes into misdemeanors, and tribal jails' chronic overcrowdedness can reduce the time behind bars to a few months, even weeks. Copyright c. 2007 The Denver Post or other copyright holders. All rights reserved. -=-=-=- filename="INDIANS AT RISK" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_7429560 lawless lands | first in a series Promises, justice broken A dysfunctional system lets serious reservation crimes go unpunished and puts Indians at risk. By Michael Riley The Denver Post November 13, 2007 In the stacks of thick folders that cover Jonnie Bray's desk, there are tales of monsters. The one in her hand starts on a winter night in 2003, when Ronnie Tom tries to rape the 12-year-old sister of his live-in girlfriend on the Colville Indian Reservation in eastern Washington. When she manages to escape, he moves on to his girlfriend's 7-year-old daughter who is nearby, and here he succeeds. Bray, a Colville Indian and one of the tribe's prosecutors, said an expert forensics interviewer found the 7-year-old's testimony recounting the rape clear and credible. And a sexual-predator profile of Tom warned that he should never be allowed to be alone with children, including his own, or live "near places designed for children, such as schools, playgrounds (or) swimming pools." But Tom was never charged with a felony crime. That's because here, as on the majority of the country's nearly 300 Indian reservations, the sole authority to prosecute felony crime lies with the federal government. One hundred fifty miles away in Spokane, an assistant U.S. attorney - faced with a distant case and a 7-year-old witness - simply declined to prosecute, something that crime data show they do in 65 percent of all reservation cases. Now Ronnie Tom is out of jail, freed after serving less than two years on the equivalent of misdemeanor charges Bray cobbled together in tribal court, including a separate incident involving the 12-year-old discovered later. Bray said he is again living with his girlfriend and their new child - a girl. "He is a danger to our community and to any community," Bray said. "I was just disgusted. I don't think I've ever spoken to that U.S. attorney again." Already some of the most violent and impoverished places in America, facing a steep rise in meth-fueled crime, the country's Indian reservations are also plagued by a systematic breakdown in the delivery of justice, a six-month investigation by The Denver Post found. U.S. attorneys and FBI investigators face huge challenges fighting crime on reservations: They are viewed as outsiders who shouldn't be trusted; locations are remote; the high levels of alcohol use among victims, suspects and witnesses that accompany many serious crimes can also make them very difficult to prove, several U.S. attorneys said. "We have the obligation before proceeding to a grand jury to make sure we have a prosecutable case," said James A. McDevitt, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, who said he could speak only generally and couldn't comment on why his assistants rejected the Tom case. "We're not in the business of taking cases we're going to lose." But the system is also badly dysfunctional, insiders say, burdened by competing federal priorities such as immigration and terrorism and undermined by institutional resistance to using the high-powered federal judicial machine to prosecute run-of-the-mill violent crime. "I've had (assistant U.S. attorneys) look right at me and say, 'I did not sign up for this,"' said Margaret Chiara, who until March was the U.S. attorney for western Michigan, with jurisdiction over several reservations. "They want to do big drug cases, white-collar crime and conspiracy. "And I'll tell you, the vast majority of the judges feel the same way. They will look at these Indian Country cases and say, 'What is this doing here? I could have stayed in state court if I wanted this stuff,"' she said. "It's a terrible indifference, which is dangerous because lives are involved." Most cases rejected A review by The Post of dozens of criminal cases on more than 20 reservations substantiates widely held concerns among American Indians that the system as it now stands functions poorly, including investigations that are chronically delayed or dropped, and serious crimes never prosecuted as felonies. On the Fort Peck reservation in Montana, a man recently assaulted his girlfriend and broke her jaw, a result that didn't count as "serious bodily injury," according to the U.S. attorney, who therefore declined the case. According to the tribal prosecutor, who was forced to charge the suspect in tribal court, the same man has since committed several other crimes, "literally wreaking havoc here," she said. On the Blackfeet reservation on a remote stretch of the Canadian border, a 41-year-old mentally handicapped woman named Maria Kennerly allegedly was raped by a neighbor more than a year ago. With no word yet on the progress of the investigation and with the neighbor still living next door, Kennerly's mother said she now keeps her daughter under constant supervision, virtually a prisoner in her own home. And on the Navajo reservation in Arizona, federal prosecutors recently declined to prosecute the rape and incest case of a man who had sex with his 23-year-old daughter after she had passed out following a family party. The federal prosecutor cited lack of a viable DNA sample on the condom used by the father, Larry Nez. Faced with the testimony of the victim, Nez pleaded guilty in tribal court but served just 60 days in a Navajo jail. With prosecutors and investigators exercising wide discretion, the effectiveness of justice on reservations varies widely, swayed by personal relationships, the commitment of individual agents or prosecutors, even such vagaries as distance. A General Accounting Office report in the 1980s found that the farther a reservation was from an FBI field office, the higher the percentage of felony prosecutions that were declined. The sometimes inconsistent politics of tribal sovereignty haven't helped, some American Indians concede. A decades-long effort to shift more police powers to the tribes hasn't necessarily been matched by tribal governments' willingness to fully pay for and professionalize those ranks. A primary reason so many cases are rejected, federal prosecutors complain, is botched crime scenes or poorly prepared cases by tribal investigators who aid the FBI. "It has been too easy for everybody to fall into role-playing on the federal part of it," said Philip S. Deloria, director of the American Indian Law Center in Albuquerque and a member of the Standing Rock Sioux. "The FBI doesn't care. The U.S. attorneys are unfeeling. And so the Indians pay the price. "That's not entirely untrue," he said, "but it's not as exhaustive an explanation as it might seem." Deep sense of anger But taken together, data and interviews from reservations across the country show vast gaps in justice in Indian Country that have spawned a deeply felt rage over what is seen as the latest in the federal government's string of failures concerning American Indians. "They've created a lawless land," Vernon Roanhorse, a Navajo tribal prosecutor, said of the federal justice system. Among The Post's findings: Between 1997 and 2006, federal prosecutors rejected nearly two-thirds of the reservation cases brought to them by FBI and Bureau of Indian Affairs investigators, more than twice the rejection rate for all federally prosecuted crime. As prosecutors and investigators triage scarce resources or focus on new priorities such as terrorism, hundreds of serious cases of aggravated assault, rape and child sexual abuse occurring on reservations are sent instead through tribal misdemeanor courts. Investigative resources are spread so thin that federal agents are forced to focus only on the highest-priority felonies while letting the investigation of some serious crime languish for years. Long delays in investigations without arrest leave child sexual assault victims vulnerable or suspects free to commit other crimes, including, in two cases The Post found, homicide. With overwhelmed federal agents unable to complete thousands of investigations or supplement those done by poorly trained tribal police, many low-priority felonies never make it to federal prosecutors in the first place. Of the nearly 5,900 aggravated assaults reported on reservations in fiscal year 2006, only 558 were referred to federal prosecutors, who declined to prosecute 320 of them, according to data from the Interior Department and the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, at Syracuse University. Of more than 1,000 arson complaints reported last year on Indian reservations, 24 were referred to U.S. attorneys, who declined to prosecute 18 of them. After decades of complaints, Congress has doubled the amount of money allocated to the Bureau of Indian Affairs for tribal police. But that increase - to $200 million this year - has been largely spent on patrol officers and chasing misdemeanor crimes. Federal investigators and prosecutors have also received sizable boosts in their budgets for work in Indian Country, but those increases have failed to produce a perceptible rise in the number of investigations or prosecutions from reservations. While some tribal authorities are demanding stepped-up federal enforcement, the debate over sovereignty has complicated a unified cry for reform. Efforts in the 1990s to increase federal agents assigned to Indian Country or place more federal magistrate judges there were opposed by some tribes because they enhanced federal power. And any effort to give tribes more authority over felony crimes would have to be optional, Indian Country experts say, because some tribes - whose resources and commitment to law enforcement vary - wouldn't be willing to pay for it. Low expectations Of the many costs of those failures, the worst may be this: Many people on reservations no longer expect justice. Anna Yellow Owl, a slight 39-year-old woman who lives on Montana's Blackfeet reservation, was trying to protect her 18-year-old son from an angry neighbor three years ago when the man struck her in the face, causing partial loss of use of one eye, surgery and permanent disfigurement. "Every morning when I'd get up, every time I'd wash my hands, I'd look in the mirror and see my face. "I know what I used to look like," Yellow Owl said. "I was so angry." But while the attack took place in midafternoon in front of 14 witnesses, it took nearly two years - until early 2006 - for the FBI to complete its investigation and for the U.S. attorney to decide to prosecute the case. Having recently lost a daughter in an auto accident, Yellow Owl told the FBI agent who finally called that it was too late; she no longer wanted to pursue the matter. "If they had only acted right away," she said. "As a woman on a reservation, I've always been treated as a second-class citizen, and I've gotten used to it. I try not to let it get me upset. But justice doesn't happen here." It's a despair that echoes through Indian Country. On the Crow reservation in Montana, a 6-year-old girl allegedly was sexually assaulted by a family member, but according to the tribal prosecutor, the case is still under investigation by the FBI nearly three years later. Frustrated by the delay, the Crow prosecutor recently filed charges in tribal misdemeanor court, only to realize that the delay in the case put it beyond the tribe's statute of limitations. On South Dakota's Cheyenne River reservation, three men broke into a house, stealing several thousand dollars' worth of property. When tribal detectives failed to investigate thoroughly, the victim spent weeks collecting evidence himself. Based on that investigation, the U.S. attorney filed an indictment, and all three pleaded guilty to burglary, the tribe's prosecutor said. It turned out that a key piece of evidence - a plate covered with the thieves' fingerprints and which tribal detectives swore they had sent to a forensics lab - was found months later in the tribe's evidence room. Straddling old and new Few places show the system's breakdown so readily as the collection of towns and remote villages tucked in the folds of the country's largest reservation - the land of the Dine', the Children of God, as the Navajo call themselves. Navajo society straddles both old and new: The tribe has one of Indian Country's most advanced judicial systems but one of its worst prison systems. Women adorned in sweeping traditional skirts swish through the doors at Wendy's, their faces deeply creased by the desert sun. A small offshoot set away from the main reservation, the enclave of To'hajiilee (pronounced Toe-hajee-lay) just west of Albuquerque is in many ways typical. At the end of 5 miles of deteriorating road, it dissolves into clusters of villages organized along clan lines and fiercely private. But the peaceful veneer is deceptive. Alcoholism and drug use are chronic, and from that stems crime that is at once brutal and intimate - often committed by family members, but certainly among people who know each other: Rape. Bloody beatings. The physical and sexual assault of children. Trying to trace what happens once those crimes are reported is difficult, even for Vernon Roanhorse, To'hajiilee's veteran tribal prosecutor, whose frustration is evident as he flips through a tall stack of recent case files. Pulling out a blue folder, Roanhorse scans the case of a 4-year-old girl who doctors at a tribal clinic suspect had been molested by her father. Following tribal protocol, they contacted authorities in March 2006, when the girl was brought to the hospital, but neither the Navajo police nor the FBI seems to have investigated the report, and the case remains in limbo, he said. Grabbing another folder, this one red, Roanhorse scans the file of Ben Francisco. The 45-year-old Navajo man was driving a truck on a muddy road in January 2007 when he slid into another car. The two men inside pulled him from the cab, beating him with a bat so badly that he had to be flown by helicopter to an Albuquerque hospital, where a metal plate was put in his cheek. In seven months, the FBI had never interviewed Francisco, the victim said, and no arrests had been made, though both suspects had been identified. The FBI office in Albuquerque declined to comment on any Indian Country cases in New Mexico, either closed or ongoing. Capt. Robert Platero, the Navajo head of criminal investigations for the area that includes To'hajiilee, said the FBI is notified of cases his investigators are working on through weekly reports, cooperating with his agents on those most likely to go before federal prosecutors. But in many cases, the reality is less smooth - and highlights a badly fragmented system in which neither the tribe nor the FBI takes responsibility for ensuring that serious crime is fully investigated. To begin with, Roanhorse said, the Navajo tribe's own investigator assigned to the community works out of his home 30 minutes away in Albuquerque. On one Tuesday this summer, his office mailbox was full, and the last time Roanhorse or any of his staff had seen him in the office was two months before. Division of duties In the case of child sexual assault - to take the example of one crime that seems to plague this reservation - tribal and federal investigators divide the cases by a rough rule of thumb: Federal investigators usually take the lead when the victim is 9 or younger, authorities say; tribal investigators take the lead with older victims. But federal prosecutors often decline those cases precisely because the victim has been interviewed too many times or by investigators who aren't specially trained to handle child sexual assault - as few Navajo investigators are. One of the files on Roanhorse's desk is for Kim Platero's 12-year-old daughter, who reported to police in October 2006 that she had been sexually molested more than a dozen times by a neighbor beginning at the age of 11. Over the past year, as the investigation languished, Platero (who is no relation to the Navajo investigator) said her daughter spent most of her time cooped up in a small bedroom, the suspect's house clearly visible through a curtained window. Her sleep habits changed, and her daughter's personality, once outgoing, became dark. In such a tight-knit community, it's difficult to step forward. But Platero's experience as a sexual assault counselor convinced her it was important. Platero's daughter told a tribal investigator that she was molested several times while babysitting, the neighbor escalating contact over a period of months. He once lay on top of her and masturbated, the child told police. Another time, he allegedly reached beneath her underpants to touch her vaginal area. Roanhorse said the FBI apparently is aware of the case but in nearly a year had never contacted Platero, followed up on the tribal police's initial interview of her daughter or, as far as the mother can tell, talked to the suspect, a distant family relative. The tribe's social services department recently lost the only caseworker who served To'hajiilee. The U.S. attorney's office in Albuquerque wouldn't confirm whether it knew of the case or the status of any federal investigation. Even if Roanhorse wanted to take the case through misdemeanor tribal court, it hardly merits the effort. Navajo jails are so crowded that the community of To'hajiilee is allocated space for just one prisoner at a time, creating what amounts to a revolving jailhouse door. To Platero, who occasionally calls authorities for an update, always without luck, it shows how a system with overlapping opportunities for intervention can also fail multiple times. When two strangers came to the door in July, Platero said her daughter "was really excited because she thought (they) were the FBI," only to be disappointed by a pair of journalists. Tired of waiting and worried about her daughter's deteriorating emotional state, Platero finally moved off the reservation in September, convinced it was the only way to protect her family. "It's hard for me to explain to her why nothing is happening," Platero said. "If this had happened in Albuquerque, something would have been done." Staff researchers Barbara Hudson and Barry Osborne contributed to this report. Michael Riley: 303-954-1614 or mriley@denverpost.com Copyright c. 2007 The Denver Post or other copyright holders. All rights reserved. -=-=-=- filename="INDIAN JUSTICE: DELAYS" http://www.pechanga.net/ http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_7437278 lawless lands | second in a series Justice: Inaction's fatal price Delays and missteps in Indian Country criminal cases can give offenders a free pass. The consequences can be tragic. By Michael Riley The Denver Post November 13, 2007 Zach Gervais and Arthur Schobey weren't supposed to die. Both young, both American Indians, the men were killed by assailants who should have been in federal custody for violent crimes they had committed on Indian reservations months earlier. Gervais' killer had stabbed two people on the Blackfeet reservation in what a police report described as an unprovoked attack, piercing one of the victims at least nine times. Though just about everyone in the windswept community of Browning, Mont., knew the assailant and where he lived, the FBI failed to make an arrest for seven months. So he was in his living room when Gervais - a popular boy who had volunteered to help a female friend move out of the assailant's house - tried to intervene in a scuffle and was stabbed just below the armpit, the blade slicing through a major artery near the heart. The death was bloody, without the mercy of being quick. A thousand miles away, Arthur Schobey's killer had stabbed two men in an isolated Navajo village after a scuffle in June 2004, grabbing one from behind and slicing his throat from the earlobe to the middle of his chin. After initially arresting the wrong man, the FBI appeared to let the case drop. The agency didn't issue a federal warrant despite the victims' clear identification, ask for the help of tribal police in locating the suspect or bother to look for the assailant at the tribal casino where he worked a few minutes away. As a result, he was at an Albuquerque apartment complex four months later when there was an argument involving his brother, Schobey and Schobey's brother. The assailant pulled out a knife and stabbed the pair from behind, according to Albuquerque police, killing one and seriously wounding the other. "He could have been locked up instead of running around on the streets," said Marlene Schobey, the victim's mother, who concedes she has fallen into a deep depression since the trial for her son's murder. "It just angers me." One of those cases - the death of 18-year- old Zach Gervais - has mobilized a tide of resentment in the towns and villages of the Blackfeet reservation, that rare event that seems to crystallize years of simmering bitterness and, for many, sums up the injustice reaped by a badly broken system. Occurring a thousand miles apart but under strikingly similar circumstances, the two cases show the difficulties of investigating crime in some of the country's poorest and most isolated communities: FBI agents are often considered unwanted outsiders with little connection to reservation communities that can be both secretive and violent. But the two cases also offer a tangle of missteps and unwarranted delays by the country's elite corps of federal investigators - seemingly amateur mistakes that underscore flaws in the way serious reservation crime is investigated. "Part of this is structural, by having the FBI doing this. ... These guys are great at white-collar cases with lots of documents, but the knife fight, not so much," said Kevin Washburn, an American Indian and former federal prosecutor who writes extensively about reservation law enforcement. "It's just a different world for them," he said. "You think of the FBI agent in the gray suit, in some ways they just aren't built for this." Not a coveted assignment The fact that they are there at all is an artifact of a century-old law that gives the federal government sole authority over felony-level crime on most Indian reservations. While the vast majority of the FBI's 12,000 field agents work complex cross-jurisdictional crimes such as counterespionage, organized crime and terrorism, a little more than 100 act as the equivalent of ordinary police detectives, chasing down perpetrators of sex assault, arson and murder over millions of acres of remote and often violent Indian lands. It's work many federal agents resent, insiders say, and reservation postings are low on the agency's status ladder. "The FBI would always say that Indian Country was the agency's second- highest priority, and our running joke was "Then, after 9/11 and terrorism, we became the third-highest priority - terrorism, everything else and then Indian Country." For Scott Cruse, supervisory agent for the FBI's Helena, Mont., office until this past August, it's not lack of will that's the problem. It's simply a question of numbers. The three FBI agents assigned to investigate felony crime on the Blackfeet reservation each juggle up to 50 open cases at a time, he said, putting tremendous strains on even the most dedicated investigators. "If you only knew the level of violence and the number of things that happen up there," Cruse said, sounding like a man under siege. "When the level gets that high, it gets to the point where how do you respond to everything? You're just overwhelmed." Yet that understaffing is by choice, a reflection of priorities set 2,000 miles away in Washington. An analysis of budget figures by The Denver Post shows that as Congress has given the FBI more money specifically directed to fight reservation crime over the past decade, the agency has instead shifted it to programs deemed more urgent. Between 1998 and 2004, Congress more than doubled the agency's budget to work Indian Country investigations, to $21.9 million, according to government data. That budget increase included $4.7 million beginning in fiscal year 1999 to fund 30 new FBI agents who would focus solely on reservation crime, a significant boost over the 102 agents doing the job in 1998. The FBI has continued to receive that money every year. Yet according to the agency's website, there are now 114 special agents assigned to Indian Country full time - an increase of just 12. In a written response, an FBI spokesman in Washington, Stephen Kodak, said those 30 grant-funded agents were added in 1999 and are still there. But the increase allowed 18 other agents to be shifted to new jobs after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "We now do more with less," Kodak wrote, citing the agency's greater participation in multi-agency task forces. Washington "breaking its word" To U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, it's almost as if the agency is subverting any attempt to make reservation crime a priority. "We provide additional resources to the FBI and the U.S. attorneys' offices and then find out that they are not used for the purpose of providing better law enforcement on Indian reservations," Dorgan said. "Native Americans have grown accustomed to Washington breaking its word," he said, but "that's not something that Congress should allow to have happened." The result is a triage where FBI investigative resources in Indian Country are devoted to a small number of high-priority crimes, especially murder. Thousands of serious cases receive scant attention - left to investigators working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs or tribal police who are often poorly trained and operating with still fewer resources: Of the 658 rapes reported on reservations under FBI jurisdiction in fiscal year 2006, the agency made arrests in only 7 percent of the cases, crime data show. FBI agents made 229 arrests for aggravated assault out of 5,899 reported cases last year - or about 4 percent. Only in death investigations do the agency's numbers substantially improve, with 99 arrests in 2006, two- thirds of the total reported cases that year. At the bottom of the priority ladder, crimes such as burglary - which according to a law known as the Major Crimes Act falls specifically under federal responsibility - are virtually ignored altogether. Figures show that 4,565 burglaries were reported on reservations under FBI jurisdiction last year, but just 16 cases were referred to U.S. attorneys for prosecution. That infuriates Bill Mercer, the U.S. attorney for Montana, who said he has consistently made the case that lack of investigation of low-priority felonies erodes faith in justice on reservations just as much as ignoring murders would. "If people don't believe that if someone comes in the middle of the night and takes their stuff, if there is a view that no entity is going to pursue that as a felony case - and we're the only ones who could - that's a real crisis in confidence in terms of public safety. "We've said over and over again, bring us burglary cases," Mercer said, but "they aren't showing up." The case of Leonard Villa Federal investigators say they're doing what they can. "Is the system perfect? No. But it is what it is," said the