Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 2006-03-17

              INDEX
NEWS AROUND INDIAN COUNTRY 2
NEWS BRIEFS 3
COMMENTARY/EDITORIALS 4
CLASSIFIEDS 7
Shottey runs for
Secretary/Treasurer
Fond du Lac
page 5
Fort Mohave Indian Tribe
page 4
Please vote April 41
page 4
Melanie Benjamin:
It's a lobbying
scandal, America,
not an Indian one
page 4
Unsigned message on
RLNN besmirches my
reputation, my response
page 4
Pmss/ON
responds to Red
Lake News net
messages
page 4
Red Lake Tribal Council decrees no Day of Remembrance
By Bill Lawrence
The Red Lake Tribal Council,
by resolution 3/14/06, proclaimed
that out of respect for the victims'
families, no community wide
observance will be held in remembrance of the Red I^ake High
school shooting of 3/21/05.
However, all tribal programs
will be closed on that day so that
personnel may observe the day
as they see fit.
Resources that would have
been used to put on a community
wide feast will be donated to
victims' families.
A memorial mass will be held
at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday 3/21 at
St. Mary's Catholic Church in
Red Lake in remembrance of the
lives lost in the shooting. The hfe
of Derrick Brun and other victims
will be celebrated.
Sovereignty And Secrecy
Neglected Free Speech Issue in Coverage of Red Lake School Shootings
By Louise Mengelkoch
Was it really his fault that he
quit and gave in? (Refrain from
rap song circulating on the Red
Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota)
I happened to be in England at
the time of the tragic March 21,
2005, school shootings on the
Red Lake Reservation. That was
when 16-year-old Jeff Weise shot
nine people before ending his own
life. My husband and I had left just
four days previous with 30 Bemidji State University students for a
10-week study-abroad program.
In our pre-trip workshop, I'd told
them they were required to pay
attention to local news media to
learn about their host countries.
It didn,t occur to me that we,d
be learning about our own tiny
community from the front pages
of the London Times, Observer
and Standard.
After the shock and grief, we
experienced a surreal sense of
loss, knowing our town and the
nearby reservation were going
through a tragic experience together, in which we'd never be part
of the shared memories, horrible
though they were.
Part of those shared memories, I
fear, may be centered on their mutual hatred of the news media. Far
too many people I've talked with
since that day liberals, conservatives, academics, businesspeople,
Indians and whites, even some
journalists either sympathized
or openly approved of the tribal
government's extreme measures,
which included herding media
to a penned area in a parking lot,
handing out flyers warning that
leaving the road constituted trespassing, arresting photographers
and confiscating their equipment.
As a card-carrying member of the
ACLU, I found this disturbing;
however, I've since begun to wonder if I'd feel differently if I'd been
here March 21 and seen the news-
making up close and personal.
Perhaps I too would have been
willing to rank my beloved First
Amendment below "community
values" of sensitivity, respect and
empathy.
I have no way of knowing. I
do know that some members of
the news media burned a lot of
bridges and made it much harder
to effect badly needed change regarding civil liberties on all three
Ojibwe reservations surrounding
Bemidji Red Lake to the north,
White Earth to the southwest and
Leech Lake to the east — when
their actions could have helped
facilitate that change. They also
made it harder for the local journalists left behind, who have the
unenviable job of providing news
to and about a reservation with no
free media of its own. I know. I, ve
been there.
Red Lakers are understandably
proud of the fact that their land
has always been held in common
and none of it sold off during the
19th-century allotment era. That
means that, instead of it being
a checkerboard of white-owned
resorts, towns, farms and homes
interspersed with land owned by
individual Ojibwe, it is one unbroken communal piece of property
that even individual Red Lakers
only lease when they build a home
or hope to start a business. They
had no constitution until 1958,
and they lived imder the same
tribal chairman from then until
1990. Clan loyalty, based on family ties, is so strong that the Red
Lake hcense plates feature each
individual's clan doodem (animal
symbol) as a shadow behind the
number. The only countervailing
force is the desire to keep the
reservation intact and free from
the invasion of white people or
culture. It is called a "closed"
reservation. There is no First
Amendment equivalent in their
constitution,and, over the years,
that has rarely been challenged.
I had the experience of becoming unwittingly embroiled in one
of those rare times. In 1987, I
lost my job as the first editor of
the Red Lake Times newspaper
because of a story about fish.
Tim Giago, who published the
successful Lakota Times, hired
me and sent me to that office in
Martin, South Dakota, between
the Rosebud and Pine Ridge
Reservations, for a two-week
intensive training. Once back in
Bemidji, I had setded in to our
offices, about 20 miles from the
reservation border and 30 miles
from the town of Red Lake. I
thought I'd been doing a good job.
I'd hired staff, gotten our state-of-
the-art computer equipment up
and running and given interviews
to the local newspaper and television station about our startup.
But it wasn't long before I ran
afoul of tribal political speech restrictions in a strange twist worthy
of a Tony Hillennan novel.
I was told by Giago to do a
front-page story about the tribal-
owned Red Lake commercial fisheries, which had originally been
established to provide food for a
nation atwarin 1917.1spentaday
interviewing die manager, taking
photos of women in heavy-duty
rubber gloves gutting fish wliile
I tried in vain to avoid gaggine
from the odor. Then I interviewed
the local DNR official, who was
actually paid by the tribe. He told
me, among other things, that illegal fishing was so rampant that
the prized walleye population was
in danger of crashing. I dutifully
wrote it all down and included it
in my story.
Just before we sent the issue
to the printer a few days later, I
received a phone call from the
A Day of Remembrance
By Maurice Lawrence
A day of remembrance,
3/21/05.
I lost my little brother,
But I am still alive.
And I was supposed to protect him.
But that day I wasn't there,
And they took him.
He was only 28,
Not even in his prime.
It was too soon I thought,
But I guess it was his time.
A day to remember,
Even though I want to forget.
Tfeere were many lives lost on that tragic day.
Tins affected people all over the world in different ways.
But at Red Lake it was devastation beyond belief.
Tl)ere was nothing but turmoil, hurt and disbelief.
To this day, people ask why?
Wliy on March 21 did so many people have to die?
No one really knows, no one can say,
But we are trying to move on,
So we can continue each day.
This poem was written by Derrick Brun's very good friend
and rellow police officer who experienced problems that
he couldn't complete the training in New Mexico.
kindly young DNR guy. "Please
don't quote me about die illegal
fishing," he begged. He said he
realized that he'd lose his job if
I did. I was incredulous, but he
convinced me that his instincts
were right. I called Giago to
discuss the situation with him. I
thought perhaps we could either
drop the quote altogether, since it
had started out as a feature story,
or find a more generic way to attribute it, since I,d heard it from
other sources too.
But Giago was adamant. "Run
the story!" he shouted. He emphasized our independence and
the fact that we couldn't be intimidated by anyone on the tribal
payroll. I ran the story, not understanding quite why everyone was
so worked up. A few days later, I
was fired, ostensibly for mismanagement. I was mystified. There
had been no mismanagement.
Even so, I had to go to court to
collect my last paycheck, as did
several other employees. As to the
incendiary quote from the DNR
official, he was dead right about
the fish. Within several years, the
lake was fished out.
It was almost a decade later
that I found out from a former
tribal political adviser that the Red
Lake Tribe had actually lent the
start-up money to Giago. If I had
known that, I would never have
taken the job. She said nobody on
the reservation knew that I didn,t
know that fact (except Giago, of
course). So we were all working
under false assumptions. After
my firing, the paper limped along
with two tribal political hacks, one
of whom had personally visited
my office regarding the fish story
and made vague threats. He was.
later charged with dnig dealing.
To this day, I don, t know whether the earnest DNR official lost his
job or not. I must admit that I
wasn,t wasting much sympathy
on him by the time I faced my own
fate. The guys who threatened
me renamed the newspaper the
Ojibwe Times and published it for
about a year until Bdl Lawrence
came along. Lawrence, s story,
along with the stories of other
journalists, both native and non-
native, begins to shed some light
not only on what happened to
me, but what happened to all the
reporters in those dark days after
the shootings of March 21.
COVERING THE REZ
BUl Lawrence has been publishing and editing the Ojibwe
News/Native American Press
ever since, and, according to the
June 20, 2001, cover story by
Mike Mosedale in City Pages
of the Twin Cities, its continued
existence is a "minor miracle."
The 66-year-old Lawrence has
FREE SPEECH to page 2
Council removes
Sisseton-Wahpeton tribal chairman from office
Associated Press
AGENCY VILLAGE, S.D.
- The chairman of the Sisseton-
Wahpeton Oyate Tribe has been
removed from office amid allegations he misappropriated more
than $698,000.
The tribal council's action
against J.C. Crawford came Friday during a closed session.
Tribal officials refused to
release information from the
hearing. But Crawford _ who
attended the session - said the
executive session vote to remove
him was 5-3.
Attempts to reach tribal officials were unsuccessful.
The Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate
District Chairman Association
has accused Crawford of misappropriating $698,125 in seven
separate incidents beginning in
2003 and continuing through
2005.
The association also accuses
Crawford of gross incompetence,
improper conduct and malfeasance of office. Among the accusations, Crawford is accused
of misusing credit cards issued by
the tribe, acting outside the scope
of his authority and improperly
entering into an agreement with-
COUNCIL to page 7
V
VOICE      OF      THE      PEOPLE
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Amoric&i
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Founded in 1988
Volume 18 Issue 38
March 17,2006
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Leech Lake Veterans Memorial Wall of Warriors
Phase II of Leech Lake Veterans Memorial
By Ted Bogda
Leech Lake Honor Guard
Last August the Leech Lake
Veterans Memorial Honor
Guard and the Leech Lake
American Post Legion 2001
constructed a memorial to the
Native Americans who hved
on or worked for the Leech
Lake Reservation who gave
their lives in service to their
country while on military duty.
Those persons who were prisoners of war and missing in
action were also honored. The
monument was inscribed with
the names, branch of service
and cause of death. Two people were honored with plaques
as-missing in action and two
persons were honored on the
monument as fonner prisoners
of war. Two more names will
be added to the monument this
spring. Aaron Fairbanks who
was in the Army was captured
during WWII by the Germans
and Charles V. Smith who
died in Alaska in 1943 whUe
in the army air corps during a
mission. Tlie cause of death
at this time is still unknown.
One official document lists it
as KIA while another lists it as
DNB.
The monument is located
south of the entrance to the
Leech Lake Veterans Memorial Powwow grounds near
the Palace Casino. To the
south of the monument are
three large flag poles, one with
the American flag, one with
the Leech Lake flag and one
with the MIA/POW flag. On
the east and west sides of the
monument are three flagpoles
on each side. On each of the
poles are service flags repre
senting die Anny, Navy, Air Force,
Merchant Marines, Marine Corps,
and the Coast Guard
The second phase of the monument will be started this spring. A
cedar wall 4 feet by 12 feet will be
placed thirty inches off tlie ground
in front of the Uiree large flagpoles
south of the monument. The wall
will be held in place by three cedar
poles placed in the ground, which
the wall will be attached to. On top
of the wall will be the inscription,
"Wall of Warriors". Decorative
wood will be placed between tlie
lower edge of the wall and die
ground.
On die wall, nametags will be
placed which will be 1 inch high
by 4 inches long. The tags will
be colored, black for any Native
American or a descendant of a
Native American who served in
die ntilitary. A gold nametag will
identify those Native American
veterans who gave their lives in
service of their country wliile on
duty in die military. White nametags will represent those veterans
who were prisoners of war.
The nametag will have tlie following information on it. On line
one die male veteran will have his
first name, middle initial and last
name imprinted on the tag. The
female veteran will have her first
name, maiden name aud married
name inscribed on the tag. If
single, the tag will be the same as
the male veteran. On tlie second
line will be the birth year, death
year if appropriate, an abbreviation for the band or tribe, sucli as
LL for Leech Lake, WE for White
Earth, B for Blackfoot, etc. The
third line will have die era that the
veteran served in such as WWII,
WWI, Spanish American War, Vict
Nam, Korea, Gulf War, and Opera
tion Iraqi Freedom, etc. The line
will be blank if the veteran served
during a time of peace. The fourth
line is reserved for diose awards
that die veterans received which
are purple heart or a higher award,
such as a bronze slar, silver star,
distinguished service cross, navy
cross, etc. If the veteran is still living, the death date will be left blank
and will be added at a later date
upon die death of the veteran.
An example would be as follows:
Donald L Fairbanks
1922-2006 WE Army Ranger
WWII Korea Viet Nam
Bronze Star
During the first year or so, tlie
name tags will be placed on a 4
x 8 foot quarter inch ply board
in alphabetical order and wdl be
attached to the wall and covered
by plexi-glass. New names will
be added in the alphabetical line
where their last name falls as they
are discovered.
Presently, we have approximately 599 tags completed and another
100 names submitted to the MCT
for verification of tribal affiliation.
Many of the veterans identified
were from veteran burial markers
from die cemeteries that the Post
2001 provides ceremonies for on
the Memorial Day weekend on
the Leech Lake Reservation with
the exception of Pine Grove Cemetery in Cass Lake, the Deer River
cemetery, Greenwood cemetery in
Walker and the Remer cemetery
along with many family plots. The
Post needs your help in finding the
veterans who lived or worked on
the Leech Lake Reservation. The
eligibility criteria is as follows:
Any veteran who is from the Leech
Lake Band or a descendant of a
VETERANS to page 3
Daschle to give
June speech in
Rapid City
Associated Press
RAPID CITY, S.D. -Former
Senate Democratic Leader Tom
Daschle will return to South
Dakota in June to speak at a
fundraiser for American Indian
journalists.
Daschle will be the kcjnote
speaker at the invitation-only
Native American Journalists
Foundation event at Prairie
Edge Trading Post in Rapid
City on June 6.
Daschle, 58, was Senate
Democratic leader for a decade,
until losing by 4,500 votes
in 2004 to Republican John
Thune.
Tim Giago, an Indian newspaper publisher and president of
the foundation, had challenged
Daschle for his U.S. Senate seat
that year, but withdrew before
the election and threw his support to Daschle.
Cherokee chief wants to reverse
landmark decision on freedmen
Associated Press
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. Ihe
head of the Qierokee Nation wants
tribal councilors to reverse a recent
landmark decision that expands
tribal citizenship to descendants
of freed slaves who joined the
Crherokees in the 1800s.
Chief Chad Smith's urging
comes scarcely one week after the
Judicial Appeals Tribunal ruled
that freedmen descendants were
to be recognized as citizens with
privileges.
During Smith's state of the
nation address this week. Smith
said the tribunal's decision could
be addressed by calling for a
tribal constitutional convention
to amend the current document or
through referendum petition.
I Ie said the Cherokee people
should decide questions on uibal citizenship instead of tribal
courts.
"Do we provide Cherokee
citizens the authority to decide
Who their citizens are?" he said.
"I would think citizenship is the
right of the people lo decide."
During his address Monday
night, Smith offered his theory
about freedmen citizenship.
"These Cherokees believe the
freedmen did not help during
the last 100 years to rebuild the
Cherokee Nation and should not at
this lale time reap any benefits that
("herokecs have earned," he said.
Sitting in the audience, Marilyn
\ aim, president ofthe Descendants
of Freedmen Association, said
she was disappointed by Smith's
reasoning.
'" I he judges have written a very
detailed decision. I would hke to
think the council and voters realize
that," she said. "I see the Cherokee
Nation as a nation, not a race."
Vann said Smith's claim that
black freedmen descendants were
taking advantage of citizenship -
CHIEF to page 7