Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 2007-08-01

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INDEX
Grandmothers from
NEWS AROUND INDIAN COUNTRY
NEWS BRIEFS
2
3
around the world pursue
spirit of the environment
COMMENTARY/EDITORIALS
4
CLASSIREDS
7
page 6
INDH's List Campaign
Camp: Reshaping Our
Political Landscape
page 6
Things Take Time
UA digs into Cuban
American Indian History
page 5
Dear Leech Lake
Members
Leech Lake
Grapevine: No. 2
page 4
Anchorage Alaska
School District
addresses Fetal Alcohol
Problems: Minnesota
Need to Do Same
page 4
Boren gets an agreement to keep
Cherokee Nation funded
VOICE      OF      THE      PEOPLE
By Donna Hales
Phoenix Staff Writer
U.S. Rep. Dan Boren, D-
Okla., said he worked out an
agreement this week on the
National Affordable Housing
Trust Fund Act to prevent
attempts to remove funding
from the Cherokees.
That agreement is to stand
at least until September, Boren
told the Phoenix in a phone
interview.
"I'm trying to convey to
the committee that I don't
want funding cut off to one of
the largest employers in my
district," Boren said. "I'm not
weighing in on the merits of the
issue."
Boren said proponents
of removing tribal funding
agreed with him the tribal
court system should be allowed
to complete its review of the
Cherokee Freedmen issue
before Congressional action is
taken against the Cherokees.
"At this point, measures to
withhold funding from the
entire tribe will also eliminate
opportunities and assistance
to the Freedmen they seek to
help/' Boren said.
Boren said he reminded
the committee that a court-
ordered stay has re-instated
full tribal benefits and rights
to the Cherokee Freedmen. If
H.R. 2805 were amended to
exclude the Cherokee Nation
of Oklahoma, the Cherokee
Freedmen would lose the
benefits as well, Boren said.
Proponents of eliminating
the tribefs federal recognition
and funding have made several
recent attempts in.committee
hearings to amend legislation to
exclude funding to the Cherokee
Nation of Oklahoma, he said.'
The National Affordable
Housing Trust Fund Act
provides for the construction,
rehabilitation and preservation
of decent, safe and affordable
housing for low-income
families, Boren said. According
to a formula established under
the Act, tribes, states and local
jurisdictions receive allocations
from the fund each fiscal year.
"Programs like these
increase home ownership to an
underserved population and are
crucial to thousands of citizens
in eastern Oklahoma," Boren
said. "With the 10th poorest
congressional district in the
nation, I am committed to
making sure my constituency
receives these important
opportunities for economic
stability."
The program is a housing
program, but it is also legislation
trying to allow tribes to expand
on economic development,
Boren said.
Boren said the amendment
cutting out the Cherokee
funding had passed by a voice
web page: www.press-on.net
Native *»-«
American
Press
U.S. Rep. Dan Boren
vote. Boren said he voted on the
initial bill because it impacted
a lot of other tribes in the
congressional district, but he did
not vote for the amendment.
"The bill is put on hold until
the Cherokee Nation issue works
itself out," Boren said.
The same group that offered
the amendment to keep funding
from the Cherokees are basically
offering amendments to every
bill in an effort to cut funding
for the Cherokee Nation.
The tribal court has said it is
going to look into the matter
(Freedmen) and rule on it,
Boren said.
"In less than a year, we're
going to know," Boren said. "If
the court rules the Freedmen
can be reinstated - it also can
rule the Freedmen were illegally
kicked out."
We Support Equal Opportunity For All People
A weekly publication.  Copyright, Native American Press, 2007
2 indicted in bribery scheme
involving new Walker casino
Federal prosecutors say a former CEO tried to sway tribal
officials to use his firm's ATM and check-cashing services.
By Dan Browning
Star Tribune
A founder of a Burnsville
company that provides ATM,
credit card and check-cashing
services to casino gamblers and
a former executive of the Leech
Lake Band of Ojibwe have been
indicted in federal court in an
alleged bribery scheme relating
to the development of a casino
in Walker, Minn.
According to an indictment
handed up in Minneapolis on
Wednesday afternoon, Craig
Keith Potts, a former CEO and
president of Cash Systems Inc.,
arranged payments to three
Leech Lake tribal officials in
2003 and 2004 to "reward them"
for doing business with Potts
and Cash Systems.
The indictment alleges that
Potts arranged 14 payments
totaling $16,500 to Michael W
Johnson, former CEO of the
band's business corporation;
three payments totaling $4,500
to a former tribal chairman
with the initials "P.W"; and one
payment of $35,000 to a former
tribal gaming director with the
initials "R.W." Neither P.W. nor
R.W. was indicted.
Tribal officials did not return
calls seeking comment on
Thursday.
Potts, of Prior Lake, could not
be reached for comment. But
his attorney, Roger Magnuson,
said the case should never have
been charged.
"Craig Potts is totally
innocent," Magnuson said. He
called the indictment thin and
said he would vigorously fight
the charges.
Johnson could not be reached
for comment. His attorney,
Lawrence Rapoport, declined
to comment, noting that he had
just got the case.
Potts co-founded Cash Systems
in October 2000 and the company
grew quickly. Potts quit at the
end of 2004, and he and his wife
sold their stock. The company
is now based in Las Vegas, but
still has an office in Burnsville.
Revenue for fiscal 2006 was $96
million, up 52 percent over the
previous year. The company
declined to comment Thursday.
The indictment says the case
began in 2004 when federal
agents began investigating
"possible misdealing relating
to tribal gaming vendors and
the casino development being
proposed near Walker."
Company records subpoenaed
It's unclear if the investigation
is widening. Investigators
have interviewed former
Cash Systems employees and
subpoenaed some company
records, according to a source
with knowledge of the case.
The indictment says that the
involvement of Potts and Cash
Systems with the tribe's gaming
operations and the potential
new casino became an issue for
the tribe in 2003 and 2004, and
Potts needed to gain influence.
In 2003, Potts allegedly
arranged payments to tribal
officials through his company.
In one case, he allegedly enlisted
the help of his wife and his
father's check-cashing business
in the Twin Cities to make a
$35,000 payment to the tribe's
gambling director.
The money was spent on
property near Walker, the
indictment says. (Neither
Potts' wife nor father have
been charged.) Potts later tried
to obscure the reasons for the
payment by calling it a loan,
the indictment says, but the
gambling director described it
as a gift from Potts.
Potts and Johnson are charged
with conspiracy, wire fraud and
making a false statemenL Potts
also was charged with two counts
of bribery concerning a program
that receives federal funds; two
counts of obstructing justice;
and one count of using a false
document with a phony signature.
Johnson faces one additional
count of obstructing justice.
Tribes have 2
years to comply
with Adam
Walsh sex
offender list
By Carson Walker
Associated Press
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -American
Indian tribes have two years
to start tracking sex offenders
themselves or take part in their
state's registration system after an
attempt to delay a requirement of
the Adam Walsh Act failed.
Congress passed the act one
year ago to protect children
from predators by setting up
a national Internet database
designed to let law enforcement
and communities know where
convicted sex offenders live and
work.
There are an estimated 500,000
sex offenders in the United States
and as many as 100,000 are not
registered.
Indian tribes had until Friday
to tell the Department of Justice
if they plan to establish their own
tracking system or allow states to
do iL Tribes that didn't indicate
their plans will default to state
jurisdiction.
An effort in Congress to delay
that notification date by one
year - to give tribes more time
to decide - failed, so tribes now
have until July 27,2009, to have
their own system in place or an
agreement with states.
Eric Antoine, in-house attorney
for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, said
LIST to page 3
Former AIM member takes
extradition fight to Supreme Court
CBCNews
John Graham, a former
American Indian Movement
member who recently lost an
appeal against his extradition
to the U.S. to face a murder
charge in the 1975 slaying of
aboriginal activist Anna Mae
Pictou-Aquash, is now making a
last-ditch appeal to the Supreme
Court to hear his case.
Lawyers for Graham, a
former Yukoner who now lives
in Vancouver, have asked the
highest court to overturn a June
26 decision by the B.C. Court of
Appeal ordering his extradition.
However, there is no guarantee
the Supreme Court will hear
Graham's case. His family told
CBC News that Graham will
remain in a detention facility on
B.C.'s Lower Mainland while they
wait to hear from the court.
John Graham is wanted by U.S.
authorities in connection with
the death of aboriginal activist
Anna-Mae Aquash in 1975.
"It could take up to three
to six months before we hear
anything," daughter Naneek
Graham said Tuesday. "It is
frustrating having to wait and to
go out to the institute to go visit
him. You know, it's really hard."
On June 26, the court denied
Graham's appeal to overturn
the extradition, allowing his
extradition to the U.S. to proceed.
Authorities there want him
brought to South Dakota to stand
trial in the murder of Pictou-
Aquash, a Mi'kmaq activist from
Nova Scotia.
Graham and Pictou-Aquash
were part of the American Indian
Movement (AIM)—members of
which occupied Wounded Knee,
a town on the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation in South Dakota,
in a 71-day standoff over native
rights in 1973.
American officials allege that
Graham and another man,
Arlo Looking Cloud, killed
Pictou-Aquash on the Pine
Ridge reservation in 1975. FBI
investigators believe she was
slain for being a suspected FBI
informant inside AIM.
Naneek Graham said the
Supreme Court's decision could
set an important precedent,
since her father is not only being
extradited for a murder trial,
"but my dad is being extradited
on hearsay evidence, so this
affects everyone.
"My dad's charter rights have
been violated because of the
extradition act, and I just want
people to know that if they can
do it to my dad, they'll do it to
you as well," she said.
Looking Cloud, the co-
defendant in the case, was
convicted of first-degree
murder in 2006 by a court in
Rapid City, S.D. Graham was
arrested in December 2003. In
2005, the B.C. Supreme Court
decided he should be sent to
the United States to face the
charge, and the federal justice
minister issued an extradition
order against him in June 2006.
Graham then took his case to the
B.C. Court of Appeal.
Founded in 1988
Volume 19 Issue 34
August 1, 2007
J.R. Redwater,Young Indian Standup Comedian (center)
How can I be an "Indian" state
American Indian Youth?
Joining Voices Sharing Conference on the White Earth
Chippewa Indian Reservation in Mahnomen, Minnesota
By Vincent Hill
Dakota/Lakota and Ojibwe
Anishinabeg youth met in unity
at the White Earth Chippewa
Indian reservation last week
to bemoan the continuing
social plight of unbelievably
high numbers of their siblings
facing daily traumatic issues
on their respective Indian
reservations in North and South
Dakota, Michigan, Wisconsin,
and Minnesota. This Joining
Voices sharing conference
is the eighth of its kind in
Minnesota; the traditional
Native American culture and
religion is blended into an
AA (alcoholics anonymous)
chemical dependency
theoretical approach. Current
Native American chemical
dependency prevention has
now creatively incorporated
medical and psycho-social
models. This fascinating
inufusion is occrurring all
over where anishinabeg reside;
and, more particularly, is this
exciting blending occurring
on other Indian reservations
in the nation, such as with
the sophisticated Cherokeee
tribes in Oklahoma and South
Carolina; and including with the
Michigan, Wisconsin, and North
Dakota Ojibwe. The Minnesota
Ojibwe and adjoining Dakota/
Lakota tribes in North and
South Dakota put more flavor
on the traditional element,
which is equally exciting!
It was quite evident that
the Joining Voices Conference
staff had accumulated
organizational expertise, and
gained a good measure of
success in being able to pull
together diverse Indian tribes
and bands together to annually
address the state of art, as it
were, of what positive impact
integrated prevention chemical
dependency programming have
done to alleviate or prevent
Native American teens from
wholesale self-inflicted suicide
attempts; apathetic behavior
reflected in depression and
anger; agresssion/acting out
leading to whole urban and
reservation communities
sacrificing their young to the
juvenile correction systems
[the incarceration rate stats
for our young beyond 18 to
35 is just as disgraceful.];
estrangement and disconnect
from their nuclear families,
grandparents, kinship clans,
tribal governments, and further
alienation from dominant
society Truly the lost generation
of today! Nearly 50 percent
of all teens currently in the
juvenile correctional system of
Minnesota are Native American.
(Around 47% according to
Erma Vizenor, Chair of the
White Earth Ojibwe. See NAP
article by me on 01/31/07,
entitled "Struggling White
Earth Community Council
Sponsors Dinner at the Upper
Midwest American Indian
Center in North Minneapolis."
Erma addressed urban White
Earth Ojibwe at the time.) It
is well known, of course, that
American blacks fill our state
and national prisons, but here in
Minnesota per our 1.5 percent
of the total 5 million body
count of everyone, our Native
American females in adult
prisons comprise 17 percent
of the total female inmate
population;correspondingly,
Native American males are 12
percent of all adults in prison.
A content feel for the
excellent three day conference
overview: 1) Learn about
specific prevention programs
and strategies that are being
implemented with Native
American youth audiences. 2)
Learn about evidence based
YOUTH to page 6
Southwestern
Michigan tribal
casino set to
open Thursday
Associated Press
NEW BUFFALO TOWNSHIP,
Mich. - After six years of legal
challenges that delayed its
construction, the $400 million
Four Winds Casino Resort,
southwestern Michigan's first
casino, is set to open its doors
on Thursday.
The Dowagiac-based Pokagon
Tribe of Potawatomi Indians
owns the casino complex on a
675-acre site in Berrien County's
New Buffalo Township, which
is near Lake Michigan just
north of the Indiana border. It
has a five-year contract with
Lakes Entertainment Inc. in
Minneapolis to manage the
casino.
Michigan has 17 other casinos
fully owned by American Indian
tribes, plus three casinos in
Detroit and at least two more in
the works. The nearest in-state
casino is the Soaring Eagle
Casino & Resort in Mount
Pleasant, about 160 miles to
the northeast.
The Four Winds, however,
will be competing mostly
against five casinos in northern
Indiana, the closest of which is
the Blue Chip Casino Hotel in
Michigan City, Ind., about 10
miles away.
The tribe's land-in-trust
application with the federal
government had been held
up by legal challenges filed by
New Buffalo-based Taxpayers of
Michigan Against Casinos.
The way was cleared for the
government to take the land
into trust in January 2006,
when the U.S. Court of Appeals
in Washington, D.C, upheld
CASINO to page 5
Cheney to skip hearing on
Klamath salmon die-off
By Matthew Daly
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Charging
that Vice President Dick Cheney
contributed to a 2002 die-off
of about 70,000 salmon near
the California-Oregon border,
House Democrats planned a
hearing Tuesday to explore his
intervention in the Klamath
River Basin.
But some House Republicans
say the hearing in the Natural
Resources Committee could
upset negotiations to end years
of battling over the region,
where drought in 2001 led to
a cutoff of irrigation water _
and then a diversion to help
farmers.
That diversion, directed in
part by Cheney, resulted in the
largest adult salmon kill in the
history of the West, Democrats
say.
At the very least, Cheney's
actions to help farmers at
the expense of threatened
fish demonstrated the Bush
administration's "penchant
to favor politics over science
in the implementation of the
Endangered Species Act," said
Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va.,
chairman of the Natural
Resources panel.
Republicans counter that
SALMON to page 6
Nine from Red Lake reservation
indicted on cocaine charges
Nine people from the Red Lake
Indian reservation have been
indicted on cocaine charges,
according to the U.S. Attorney's
Office in Sioux Falls, S.D.
Eight have been arrested, and
one is considered a fugitive.
Twenty other people
previously were indicted and
arrested in connection with the
case.
The arrests are a result of an
investigation by the Headwaters
Saife Trails Task Force, which is
made up of many Minnesota task
forces and police departments.
A U.S. attorney from South
Dakota is prosecuting the case
because the federal office in
Minnesota has recused itself
because of a potential conflict.
On July 23, a federal
grand jury returned a third
superseding indictment
in the matter, charging the
defendants with conspiracy to
distribute and possess with the
intent to distribute 11 pounds
or more of a mixture and
substance containing cocaine.
A superseding indictment
generally means the prosecutors
still are investigating the case a
nd found more evidence.
The charge carries a
mandatory minimum sentence
of 10 years in prison and a
maximum of life in prison and/
or a $4 million fine.
The arrests made on July
25 are: Barbara Ann Thunder,
45, Redby, Minn.; Delores Jean
Huerta, 45, Redby; Concha
Edith Isham, 36, Red Lake,
Minn.; Leroy Alvis Garrigan
Jr., 47, Red Lake; Loretta May
Kingbird, 39, Red Lake.
Arrests made July 26: Randy
Matthew Sayers, 25, Redby;
Ramon Charles Sayers, 32,
Red Lake; Donald Roman Cook
Jr., 37, Red Lake; Michael Lee
Sather, 29, Red Lake, currently
is listed as a fugitive from justice,
meaning he has fled from the
state to avoid prosecution.