The Ojibwe News / Native American Press (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1998-03-27

              American Indian Lawand Policy Symposium
offers diverse views
By Julie Shortridge
Typically, conferences and
symposiums about Indian law and
policy provide only the views of the
"tribal establishment," with little
discussion about the problems of tribal
government corruption, abuse and
denial of rights on reservations.
But the March 21 American Indian
Law and Policy Symposium,
sponsored by the University of
Oklahoma College of law and the
American indian Law Review, offered
a refreshing opportunity for open
discussion of diverse views, thanks to
those who spoke, attended, and
organized the event. The symposium
was  held  at the  University  of
Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma in
celebration of the American Indian
Law Review's 25th anniversary.
Approximately 200 people attended
the symposium, including law
students, lawyers, tribal government
officials and tribal members.
Robert Fairbanks, member of the
Leech Lake Band of Chippewa and
frequent contributing columnist to this
newspaper, established the law review
when he was a law student at the
University of Oklahoma, it is the first
and only Indian law review in the
entire country, and is read world-wide.
Fairbanks was also the primary
organizer ofthe symposium.
Speakers and panelists included
tribal judges, elected tribal officials,
Indian studies and law professors,
attorneys, tribal members, and federal
government officials, including Kevin
Gover, new head of the BIA.
Two speakers in particular caused
quite a stir, one was Bill lawrence,
publisherofthis newspaper, who gave
a speech entitled, "Tribal Sovereign
Immunity is the Single Biggest Factor
Contributing to Corruption on
American Indian Reservations"
(published on page 4 of this issue),
and hurst Hannum, professor of
International Law at Tufts University
who spoke on "Tribal Sovereignty:
Will it Be Meaningful in the 21st
Century?"
"I got an incredible amount of
feedback from people about Bill
Symposium/to pg. 3
American Indian Law & Policy Symposium, Pg. 1
Tribal sovereign immunity hearing cancelled, Pg. 8
Text of speech by Bill Lawrence, pg. 4
TEC fails to act on land, McArthur censure, pg. 1
Fond du Lac man ends hunger strike, Pg. 3
List of MCT, Red Lake candidates, Pg. 8
Voice ofthe People
e-maii: pPBsson@bji.net
TEC fails to recognize censured tribal V.P.
By Gary Blair
This year's election findings at White
Earth will most likely be challenged by
disheartened hopefuls who will allege
in part that four of the reservation's
council members, two of whom are
running as incumbents, are in office
illegally.
On Tuesday, during a supposedly
secret meeting of the Minnesota
Chippewa Tribe's Tribal Executive
Committee(TEC), it was learned that
Eugene "Bugger" McArthur will not
be recognized by them as chairman of
the White Earth reservation. The
meeting had been called so TEC
members could vote on the Land Claims
settlement, being offered by
Washington. However, the $20,000,000
settlement offer was not acted on,
because Grand Portage representatives
were not present. The meeting was
held at the Embassy Suites hotel in St.
Paul, MN, the TEC's newest clubhouse.
Heated discussions broke out when
McArthur, who had been the TEC's
vice chair, attempted to preside over
the meeting in place of president
Norman Deschampe, who did not show
up. McArthur had been censured by
the TEC in January of this year for
taking office prematurely afterthe 1996
election. Several tribal members say
his actions violated the MCT
constitution. McArthur had been
accepted asaTEC member inNovember
1996, shortly after being elected in
June of that year. He had served as
vice chairman for the organization up
until his censure by the TEC in early
January of this year.
McArthur's attempts to convince TEC
members that he had followed the
censure rules and had been reinstated
by a vote from other members of the
White Earth tribal council brought the
following response from Fond du Lac
chairman, Sonny Peacock: "Didn'tyou
appoint two ofthe people to the council
who voted for you?" To Peacock's
question, McArthur answered, "Yes."
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/to pg. 5
Tribal leaders honor BIA chief
PAWNEE, Okla. (AP) - Assistant
Interior Secretary Kevin Gover sat in
a circle with his mother and uncle on
a dirt floor surrounded by a dozen or
so tribal leaders from Oklahoma.
They sang for him, danced for him
and prayed Sunday this native son
would stand between them and what
they see as the erosion of their tribal
sovereignty.
The weekend marked the first
official trip back home for Kevin
Gover; who grew up in Lawton. The
42-year-old lawyer, who has practiced
in Albuquerque, N.M. for the past 11
years, will head the Bureau of Indian
Affairs.
Some tribal leaders avoided talking
about politics, saying it was a day to
celebrate, not debate.
But others have told Gover, who is
part Pawnee and part Comanche, that
he must become the front-line general
in the fight to protect tribal rights.
"This is a dangerous time, when
many are seeking to undermine our
sovereignty," Russell Mason, of the
Arikari tribe, told Gover.
"You will face some difficult fights
ahead of you, even with leaders who
are your superiors. But you must
always think of your people."
Gover was impressed by the warm
welcome, which included traditional
prayers and dances, as well as a large
feast.
"It's all quite overwhelming," he
said.
Later, Gover told the Tulsa World
that tribal leaders have legitimate fears
about sovereignty, and he promised
to take up the fight on their behalf.
"The Supreme Court has started
taking a more narrow interpretation
of tribal sovereignty," he said. "And
the attitude in Congress is generally
not favorable toward sovereignty
issues."
Gover said it was his job to speak
for the Clinton Administration, which
he said agrees with the tribes tha?.,
sovereignty should be defended.
During a recent speech to the
National Congress of American
Tribal/to pg. 3
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a
mm
PRESS/ON Photo by L. A.
Insurgent Apaches take over tribal
headquarters, oust council
Although spring officially arrived on March 21, these Canadian geese, photographed on Lake Irvine on
Wednesday, have been in and around Bemidji for about a month, indicating that maybe spring has finally sprung.
Effort to resurrect discredited MCT land
settlement falls Short Attorney 'threatens'to resign
SAN CARLOS, Ariz. (AP) -
Supporters of San Carlos Apache tribal
Chairman Raymond Stanley in his
war with the tribal council occupied
tribal headquarters Friday in a coup.
"We're taking over the government.
This is a day in history," said Sandra
Rambler, a former tribal press liaison
repeatedly removed by the council
only to be reinstated by Stanley.
About 100 tribal members were
gathered outside to listen to speeches
after the apparent takeover.
"We're going to build anew people's
government so that it's fair to
everybody," said Charles Vargas, a
leader of the recently formed group
Call to Action.
About 6,000 ofthe tribe's 10,000
members live on the 1.8 million-acre
reservation of plains and mountains.
Tribal officials estimate 65 percent
are unemployed and 80 percent live at
or below the poverty level.
The takeover move followed months
of allegations of illegal meetings,
misuse of tribal money, personnel
disputes, political infighting and recal 1
efforts on the San Carlos Indian
Reservation in the east-central Arizona
mountains.
The faction supporting Stanley
criticized the council's recent approval
of a budget that doesn't address an
expected $8.6 million deficit and its
rejection of constitutional reform.
That overhaul would have
established separation of powers,
increased the number of council
members and removed the federal
Bureau of Indian Affairs' veto power
over most matters.
At least some tribal members were
puzzled and disturbed by the turmoil.
"I don't know how this ever
Insurgent/to pg. 3
Counsel named to investigate Babbitt
WASHINGTON (AP) - A three-
judge court today named a Washington
lawyer as an independent counsel to
investigate whether Interior Secretary
Bruce Babbitt violated the law in
connection with his testimony to
Congress about an Indian casino
license.
The panel charged with selecting
special prosecutors chose Carol Elder
Bruce, who is with a law firm that
specializes in white-collar crime and
civil litigation, to take charge of the
case.
The three-judge panel's order said
Ms. Bruce would seek to determine
whether Babbitt may have violated
federal law in connection with
statements he made to a congressional
committee "concerning an Interior
decision to deny an application by
three Indian tribes in Hudson, Wis.
for an off-reservation gambling
casino."
Ms. Bruce is a partner in the law
firm of Tighe, Patton, Tabackman &
Babbin.
Attorney General Janet Reno had
requested a limited independent
counsel investigation after concluding
that Babbitt "may have testified
falsely" before Congress about
allegations of White House pressure
on a 1995 decision to reject a
Wisconsin Indian casino license.
Indian tribes opposing the casino later
contributed hundreds of thousands of
dollars to the Democratic Party.
The secretary has denied making
false statements to Congress and has
said the casino decision was not
influenced by campaign contributions.
The decision was made by career
department officials free of any White
House influence, he has said.
Counsel/to pg. 5
By Jeff Armstrong
In a quietly held March 24 meeting in
St. Paul, the executive committee of
the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe once
again bowed to grassroots pressure
to reject a $20 million U.S. offer to
settle tribal claims to more than
800,000 acres of land within the six-
reservation tribal boundaries. A court-
ordered conference between
attorneys for the MCT and the Justice
Department on the status of the
settlement is scheduled today in the
federal claims court, according to a
letter from land claims attorney James
Schoessler to tribal executive director
Gary Frazer.
Although a majority of committee
members present said they opposed
the settlement and did not recognize
White Earth's Eugene McArthur as a
legally seated tribal representative, the
TEC failed to act on either issue.
Presiding over the meeting, tribal
secretary Eli Hunt accused tribal land
claim attorneys of attempting to
manipulate the TEC into accepting the
1996 Justice Department settlement
proposal. "My problem with the land
claims settlement is I have not even
seen a proposed agreement. Jim
Schoessler is asking this body to agree
to something we haven't seen."
In his March 20 letter to Frazer,
Schoessler said the Interior
Department may attempt to recover a
$2 million expert witness loan to the
tribe if it formally rejects the
settlement. "It is not certain that the
Department would forgive the debt if
the TEC turned down a settlement that
would have provided enough money
to repay the department," the attorney
wrote.
Schoessler wrote that such a move
"destroys our credibility with the U.S.
and court as negotiating attorneys for
the TEC, and probably would mean
that we would withdraw from the
case."
Fond du Lac secretary treasurer Pete
Defoe, however, said it is not the
tribe's credibility which is at issue. "I
have no intention of voting to accept
this, whether we have any paper or
not...I'm going to vote no if it ever
gets to a vote again," said Defoe,
criticizing the TEC's practice of
holding meetings on the subject by
telephone. "Time and the land are the
only things we have."
In addition to the $2 million BIA debt,
the tribe would also have to allocate
as much as $2 million each to the two
law firms which represented the
tribe—a total of $6 million, or nearly
1/3 of the settlement proposal.
Jacobson, Buffalo, Schoessler &
Magnuson, Ltd. has represented the
tribe since 1993 under a contract which
allows for a two-year ceiling of
$250,000 in legal fees and $75,000 for
expenses. Despite persistent
questions by tribal members and some
officials as to the integrity ofthe firm,
its contract was renewed last year by
a resolution introduced by Leech Lake
secretary treasurer Linda Johnston.
In his strongest statements on the
issue to date, Hunt said the tribe
should not accept the land settlement
if it would have negative implications
for tribal jurisdictional or ownership
rights to the territories in question.
"Even though the court of claims
doesn't provide an avenue for getting
our land back, I think in principle we
need to do everything we can to
recover our land," said Hunt. "If we
accept this settlement, we're just
giving in."
Hunt chaired the meeting in the
absence of president Norman
Deschampe after several TEC officials
and White Earth tribal members
Effort/to pg. 3
Red Lake Chippewa angered by Northwest
Senate OKs $100,000 to counsel suicidal Angle secession proposal
Indian teens
WASHINGTON (AP) - The
Standing Rock Sioux, who have been
coping with a spate of teen suicides,
would get $100,000 for counseling
programs through legislation
approved Tuesday by the Senate
Appropriations Committee.
Six youths have killed themselves
on the Standing Rock reservation since
August, and at least 40 others have
attempted suicide, primarily in
McLaughlin, S.D., the reservation's
largest town. About 125 youth are
monitored by health officials.
The counseling money is included
in a supplemental spending bill that
provides $1.8 billion to sustain U.S.
military operations in Bosnia and the
Persian Gulf.
"Something needs to be done
quickly and decisively to respond" to
the suicides, said Sen. Byron Dorgan,
D-N.D. The reservation straddles the
North Dakota-South Dakota border.
Dorgan also said that the federal
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention has agreed to send a team
of suicide experts to the reservation.
The CDC team will look into the
situation and help with the prevention
efforts, Dorgan said. A CDC official
did not return a call seeking comment
on the agency's plans.
The tribe has asked Congress to
provide $600,000 in 1999 to hire
doctors, improve programs for youth
and to plan an alcoholic treatment
center.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The Red
Lake Band of Chippewa wants an
apology from a Minnesota
congressman who proposed letting
residents of Minnesota's Northwest
Angle vote on whether they want to
secede from the United States.
"We're very upset," Red Lake
Chairman Bobby Whitefeather said
Thursday. "This is land we hold
sacred. It's part of our connection as
spiritual people. To sever that is very
serious to us." The band owns 87
percent of the land and was not
consulted about the plan.
U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn.,
proposed an amendment to the
Constitution on Wednesday that
would let the Northwest Angle's 100
residents vote on whether they want
to secede from the United States and
join Manitoba, which borders the
Angle on the west. The secession move
is part of Angle residents' attempts to
get the Clinton administration to
intervene in their dispute with
neighboring Ontario over the
province's fishing restrictions.
Whitefeather said Thursday that
Peterson committed "a throwback to
the era when the government doesn't
bother to tell Indian nations what is
transpiring." The tribal chairman said
he wanted Peterson to drop the
legislation.
The Red Lake Band owns 52,000
acres on the Angle but has no
permanent residents there.
Peterson said he would issue a
written apology to Whitefeather for
not consulting with tribal leaders. But
he said he would not drop the secession
Red Lake/to pg. 3
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