The Ojibwe News / Native American Press (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1998-12-18

              Press/ON files civil suit against Mille Lacs
(NAP/ON) - The Native American
Press/Ojibwe News and reporter Jeff
Armstrong filed a federal civil rights
complaint this week against officials
of the Mille Lacs Reservation and
Mille Lacs County. (See Pg. 4 for full
text ofthe complaint)
Alleging that Armstrong was falsely
arrested and jailed under color of law
while attempting to cover an Oct. 22,
1997 tribal meeting for the newspaper
at the reservation's Grand Casino in
Onamia, the lawsuit challenges the
constitutionality of the arrest and
seeks punitive and compensatory
damages. According to the complaint,
the reporter was arbitrarily removed
from the meeting by reservation law
enforcement and subsequently
detained in the Mille Lacs County Jail
for the duration ofthe meeting ofthe
six-reservation Minnesota Chippewa
Tribe.
Armstrong was charged with
violating state criminal trespass laws
in the incident, but charges were
dismissed for lack of jurisdiction on
April 29, 1998 by Minnesota district
court judge Thomas Knapp.
The lawsuit contends that state and
reservation     law     enforcement
personnel acted in "bad faith, and
maliciously with the intent to deter
Plaintiffs from excercising
constitutional rights." It further
alleges that the parties bringing suit
were defamed by statements
"designed to coerce, intimidate and
harass Plaintiffs in their business and
personal reputations."
The complaint seeks damages in
excess of $75,000. Armstrong pledged
to contribute at least half of any
monetary judgement he might receive
towards a fund to defend the human
rights of MCT members.
White Earth officials say cross-deputization
agreement viewed as model by U.S.
By Jeff Armstrong
At the first public unveiling of a
controversial cross-deputization pact
with Mahnomen County, White Earth
reservation officials claimed their
"unprecedented" agreement is being
viewed as a national model by the U.S.
government.
"The BIA is very interested in the
success of the program, as is the
Justice Department," said White Earth
attorney Zenas Baer at the Dec. 16
meeting in Mahnomen.
Baer said the federal Justice
Department has reviewed and upheld
the authority of the Reservation
Business Committee to install a legal
system, despite constitutional
challenges from tribal members.
"An opinion was rendered that the
White Earth Band of Chippewa
Indians did have the right to enforce
laws against members of the
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe within the
confines of the White Earth
reservation and an inherent right to
administer a COPS grant," said Baer.
Nevertheless, a small group of tribal
members continued to advance the
longstanding argument that popular
approval was necessary for both
constitutional and practical reasons.
"We have a document here that
wasn't voted on by the people of
White Earth, the Ojibwe Indians. To
me, that's wrong," said George Earth.
"You've got to get the people involved
in this."
Pursuant to the agreement, White
Earth has hired six officers under the
immediate supervision of reservation
police chief Mike Robinson and the
ultimate oversight of Mahnomen
County Sheriff Richard Rooney. The
White Earth/to Pg. 5
American Indian reservations fielding own
police force
BEMIDJI, Minn. (AP) - Two
American Indian reservations in
northwestern Minnesota are fielding
their own police forces to enforce
certain laws on their land.
Officials from Mahnomen County
and the White Earth Tribal Council last
week agreed on guidelines and
procedures for coordinated law
enforcement on the White Earth
Reservation. "When I came here two
years ago, one of my priorities was to
improve law enforcement on the
reservation," said White Earth Tribal
Chairman John Buckanaga, a retired
U.S. Indian Health Serviceofficial. "We
need to take ownership of law
enforcement. Our rural area is
experiencing urban problems and we're
not in a position to combat that," he
said.
This summer, the tribe created a
police force and began patrolling
roads. The action was part of a
movement by tribes around the country
to use the federal Community-Oriented
Police Services program, known as
COPS, to create or expand tribal police
forces.
In November, Buckanaga signed for
and received a$l million COPS grant
that expires in 2001. A recent COPS
grant to the Leech Lake Reservation
also will fund five police officers in a
new department there, said Sharon
Finn, Leech Lake Tribal Council
planner. "That will help us with traffic
enforcement and juvenile
delinquency," Finn said. "Tribal courts
wi 11 be expanded from natural resource
issues only to include traffic and civil
matters."
The effort here stems from a 1997
Minnesota Supreme Court ruling that
interprets federal law to mean that state
police/to pg. 3
Yellow Medicine School officials reinstate
'Little House' book
GRANITE FALLS, Minn. (AP) ~
School board members voted
unanimously to reinstate Lauralngalls
Wilder's book "The Little House on
the Prairie," responding to pressure
from the Minnesota Civil Liberties
Union.
The Yellow Medicine East school
district stopped the group reading of
the book in a third-grade class in
October because ofa complaint about
its portrayal of American Indians.
Angela Cavender Wilson, amember
of the Upper Sioux Community and
mother ofa girl in the class, had cited
some 60 references she considered
racist in Wilder's "Little House" series.
School board chairman Warren
Formo told a delegation from the Upper
Sioux Community on Monday that
board members' "eyes had been
opened" to racism in the book as a
result of Wilson's objections. Her
third-grade daughter had been upset
during a class reading that contained
the passage, "The only good Indian is
a dead Indian." While her concerns
about the seemingly wholesome book
attracted media attention, the school
board's action to temporarily remove
the book caught the eye of the
Minnesota Civil Liberties Union.
The MCLU said in a Dec. 11 letter to
board members that Supreme Court
rulings made it clear that schools may
only remove books that contain
'Little House'/to Pg. 3
Ho-Chunk Nation and State agree on
gambling compact
MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Ho-Chunk
Nation gambling halls will pay
Wisconsin $7.5 million annually for
five years under a new casino
agreement that also requires talks
about real estate deals.
The payment is the largest of any
casino-operating tribe in any of the
new compacts signed this year for
allowing Las Vegas-style games on
tribal lands.
Potawatomi Indians, owners of a
casino in downtown Milwaukee,
agreed a week ago to pay $6.3 million
a year.
The Ho-Chunk Nation, the official
name of the Wisconsin Winnebago
tribe, has casinos near Wisconsin
Dells, Nekoosa and Black River Falls.
Wisconsin has 11 tribes with casino
compacts. Eight have reached
agreements. The Menominee, Red Cliff
and Lac du Flambeau reservations are
negotiating.
The state has insisted on a bigger
share of casino profits in exchange for
granting new compacts to replace
original seven-year agreements.
Under the originals, the 11 tribes
cumulatively paid$350,000ayear. Gov.
Tommy Thompson and Ho-Chunk
Nation vice president Clarence
Pettibone signed the deal Friday. The
payments begin in June 2000.
The agreement forbids blackjack
tables and slot machines at a Madison
bingo parlor, at least without approval
of local and state officials.
The tribe can begin talks on that
subject as early as 2000, Department of
Administration Secretary Mark Bugher
said. The pact also calls for talks with
the state if the tribe acquires land near
Baraboo at the former Badger Army
Ammunition Plant, Bughersaid.
Press/ON files civil suit against Mille Lacs
Complete text of Press/ON v. Mille Lacs complaint, pgs. 4&8
WE/Mahnomen agreement said to be under review by state
WE officials say cross-deputization agree, viewed as model
Indian Country Today purchased by Oneidas of NY
Yellow Medicine officials reinstate 'Little House' book
Voice ofthe People
2
e-mail: presson@paulbunyan.net
^
American
Press
Ojibwe
News
We Support Equal Opportunity For All People
Founded ii 1888
Volume 11 Issue 10
December 18,1888
j
A weekly publication.
Copyright Native American Press. 1888
Native American Press publisher. William Lawrence met with Governor-elect Jesse Ventura at Planet Hollywood at the Mall of America.
The Ventura campaign staff held the party in appreciation ofthe work done by party volunteers to elect reform-party candidate Jesse Ventura
governor.
White Earth/Mahnomen agreement said to
be under review by state
By Gary Blair
Sources at White Earth say the tribal
council's attempts to launch a joint
law-enforcement agreement with
Mahnomen County and the State of
Minnesota have been derailed. The
state will not certify police officers
hired by the reservation without a
waiver of liability being granted to the
Minnesota Peace Officer Standards
and Training (Post) Board, the agency
that approves prospective police
officers.
Reservation sources also say the
Minnesota Attorney General's Office
is presently reviewing a January 8,
1971, U.S. Supreme Court case,
Kennedy v. District Court of Montana
(400 U.S. 423), wherein the high court
ruled, "that states do not have
jurisdiction for criminal and civil
matters occurring on reservations,
unless, and only where the enrolled
Indians within the affected area of
such Indian county accept such
jurisdiction by a majority vote ofthe
adult Indians voting at a special
election (called for by the Secretary
ofthe Interior) held for that purpose."
Those opposed to the law-
enforcement agreement at White Earth
say their concerns are going to spread
to other Minnesota Chippewa Tribe
(MCT) reservations that have similar
agreements with the state. These
roblems that could easily give rise to
questions of who gave tribal councils
authority to enter into gaming
compacts with the state, or permission
to build casinos on the different
reservations. These are questions that
at least White Earth's tribal
government has not been willing to
answer.
After two years of secret meetings
with members of the U.S. Justice
Department, state officials and local
jurisdictions, the White Earth tribal
council is no closer to solving its crime
problems than it was back then.
White Earth resident and activist
Marvin Manypenny says problems
with the law enforcement agreement
with Mahnomen County, "stem from
the tribal council's unwillingness to
consult our people. Ifthey want more
law enforcement here, that's fine, but
they first need to take it to the people.
They're talking about our rights and
we have a right to have a say through
a vote," Manypenny said recently.
Indian Country Today purchased by Oneidas
Of NY;   Subscribers may be getting more than they
Ho-Chunk/to Pg. 3      bargained for
Indian holocaust: Archeologists discover
50 ancestors at ARCO refinery
By Douglas Casgraux
LOS ANGELES, CA.-" In all my
professional life, I've never seen
anything as terrible as this" says Frank
McDowell, archeologist hired to by
ARCO to over see the Gabrielino/
Tongva Indian burial site discovered
at the Carson Refinery near the Port of
Los Angeles. McDowell arrived at the
Arco site in mid-September, when
workmen discovered pieces ofa human
skeleton. "Arco cal led in McDowell in
respect to the Los Angeles Indian
Community"stated Arco spokesman
about the discovery. Working closely
with the California State Native
Heritage Commission, McDowell and
his crew have been unearthing the site
for the past few months." As we began
excavating , it became apparent
something big was going on here.
This was beyond being just a burial
ground. These people obviously met
sudden ,very violent deaths" said
McDowell.
Some50Gabrielieno/TongvaIndians,
including two unborn children had
been exterminated on the Arco site 200
years ago archeologists estimate.
The skeletal remains bear witness a
violent deaths: ribs snapped from the
sternum, forearm bones with hands
sliced off, teeth bashed from skulls,
blunt head trauma through skull
fractures.
As workers continued to dig, the
skeleton of one poor woman was
discovered with her hands in front of
her face, as if she died trying to protect
herself. Another skeleton appears to
have been so severely tortured , it
appears to have been bent backward
so violently; as if the victim had been
laid over something, that the spine
snapped and the head ended down
near the pelvis. While some bodies
seemed to have been buried with care,
others have been thrown into mass
graves in haste. There is also evidence
that in some cases futile attempts were
made to burn the bodies by cremation;
as a way to dispose ofthe evidence.
Archeologists are still trying to
determine if the 50 killed, were one
terrible event or was the Carson
Refinery a "killing field" where
holOCaUSt/to pg. 3
By Doug Casgraux
ONEIDA, New York ~ In a public
statement December 2nd, the Oneida
Nation of New York announced its
purchase ofthe seventeen year publication: "Indian Country Today", formerly the Lakota Times published out
of Rapid City, South Dakota.
Under the guidance of publisher Tim
Giago, the paper started originally
during the summer of 1981 in Martin,
South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
It was in October of 1992 that the
name "Lakota Times" was changed
to "Indian Countiy Today (ICT) " to
increase it readership and broaden its
already expansion of Native news
across the U.S. and Canada.
In recent years ICThas been plagued
with huge debts and financial problems which left many of its staff unpaid or commissions not dispersed.
Giago however, yet again, seems to
be the winner in the arms of financial
solvency by way of Ray Halbritter and
the Oneida Nation of New York.
With the purchase oflndian Country for what is estimated to be between
a $1 to 2 million deal; Halbritter and
Giago have found that publishing, as
well as politics, makes strange bedfellows.
Oneida Nation-N.Y. Representative
Halbritter in his statement to the press
stated, "Indian Country Today is the
premier voice of Indian People... We
intend on taking this paper to the next
level by expanding its circulation, readership and influence."   .
These are very desirable prospects
for Halbritter who, as the sole decision maker for the Oneida Nation of
New York , has placed the paper under the ownership and control of
Standing Stone Media, Inc., one of
the newest Halbritter enterprises that
not one member ofhis nation was allowed to vote on.
"For anyone to understand what is
going on with this acquisition, people
need to know that the Oneida people
living in New York have no control,
no voice or say-so over what is done
by Halbritter in the name ofthe tribe,"
states Joe Heath, General Counsel to
the Onadaga Nation and the
Haudenousonee Confederacy." Most
Indian people across North America
do not realize what Ray has done to
his own people and that he plans on
using Indian Country as a propaganda tool for his many enterprises.To
understand this purchase, one only
need look at what has happened in
Oneida."
What has happened in Oneida? The
Oneida Nation is one ofthe six-member nations which comprise the
Haudenasonee, or Iroquois Confederacy, who's principle counsel and
Grand Council are in Onodaga; these
are the teachings prescribed by the
"Peace Maker" who gave the six tribes
the oral tradition in the " Great Law of
Peace".
This law has been the standard rule
Oneidas/to pg. 3
r