Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1999-03-12

              Anti-Native
American
legislation being
proposed by MN
Chippewa Tribe's
TEC
Local
governments fear
loss of casino land
from tax rolls
Commentary:
Discrimination is
learned, pg. 3
Letters from 1990
critical of Larry
Aitken cheating on
his Master's thesis
while at UMD, pg.
4
•   Good luck
Red Lake Ogichida
pg. 4
Anti-Native American legislation being
proposed by MN Chippewa Tribe's TEC
c
By Gary Blair
The Minnesota House of
Representative's Crime Prevention
Committee has received bill No. 1607
that is reported to be anti-Native American legislation being proposed by the
TribalExecutiveCommitteeoftheMin-
nesota Chippewa Tribe (MCT). If the
proposed bill is enacted into law it
would allow forlaw-enforcement officers hired by reservation business committees (RBC's) to receive certification from the Minnesota Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST)
Board. It would also enable RBC's to
flagrantly violate the Civil and Tribal
Constitutional Rights of Indians by
breaching Federal Indian Laws that are
supposed to limit state intervention on
reservations.
A 1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision
Kennedy v. District Court of Montana,
400 U.S. 423 mandates that State involvement on Indian reservations must
receive approval by a referendum of
eligible voters. The 1968 Federal Indian Civil Rights Act likewise limited
(1953-) Public Law 280 that gave Minnesota jurisdiction on 10 ofthe State's
11 reservations. The recent Stone decision by the Minnesota Supreme
Court subsequently reduced the limits
of Public Law 280 enforcement on
Minnesota reservations.
The bill is being sponsored by Representatives Steve Smith (R), Roxann
Daggett (R), Stephen Wenzel (DFL),
Rod Skoe (DFL) and would apply to 9,
of Minnesota's 11 reservations, excluding Red Lake and Nett Lake. State
sources say if the bill is successful, it
will be concealed in other legislation
for passage by the governor. Richard
Stanek is the crime prevention
committee's chairman and so far the
bill does not have a sponsor in the
State Senate.
A letter dated February 17,1999,from
Ken Peterson and Michelle Owen of
the Minnesota Attorney General's
Office to Eric Boe, Mahnomen County
Attorney, White Earth RBC Attorney,
Zenas Baer and Tom Foley, MCT lobbyist, reads as follows. "Re: POST
Board Appl ication - Dear Counsel: We
are sorry about the delay in getting
this to the three of you. We appreciate
your patience and that of your clients
in this matter.
"The Attorney General's Office believes there are two Statutory obstacles
to POST Board licensure under terms
ofthe Mahnomen CountyAVhite Earth
tribal Council agreement submitted to
the Board in December 1998.
"Neither the White Earth Tribal Council nor its policedepartment are a "law
enforcement agency" underMinn. Stat.
Legislation/to pg. 3
Effort begins to resolve dilemma of
trust files
ALBUQUERQUE,N.M.(AP)~ While
the U.S. Department of Interior battles
Indian tribes over trust funds, federal
workers here are searching records,
organizing files and developing computer systems to change how the government tracks Indian trust money.
Tribal members have sued the government in federal court in Washington,
D.C, over the accounts, which have
been the subject of disagreements between individual Indians, tribes and
the federal government for decades.
At issue: billions of dollars from court
settlements and royalty payments for
oil and gas, mineral, timber, fishing and
grazing leases on land held in trust for
tribes and their individual members.
The government has not been able
to locate 50,000 account holders for
accounts totaling nearly $48 million.
No one knows whether the balances in
most ofthe 300,000 individual accounts
or 1,700 tribal accounts are correct.
Records were stored in boxes at about
50 U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs offices, warehouses, sheds and employees' garages around the country. Some
were lost; some hadn't been filed fora
decade.
Records were shipped to Albuquer-
Effort/to pg. 3
After years of uncertainty, school ready
for new campus
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - Years of
financial uncertainty appear to be behind the Institute of American Indian
Arts as the two-year college prepares
to build its own campus. T
he school is back on its feet with
increasing enrollment and high hopes
for continued government funding,
IAIA President Delia Warrior says.
In 1996, enrollment at the school for
American Indian artists hit an all-time
low of 85 students, down from 250 just
two years before, and the federal government threatened to end all funding.
Congress ended up slashing IAIA's
$9.5 million budget to about $5.5 million, forcing the school to cut its fac
ulty from27 to 11 full-time teachers and
begin charging tuition. Since then,
Warrior said efforts to eliminate the
institute's funding have died off. Proposed budgets for next year from Congress and President Clinton include
$4.25 million for IAIA.
Back in 1996, "stories went out across
the nation that we were closing down,"
Warrior said. "We're still trying to recover from that." But, she said, the
school is beginning to convince state
and federal lawmakers the Indian fine
arts institute is vital to the state's economic growth as the only school in the
nation strictly for American Indian artists.
Last month, the state House and Sen-
Oneida Nation considering plan to pay
money to each tribal member
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP)- The Indian
tribe with the state's largest casino is
debating whether some gam ing profits
should go directly to each member, a
move some say could shortchange
tribal programs that now get the money.
Several proposals for so-called per
capita payments are to be considered
in April, when hundreds of tribal members are expected to attend a General
Tribal Council meeting to debate the
idea. The meeting had been scheduled
Saturday. The tribe decided Thursday
to postpone it.
Last year, the general council voted
to pay $2,000 from gambling profits to
each of about 1,200 elderly tribal mem
bers, which cost the tribe about $2.4
million, tribal treasurer Kathy Hughes
said. In another plan, which went from
1995 through 1997, each tribal member
received $225 a year, Hughes said.
With 13,000 members, that payment
costabout $3 million. OneidaBingo &
Casino, with 2,500 slot and video poker
machines and 96 blackjack tables, generated $74 million in net gaming income
last year, the tribe said. Proposals the
general council is expected to consider
would pay each ofthe tribe's enrolled
members anywhere from $570 to$2,847
annually, costing the tribe $7.4 million
to $37 million.
Some members this year have discussed setting aside at least 35 percent
Red Lake man sentenced in death of
infant
MINNEAPOLIS - A Red Lake Band
ofChippewa enrollee on Wednesday
was sentenced to 51 months in federal
prison in the death ofhis 7-week-old
son a year ago.
Krisian James Donnell Sr., 22, was
sentenced by U.S. District Judge John
Tunheim in Minneapolis of voluntary
manslaughter.
The baby died April 6 of severe head
injuries. Donnel admitted in court that
he was frustrated and thre his infant
son into a swing, the U.S. Attorney's
Office said Wednesday in a statement.
The baby struck his head on the swing,
Voice ofthe People
1
e-mail, presson@paulbunyan.net
Native
American
Press
^
Ojibwe
News
We Support Equal Opportunity For All People
Volume 11 Issue 22
March 12,1999
li
que warehouses beginning in 1996, but
some that came from Four Corners offices were found to be infested with
mouse droppings. Workers, fearing the
deadly hantaviruscarried by mice, were
unable to retrieve them and specialists
had to be called in to decontaminate the
records last October.
The warehouse was shut down, but
a limited number of files were retrieved
for agency employees, and workers
expect to be able to go back in again by
the end ofthe month. A special trustee
named to clean up the Indian trust
ate passed a memorial urging the federal government to continue funding
the school whose graduates, the memorial says, are "some of the most
renowned Native American artists in
the country ... and contribute substantially to SantaFc's status as the second
largest arts market in the country."
Enrollment has risen this year to
about 120. And after more than 35 years
in otherschools' buildings, IAIA plans
to break ground April 10 on its own
campus, with $8.5 million in hand for
construction. IAIA has been housed
on the campus of The College of Santa
Fe since 1981, pay ing it nearly $600,000
SchOOl/to pg. 6
ofthe annual gam ing proceeds — about
$26 million —for per capita payments,
Hughes said. For years, the tribe has
used gambling profits for tribal programs, forbuying land and fora variety
of business pursuits in a strategy to
protect the tribe's long-term economic
stability.
Tribal members who do not live on
the reservation say that policy prevents them from directly benefiting
from the tribe's financial success. But
Hughes said setting the per-capita
payments too high could threaten services the tribe provides. "The only area
where there probably wouldn't be cutbacks is the gaming operation," she
said.
causing the fatal injuries.
The case was investigated by the
FBI and Red lake Law Enforcement.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Clifford
Ward law prosecurted the case.
A weekly publication.
Cwyrtjnt Native American Press, 1888
Pholo by Scherling Srudio - Bemidji
Judy Needham of Red Lake. MN. is the proud winner of the quilt raffled off by the TARGET Group. The quilt has emblems of the
.sewn clam nl tlif Red Lake Nation. It was made by Pat Grace. Profits from the raffle will be used for the TARGET Group trip to
Washington, lit.
Local governments fear loss of casino
land from tax rolls
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - For years,
the Shooting Star Casino provided
property tax revenue for schools, police and social services in the northwestern Minnesota county of Mahnomen.
Last year' s revenue alone, for instance — about $800,000 — could
nearly pay forthe salaries of one-fourth
ofthe teachers in the 865-student Mahnomen School District.
But that revenue-stream could dry
up now that the WhiteEarth Band of
Chippewa wants the U.S. Interior Department to declare the casino a federal
trust property and remove it from tax
rolls.
" It would be devastating for us, "
county treasurer Dan Cook said.
" We would have to cut services."
The request is part of a pattern of
requests from American Indian tribes
to have land removed from tax rolls.
The casino property is among 5, 300
acres that tribes around the state want
to have exempted.
An analysis last month by researchers in the Minnesota House showed
that another 5,570 acres of tribal property have been removed from tax rolls
since casinos opened in 1992.
Gambling profits have allowed tribes
to buy land for housing, business and
cultural preservation, orto consolidate
reservation
boundaries.
The tiny Upper Sioux Community,
owners of Firefly Creek Casino near
Granite Falls in southwestern Minnesota, has bought 436 acres in
recent years and taken much of itoff the
tax rolls.
" They are paying an astronomical
price to get it," said Yellow
Medicine County Assessor Connie
Erickson, who has watched sellers "
hold off until they get what they want"
from the tribe.
For decades, poor Indian tribes have
placed land into federal trust
to avoid losing it through forfeiture or
foreclosure. But in the era of tribal
casinos, the Interior Department increasingly weighs tribal needs against
those of state and local governments.
The federal Bureau oflndian Affairs
recently rejected a request by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Dakota Community, which owns Mystic Lake Casino
in Prior Lake, to take nearly 600 acres off
the tax rolls in the city of Shakopee.
Mahnomen County, which has a
population of 5,000, illustrates how a
Tax/to pg. 3
Indian hosts of murdered U.S. activists
vow revenge
CUBARA, Colombia (AP) - U'wa
Indian leaders, hosts ofthe three American activists slain last week, say they
have no doubt that Colombia's oldest
and largest leftist rebel group committed the killings. And they vow to exact
punishment.
"We are going to identify and directly punish" those responsible, Luis
EduardoCaballero, an indignant tribal
leader, told The Associated Press at
the U'wa's liaison office in this town
just outside the tribe's reservation in
northeastern Colombia. He did not
specify how the U'wa, who are not
known to carry arms, might exact revenge.
Colombia's anti-kidnapping czar,
Jose Alfredo Escobar, said he also had
no doubt the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, or FARC, were
responsible for the killings oflndian
activists Ingrid Washinawatok and
Lahe'ena'e Gay and environmentalist
Terence Freitas.
Escobar cited military intelligence
intercepts of alleged radio communications between the local guerrillacom-
mander and the guerrillas who holding
the Americans, whose bullet-riddled
bodies were found Thursday, bound
and bl indfolded, just across the border
in Venezuela.
The FARC's national leadership still
had not commented Sunday on the
killings. But Pino Arlacchi, director of
the U.N. anti-drag program, canceled a
meeting in southern Colombia with top
FARC commanders with to discuss
ways to wean peasants off the cultivation of crops used to make cocaine and
heroin.
"I made the decision in the face ofa
lack of clarity regarding the responsibility for the barbaric and repugnant
murderofthreeU.S. citizens found by
the Arauca river," Arlacchi said in a
statement.
Also Sunday, Colombia's right-wing
paramilitary leadership issued a statement denying any involvement in killings. The United Self-Defense Forces
of Colombia said it had no disputes
with the U'wa and no units in the area.
Although paramilitary groups are
active in Arauca state, not far from
Cubara,thisl60-square-kilometer(60-
square-mile) municipality and the area
where the three Americans were kidnapped Feb. 25 are all squarely under
FARC control, U'wa leaders, townspeople and local military and police
commanders say.
The Americans were seized by gunmen in civilian clothing whom their
U'wa escorts identified as FARC guer-
Activists/to pg. 5
\