Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1999-11-12

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Salute to all U.S.
veterans
Happy 224th
Birthday, U.S.
Marine Corp
Cabin owners on
Leech Lake
Reservation may
lose leases
Pg 1
Mille Band,
County agree to
federal mediation
to resolve
disputes
Pg 1
Indian Child
Welfare Act partly
1 to blame for girl's
death
Pg 1,4
4L-S
Red Lake voters
  say "No" to sale
f^f^l of alcohol at casinos
34% (860 votes) "Yes"
On reservation     330
Absentee 530
66% (1,684 votes)    "No"
On reservation 1,094
Absentee 590
Two charged in
beating death of
8-year-old
Excerpted from articles
by Joy Powell, Star Tribune    _
As the Minneapolis police officer
drove the siblings of 8-year-old
Brenda Swearingen to an emergency
shelter, a
tiny voice
piped up,
asking
about their
sister.
"Brenda's
dead, isn't
she?" the
child
asked....
Brenda
BrendaSwearingen Swearingen,
8, suffered a severe beating and then
lay for 17 hours without getting medical help that could have saved her
life, according to murder charges filed
Nov. 8 against a 33-year-old man who
lived with her in Minneapolis.
The girl was beaten after she allegedly failed to perform a chore up to
the expectations of Kevin A. Lange,
who was charged in Hennepin
SWEARINGEN to pg. 8
Foster parents warned
Tribe of abuse
They blame Indian Child Welfare Act for girl's death
"When they placed those kids in
that home, we knew it was a mistake,"
Robert Desjarlait said at his Crystal
home, where the kids had lived for 2'/2
years before moving in with relatives
earlier this year. "We all knew these
kids were going back into the battle."
Desjarlait had been Brenda
Swearingen's foster father before she
was placed under the guardianship of
the people who would later kill her.
When someone dances in a powwow their footsteps go on forever, he
said in a television interview.
Desjarlait finds comfort in that,
knowing Brenda danced in many
pow-wows in the two-and-a-half
years she and her younger siblings
lived in his home.
Brenda, who loved Barbie dolls,
strawberries and singing, was found
dying early Nov. 3 in the home of
relatives in the Hawthorne
neighborhood of Minneapolis. Police
said they believe she was battered by
the adults, whom the children called
aunt and uncle.
Robert and Nan Desjarlait said they
protestea tne placement and wanted
Robert Desjarlait, Red Lake
Band of Chippewa.
to keep Brenda, 8; her brother, 7;
sister, 6, and half-sister, 4.
The Desjarlaits told foster care
worker Marlene Munroe in February
about a report of child abuse by the
man now jailed in the slaying. They
said they filed other reports about
scrapes and bruises on the children
before their move in March. Munroe,
a foster care specialist with American
Indian Family and Children Services, a
private agency, neither confirmed nor
denied the Desjarlaits' claim.
The report of abuse came from
Brenda's 7-year-old brother, who told
FOSTER PARENTS to pg. 8
Dept. of Justice to mediate disputes between Mille Lacs
Band of Ojibwe, County.
By Julie Shortridge
On Nov. 5, Gaymett announced
that the Mille Lacs County Board
and the Mille Lacs Band tribal
government agreed to undertake a
mediation process to resolve
'disputes between the two
governments.
A Dept. of Justice mediator
Gustavo (Gus) Gaymett had been in
the Mille I ?ce ^roa last week,
holding meetings with the county
board, band government and
community, assessing the interest in
having DOJ mediate disputes among
the groups.
Issues raised at public meetings
that are causing contention in the
area include: reservation
boundaries; the extent of tribal
jurisdiction, especially on fee lands;
the Memorandum of Understanding
Gustavo Gaymett, DOJ mediator
among the Minnesota Pollution
Control Agency; U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency and the band
granting the band "Treatment as
State" status for certain groundwater
programs; civil right protections on
tribal land; implementation of 1837
hunting, fishing and gathering
rights; housing prisoners in county
jail arrested by tribal police;
placement of children in foster care;
and payments in lieu of taxes from
the band to the county for services.
Five issues will be included in the
mediation process    three raised by
the county and two by the band.
The county voted to discuss
payments in lieu of taxes, out of
home placements, and housing of
prisoners. The band said they would
enter mediation only if zoning and
fee lands were also on the agenda.
The county board agreed to
accept mediation by a 4-1, with
Commissioner Frank Courteau
voting against. The vote will have to
be ratified at a county board
DEPT. OF JUSTICE to pg. 6
Bushyhead hired as new head of Minneapolis
Indian Health Board
By Gary Blair
Yvonne Bushyhead is the new executive director ofthe Indian
Health Board (IHB) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Bushyhead is the
clinic's third director, replacing Noreen Smith who had been the
director for over 27 years ofthe IHB's 29-year history. Bushyhead
started her position on July 12,1999.
Bushyhead is originally from Cherokee, North Carolina and she
is enrolled with the Eastern Band of Cherokee and is also of
Winnebago descent She recently taught at the University of
Hamline's Law School. She has been in Minnesota since January of
this year.
Bushyhead's background includes a bachelor's degree in social
work, masters degree in Education, and a law degree. According to a
recent IHB newsletter, "She has an extensive background in the
administration of federal contracts in tribal programs. She also has
years of experience teaching in university settings."
Bushyhead, said in an interview, "The organization is making a
lot of changes, because some ofthe clinic's funding had been
stopped during the pervious administration." She says she's
working to regain those funds.
"I want to get more grass roots Indian people on our board of
directors. I also want more Indian people using the clinic. If people feel that they were mistreated at the clinic in the past, I
want them to give us another chance. I want them to come back, and use their clinic."
Continuing she said, "I want to get more Indian community members involved in our programs. I'm going to need help
to get thinks turned around." Bushyhead says she's optimistic. "I've taken on clinic jobs like this before and I've been
successful."
In spite of Bushyhead's optimism, her transition to executive director at IHB hasn't been without problems. She says
shortly after she took the job, she and two other staffmembers were fired for four days and then hired back by IHB's
board of directors in an apparent conflict among board members that had nothing directly to do with the staffmembers
involved.
Consolidating Indian land holdings will save millions, officials say
Yvonne Bushyhead, a Winnebago/
Cherokee from North Carolina, Is the new
Minneapolis Indian Health Board director.
By Matt Kelley
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP)
A pilot program to consolidate
small American Indian land interests,
some as tiny as one three-millionth of
an 80-acre tract, could save the
federal government millions of dollars
and countless bureaucratic
headaches, officials told Congress
Thursday.
Bureau oflndian Affairs officials
also said a Senate proposal would
help solve similar land ownership
problems that plague reservations
across the country.
"The only asset most tribes have is
land, but under the current land use
(system), they can't use it," BIA
head Kevin Gover told a joint House-
Senate committee meeting.
In the pilot project on three
Wisconsin Chippewa reservations,
the BIA has spent $ 1.6 million buying
more than 8,000 small fractions of
various land tracts, Gover said. That
has allowed the federal government
to return more than 4,000 acres to the
tribes and>.will eventually save the
BIA more than $2.5 million in
administrative costs, he said.
At issue is a complex problem often
called "fractionated heirship."
Because of unique laws governing
reservation lands, some individual
tracts can have hundreds or even
thousands of owners descended from
the tract's original owner.
"It's like a bad pyramid scheme, '
only upside down," Gover said.
As part of its plans to assimilate
Indians into American society, the
federal government in the 1800s and
early 1900s issued 160-acre
allotments of reservation land to
individual Indians. The idea was to
turn Indians into landowning farmers.
But the policy failed, and by 1934
the government changed course and
for the most part ended the allotment
policy. To protect Indians from land
swindlers, existing allotments were
held in trust by the federal
government - meaning they could not
be sold without the Interior
Department's approval.
Rather than dividing the tracts
among heirs when the allotment
owner died, federal law gave each
heir an equal interest in the original
tract. So if a landowner with four
children died, each child would not
get 40 acres, but a one-quarter
LAND HOLDINGS to pg. 6
Voice of the People
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•,  luanita Walker, a Winnebago Indian from Nebraska, makes fry bread at the University of St Thomas Pow-wow.
St. Thomas Pow-wow shows Indian entrepreneurial spirit
On November 6 and 7, the University of St Thomas held its annual pow-wow on its St. Paul campus.
This year's event produced even more evidence of a growing entrepreneurial spirit within this area's
Native American community. There were over 35 craft vendors present from various parts ofthe upper-
Midwest. Vendors offered baskets, craft items, sculptures, handmade jewelry, paintings and quilts.
In addition, there were booths at the pow-wow offering information on the year 2000 U.S. Census, HIV
and AIDS, etc.
The cost of admission was $6.00 per-day for adults. Elders and children were admitted free.
The St. Thomas pow-wow has been sponsored each of its 12 years by Robert Quails, a non-Indian St.
Thomas faculty member. The food for the pow-wow, was prepared by Native American women, and the
gymnasium's confection booths were also operated and staffed by Indians.
License plates on vehicles parked in the university's nearby parking lot, indicated many ofthe powwow goers came from throughout the Midwest, including Kansas, Nebraska, South and North Dakota,
Wisconsin and Iowa.
-Gary Blair
Pow-wow photographs to page 8
New questions about who the real Indian firefighters are
Kevin Diaz
StarTribune, 11-10-99
His code name in legal documents
is "RR." His listed race, according to
human-resource documents, is
"American Indian." And since spring,
he's been a full-fledged Minneapolis
firefighter.
For James Rodger Jr., the job
continues a family tradition. His
father, James Rodger Sr., was   ■
appointed a deputy fire chief last year
as part ofthe incoming administration
of Fire Chief Rocco Forte, who took
control with a mayoral mandate to
integrate the department's top ranks
and heal long-term labor and racial
strife.
While Forte is widely credited with
creating a more harmonious
department, his decision to hire
Rodger Jr. has stirred up old
allegations in the Indian community
about people with false or/tenuous
claims to Indian heritage abusing
affirmative action to take jobs from
bona fide Indians and other
minorities.
Rodger Jr. claims Cherokee heritage
through his paternal grandmother,
whose Wisconsin birth certificate
lists her as Indian. But he wasn't able
to produce a tribal-enrollment number,
a requirement ofthe city's hiring
protocol. And while city officials say
they have no reason to believe
Rodger Jr. misrepresented himself, the
city's American Indian advocate,
Valerie Sheehan, acknowledged in a
swom deposition last month that she
questioned Rodger Jr. before
certifying him because Wisconsin is
not known as a home to Cherokees.
The dispute has reopened a rift with
the Minneapolis Firefighter Steering
Committee, the panel that oversees
the department's integration efforts
under a 1971 federal court decree
known as Carter v. Gallagher. And
for city officials, it raises uncertainties
about who should be counted as an
Indian, and how.
City officials say that they can't
publicly identify the firefighters
whose ethnicity has been questioned,
but several officials close to the case "
confirmed privately that the hiring of
Rodger Jr. has been the focus ofthe
complaints.
Neither Rodger Jr. nor Rodger Sr.
could be reached for comment
Tuesday, and Sheehan declined a
request for an interview.
City officials say they have no
reason to dispute Rodger Jr.'s
ancestry, particularly since it was
validated by Sheehan, who was
appointed to the task of verifying
such claims more than four years ago.
The problem is the city's 1991 pledge
FIREFIGHTERS to pg. 6
Cabin owners on
Leech Lake Res.
may lose leases
CASSLAKE,Minn. (AP)
Some cabin owners who lease land
on Leech, Cass or Boy lakes are being
told by the Leech Lake Band of
Chippewa that their leases may not be
renewed because the tribe needs the
land.
Tribal Chairman Eli Hunt said the
band is evaluating leases as they
come up for renewal because the tribe
needs more space for its members and
businesses.
"As leases expire, we intend to take
into consideration that we have a use
for the land ourselves. When we have
CABIN OWNERS to pg. 6
Plaintiffs accuse Koch of underreporting
oil purchases from federal, tribal leases
By Renee Ruble
Associated Press Writer
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Koch Industries will take its turn defending itself
against a federal lawsuit accusing the
company of underreporting oil it purchased from Indian and federal
leases, ending up millions of dollars
ahead.
The plaintiffs finished making their
case Nov. 8.
Bill Koch filed the lawsuit against
the company built by his father and
now run by an older brother, Charles
Koch. He contends the company,
which has a refinery in Rosemount,
Minn., trained employees to adjust
measurements when purchasing oil
from Indian and federal leases so the
company received more oil than it
paid for during the 1980s.
Bill Koch could receive up to one-
third of any damages awarded by the
jury-
The defense contends that industry standards call for the adjustments to make up for certain field
conditions including Oil shrinkage or
tanks filled with sediment. The attorneys also questioned how Koch
could steal oil from underneath producers without their knowledge.
Koch is scheduled to begin presenting its case Nov. 9.
Koch Industries, based in Wichita,
Kan., is the country' s second-largest privately held company with $30
billion annual sales.