Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 2001-02-02

              ■_":--,- '..' - .'■•-"■"_■■.-   ;  :    '■"   '"'-■   -_■;::'
INDEX
News Around Indian Country
Commentary/EditorialsA/oices
Smoke Signals of Upcoming Events
Classifieds
UND
CHANGE
Tlir liftWf
Commentary
Insulting letter
best evidence that
money talks at U of
North Dakota
pg4
Cheyenne River
Reservation shuts
down family violence
program
pgi
Big fish, young
dangler makes
i biggest catch
of her career
|pg 3
Commentary
Red Lake's
staggering debt
load is recipe
for disaster
pg4
Mille Lacs Band
tries to bar Bud
Grant from
snowmobile event
pgi
Mille Lacs Band tries to bar fonner Viking coach Bud Grant
from snowmobile event
By Julie Shortridge
According to sources, Robert Johnson,
the Executive Vice President and General
Manager ofthe Mille Lacs Casino, requested that fonner Viking coach and
treaty claim opponent Bud Grant not attend this year's 6th Annual Arctic Blast
snowmobile event, to be held in the Mille
Lacs area Feb. 1-4.
Hall of Famer Grant is one of about 25
former and present Vikings celebrities
listed to attend the event - the largest
snowmobile rally in North America and
the largest fundraiser forthe Vikings
Children's Fund. Grant's name sparked
concern among Mille Lacs Band of
Bud Grant receives his Football
Hall of Fame ring in 1994.
Ojibwe tribal council members who allegedly said they wouldn't be comfortable being at the same events as Grant
and he wasn't welcome on the reservation.
Tracy Sam, public relations spokesperson for the Mille Lacs Band, said the
feeling about Grant was "the general
consensus" ofall the tribal elected officials, although no vote was held. "It was
the general feeling ofthe leadership that
he shouldn't be here based on his support
of PERM and the anti-treaty tiling," said
Sam. When asked if the request that
Grant not attend meant events held on
BUD GRANT to pg. 3
Cheyenne River
Reservation shuts
down family
violence program
By Clara NiiSka
South Dakota—According to sources
who asked to remain anonymous, disagreement over client confidentiality resulted in closing the Family Violence Prevention Program on the Cheyenne River
Reservation late last week. Program staff
were fired by the tribal council, then arrested and jailed by tribal police.
The Family Violence Prevention Pro-
PROGRAM to pg. 6
State-run casino proposed
Associated Pivss
Two state lawmakers think Minnesota
should be cashing in
on a chunk of casino
profits instead of letting all that money
flow to the state's 19
existing casinos operated by American Indian tribes.
"As long as gambling exists in Minnesota, there should be good, open competition," said Sen. Dick Day, R-Owatonna.
Day and Rep. Tom Hackbarth, R-Ce-
dar, are proposing that a state-owned,
state-run casino with at least 2,000 slot
Minority Leader
Sen. Dick Day
machines be built in the Twin
Cities area.
They estimate the facility
would generate about $300 million annually. About half would
go to die Minnesota Lottery for
operating costs. The proposal
would split the rest between
transportation and one-time constniction projects.
Governor Ventura is said to be
open to considering the proposal.
Currently, only American Indian casinos on Indian reservations are allowed in the state. Indian interests have strongly opposed the expansion of casino-style facilities to non-reservation areas.
Long-time Red
Lake Tribal
Council member
dead at 56
By Robby Robinson
Bemidji Pioneer-
Red Lake Indian Reservation is
mourning the passine of Lawrence
Bedeau, a
25-year veteran ofthe
Red Lake
Tribal Council.
Bedeau
died Friday
at Hennepin
County
Medical
Center in
Minneapolis,
the victim of
illness asso-    Lawrence Bedeau
ciated with diabetes, according to a
friend ofthe family.
At the time ofhis death, Bedeau was
the longest serving elected member of
the Red Lake Tribal Council, representing the Little Rock District.
He was also a strong advocate ofthe
environment, according to co-workers
in the Red Lake Department of Natural
Resource, where he served as director
BEDEAU to pg. 6
Peltier backers say fight goes on
Excerpted by Chuck Haga
Star Tribune
Despite an intense effort
to persuade President
Clinton to grant clemency
to Leonard Peltier, an
American Indian Movement figure convicted of
killing two FBI agents in
1975, he was not on tlie final pardon list Jan. 20.
We're extremely disappointed," said
AIM leader Vemon Bellecourt, "but certainly not defeated. We're grateful to
those Indian people and other Americans, and friends and supporters vvorld-
Leonard Peltier
Ex-BIA director's new job raises
revolving-door question
Excerpted from Pat Doyle
Star Tribune
Five days after ruling favorably for
the Wisconsin Menominee in their bid
for a casino in Kenosha, Kevin Gover
on Jan. 3 stepped down as head ofthe
U.S. Bureau oflndian Affairs (BIA).
The next day he took a job with the
Washington, D.C, law and lobbying
firm of Steptoe & Johnson, which has
been wooing the Menominee for business since last fall while Gover considered the tribe's bid for the Midwest's
biggest casino.
The revolving door between regulators and businesses they regulate always
raises questions about the integrity of
government. And at a time when many
American Indian tribes are campaigning for a major expansion of casino
gambling that would have consequences for Minnesota, it has taken on
even greater significance.
Gover said last week that he hadn't
known that the firm was trying to win
business from the Menominee while
talking to him about a job, but had he
known it, he would have disqualified
himself from ruling on the southern
Wisconsin casino proposal.
"There's little enough confidence in
GOVER to pg. 5
Redby man finds honor restored in presidential pardon
AssociatedPress
REDLAKE, Minn. - Dennis Joseph
Smith didn't think he had much ofa
chance for a presidential pardon until a
reporter looking for him told Smith's
niece, who broke tlie news to her uncle.
When Smith heard he'd been pardoned by Bill Clinton, he cried. He had
finally found redemption for a past of
suffering and guilt.
In the mid- 1950s, Smith - a Korean
War veteran - was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Anny after turning a 45-day leave into a drunken, yearlong unauthorized absence.
Smith was discharged and sent home
shortly after being sentenced to six
months in the stockade at Camp
Carson, Colo., and ordered to forfeit
S95 of pay after pleading guilty to "unauthorized absence" and "failure to
obey off-limits instructions."
But Smith said he was sentenced to
something much worse than tlie stockade: the rest ofhis life without honor.
He drank too much for the next three
decades. "I tried to get treatment once,
but it didn't work," Smith said.
What did work was seeing his son
running toward him through tlie snow
without wann clothes, crying, a large
bump on his head. The child was living
with his mother at the time, and Smith
said he was on the outs with her.
In that moment in 1980, as he held
his bruised and shivering son, Smith
said he stopped drinking. He got custody ofhis boy, Robert, and raised him.
He got a job driving heavy equipment
for his tribe and became a respected citizen.
But Smith - who lives in Redby on
the Red Lake Indian Reservation -
wasn't entirely at peace.
"It bothered me that I had that dishonorable discharge," he said.
Some friends knew his story, and
starting in the mid-1990s helped him
petition the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Army to get his discharge
Dennis Smith, a Korean WarVeteran and a member ofthe Red Lake Indian Reservat.ow'fa'Redbys
is shown Jan. 26 in Redlake. Smith received
pardon from former President Bill Clinton just
before Clinton left office. His pardon stemmed
from an unauthorized absence from the Army
that led to a dishonorable discharge in the 1950s.
changed to honorable.
Richard Pearsall, a Vietnam War veteran, argued in letters to the VA tliat a
doctor's report from the 1950s and
other evidence suggested Smith was
suffering "shell shock" now called posttraumatic stress syndrome when he
wentAWOL.
"He felt he'd done his job in Korea,"
Pearsall said in an interview. "He was
due to be discharged in a few months
anyway, and as a young man at tlie time
he didn't realize the consequences of
not returning to camp."
Each time they petitioned, they were
turned down. They wrote to representatives and senators, but got back form
letters.
In 1998, Smith saw an article in an
Voice     of     t he     People
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Volume 13 Issue 11
February 2, 2001
«qk   wide, who offered so many
prayers to the Great Spirit,
but ask them all to remain
resolutely determined."
Nicholas O'Hara,
former special agent in
charge ofthe Minneapolis
FBI office, said "justice was
served."
"President Clinton
looked at the facts and did
not act," he said. 'That's all I've ever
wanted out of this."
Bellecourt said Peltier's supporters
PELTIER to pg. 6
American Indian newspaper about a South
Dakota man who received a presidential
pardon for an offense
committed decades before. Smith showed it
to another veteran-
friend, Jim Williamson,
who runs a nursing
home on Red Lake.
With Williamson's
help, Smith wrote to
the U.S. Justice
Department's pardon
attorney.
"It is a most sacred
Indian tradition to enter
the spirit world free of
dishonor," he wrote. "I
have made amends
with myself and the
'battle over alcohol.' ...
Now I ask to be allowed to overcome the
stigma of my court
martial... to become
whole as a true warrior."
Smith was one of
140 Americans and the
only Minnesotan pardoned by Clinton before he left office.
A Star Tribune of Minneapolis reporter who couldn't find Smith by
phone called Bobby Whitefeather,
chairman of tlie Red Lake Band, who
called some of Smith's relatives. Smith
finally got the news from his niece; it's
not clear why he wasn't notified by the
pardon attorney's office.
"When she told me, I started crying,"
Smith said. Then he went to Pearsall's
house to give him the news. On Jan. 26
they met to begin preparing another application for an honorable discharge.
If he can get an honorable discharge,
Smith said that when he dies he wants
an American flag draped on his grave.
Six years after Carter helped build homes,
Indian reservation struggles on
By Carson Walker
Associated Press
EAGLE BUTTE, S.D. - Cheryl
Morgaridge has set some firm rules at
home: no playing football or basketball
inside the house and no nailing holes in
the walls to hang pictures.
That's because Morgaridge, who
once relied on the government for housing, now owns her own home. Taped-up
posters adorn the four-bedroom house
and her four children play hockey in the
basement.
Morgaridge and about two dozen
other families on the Cheyenne River
Sioux Indian Reservation have a former
president to thank for dieir new homes.
More than six years after Jimmy
Carter and 1,500 other volunteers built
30 houses in a week on the reservation,
24 ofthe original homeowners remain.
"One thing is that if something happens to me, the kids will have a place,"
Morgaridge said in a recent interview.
"It gave us a home for us to take care
of
It was the first Habitat for Humanity
project on an American Indian reservation, where roughly eight of 10 people
utve a job and government housing is the main alternative.
Tlie Habitat-built homes arc on a
tract of land just outside Eagle Butte on
a stretch of wide-open prairie about 120
miles northeast of Rapid City.
"I think given the economic situations
hat take place not only on Eagle Butte
but on all Native American reservations,
we've been very successful in keeping
Habitat homeowners in their homes,"
said Michael Willard, director of program enhancement at Habitat headquarters in Georgia.
Before Morgaridge moved into her
Habitat house, which she and Carter
helped build, her rent for government-
owned housing was $400 a month.
Now her 20-year mortgage is SI70 a
month.
And the home is better insulated and
has a gas furnace instead of electric
heat, so it's a lot cheaper to take the chill
out of South Dakota winters.
Tlie foreclosure of six ofthe original
30 loans works out to a default rate of
about 20 percent, compared to the 1
percent average for Habitat homes in
general and most commercial banks.
Morgaridge did fall behind on payments during her divorce, but she has
since caught up and stayed current.
Flexibility to help during such times
helps most people stay in their homes,
said Kay Bourland, director ofthe
Eagle Butte Habitat chapter.
Curley's newest Habitat for Humanity homeowners
This home is representative ofthe homes many people lived in
But not always.
"It's the hardest part of the job, the
foreclosure procedure. But Habitat's
motto is 'We are a hand up, not a handout.' Not everyone is cut out to be a homeowner," she said, referring to maintenance and upkeep.
For some, the new homes offered a
new start.
"I can think of one family that they
were living in a tent" Bourland said.
Now, she said, they are doing well in
their new home. "I've seen them do a
180-degree turn around from where
they were," she said.
Bourland's husband and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe's chairman,
Gregg Bourland, said the Habitat homei
have been a good addition to the reservation.
The new homeowners care for their
property and each other, he said. Habital
owners have a sense of pride because
they invest in a down payment and donate several hundred hours building
HOMES to pg. 6
Casinos compete
with Fargo area
for conventions
AssociatedPress
HANKINSON,N.D.-The
Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux and White
Earth Chippewa tribes want to be big
players in the convention business.
Both have invested millions of dollars on facilities in hopes of bringing
conferences, trade shows and entertainment to their casinos. The investments are bound to bring new dollars
into the Fargo and Moorhead, Minn.,
regional trade area.
But the investments also put the
tribal-owned facilities in direct competition with hotel and conference centers in the region.
"Every conference center that gets
built is competition," says Cole Carley,
executive director ofthe Fargo-
Moorhead Convention and Visitors
Bureau.
Shooting Star Casino at Mahnomen,
Minn., is now known as Shooting Star
Casino, Hotel & Event Center. Dakota
Magic Casino at the North Dakota-
South Dakota border south of
Hankinson has become Dakota Magic
Entertainment & Convention Center.
Dakota Magic opened its 24,000-
CAS1NOS to pg. 3
White Earth Tribal Council
awarded youth grants
According to a press release from the
U.S. Department of Justice, the Mille
Lacs Band and the White Earth Tribal
Council were among the thirty-eight
American Indian and Alaskan Native
communities awarded Justice Department Tribal Youth Program grants intended to "help tribal communities
combat juvenile crime and drug abuse."
Tlie White Earth Reservation Tribal
Council will be granted $233,000 for
"fiscal year 2000," and the Mille Lacs
Band of Ojibwe Indians will be granted
$100,000 for "fiscal year 2000." The
three-year competitive grants were
made after evaluation by a Justice Department peer review panel, selecting 38
grantees from a pool of 69 applicants.
Mille Lacs and White Earth were the
only Minnesota reservations to apply.
Tlie Justice Department's Tribal
Youth Program discretionary grants
were created under Public Law 105-
277. Tlie $12.5 million appropriated
for Tribal Youth Programs are administered under Public Law 106-113 (November 17,1999). Approximately ten
percent ofthe funding is reserved for
"program-related research, evaluation
and statistics," and $7.5 million is set
aside for discretionary grants. "Additional funds" are described by tlie Justice Department as, "going to enhance
other tribal efforts and program sup
port." The Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention (OJJDP) also funds training
and technical assistance to grantees
through the American Indian Development Associates.
The Tribal Youth Programs are one
component of a joint U.S. Department
of Justice and Department ofthe Interior "Indian Country Law Enforcement
Initiative." Last year, these Clinton administration Indian law enforcement
initiative programs awarded nearly
$91.5 million dollars directly to Indian
and Alaskan tribal governments. These
grants are intended to address problems
of law enforcement and tribal justice
systems affecting tlie "1.4 million
American Indians living on or near Indian lands."
The objectives of tlie Tribal Youth
Programs were described in Justice Department application materials as: ? Reduce, control and prevent crime and delinquency both by and against tribal
youth; ? Provide interventions for court-
involved tribal youth; ? Improve tribal
juvenile justice systems, and ? Provide
prevention programs focusing on alcohol and dmgs. The nearly eight million
dollars in awards announced Wednesday was described as supporting "accountability-based sanctions, training
GRANTS to pg. 5