March 30, 1973

That Unfinished 1973 Oscar Speech

by MARLON BRANDO

http://tinyurl.com/5adam

Coming Up Tomorrow on American Indian Airwaves

“The Inherent Right of Sovereignty, the Pathology of American Empire, and Genocide by Drowning”

Interview with indigenous legal scholar Steven Newcomb (Shawnee/Lenape Nations) Director of the Indigenous Law Institute, http://ili.nativeweb.org, and a Visiting Professor in Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst on the Inherent Right of Indigenous Sovereignty and the Pathology of American Empire. Steven Newcomb will also be speaking at the Symposium on "American Indian Sovereignty and Self-Determination in the 21st century" at San Diego State University, October 7, 2004, Don Powell Theater at 6:00 PM.

http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/aminweb/symposium_webpage.html

Interview with indigenous Elder and activist Caleen Sisk-Franco (Winennemum Wintu Nation) http://www.winnememwintu.us/ on Drowning by Genocide and the ongoing struggles to protect the McCloud River and the prevention of the Winennemum Wintu Nation traditional lands being drowned by the Shasta Dam.



American Indian Airwaves can be heard every Wednesday from 3pm to 4pm (PCT) on KPFK (http://www.kpfk.org)
FM 90.7 in Los Angles, FM 98.7 in Santa Barbara via by Internet with Real Media Player, Winamp, & Itunes.


Informant: Carrie Dann

Analysis: Bush sovereignty pledge welcome but follows Western Shoshone dispossession

Posted: September 27, 2004 - 10:25am EST
by: Jerry Reynolds / Washington D.C. correspondent / Indian Country Today

WASHINGTON - President George W. and First Lady Laura Bush welcomed tribal leaders and U.S. congressional members to the White House Sept. 23, recognizing the unprecedented Indian presence in the nation’s capital for opening week of the National Museum of the American Indian.

Speaking from the East Room, where more than 30 years ago President Richard M. Nixon delivered the "Special Message" to Congress that ended tribal termination as policy and recognized a new era of self-determination, Bush announced an executive memorandum ordering federal agencies to respect tribal sovereignty and self-determination in their decision making. "My government will continue to honor this government-to-government relationship."

The words brought the second ovation of the morning, exceeding even the first at mention of "Indian members of our U.S. military."

Executive orders and memoranda have been standing features of presidential power since the founding of the republic. They lack the force of law and can be canceled or ignored by later officeholders; though in this case Bush continued an order already in place from the Clinton years. Every president has issued executive orders. Only Bush has issued an Indian-specific one within six weeks of a presidential election; but then only Bush has had an occasion like the NMAI opening, with more Native people gathered in the capital city at one time than ever before.

The other theme of the morning was sovereignty. The president repeatedly emphasized tribal sovereignty. Later, in a day filled with Indian meetings around town, a woman would remark that maybe he was trying to make up for a blunder some months ago, when he told a Native audience that America had "given" sovereignty to tribes (as Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Mich., regularly notes around Washington - the U.S. Constitution does not grant, but recognizes and guarantees, the prior sovereignty of tribes). Tex Hall, elected leader of Three Affiliated Tribes in North Dakota and of the National Congress of American Indians, minimized the oversight as a matter of inadequate briefing from the president’s staff.

If so, the staff had briefed him fully this time around, and the president had gotten the message. He said in several ways that he understands it and embraces it, and enforces it to the extent of issuing an executive memorandum on the government-to-government relationship to federal agency executives.

Whether or nor he’ll defend it was another question in some minds that morning. This is the president, after all, whose signature was added to legislation intended to dispossess millions of acres and billions of dollars of mineral-rich Western Shoshone treaty lands in four western states. At least one of them, Nevada, is among the so-called "battleground states" in the presidential election, raising speculation as to what Indian resources a second-term president, with no need to position himself for re-election, might find it in his power to sign away. Notable in this regard is that the U.S. Congress encouraged and validated the activities of a "shadow" Western Shoshone tribal government, as against the constitutional ones, that provided Congress with a tissue of legitimacy for resource piracy, in the opinion of many Indian people. In Iraq, Bush made it earthshakingly obvious that he’ll exercise U.S. national sovereignty without too many questions beforehand and without apology after. In the Western Shoshone case, he may have made it a little too clear for tribal comfort that he’ll exercise it domestically too, though with the discretion befitting domestic dependent nations whose only transgression is their inconvenience.

Bush’s role in all this hasn’t been an open book, but a Republican administration is not without power in a Republican-controlled Congress. In any case, a presidential veto of the controversial Western Shoshone dispossession bill could not have been overcome. So at the end of an exuberant week for Indians in Washington, the question of what pirate flags the U.S. ship of state may raise next in Indian waters still fluttered over the East Room.

But for the happy companionship within, the president’s words were tonic, appealing and timely. They not only encouraged the tribal leaders present; they also disassociated the president and the presidency from the right-wing groups that continue to insist tribal sovereignty is a contestable issue. With the strains of a Native-language national anthem from the Cherokee National Youth Choir still rich in memory, the president made it plain that tribes and their sovereignty are central:

"Native American cultures survive and flourish when tribes retain control over their own affairs and their own future. … Long before others came to the land called America, the story of this land was yours, alone. Indians on this continent had their own languages and customs, just as you have today. They had jurisdiction over their lands and territories, just as you have today. And these sovereign tribal nations had their own systems of self-governance, just as you have today."

The national museum is appropriately located on the National Mall, he added, "because the American Indian experience is central to the American story."

He closed to a third ovation: "The National Museum of the American Indian affirms that this young country is home to an ancient, noble and enduring Native culture. And all Americans are proud of that culture. Like many Indian dwellings, the new museum building faces east, toward the rising sun. And as we celebrate this new museum and we look to the future, we can say that the sun is rising on Indian country."

Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the Colorado Republican who retires after the current Congress as the Senate’s only Indian member, introduced the president with an assurance that Bush "wasn’t going to be about hollow promises."

Campbell said he met with the president about Indian country during the 2000 presidential campaign. He marked his promises of Indian school construction funds for future reference because he considers it a crucial issue - kids can’t study amid leaky ceilings and peeling walls. Four years later, Campbell said, Bush has spent three times as much on Indian school construction as any previous administration.

"Quite simply, he kept his promise to us."

Later in the day though, at another of those Indian meetings in a week full of them, Hall said he missed a rollout of future promises in the form of an Indian agenda for a second term if Bush is re-elected. Otherwise, Hall considered it a great morning at the White House.

This article can be found at http://www.indiancountry.com/?1096295890



Esperanza Luján
Indian Law Resource Center
601 E Street SE
Washington, D.C. 20003
202-547-2800
http://www.indianlaw.org


Informant: Carrie Dann

Natives to protest Lewis and Clark at Pierre this weekend
Indians Protest the Reenactment of the Lewis and Clark Journey

Freedom Thinking Native Nations Protest the "Dawn of Genocide of Lewis and Clark"

While a stone-faced Thomas Jefferson looks on from atop Mt. Rushmore, modern-day Lewis and Clark wannabes and a few descendants are commemorating Jefferson's initial plan of cultural genocide, by trekking up the Missouri River through Indian territories.

A large contingency of American Indian resistors are planning to again confront and denounce the on-going celebrations of the Lewis and Clark Commemorative Expedition this weekend at Ft. Pierre, SD.

An initial confrontation took place on September 18th at Chamberlain, SD, where the Expedition had docked for weekend festivities. Resistors made known their stand that the re-enactors should turn their boats around and leave Lakota country, while emphasizing the enormous emotional impact this reenactment is having on many native people.

In a written statement released Monday, September 20th, the Expedition crew stated that they will proceed upriver.

The group of sovereign resistors included tribal headsmen, grandmothers, students and young children with a common theme..."Why commemorate genocide?"

The group scoffed at historians statements concerning the "minimal or negligible impact" that Lewis and Clark had on Indians. The resistors believe that under the guidance of their commander, Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark's maiden voyage forged the gateway to the dawn of genocide for Indian nations.

While the Expedition contends that it has support from tribal leadership along the route, the resistors believe that, just as the original crew had done, this organization merely dangled some shiny coins before the elected leaders to get them on board for this money-making adventure.

The genocide of the native nations continues, the Indian spirit of many natives has been killed by the genocide of America toward indigenous people as demonstrated by the colonized thinking leading tribal organizations, governments and people to welcome and celebrate with Lewis and Clark Commemoration.

The resistors are encouraging all native peoples to decolonize their viewpoints on this issue and join them in their pursuit to stop this reenactment.

A caravan of Lakota people will arrive in Ft. Pierre, SD the weekend of September 25-26, 2004 to again protest the "Dawn of Genocide" that the Lewis and Clark Expedition represents to freedom-thinking native nations.


Informant: Raulmax

Sept. 15, 2004

Listening closely at Ecological Society of America meeting

by: Jean Johnson / Correspondent / Indian Country Today

PORTLAND, Ore. - The title of the 89th annual Ecological Society of America conference might have been "Lessons of Lewis and Clark: Ecological Exploration of Inhabited Landscapes", but the real theme of the August 2004 gathering in Portland was hair. Especially on the men - long hair.

The Indians outdid the Anglos as far as length went, of course. But even the guys from mainstream society have lots of it. Unruly curls of it, beards of it, silvered strands of it that went with their Birkenstock sandals and rumpled khaki trousers and field vests.

Granted, they didn’t have braids, like Shoshone-Bannock storyteller and published author, Ed Edmo. Nor the length, like Louis Pitt, director of Government Affairs and Planning with the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, who had his hair tied in back.

But the white guys had enough. Had enough hair to think seriously about not only ecological issues, but cultural ones. Enough hair to not only listen, but also, perhaps, to hear.

Not to overdraw the situation. The conference was a huge five-day event, and only two of the sessions were directly related to the tribes. Still, there was an unassuming feeling associated with the gathering that gave the impression people were more receptive to Indian points of view that those at more run of the mill events.

In particular the session, "Sense of Place: Indigenous Homelands of the Pacific Northwest", set the tone. Ed Edmo spoke mostly of Celilo Falls, the famous Indian fishing and trading center on the Columbia River that was inundated by water backing up behind The Dalles Dam in 1957.

"I was 11 when they flooded Celilo," Edmo said. His hands went out and hung in the air. "The way you have to think about it is how something you’ve lost has affected you today, and what are you doing to heal."

"I was angry for a long time … "But I’m not like that any more. People have the power to change. The question is what will people do to heal this cultural wound, and what will you do?"

As Edmo pointed out, though, he’s moved beyond hatred. Moved beyond grief to some extent. Moved beyond the pain he endured as a boy. In his closing remarks, he invited everyone to Celilo Village.

"I still remember all that from when I was a boy," he said. "We had the longhouse and had to be quiet. Everyone talked on and on. And then there was the salmon feast and everyone was invited. And Halloween weekend, too, for a pow wow and clown contest. So this Halloween, get on down to Celilo. Also the second weekend in April for the First Salmon Feast. There’s feasts every weekend from there to the Umatilla on the fourth as the salmon move up the river. So you can eat salmon all April on the Columbia if you want to."

Louie Pitt, didn’t have Ed Edmo’s literary bent. Instead, the policy analyst was all business. "Go ahead and feel guilty about the past if you must," Pitt addressed the Anglo audience. "But it’s now that I want to change. We are the people of the land and are the spokesmen for the land. It’s a land ownership far beyond the usual. We are of the land and in the land. The one thing you have to know about Native American people is that we would still be here. We would still hang out in places we call home. I’ve seen it with tribes that were terminated, and they’ve stayed. We’re connected to our land. It’s part of who we are."

Pitt proceeded to line out the details. "The United States, before it was a country, was very Christian, very Anglo in its approach. And the people developed laws and tools to steal lands from ‘heathen savages.’ From ‘uncivilized people’ that occupied, but didn’t own the land. Discovery doctrine - terrible."

Pitt’s voice was low and gentle, but he had his facts in order and didn’t pull any punches. "In 1787, the Continental Congress wrote "that the utmost good faith shall always be observed toward the Indians, and their lands and property will never be taken," he quoted. "Still, in the 1859 treaty, the Warm Springs gave up 10 million acres in return for the way of life they live today on the reservation. A lot of folks say the United States did a lot for us, but not really when you look at the record. Our reservation today is 650,000 acres, and it’s up on the dry east side, away from the Columbia River."

Pitt underscored, however, that usufructory rights were retained. He recited the line from the treaty that has been critical for Northwest tribes: "retain the exclusive right of fish taken in streams running through and boring said reservation and at all other usual and accustomed stations."

"Very strong," Pitt said. "This is the deal between the United States of America and our people. Of course, even back then non-Indians challenged it. In U.S. v. Winans (1905), though, the courts said that the treaty was not a grant of rights to the Indians, but a grant of rights from them."

The Warm Springs people work hard, explained Pitt, to manage their reservation lands, their forest lands, and their wilderness. They monitor water quality and use controlled burning to keep wildfires down. Said Pitt, "We’re not opposed to burning. That’s how the tribes used to manage the forests, and it worked. The thing is, we have a drought every year, and it’s called summer. So we burn."

"The idea," said Pitt in closing, "is to take care of your neighborhood.

Directly dependent on natural resources, the tribes long understood the concept of taking care of one’s homeland. The good news is that even in the 21st century as food and the material trappings of culture come more and more through the marketplace, members of mainstream society, at least the long-hair types like those attending the ESA this year, are listening. They are listening and by their attendance, tribal members like Ed Edmo and Louie Pitt are holding out for hope that perhaps, just perhaps, the white men would not only listen, they might also hear.

Printed for educational purposes only: The news that is reported is not necessarily the viewpoint of IndigenousNews

Reprinted under the Fair Use Law: Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

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Western Shoshone Defense Project
P.O. Box 211308
Crescent Valley, NV 89821
(775) 468-0230
Fax: (775) 468-0237
http://www.wsdp.org


Informant: Carrie Dann

Indian Tribe Conducts First War Dance Since 1887 to Stop Expansion of Shasta Dam - As darkness fell across the crescent-shaped Shasta Dam, eight barefoot Winnemem Wintu warriors armed with bows began the tribe's first war dance since 1887...

http://www.enn.com/news/2004-09-16/s_27200.asp

FYI. Recent Article. One correction: Western Shoshone Title is still intact – despite what the U.S. says or the perception it has created to cloud the issues. As the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, Organization of American States found in its 2003 Final Report: in the Western Shoshone case, the Indian Claims Commission is an illegitimate means for the U.S. to use to claim title to these lands. The U.S. must either give the Western Shoshone a full and fair hearing on the issue of title or negotiate a fair resolution.

Perception is only 9/10 of the law if we let it be. You can’t sell a nation by finding a few individuals who are willing to accept a check. If that was the case, maybe a few of us with Irish blood can accept some British monies and sell out the historic struggle of the Irish people?

As Chief Raymond Yowell of the Western Shoshone National Council stated just last week: “The federal government cannot unilaterally sell out a Nation’s homeland. We are still here and we will continue to assert our rights by way of our ancestors and under the Treaty of Ruby Valley. Our connection with the land was given to us by the Creator, not the U.S. – the U.S. cannot take what it did not give. We will use our rights to protect the land. Our title is still intact – we repeat: Western Shoshone Land is Not For Sale.”



Genocide in Texas

Posted: August 24, 2004 - 10:41am EST
by: Brenda Norrell / Southwest Staff Reporter / Indian Country Today

REDLAND, Texas - It is a history that the United States buried, along with the Indian women and children. But there is an invoice for the smallpox blankets given to Indians to eradicate them and a printed record of the scalp laws with payments of 10 pounds of silver for the scalp of an Indian child.

Steve Melendez, Pyramid Lake Paiute and president of the American Indian Genocide Museum in Houston, said the genocide of American Indians is a fact of history that must be recorded accurately in history so Indian nations can heal and racism in America can be countered.

Melendez said the invaders of this continent carried out systematic genocide to eradicate Indians and it continues today, with the recent theft of Western Shoshone land in Nevada by the United States government.

Melendez spoke on genocide at the commemoration of the massacre at Neches, near Tyler in northeast Texas, where the Texas militia murdered 800 Indian men, women, children and elderly on July 16, 1839.

On display was the invoice documenting the smallpox that was distributed to Delaware Indians by way of blankets and handkerchiefs in 1763.

"I think it is ironic that we stand here today at the site of a destroyed Delaware village. For it was the Delaware Indians in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who were given the smallpox blankets back in 1763. Many people don’t believe that the Indians were given smallpox blankets but we have found the invoice from Fort Pitt."

The invoice states: "To sundries got to replace in kind those which were taken from the people in the hospital to convey the smallpox to the indians. Viz: 2 Blankets; 1 silk hankerchef and 1 linnen."

Speaking to several hundred people, including Cherokee and other tribes, Melendez said, "Was there genocide in America?

"The killing here continued in the surrounding area until July 24. A militia force was stationed to the north to cut the Indians off if they fled north but they never saw battle. They were not needed."

The people were slaughtered. Texas Cherokee and 13 associated bands led by Chief Bowles and Chief Big Mush were among 800 men, women, children and elderly killed on July 16, 1839. The bands included Shawnee, Alabama, Delaware, Kickapoo, Quapaw, Choctaw, Biloxi, Ioni, Coushatta, Mataquo and Caddo of the Neches.

"At some point in history, America has to acknowledge the wrongs that were done and call them what they were - Genocide," Melendez said.

"At some point in history, America has to acknowledge that the way they confiscated Native lands was not right. At some point in history, America has to call things like what happened here - they have to call it extermination, which it was."

"On July the 7th, our President George W. Bush signed into law bill H.R. 884 which arbitrarily confiscated 24 million acres of Western Shoshone Land."

Melendez pointed out that in its final report to Congress, the Indian Claims Commission, which was the vehicle used to value the Western Shoshone land, describes itself as a commission and not a judicial court. This commission arbitrarily set the price of Western Shoshone lands at 15 cents an acre.

"Fifteen cents an acre! We had the All Star Game in Houston last Tuesday and hot dogs were selling for five dollars apiece. At this kind of an exchange rate, the Western Shoshone would have to sell 33 acres of land just to buy a hot dog. History seems to keep repeating itself over and over again," Melendez said.

"Any memorial that is erected here should not be called the Battle of the Neches. We should honor the dead with the truth, and call it what it was - genocide in the Americas."

During the 11th annual Neches memorial ceremony, tribes gathered to pray at a monument erected in memory of Cherokee Chief Bowles.

Danny Hair, chairman of the North American Indian Cultural Association of Texas, told those gathered that the spirits of the ancestors remain strong here. The American Indian Cultural Society hosted the ceremony, which included Cherokee Nation Chief Chad Smith and Cherokee National Youth Choir from Tahlequah, Okla.


Informant: Carrie Dann

For further information: WESTERN SHOSHONE DEFENSE PROJECT
775-468-0230

Press Release – For Immediate Release

September 3, 2004

California Rancher Pleads Guilty to Western Shoshone Horses’ Abuse and Grand Theft

Crescent Valley, NV. On September 2, 2004, the California Rancher, Slick Gardner, who took Western Shoshone horses rounded up by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management from Western Shoshone grandmothers Mary and Carrie Dann pled guilty to grand theft and felony animal abuse. The sentencing hearing will be held Oct. 6 before Judge Arthur Garcia in Santa Barbara County. The Western Shoshone horses are being removed to safety under the care of the non-profit organization, Wildhorses in Need. Other horses received by Mr. Gardner through State and Federal programs/roundups are also being removed according to the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office. The guilty pleas and removal of the horses ends a nearly two year long ordeal initiated by federal actions under the Bush Administration in an apparent attempt to silence treaty and land rights assertions being made by the Western Shoshone Nation to millions of acres of land throughout Central Nevada, parts of Idaho, Utah and California. The U.S. claims the land to be “public” land and has been conducting military style seizures and ongoing surveillance of both Shoshone and non-Indian ranchers. The Western Shoshone have been engaged in a decades long dispute asserting their rights to the land base under the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley and their ancestral connections to the land which they continue to use and occupy. The land base, sacred to the Western Shoshone, is also the third largest gold producing area in the world and temporary home to nomadic multinational mining interests including Barrick, Newmont, Placer Dome and Kennecott. The seizures of Western Shoshone animals began occurring just six months after Interior officials, Stephen Griles and William Myers – both closely tied to mining interests – met to discuss the Western Shoshone “situation”.

Upon news of the guilty pleas, Western Shoshone grandmother Carrie Dann stated: “It’s about time. But also, there are still doubts in my mind as to the working of the BLM and the State of Nevada with this kind of person. He represented to us his close relationship with both government units and his prior dealings with them in what he claimed as a wild horse sanctuary. It’s good that he admitted to the wrongdoing, now it’s time the U.S. admit to its own wrongdoing with regard to its treatment of the Western Shoshone Nation, its people and all living things on this land. The horses were doing just fine out here living free on the range, they would have never been in this bad situation in the first place if the United States government had acted honorably and in compliance with its own laws.”

Despite the recent passage of a forced legislative measure claiming to payoff the Western Shoshone for a portion of the land base, the Nation maintains its firm position on the title issue. “The federal government cannot unilaterally sell out a Nation’s homeland. We are still here and we will continue to assert our rights by way of our ancestors and under the Treaty of Ruby Valley. Our connection with the land was given to us by the Creator, not the U.S. – the U.S. cannot take what it did not give. We will use our rights to protect the land. Our title is still intact – we repeat: Western Shoshone Land is Not For Sale.” Stated Raymond Yowell, Chief of the Western Shoshone National Council.

Western Shoshone Defense Project
P.O. Box 211308
Crescent Valley, NV 89821
(775) 468-0230
Fax: (775) 468-0237
http://www.wsdp.org