FW: Exact same reasons I propose the same

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Long Standing Bear Chief [mailto:blkfoot@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 10:49 AM
To: btbc@xxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Craven, Jim
Subject: Exact same reasons I propose the same


Gentleman of the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council:

Here is a story from the Denver Post. It recounts some of the very same
reasons why I seek to replacement of a corrupt and inefficient "tribal
business council" with a more traditional system of government for the
Blackfoot people. And, Billy Old Chief, this is why I propose to continue my
"rabble rousing" at home and throughout the world. Men like you chase the
best minds among the Blackfoot people away with your peculiar brand of
Christianity. I believe Leon L. Vielle now. He said you and other members of
the council, not all, were going to abusing the people in order to make them
come around to your way of thinking and doing things. Your style of
leadership is a perversion of ancient Blackfoot ways. I know you are a bible
thumper, so where is the 2nd greatest commandment in your life: "Love Thy
Neighbor As Thyself."

>Date: 5 Mar 2000 18:39:56 -0000
>To: blkfoot@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Article on Pine Ridge in Denver Post
>From: kolahq@xxxxxxxxx
>
><+>=<+>KOLA Newslist<+>=<+>
>
>
>[article provided by Lona. Thanks!]
>
> http://www.denverpost.com/news/news0305c.htm
<http://www.denverpost.com/news/news0305c.htm>
>
>03/05/2000
>
>By Kit Miniclier
>Denver Post Staff Writer
>
>March 5 - PINE RIDGE, S.D. - A group of Oglala Sioux insurgents, led by
>tribal elders and medicine men, is trying to launch a quiet revolution from
>the nation's poorest, most politically active Indian reservation.
>
>Rejecting the rifles and inflammatory rhetoric of the reservation's last
>uprising 27 years ago, the dissidents have been peacefully occupying their
>tribal headquarters since seizing it Jan. 16.
>
>What touched off the sit-in is a dispute over how tribal funds are handled.
>
>But it has evolved into a greater goal: Protesters are seeking to abolish a
>66year-old, congressionally mandated system of tribal government and
replace
>it with a traditional tribal council.
>
>Several other Indian tribes have sent emissaries to Pine Ridge to learn
>about their goals, techniques and novel choice of weapons, and one has
>followed their lead.
>
>"What we are starting here will eventually go nationwide," predicted Floyd
>Hand, one of the occupiers and a descendant of famed Oglala Sioux Indian
>Chief Red Cloud, for whom the tribal headquarters is named.
>
>Not everyone agrees.
>
>Bureau of Indian Affairs superintendent Bob Ecoffey, an Oglala Sioux,
>describes the occupation as "an internal tribal dispute which we are just
>trying to work through."
>
>Tribal President Harold Salway blames much of the upheaval on controversial
>tribal treasurer Wesley "Chuck" Jacobs and his handling of funds under
three
>presidents. The dissidents have called for an audit of all tribal funds and
>complain that, on a reservation with about 75 percent unemployment, tribal
>council members get $20,000 in annual travel expenses, plus $500 a month
for
>car maintenance.
>
>Nevertheless, the dissidents say their goals reach far beyond local tribal
>personality conflicts and alleged mismanagement.
>
>Hand, for one, says he hopes to organize an Indian March on Washington this
>spring to bring attention to the plight of many of the nation's 2.4 million
>American Indians and challenge new federal land policies. He's been talking
>with Indian leaders around the nation.
>
>The dissidents reflect the anger, frustration and helplessness felt by many
>Indians who blame their plight on a system of government imposed on them by
>non-Indians.
>
>They've vowed to to stay put until there is a tribal referendum on
>abolishing the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which replaced
traditional
>Indian government with a miniature of the government in Washington, D.C.
>
>"We are here to open the door for other tribes" seeking to throw off the
>mantle of white man's government, said another protesting tribal elder,
>Chief Oliver Red Cloud.
>
>The Pine Ridge Reservation captured the nation's attention in 1973 when
>about 200 militant members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized the
>community of Wounded Knee for 73 days, exchanging frequent gunfire with FBI
>agents and U.S. marshals and briefly holding 11 hostages.
>
>Two years later, two FBI agents and an Indian were killed in a gunbattle on
>the reservation.
>
>Today's dissidents say their strongest weapon is a sacred altar they've
>erected in the occupied tribal council chamber. They believe it will
protect
>them from harm.
>
>"This time there is no AIM and no guns," explained elder Francis He Grow.
>Delegations from the Standing Rock and Rosebud reservations have come to
>study passive resistence at Pine Ridge, as have the Rocky Boy Cree Indians
>of northwestern Montana. Others have called to consult, Hand said.
>
>In February, dissident SissetonWahpeton Sioux Indians, who had consulted
>with Hand, seized their own tribal headquarters for 24 hours, leaving
>peacefully after tribal leadership agreed to a 90day suspension of the
>seven-member panel that governs tribal casinos.
>
>This year's Oglala protest leaders say the 1973 confrontation, while
>different in nature, did bring attention to the plight of Indians
nationally
>and produced significant change.
>
>Two years later, Congress passed legislation designed to give Indians
>self-determination and permit them to contract for local control of schools
>and law enforcement, and strengthened the 1968 Civil Rights Act.
>
>Protesters were instrumental in gathering support for the reservation's
>first and only radio station, independent FM station KILI. It occupies the
>highest point on the reservation and is on the air 20 hours a day.
>
>It also covers every tribal meeting, live, and is airing comments from
>opposing sides in the current dispute.
>
>Ground zero in that dispute - Shannon County, where the Pine Ridge
>reservation is located - has twice been identified by the U.S. Census
Bureau
>as the poorest county in the nation.
>
>It is a difficult place to live.
>
>Many of the 20,000 inhabitants of the 3,200-square-mile reservation live in
>housing that is unsuitable for human habitation. One-fifth of the homes
lack
>indoor plumbing. Infant-mortality rates are three times the national
>average. There is no industry and no public transportation.
>
>Deep mud from melting snows makes some roads impassable. At other times
>there are blinding snowstorms with temperatures plunging more than 45
>degrees below zero.
>
>Approaches to the reservation are bleak reminders of past, or continuing,
>exploitation.
>
>On the south stands the run-down cluster of liquor stores of Whiteclay,
>Neb., only a few steps from the officially dry federally administered
Indian
>Reservation. The town of 22 sells about 4 million cans of bear annually to
>Indians.
>
>>From the north, one passes through the tiny border town of Scenic, which
>features the "Old Longhorn Saloon" adorned with 50 cattle skulls and a
>billboard reading "whiskey-beer-wine-soda . . . INDIANS ALLOWED." Down the
>road, a bullet-splattered sign announces the entrance to Pine Ridge Indian
>Reservation. Just beyond is a black and yellow sign warning that the area
>beyond is a former bombing range. "For your safety, do not disturb unknown
>objects. They could accidentally explode." Approaching from the west, the
>first cluster of buildings belongs to the tribally owned Prairie Winds
>Casino. On a recent weekday, the vast majority of clients were nonIndians,
>including 36 who were making an eight-hour round trip from Ogallala, Neb.
>
>Transportation didn't cost them a penny. The casino charters a bus from
>Ogallala every couple of weeks, driver Tom Pankonin explained.
>
>Meanwhile, back at Pine Ridge, volunteers are cooking food for the 10 to 50
>or more people occupying tribal headquarters around the clock.
>
>The ousted tribal leadership was given office space within the adjacent
>Bureau of Indian Affairs offices. Jon Whirlwind Horse and other members of
>the president's staff moved in with state-of-the-art laptop computers.
>
>Just down the hall, BIA superintendent Ecoffey says dissident efforts to
>abolish the Indian Reorganization Act "is a complex issue. . . . They want
>to create something better to serve our nation. They are looking for an
>opportunity to work with tribal government to see some changes." Ecoffey is
>proud of the fact that he was the first Indian appointed to the U.S.
>Marshals Service in its 207-year history, before he joined the BIA. He's
>visited the dissidents but avoided any confrontation.
>
>The occupiers have vowed to stay put until all of their nine demands are
>met. "CUSTER GOT SIOUXED NOW IT'S IRA's TIME"
>
>reads a red-lettered proclamation at the entrance to the seized
>headquarters. The phrase refers to Gen. George Armstrong Custer's defeat by
>Sioux warriors at the Battle of Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876. Oglala
>Sioux note it was the only major battle of the Indian wars won by Indians.
>
>FBI agents seized a variety of tribal records which are now being audited,
>as requested by the dissidents.
>
>And although it has been peaceful at tribal headquarters, political chaos
>has erupted across the sprawling reservation. Salway has abruptly suspended
>13 of his 17 council members because they held a two-day council meeting
>without his permission. Earlier he had adjourned two tribal council
meetings
>when critics called for his impeachment.
>
>Rival police chiefs, and their respective supporters, engaged in a
fistfight
>in front of police headquarters recently, and one chief was handcuffed and
>led away. A judge subsequently suspended 14 participants and briefly froze
>the department's funds.
>
>"For generations there has been talk of accountability, but it has just
been
>talk," said Salway, who says he is aggressively trying to change the status
>quo.
>
>Whether Salway has the authority to suspend 13 of the 17 council members
>will be considered by Chief Oglala Sioux Tribal Judge Patrick Lee on
Monday.
>Last week Lee issued a temporary order prohibiting the president from
>interfering with the tribal council and barring law enforcement from
>interfering with either side.
>
>
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Long Standing Bear Chief
Spirit Talk Press
P.O. Box 390
Browning, Montana 59417

e-mail: blkfoot@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Telephone: 509.865.5704

We are a people free to chose our own form of government, to make our own
laws and to live by them. The power to govern comes from our people, not
from the whiteman or his governmental institutions.  His original form of
government comes from his belief in the divine right of kings and queens.
iit-tsi-pa-ta-pii-oop (the Source of Life)  told us to be free, to be
ourselves, and we shall know freedom.