The Anti-Indian Movement in the Wise Use Movement Threatening the Cultural and Biological Diversity of Indian Country
[Ed. Note: This article may be reproduced for electronic transfer and posting on computer bulletin boards and networks provided that no profit is made by such transfer and that full credit is given to the author, the Center For World Indigenous Studies and The Fourth World Documentation Project.] THE ANTI-INDIAN MOVEMENT IN THE WISE USE MOVEMENT THREATENING THE CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY OF INDIAN COUNTRY by Rudolph C. Ryser, Chairman Center for World Indigenous Studies (c) 1993 Center For World Indigenous Studies (This article is adapted from _Anti-Indian Movement on the Tribal Frontier_, Occasional Paper #16 Revised Edition, published by the Center for World Indigenous Studies, in June 1992.) Indian nations' lands and resources are under attack. The successful confiscation of Indian lands and removal of Indians from the last remnants of their original homelands will open the door to expansionist exploitation of the western hemisphere's last biologically diverse regions. Indian nations in the Americas from the Arctic North to the rocky tip of South America are under systematic attack. From cold-war-like political conflicts in the northern continent to brutal, violent wars in middle and southern America resulting in thousands of Indian deaths each year, Indian nations face political movements and armies intent on taking lands and resources from their historical owners. In the United States of America an alliance of greed and deception has been formed from private property owners, recreation organizations, rightwing organizations, governments and business. Together they target Indian lands for transfer from Indian control to the control of private, non-Indian U.S. citizens. Domestic and multi- national corporations also want access to Indian lands and resources. In Central America, state governments hungry for new raw materials to diversify stagnant and unproductive economies have invaded Indian territories -- in many instances forcibly removing whole populations. Land and resources are the target. Indians are considered expendable. In the states of South America several states tolerate, or actively participate in the invasion of Indian territories. Conducting counter-insurgency sweeps against the Sindero Luminoso (Shining Path), the Peruvian government participates in attacks on Indian villages. Land and resources are at the root of the conflict. Thousands of Indians have been killed. In Brazil, gold-miners invade Indian lands and carry diseases into Indian society. The Brazilian government directly subsidizes invasion of Indian lands for raw materials as a matter of public policy. Nearly without exception, Indians peoples, their culture and their environment are under siege in the western hemisphere. The systematic emphasis on Indian land transfers in the United States continues to grow. Government, business and private citizens are a part of an effort organized Anti-Indian Movement intent on removing Indians from their reserved territories and replacing them with new outside owners. The Anti-Indian Movement also operates within the framework of the Wise Use Movement with the goal to replace Indian land rights with private non-Indian property rights -- public property with private individual and corporate property. These movements wrap their public statements in the protection of the U. S. Constitution and its emphasis on property rights. Underneath, there is a single-minded bigotry which not only threatens the cultural and biological diversity of Indian nations and their territories, but directly challenges U.S. public and private efforts to protect the environment from further degradation. Indian Country is vulnerable to organized efforts aimed at land and natural resource expropriation. Next to the United States of America and all the states, Indian nations combined are the owners of the largest area of land. With more than 135 million acres of wilderness, range, desert, timber, tundra and other types of land Indian nations collectively have sixteen percent of the wild forests, eighty-percent of the uranium, vast quantities of coal, oil, oil-shale, natural gas, strategic metals, water, wildlife, fisheries, range-lands, and wilderness. These are the remaining lands and territories reserved to Indian nations after more than two centuries of land expropriations, treaties, land purchases and wars between the United States and Indian nations. Benefiting from years of U.S. government policy aimed at the dismemberment of Indian tribes, non-Indian U.S. citizens moved into Indian territories in increasingly larger numbers. Many became residents of Indian reservations. They became "on- reservation non-Indians." The successful encroachment of non- Indian populations on to Indian reservations serves now as the catalyst for growing outside pressures to put Indian lands under the control of state governments, county governments, private individuals and commercial enterprises. The effect of land transfers and in-migration of non-Indian populations to reservations is reflected in the growing "near-reservation" Indian populations -- Indians unable to live on the reservations reserved by their ancestors. Instead of territories reserved for the benefit of Indian peoples, many Indian reservations are rapidly becoming the land and raw material source for the United States. CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: A SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY IN THE AMERICAS There was a time when the only people who lived on the American continent were America's original nations, now called Indians. The original nations of North America have names like Ojibaway, Haudenosaunee, Lakota, Hopi, Kiowa, Dene, Cree, and Yakima. Once these nations and scores of other nations lived on virtually all the lands of the Americas, from the highest mountains to the lowest beaches. The culture of each nation developed from the intimate relationship between people and land. Religious, political, legal, economic and social systems within each culture naturally developed from the interaction between the people and the territories to which each had systematically and successfully adapted. Some nations took as many as forty-thousand years to reach the level of sophistication and classical grace only achieved by very old cultures. Typical of all human nations throughout the world, America's original nations reflected the diversity of all the lands' varied ecological conditions. Those nations that balanced human needs with the regenerative capacities of the land, plants and other animals succeeded and developed into complex cultures still able to adapt. Those nations which demanded more of their environments than could be naturally regenerated, either became expansionist -- seeking sustenance and wealth from neighboring nations -- or they simply failed, collapsing into nothing. Either way, the key to any nation's survival is its culture, the land and the wealth of the land. Without a place on the land, a nation becomes spiritually and materially impoverished and dies or it becomes a threat to the peace and security of neighboring nations. Without a place, a nation can only have a culture of poverty. America's great centers of complex culture were in the Mississippi Valley, what is now the Great Lakes Region and the east-central part of North America. Other centers included the desert regions of what is now Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico; and the region centered on the island of Haida Guii in the northwest part of the United States and southwest of Canada. America's many nations were prosperous and productive. These diverse nations developed not only complex economic relations between themselves, but complex diplomatic, social and cultural ties. Though certainly not perfect, America's original nations had succeeded in developing successful societies after thousands of years. Each nation reflected the diverse character of America's complex eco- systems. Clothing, speech, spiritual systems, economies, and other life-ways differ between America's nations, accommodating the rich diversity of climates, terrain, and foods. What visitors from around the world could not have missed on their arrival over the centuries is the immense variety of peoples and their great wealth. America's nation's succeeded because of their cultural diversity and their ability to adapt to the variety of flora and fauna. The cultural strategies of America's nations endured the tests of time. When immigrants from the world's other nations began to move to the Americas, everything changed. The descendants of these original nations now live on-and-near parcels of land called communities, allotments, rancherias, and reservations. During three hundred years in the northern Americas and more than four hundred years in the southern Americas the original nations of America faced land wars against increasing numbers of immigrants from Europe, Africa and Asia. The struggle for land and resources continues unabated to the present day. New strategies for nations to survive continue to evolve, but the main ingredients remain the same: Balance, culture, land and natural wealth. MANIFEST DESTINY AND THE REMAKING OF AMERICA When succeeding waves of non-American populations emigrated and settled in the western hemisphere whole nations were forced to moved from one piece of geography to another. Some nations fought defensive wars and held their ground. Most Indian nations were located in reserved territories called Indian Reservations. Many other nations were left completely landless-immigrants and governments simply took the land and moved in to replace the original occupants. The result of the historic movement of populations was the marginalization of Indian nations in tiny territories. After lands had been reserved by treaty for most Indian nations, these lands were defined as lands which would be permanently the home of the many different Indian peoples. "For as long as the grass is green and the water flows," Indians were to be the sole occupants of reserved lands, "unless they shall consent to non- members of the tribe" residing inside Indian Country. The reserved character of Indian lands soon became "an invitation instead of a barrier" to non-Indian populations wanting the Indians' last remaining lands. In modern times, the large-scale movement of non-Indians onto Indian reservations began when the United States government enacted General Allotment Act (1887). Acting contrary to promises made, the U.S. government moved to finally destroy tribal governments. U.S. policy was to break up Indian reservations -- ending more than 260 years of treaty relations between the independent state of the United States of America and hundreds of foreign Indian nations which remained outside the absolute control of the U.S. government. The General Allotment Act became the main effort of liberal democracy to eliminate so-called primitive and backward lifeways among Indian peoples. Liberal Senators committed to the Manifest Destiny Doctrine (the historical inevitability of Anglo-Saxon domination of North America from sea to sea) advocated the General Allotment Act as a progressive demonstration of liberal democracy. "Indians," it was often said, "must be protected from the ravages of progress." By moving non-Indians onto Indian reservations as the new reservation land-owners and locating individual Indians on parcels of reservation land or off the reservation completely, the United States government hoped to eliminate Indian nations once and for all. Indians, according to this thinking, would be integrated into civilized society, and "become productive members of a society comprised of people from many other nations who have become a part of the world's melting pot." This 19th century thinking was recently reaffirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court when it ruled on the question of whether Yakima County in the State of Washington could impose its governmental powers inside the territories of the Yakima Indian Nation. In Chief Justice William Rehnquist's majority opinion in the June 1989 decision in Brendale v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima Indian Nation: It is "unlikely that Congress intended to subject non- Indian purchasers to tribal jurisdiction when an avowed purpose of the allotment policy was to destroy tribal government." Not only had the court reaffirmed the intent of the General Allotment Act as a basis for U.S. confiscation of tribal lands, but the court further asserted that the United States government will not recognize the authority of Indian governments inside their own territories when the Indian tribe exercises certain powers that affect non-Indian reservation residents -- a 19th century idea based on race. AMERICA'S ORIGINAL NATIONS' STRUGGLE FOR THE LAND Indian land rights are paradoxically the strongest and the weakest link in the mosaic of land rights in the United States. Because Indian nations are not a part of the system of governments that make up the United States federal system, (to this day, Indian nations remain political entities exercising sovereignty outside the framework of the U.S. Constitution), they are vulnerable to unrestrained political, economic and social interference from non-Indian citizens of the United States. While the United States government concluded international treaties with Indian nations promising to protect Indian people and territories from encroachments by the various states and individual U.S. citizens, it has more often than not been in the U.S. government's interest to abrogate those parts of various treaties. The United States of America obtained most of its wealth and virtually all of its territory from Indian nations. Lands and resources fell under U.S. control through treaties of cession, war with various Indian nations, purchase of territory from another state claiming Indian lands, abrogation of U.S. promises to protect Indian nations or through outright deception and confiscation. If treaty and other agreements between Indian nations and the United States are sustained and advanced as law to be enforced by all parties, the territories of Indian nations will not be violated. If, however, the United States government itself becomes a party to efforts designed to confiscate and otherwise transfer Indian lands from Indian control to non-Indian control, Indian nations have only their own limited resources to defend themselves -- invoking provisions of treaties and pursuing legal remedies. Combined with this latter condition of relative weakness is the weakness of Indian nations to defend themselves because of the complex web of jurisdictions claimed inside Indian territory. States, counties, the United States government itself and Indian nations claim varying degrees of governmental power inside tribal territories. This condition of multiple jurisdictions, real or imagined, exposes Indian reservations to land transactions which are secretly completed. A transfer of land could be completed under state jurisdiction and not be revealed to any of the other jurisdictions until accidental discovery. The cultural and biological diversity of all Indian nations is threatened by this growing tide of legal and "unlegal" land transactions. In the last third of the twentieth century, Indian nations came under an organized threat aimed at displacing Indians from reserved lands. The Anti-Indian/Wise Use Movement seeks the unrestrained exploitation of Indian lands and resources. Commercial and private property interests without historical experience, without cultural connections to Indian territories seek to impose their selfish agendas. Their efforts threaten to cause greater cultural and biological imbalances in Indian Country similar to cultural and biological imbalances already created in heavily populated areas in areas outside reservations. REPLACING THOSE THEY FOUND In the late 1960s, it had become clear that the U.S. government's 19th century policy succeeded in creating a "checkerboard land ownership" pattern on every "allotted reservation." Not only did the land ownership pattern put non-Indian and Indian landowners living next to each other, but it also complicated an increasingly difficult jurisdictional mess for tribal, federal and state governments. Though Indian nations originally reserved full jurisdictional authority to their own governments inside reservation boundaries, the United States government and the various states began to undermine that jurisdiction by imposing federal or state laws on reservations where non-Indians owned property. This complicated and confused civil and criminal law and justice responsibilities on Indian reservations. By the 1980's more than 500,000 non-Indians claimed land on Indian reservations. More than half of many tribes' populations were forced to live outside reservations. The greater number of displaced Indians moved to locations near the reservation. They no longer can fully enjoy the benefits of territories reserved to them as distinct peoples under treaties and agreements with the United States of America. Non-Indian landowners competed with tribal peoples for limited resources and land inside reservation boundaries. The majority of the displaced Indians now live in areas and communities near their reservation, while still many thousands of Indians were forced under a 1950's U.S. policy of relocation to move to major cities like Los Angeles, Denver, Seattle, Chicago, New York and Baltimore. Non-Indian landowners on Indian reservations include people seeking inexpensive summer retreats, retirement homes, and commercial businesses. At first they received help and encouragement from the United States government. They later received help, encouragement and money from right-wing elements. Influence ranging from Sun Myun Moon's Unification Church in the Wise Use Movement to followers of neo-Nazi groups and white supremacists connected with the Anti-Indian Movement dovetailed in the middle 1980s with the on-reservation property owners' movement. Though the on-reservation property owners' movement began in the late 1960s as a legitimate political dispute with tribal governments it eventually linked with off reservation "property-rights" interests. Non-Indian reservation property owners and off-reservation land and resource groups became the Anti-Indian Movement. By 1988 the Anti-Indian Movement became a founding participant in the "multi-use movement" that developed into the "Wise Use Movement." THE ANTI-INDIAN MOVEMENT BEGAN INSIDE INDIAN COUNTRY Under the guise of "mainstream non-profit research and education organizations" and the deceptively attractive "equal rights for everyone" slogan, the Anti-Indian Movement signaled the beginning of a growing effort to "privatize property" in reaction to growing Indian tribal government powers and the environmental movement. With its right-wing extremist technical help, the Anti- Indian Movement receives support and money from unsuspecting "reservation non-Indians" and off-reservation non-Indians. With their own agenda, the Anti-Indian Movement's reactionaries and extremists employ tactics and slogans calculated to exploit Indian and non-Indian fears of each other. Using the non-Indians' fear of Indians to build a power-base in mainstream politics, right-wing extremists took advantage of fear by encouraging bigotry. While many transplanted non-Indians now live as residents on Indian reservations, large numbers are absentee landowners -- they don't live on the reservation. Despite their absentee landowner status, the "reservation non-Indian" in the late 1960s became a new and powerful challenge to the peace and stability of Indian nations. Indian people had often heard the refrain, "Why don't you go back to your reservation?' This was heard when Indian and non-Indian conflicts arose outside the reservation. It was a wrenching experience to have conflicts inside the reservation and hear that "Indians should become a part of the greater society and have equal rights with everyone." Larger numbers of non-Indian landowners rejected tribal governmental authority inside the reservation; and they called upon the state to exercise its powers there. Non-Indian rejection of "alien tribal governments" built pressures leading to legal confrontations between tribal and state governments over a widening range of jurisdictional subjects. Increasing numbers of "reservation non-Indians" supplied state governments with the wedge needed to expand state powers into Indian reservations -- defacto annexation of tribal lands. Tribes and states intensified their mutual antagonism and suspicion. ORGANIZING THE MODERN ANTI-INDIAN MOVEMENT Since the General Allotment Act in 1887, limitations on reservation resources forced more and more Indians to fish and hunt for their food in ceded areas near reservations. Indians asserted that treaties with the United States guaranteed continuing tribal access to some off-reservation resources. Not until tribes and states began to battle over control of natural resources outside reservation boundaries did there arise an organized Anti-Indian Movement in the 20th century. "Reservation non-Indians" became the core organizers of what became a highly structured Anti-Indian Movement. By 1991, the activists responsible for starting the Movement in 1976 headed four key organizations in the states of Washington, Montana, and Wisconsin. The United Property Owners of Washington (UPOW) and Protect Americans' Rights and Resources (PARR) in Wisconsin are the main "constituent organizations." Over the decades since the 1960s, the U.S.-based Anti-Indian Movement grew. From a half dozen non-Indian property owner groups in two states in 1968, it became more than fifty organizations in 1993. The first organized anti-Indian network formed in 1976 under the umbrella of the Interstate Congress for Equal Rights and Responsibilities (ICERR). The ICERR linked on-reservation non-Indian landowner opposition to tribal governments with off- reservation non-Indian sport and commercial fishermen opposed to tribal treaty protected fishing rights. The mixture of on- reservation and off-reservation conflicts produced a sometimes confused, often distorted, attack on tribal governments, the federal government -- especially the judiciary -- and often bitter attacks on individual Indian people. ICERR formed the Anti-Indian Movement's populist and frequently racist ideology that attracted legitimately distressed non-Indians as-well-as bigoted activists. During the ten years after first forming, the Movement shifted from incipient forms of racism and populism to a more virulent form of reactionary-racism with subtle contours and technical refinements. Right-wing extremists began in 1983 to assume a strong influence in the Anti-Indian Movement through the Washington State based Steelhead & Salmon Protection Action in Washington Now (S/SPAWN) organization. In the years that followed, right-wing and militantly bigoted activists gravitated to the Wisconsin-based Protect Americans' Rights and Resources (PARR). Still later, right-wing personalities assumed positions within the Citizen's Equal Rights Alliance (CERA) and United Property Owners of Washington (UPOW) organizations. The Movement evolved into its present structure from two property owners' associations and a single umbrella organization (ICERR) in 1976. Today, the Movement boasts two "national organizations," five "coordinating local organizations" and a consistent network of twenty-three "local organizations" or "local contacts" and a claimed constituency of 450,000 people. Though the Movement frequently targets the Quinault Indian Nation, Suquamish Tribe and Lummi Indian Nation (in the state of Washington), Blackfoot, Salish & Kootenai and the Crow in Montana receive strong emphasis too. Politically active Indian tribes in Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin have felt the effects of the network. In fifteen years the organizational and tactical focus of the Movement switched from the state of Washington to Wisconsin and then to Montana, and back to Washington again. Despite maintaining contacts in several states, the Movement conducted major activities in only the three tactical states. Though the organizational focus shifted from one state to another, the ideological influence, tactics and strategy flowed from Washington State based personalities and organizations. Three groups (Quinault Property Owners Association (QPOA - Quinault Reservation), Association of Property Owners and Residents in Port Madison Area (APORPMA - Suquamish Reservation), and the Interstate Congress for Equal Rights and Responsibilities (ICERR) are politically linked to each of the Movement's organizational efforts. While the organizational strategy of the Anti-Indian Movement was to create a new organization for each political or legal challenge to Indian rights, all of the organizations have essentially the same supporting organizations. In other words, though the number of "national or coordinating organizations increased in number, the number of organizers and activists remained virtually the same - all had the same members. Four individuals have been involved in the organization of every coordinating or national organization in the Anti-Indian Movement since 1968: George Garland (QPOA), Pierce and May Davis (APORPMA) and Betty Morris (ICERR, and QPOA). All come from the state of Washington. Garland and Morris are mainly concerned with the Quinault Indian Reservation. The Davises are mainly concerned with the Suquamish Indian Reservation. After 1983, these main anti-Indian activists were joined by more sophisticated organizers from the right-wing elements of American politics. State Senator Jack Metcalf, fund-raiser Alan Gotlieb, political organizer Barbara Lindsay, lawyer David L. Yamashita and National Wildlife Federation activists Carol and Tom Lewis (all from Washington) joined the Movement. These personalities have close connections with the Wise Use Movement. Some, like Alan Gotlieb (a key funder for the Free Enterprise Institute that serves as a major opponent to the environmental movement and a major player the Wise Use Movement) and Senator Jack Metcalf have close connections with the Unification Church and with the Liberty lobby. After organizing the Movement for twenty-three years, its leaders can claim several successes which now contribute to the growing capabilities of the Wise Use Movement: - Adoption by a slim majority in the state of Washington Initiative 456 intended to create the public impression that Washington's voters opposed Indian rights and the continuation of Indian treaties - 1984. - U.S. Supreme Court decided a County government could exercise zoning powers inside a reservation where non-Indians make up a substantial portion of the reservation population - 1989. - Through its organization CERA, the Anti-Indian Movement became a direct and active participant in the Wise Use Movement in 1988. - The total number of consistent anti-Indian activists country-wide is between 80 and 90 persons in sixteen states by 1991. - The number of persons participating in anti-Indian activities (including meetings, protests, conferences and letter- writing is an estimated 10,850 persons country-wide by 1991. - The number of persons who contribute funds or letters of support to anti-Indian groups is an estimated 34,150 by 1991. - A total of 50 local anti-Indian organizations or contacts, five coordinating organizations and two national organizations have been created by the Movement mainly in the states of Washington, Montana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. (not including organizations with other agendas which closely identify with the Movement) by 1991. Though the Anti-Indian Movement is held together with a lot of smoke and mirrors there is enough substance to it to seriously threaten the peace and stability of Indian tribes in the United States. Due to its new associations in the "Wise Use Movement" the Anti-Indian Movement increased its reach and broadened its potential constituency. IN THE PSYCHE OF THE UNITED STATES The Anti-Indian Movement has its roots deep in the collective psyche of the United States. The bigotry of right-wing and Far Right political extremes is also deeply rooted in America's politics -especially in connection with Indians. The implied or explicit belief in "white superiority" and "native backwardness and inferiority" permeates American history. In the 1880's, U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes, Supreme Court Justice Waite and Civil War icon General John Sherman advocated the Doctrine of Manifest Destiny. Senator Dawes of Massachusetts was both an adherent to the Manifest Destiny doctrine and the main sponsor of the General Allotment Act of 1887. It was quite normal in the U.S. Congress to espouse what now would be considered "white supremacist" ideas. In 1899 Senator Albert T. Beveridge rose before the U.S. Senate and announced: God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self- admiration. No! He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns .... He has made us adepts in government that we may administer government among savages and senile peoples. Theodore Roosevelt, John Cabot Lodge and John Hay, each in turn, endorsed with a strong sense of certainty the view that the Anglo-Saxon was destined to rule the world. Such views expressed in the 19th century and in the early 20th century continue to ring true in the minds of many non-Indian property owners. The superiority of the "white race" is the foundation on which Anti- Indian Movement organizers and right-wing helpers rest their efforts to dismember Indian tribes. There victims on all sides of the growing Indian/non-Indian controversy over property ownership inside and near Indian reservations. Only a small number of people can be said to intentionally provoke conflicts and violence between Indians and non-Indians. Due to these conflicts, however, victims of Indian and non-Indian conflicts fear one another - the cycle of fear feeds on itself. The small number of people who either gain politically or economically from Indian and non-Indian conflict use bigotry to promote division and fear. Both contribute to the destabilization of tribal communities and undermine tribal values. When democratic values are crippled, freedom and liberty become the next victims. Authoritarianism, and terrorized societies replace free societies. The Anti-Indian Movement threatens to produce just such results in Indian Country. It also threatens to intensify rather than relieve conflicts born from historical mistakes, which can be resolved peacefully through mutual government to government negotiations. UNDERSTANDING WHAT HAPPENED: From the point of view of many Indian leaders and many non- ideological participants in the Anti-Indian Movement there is agreement on what are some of the mistakes that should be remedied. - The forced division of tribally reserved territories under the 1887 General Allotment Act and the failure of the U.S. government to fully repudiate this disgraceful act creates the popular impression that acts of land confiscation and relocation of tribal populations is morally acceptable and justified. - The United States government violated treaty and other agreements when it unilaterally manipulated the sale of tribally reserved lands to non-Indians without the consent of tribal governments. This mistake was subsequently compounded when states governments and the United States government unlawfully expanded their civil and criminal jurisdiction (following non-Indian reservation residents) into Indian reservations without the consent of tribal governments. Finally, the mistake caused injury to both tribal members and non-Indian land-owners when Indians were displaced, and impoverished; and non-Indians were not advised that as a practical matter they had consented to place themselves under the jurisdiction of an Indian nation's government. - State governments have mistaken Indian nations as a threat to their sovereignty. States governments and their subordinate governments agreed as a price for statehood that they would not attempt to extend their powers into Indian Country. To do so in fact undercuts the state's legitimacy, thus weakening the state, and encourages citizens to sabotage the rule of law. - As a result of distraction or a mistaken belief in "historical inevitability," the United States and the various states failed to recognize that relations with Indian tribes have always been political in character. And to ensure the healthy cooperation between Indian tribes and the United States, relations must be dynamically adjusted over time through treaties and agreements and not through neglect or brute force. The basic premise of mutual respect and sovereign equality between the United States and Indian nations must be repeatedly incorporated in each agreement. - The failure of governments (tribal, state and federal) to insist on the free and open negotiation of disputes, (always taking into consideration the effect intergovernmental agreements have on tribal members or non-Indians) has contributed to a feeling of "being wronged" among many non-ideological citizens in the United States. These persons may suffer economic or social hardships as a result of these failures. As a result, persons who may live on or near Indian reservations, have become prime candidates for incitement to harassment or violence against Indian people by militant bigots and Far Right activists who seek to provoke conflict as a way of advancing their ideas of "white supremacy." Furthermore, failure to encourage open negotiations fosters wider public participation and encouragement of the Wise Use Movement - the ultimate trap which catches the United States in its own historical inconsistencies. IN SEARCH OF A SOLUTION TO THE GROWING DISCORD: - Citizens of the United States should abandon the idea that Indian nations are going to disappear "in the face of inevitable progress." Indian nations are neighbors of the United States and should be treated with the same respect that the United States of America asks for itself. - The diversity of Indian nations must be understood as a reflection of the diversity of all of America's lands. Cultural and Biological diversity are essential to human existence. - To resolve the problem of non-Indians who do not wish to live under the authority of tribal governments, the problem must be recognized as having been created by the U.S. government - thus placing the burden of resolution on that government. Non- Indians ought to be given a choice whether they wish to now live under tribal authority. If they do not object, then nothing more need be done except remove (by negotiation) any extensions of state, county or U.S. authority inside the boundaries of a reservation that conflict with tribal authority. If a non-Indian rejects tribal authority, the United States government becomes obligated to purchase non-Indian property and improvements at a fair market value, and provide assistance in relocation. - With those non-Indian persons continuing to remain on the reservation, the tribal government ought to assist them by inviting them to send representatives to an advisory council which can provide continuing advice to tribal authorities. Such a council would serve as a sounding-board for non-Indian views on tribal government actions which may affect their interests. - To reduce conflicts between tribal and state (plus subsidiary) governments, tribal and state governments ought to negotiate a government to government accord which defines a framework for dispute resolution. County and municipal governments should be defined within this framework. - Prior to the negotiation of joint natural resource management regimes between tribal and state governments (in ceded areas), every effort ought to be made to ensure careful consideration of "user group" interests. The State is obligated to consider these interests among those persons who are not members of the negotiating tribe. These negotiations can be substantially improved by including elected state and tribal officials on the negotiation teams - officials who take seriously the responsibility for ensuring consideration of "user group" interests. - Where tribal, state, and U.S. federal conflicts obtain, a tripartite intergovernmental negotiating framework ought to be formed - taking into consideration remedies suggested above. - Tribal governments should institute hate-crime laws permitting the prosecution of those who commit malicious harassment, intimidation, or violence aimed at tribal property, resources or aimed at individual tribal members by racial extremists. The Tribal government ought to sponsor and support the formation and continued operation of a "Human Rights Commission" which includes tribal and non-tribal membership. The Commission ought to document incidents of bigoted harassment, intimidation, property damage, and violence aimed at tribal members and non-tribal members within the territorial jurisdiction of the Tribe. The Commission should be responsible for conducting public meetings to ensure public awareness of human rights norms. The Commission ought to have the capacity to provide assistance to victims of hate-crime, or refer victims to an appropriate tribal agency. -= THE FOURTH WORLD DOCUMENTATION PROJECT =- A service provided by :: :: The Center For World Indigenous Studies :: :: www.cwis.org :: Originating at the Center for World Indigenous Studies, Olympia, Washington USA www.cwis.org © 1999 Center for World Indigenous Studies (All Rights Reserved. References up to 500 words must be referenced to the Center for World Indigenous Studies and/or the Author Copyright Policy Material appearing in the Fourth World Documentation Project Archive is accepted on the basis that the material is the original, unoccupied work of the author or authors. Authors agree to indemnify the Center for World Indigenous Studies, and DayKeeper Press for all damages, fines and costs associated with a finding of copyright infringement by the author or by the Center for World Indigenous Studies Fourth World Documentation Project Archive in disseminating the author(s) material. In almost all cases material appearing in the Fourth World Documentation Project Archive will attract copyright protection under the laws of the United States of America and the laws of countries which are member states of the Berne Convention, Universal Copyright Convention or have bi-lateral copyright agreements with the United States of America. Ownership of such copyright will vest by operation of law in the authors and/or The Center for World Indigenous Studies, Fourth World Journal or DayKeeper Press. The Fourth World Documentation Project Archive and its authors grant a license to those accessing the Fourth World Documentation Project Archive to render copyright materials on their computer screens and to print out a single copy for their personal non-commercial use subject to proper attribution of the Center for World Indigenous Studies Fourth World Documentation Project Archive and/or the authors. Questions may be referred to: Director of Research Center for World Indigenous Studies PMB 214 1001 Cooper Point RD SW Suite 140 Olympia, Washington 98502-1107 USA 360-754-1990 www.cwis.org usaoffice@cwis.org OCR Software provided by Caere Corporation
| 
