articles-july 15

Split widens between haves, have-nots among Indian tribes

DON THOMPSON
Associated Press

SACRAMENTO - The split between the haves and the have-nots among California tribes widened Wednesday, when disenfranchised Indians formed a new organization and asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to halt casino negotiations until tribes create courts to resolve membership disputes.

Several hundred Indians gathered on the Capitol steps to begin collecting signatures for an appeal to Schwarzenegger, and for a petition asking Congress to hold a hearing on current law that gives tribal councils nearly unfettered freedom to decide who belongs to a tribe.

"As soon as they get casinos, they start looking to kick people out," said Eddie Vedolla Sr., formerly chairman of the Guidiville Rancheria of Pomo Indians near Ukiah. "We want some kind of protection from the wrongs that tribal councils are doing to members." full article

IHS targets diabetes

Posted: July 14, 2004 - 2:17pm EST

The Indian Health Service, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, has announced the availability of $24.7 million in competitive grant funds to be awarded to IHS/tribal/urban Indian programs. The grants are to be targeted at efforts to prevent diabetes among American Indians and Alaska Natives, and to address cardiovascular disease risk factors, one of the most serious complications of diabetes.

"In the last decade, the prevalence of diabetes among American Indians and Alaska Natives has increased more than 50 percent, making this grant funding of timely and vital importance," stated Dr. Charles W. Grim, director of the IHS. "These grants will help to reduce the effects of this devastating disease, which is daily taking its toll on the health of Indian people and the vitality of Indian communities." full article

Tribesmen step up river battle

MEMBERS of four American Indian tribes are meeting the Scottish Greens leader today to continue their battle against energy giant ScottishPower.

The delegation, which also includes environmental and United States commercial fishermen’s groups, will meet Robin Harper MSP for a tour of Pitlochry Dam and Salmon Ladder in Perthshire.

The delegation is campaigning for the restoration of the River Klamath in Oregon which they claim has been damaged by dams operated by PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of ScottishPower. full article

Lake Poinsett remains might be 500 years old
Peter Harriman
Argus Leader

published: 7/15/2004

Indian burial mounds found in development area

One year ago, archaeologist Michael Fosha visited the site of a proposed golf course and residential development on the north shore of Lake Albert, just west of Lake Poinsett.

Fosha said it was evident the area between the lakes contained burial mounds that preceded European settlement.

Faron McFarland said he paid heed to that assessment. McFarland and Tim Hogan, both of Brookings, are partners in the Lake Albert Development Corp.

"Before we ever turned dirt, we brought the Historical Society out here," McFarland said. "We listened to their advice and obeyed it. We laid the project out around areas of high probability" for being burial sites "and we made parks out of them." full article

American Indian children learn their history

By: ADRIENNE A. AGUIRRE - Staff Writer

SAN PASQUAL INDIAN RESERVATION ---- Growing up on the reservation, life wasn't easy for Shanta Chaloux. Now a college graduate, he hopes to prepare the path to success for other American Indians while preserving their culture.

Chaloux, 29, works with children at the North County Resource Center, on the San Pasqual reservation in Valley Center, one of 17 reservations of the Kumeyaay Nation that runs through San Diego and Imperial counties and 60 miles into Mexico.

Chaloux said that when he was a boy, there was no electricity or running water on the reservation, let alone a center for children.


"I grew up here without anything," he said. "I know what it is like not to have a place to go." full article

Aboriginal sovereignty never ceded
On May 20, with the start of the inquiries into the death of the Gamilaroi youth in Redfern/Waterloo and the subsequent "riot", activists around Aunty Isabell Coe and returned campaigners against gold mining on sacred sites at Lake Cowal established an Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Victoria Park adjacent to the University of Sydney.

The current coroner's inquiry that started on July 5 is planned to conclude by this Friday, July 16, and notorious right-wing newspaper Daily Terrorgraph has gone on the attack against the tent embassy with a full page article describing it as an eyesore and a waste of ratepayers' money. The paper claims that there has been an agreement for the embassy to wind up by the end of this week, and pressured progressive independent City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore to insist on this alleged agreement in word and deed. Clover Moore had been supportive of the embassy in words and deeds starting with its welcome on "her council's land". full article

Lu says media misrepresented remarks on aborigines

2004-07-15 / Taiwan News, Contributing Writer / By Jason Pan
Vice President Annette Lu (§f¨q½¬) refuted opposition charges yesterday that she was unsympathetic to the victims of landslide and flooding damage brought about by tropical storm Mindulle's torrential rains, denouncing media outlets that accused her of intending to "exterminate Taiwan's aboriginal peoples."

Backed by the opposition Kuomintang and People First Party alliance, some aboriginal legislators yesterday condemned the vice president for trying to drive out local aborigines from their traditional mountain lands. They demanded that Lu issue an apology within 24 hours and vowed to organize large protests in the coming weeks. full article

After flight from Vietnam, cold jungle
RATANAKIRI PROVINCE, Cambodia Cambodia Ksor, a member of Cambodia's Jarai minority hill tribe, stepped quietly through what appeared to be an impenetrable barrier of trees, thorns, bushes and creepers in the dense jungle of northeastern Cambodia's border with Vietnam. Twice each day, for weeks now, the 25-year-old Ksor has slipped out of his village at dawn and again under the cover of nightfall and entered the jungle to bring what supplies he can to assist some of the estimated 250 Montagnard asylum seekers - including infants, young children, the sick and elderly - who have fled neighboring Vietnam's Central Highlands and sought refuge in Cambodia. More than 120 of the Montagnards, interviewed at their makeshift jungle lairs over the past five weeks, have appealed for international assistance as they languish in dire conditions in these rain-soaked jungles, fugitives from Vietnam and hunted as illegal immigrants by the Cambodian police and military. full article

Dumping on Yucca Mountain
Native Americans Lose their Land as our Presidential Hero Revives Old-time Nuclear Tensions with Moscow

by AL Kennedy

But the Bushies' joy doesn't end there, because the Nevada test site isn't even on United States land - it's on territory which belongs to the Western Shoshone nation and is protected by treaty (should you feel that treaties between the US and indigenous peoples are in any way binding). The Yucca Mountain site earmarked for America's nuclear waste depository is also on Western Shoshone land, as is the planned Federal Counterterrorism Facility. And what is probably the world's third largest gold-producing area.

Which is why Karl Rove and George W have both visited Nevada lately and why seizures of Shoshone livestock have already started. Despite formal opposition from 80% of the Shoshone population, Amnesty International and the National Congress of American Indians, Congress has just passed the Western Shoshone distribution bill - which distributes 15 cents on the acre for huge tracts of land in four states, whether the owners intended to sell or not. full article

Bush's Twisted Idea of 'Safer'

by Juan Cole
President Bush gave a speech on Tuesday in which he made specific claims about how the United States is safer as a result of his military action. I dispute assertions about particular Middle Eastern or South Asian countries.

This is a nice soundbite but bears no resemblance to reality. The major jihadi groups in Pakistan are still operating, and the Pakistani government has been largely unable or unwilling to stop them. The Pakistanis did arrest some 500 al-Qaeda Arabs, but Pakistani courts have not cooperated with its attempts to subject the jihadis to mass arrests. A major jihadi leader was sitting in parliament until he was assassinated recently!

Moreover, Pakistan remains virtually a military dictatorship, where parliament is not sovereign and where Gen. Musharraf basically appoints and removes prime ministers by fiat (PM Jamali was recently forced out). full article

'Homeland Security' Beyond US Borders

by Paul Weinberg
TORONTO - In the novel 1984, George Orwell depicts a world where powerful and secretive authorities – "Big Brother" – scrutinize the intimate details of citizens' personal lives. That fiction may be closer to reality than most people think.

Earlier this month, for instance, CNN reported that police officers across the United States are carrying handheld wireless computers on which they can access private details from large commercial databases about anyone they encounter on their beat.

Emboldened by a new post-Cold War role in the U.S.-led "war on terrorism," security and intelligence agencies are exploring new electronic technologies that will enhance the collection and dissemination of the private records of citizens across international borders. full article