And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Ethnic cleansing
JODI RAVE
http://www.journalstar.com/stories/rav/sto6
One need not look as far as the Balkans to find ethnic
cleansing
Horror, compassion and concern have filled the hearts
of Americans who are watching lives and families destroyed
among Kosovo's ethnic Albanians.Since NATO air raids began
March 24 against Serbian aggressors, more than 700,000
Albanians have fled their homes amidst plights of sovereignty,
land claims and ethnic cleansing.These issues have not been
lost on many Americans or the U.S.government, which has
sent its soldiers to join Operation Allied Force to defend and
provide justice to the Kosovars.
None of this has been lost on
me.
Perhaps more than any other foreign war in recent
memory, the Serb-Albanian conflict unfolding in the Balkans
has captured my attention. In some ways, it serves as a
modern-day parallel to what happened to the indigenous people
of North A merica.While my heart goes out to the Kosovars, I
also recognize the irony of American efforts to stop ethnic
cleansing by using Tomahawk cruise missiles, Apache AH-64
and Blackhawk UH-60 helicopters.Even though native people
haven't engaged in full-scale,ha ndto-hand combat with
American troops since the Indian Wars,we're still engaged in
an ongoing battle with state and federal politicians over issues
such as homelands, sovereignty and ethnic cleansing.Ethnic
cleansing ensures the obliteration of a person's cu ltural
identity.
Yes, ethnic cleansing continues.
It continues because
there is more than one way to annihilate a culture besides rape,
murder and burning homes and villages. This systematic
approach to wipe out a people's identity happened to American
Indian s, ending around the close of the 19th century.The last
major Indian War occurred on Dec. 29, 1890, when Chief Big
Foot's band of Minniconjou Lakota was massacred
at Wounded Knee Creek. On that winter day more than 300
men, women and children were killed by U .S. Army troops of
the Seventh Cavalry.American Indians don't see this type of
overt military action anymore.Now, it's much more subtle.For
example, federal policies as recent as the 1960s were designed
to eliminate native people as a distinct culture From American
society.
One example of U.S. ethnic cleansing today is the
Interior Department's stripping the identity from more than 100
tribes during the 1950s and 1960s.Many of these tribes were
wiped off record books as a result of a congressional act called
the 1953 H.C.R. Termination Resolution, which effectively
ended the "federal trust responsibility" they had with the
government. This meant the United States was no longer legally
responsible for protecting tribal lands, assets, resources and
treaty rig hts.
A federally recognized tribe has a
government-to-government relationship and status as a
"domestic dependent nation" within the United States, giving
each tribe the ability to form its own government, determine
tribal membership, raise taxes, a dministerjustice, regulate
natural resources, engage in commerce and oversee
tribal-member conduct.The lack of federal recognition and the
continual weakening of tribal sovereignty has been disastrous,
leaving many tribes without infrastructure to support social and
cultural and political needs.It would be similar to the U.S.
government deciding one day that Nebraska, California or
Montana laws and political leaders no longer existed.<<end excerpt
more than 100 tribes are asking the Bureau of Indian Affairs
for federal recognition, which can be a lengthy,decades-long
application process. In 1990, the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska
regained federal recognition, 37 years after Congress passed its
termination laws.Without cultural, social and political success
in the next millenium , tribes such as the Mashpee
Wampanoag, Chinook and Clatsop could well be on their way
to becoming people without an identity -- cultureless
Americans.Without an identity, who are you? As the war
continues in the Balkans, it's time to recognize the less
evident disasters happening in this country. Indigenous people
might
not be making front-page headlines, but we deserve rights to
sovereignty, land claims and a life free of ethnic cleansing. Jodi
Rave covers Native American issues for Lee Newspapers.
She is base d at the Journal Star and can be reached at
473-7240 orat [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE
http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
