For additional information please contact the Western Shoshone Defense Project at 775-468-0230.
http://www.insightmag.com/news/342493.html The Nightmare Before Christmas Posted Dec. 23, 2002 By Martin Edwin Andersen For two elderly American Indian sisters who have fought the federal government for 30 years for the right to graze their livestock on traditional Indian lands, a new notice that takes effect Christmas Day is both Dickensian and draconian. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is threatening to impound more of their animals and, in so doing, ruin their livelihood. Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come apparently have morphed into bureaucrats in cowboy boots. Despite the outcry from both Indian-rights activists and international human- rights organizations, the feds seem bent on yet another inflammatory and unnecessary clash between the BLM and Nevada's Western Shoshone tribe. On Dec. 17, two government agents served Carrie Dann, 70, and her sister Mary, 80, with a notice of unauthorized use of "federal lands" and ordered them to remove their livestock -- some 250 cattle and 1,000 horses -- from the premises. Already in September, 40 heavily armed federal agents backed by a helicopter seized 227 of the Danns' cattle and sold them at public auction. The government claims that the Danns' livestock are overgrazing the range, located about 60 miles southeast of Elko, Nev., damaging land also used by five ranchers with valid use permits. The BLM also alleges that the Danns owe grazing fees of almost $3 million -- representing three decades of accumulated arrears. However, the Danns say they have a right to pasture their animals on the federal land under the terms of the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. "It's one heck of a Christmas present from the U.S. government for a couple of 70-year-old women and for the Western Shoshone," said Steve Tullberg, Washington director of the Indian Law Resource Center, one of the groups representing the Danns. A month after the September raid, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States (OAS) weighed in on the long- simmering dispute. For the first time in a case involving Indian rights in the United States, the IACHR found that the treatment of the Danns violated international human-rights laws. In its ruling, the IACHR agreed with the Danns that the United States used illegitimate means to gain control of the American Indians' ancestral lands. In taking control of the disputed territory, the IACHR said, the federal government violated the equal-protection, fair-trial and right-to-private- property clauses of the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man. The IACHR demanded that the U.S. government return the Danns' confiscated cattle and halt further actions against the sisters pending review of the case. However, as the Danns' cattle were sold at auction, a BLM spokesman said flatly: "The OAS has no jurisdiction here." The Western Shoshone have refused to pay fees for grazing their animals on land they consider part of their birthright. Some 26 million acres in Nevada alone are under dispute, rangeland the Indians say they never legally turned over to the federal government. At a time when all Americans face the bitter prospect of a protracted war on terrorism, the federal government needlessly is presenting an ugly face both at home and abroad by spurning the Western Shoshones' efforts to engage it in good- faith talks on land issues. The Western Shoshone communities, noted spokesperson Fermina Stevens, "have worked diligently to identify areas and make proposals to the U.S. [government]. However, to date, we have received no commitment or acknowledgement of our land or treaty rights from the United States. "They [the U.S. government] have been asked to provide documents regarding the bill of sale or cession of land -- apparently they have no such documents. The U.S. is being unfair and unjust with regard to addressing the issue of Western Shoshone land in order that we can provide for ourselves, culturally and economically." Holiday wishes of peace on earth and good will to men should extend to the Western Shoshone, too. Anti-American propagandists abroad shouldn't be given their best material by thoughtless and ungenerous acts taken by our government against its own people.
