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[article provided by Pat Morris. Thanks...]
http://www2.startribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisStory=81331563
Published Sunday, January 30, 2000
Pine Ridge under siege
Jon Tevlin / Star Tribune
PINE RIDGE, S.D. -- There was nothing inside Big Bat's Texaco,
the unofficial gathering place in the village of Pine Ridge, to
suggest an insurrection: Kids bought corn dogs as an old man
peddled a tattered dream catcher to white sightseers. But across
a street blocked by police squad cars, Oglala Sioux "protectors"
armed with cell phones and binoculars, their faces covered by
bandanas, watched from the rooftop of the tribal headquarters.
On Jan. 16, as many as 100 dissidents peacefully occupied the
building in an action they compared to the famous takeover at
Wounded Knee in 1973. Claiming some leaders have stolen or
mismanaged tribal funds, they promise to remain, shutting down
services on the 40,000-resident reservation, until heads roll and
records are audited.
The insurrection comes at a time of acute strife around Pine Ridge.
In June, two Lakota men were found slain in a culvert strewn with
cow manure near the Nebraska border. The unsolved killings
prompted protests against the FBI, as well as against White Clay,
Neb., where white merchants sell an estimated $4 million worth
of beer annually to residents of the "dry" reservation.
Then there was the tornado that nearly wiped out Oglala, a heralded
visit by President Clinton and suspicions that drownings of seven
Indians in a Rapid City creek over 18 months were the work of a
serial killer.
In a place where the future is foretold in dreams and rumor is carried
on the wind, this confluence of events can take on the aroma of
conspiracy -- or destiny.
'Grass-roots' effort
It was a Sunday afternoon two weeks ago when seven demonstrators
walked into the Red Cloud Tribal Building, unarmed, and refused to
leave. They demanded the ouster of tribal treasurer Wesley (Chuck)
Jacobs and issued several other demands. Word spread, and by the
end of day, as many as 100 people gathered inside the building to
support the dissidents.
Some say the idea to occupy the building came in a "sacred dream."
Others contend it was a spontaneous act of rebellion against an
unkind man (Jacobs) and incompetent leaders. Some who oppose the
occupation, however, see it as calculated political positioning for
next
fall's tribal elections and opportunism by the leaders of the American
Indian Movement (AIM), which has denied responsibility.
Claims by those calling themselves the "grass-roots group" include
broad but unspecific charges that Jacobs, possibly assisted by tribal
council members, had misused funds from the reservation's casino,
as well as from the $8 million to $9 million general fund. Jacobs'
attorney, Jane Colhoff, said that "the allegations aren't specific
because
they don't have anything." Jacobs, she said, actually uncovered
"financial shenanigans" of a previous administration that put the
tribe $2 million in debt. "There are a lot of problems here," Colhoff
said. "But to blame one man for 40 years of financial mismanagement
is ludicrous."
The group has also asked officials to look into money given by other
tribes -- including Minnesota's Prairie Island and Shakopee tribes
--
after the June tornado.
Since the takeover, there's been a convoluted series of developments
on the reservation. Jacobs was suspended by tribal president Harold
Dean Salway, who supports the takeover but is not supported by all
those occupying the building. The tribal council, which has split factions,
then tried to impeach Salway and ordered the tribal police to storm
the
headquarters and arrest the protesters. The police refused. (The FBI,
which has jurisdiction in major crimes, such as murder, cannot
interfere in tribal politics.)
By the end of the week, it was not clear who, if anyone, was in charge.
"This building belongs to the people, and so far [the protesters] have
not broken any laws," said Bernard White Face, tribal police chief.
"I have been personally threatened, and [officials] have threatened
my
job. They can fire me if they want, but we support the people."
By last week, the protesters had accomplished one goal: They forced
the tribal council's executive committee to agree to hand over financial
documents to the FBI for safe-keeping and an audit. (In an unrelated
action on the same day of the takeover, the FBI also seized records
from the Housing and Urban Development Agency over allegations of
mismanagement.)
"For the past seven, eight months, services to the people were lacking,"
said Dale Looks Twice, a spokesman for the protesters. "We don't
know where the money is going, and these people are trying to push
their weight around."
During one meeting with Bureau of Indian Affairs superintendent Bob
Ecoffey, protester Mary Irving burst into tears. "This didn't just
start
Sunday," she sobbed. "We're living in a dictatorship, and no one listens
to us. We're poor, and we're tired." Across the room, Harvey White
Woman, another group leader, stood up. "Bob, tell [the council] our
women and children are crying. We're willing to stay here until our
women stop crying."
While the recent charges are new, the undercurrent of animosity goes
back at least to Wounded Knee, perhaps even further to the legendary
fights between Crazy Horse and Red Cloud: the everlasting struggle
between the traditional, elder-run tribal system and the modern elected
government that was developed (by non-Indians) during the Indian
Reform Act of 1934. It's a confusing argument complicated by family
ties, old alliances, well-founded suspicions about non-Indians and
a voracious rumor mill that sometimes mixes legend and reality.
"It's really hard to present a modern government to people in
a very traditional system," said Salway. "We can't go back,"
he said.
"A lot of Indians can walk in both worlds. Some can't. For me as a
leader, I've got to make those worlds coalesce."
Sacred pipe
Inside the occupied building last week, Chief Oliver Red Cloud gave
a soliloquy in melodic Lakota that was broadcast via the area's only
radio station across the reservation, which is the size of Connecticut
and borders the Badlands. The grandson of legendary warrior and
statesman Chief Red Cloud, Oliver Red Cloud wore a cowboy hat,
jeans and a pair of worn Reeboks. Sweet sage burned on an altar
covered with eagle feathers and peace pipes. "I have the Chanupa,
the sacred pipe," Red Cloud said, occasionally switching to halting
English. "So I must tell the truth."
In fact, there are many "truths" on "The Rez."
The truths that almost everyone can agree on, however, are few but
profound: The reservation's poverty is overwhelming; approximately
80 percent of its residents are unemployed, and the county is
regularly listed as the poorest in the United States. Some residents
don't have working plumbing or running water. Alcoholism is rampant,
reaching an estimated 60 percent of the populace even though liquor
is illegal on the reservation. Yet there is no treatment center.
Much of the rest is hearsay, innuendo, mystery, accusation. Which
means even when something unjust actually happens, there are
always some who won't believe it.
As fatigue set in and the dissenters became increasingly removed,
suspicions and fears only got worse, including much talk of a "media
blackout" -- despite reporters being in the room -- reportedly orchestrated
by the FBI.
Those rumors were sent out over the Internet on a Pine Ridge
Occupation Web site designed by a supporter, as well as over
Sierratimes.Com, an independent Web page, drawing e-mails and
phone calls of support from as far away as France.
Last Thursday, a security guard for the dissidents was shot a few
blocks from the building, although people familiar with the incident
said it is unlikely the shooting was politically motivated. Still,
tensions
escalated.
Gruesome slayings
White Clay, which supplies most of Pine Ridge's beer, is a hideously
ramshackle two-block town of boarded buildings, broken glass,
upended washing machines, scrap metal, rusted barbed wire and
junked cars. In the evening, cars packed with reservation residents
stream into town. Even in winter, scores of people walk along the
highway the 2 miles to buy beer. They huddle in groups on vacant lots,
burning fires in garbage cans and drinking beer. "We're poor, and
we're alcoholics," said one man in a Green Bay Packers jacket.
Mary Eckholt, who is white, has lived and run a curio shop in White
Clay for decades. While she says drunks scare some customers
away, "I've never had any trouble. I know if something happened to
me, they'd take care of me." But she adds, "It wouldn't hurt my
feelings to shut the beer vendors down."
White Clay is reportedly the last place Wilson Black Elk and Ronnie
Hard Heart were seen alive. Their bodies were found in a gulch
100 yards north, "brutally murdered," according to FBI agent Mark
Vukelich, a Minneapolis native who took over the FBI's South Dakota
office shortly before the killings. Vukelich has been in the middle
of a
firestorm, with the victims' relatives and AIM activists accusing the
FBI
of neglecting or covering up the killings.
For weeks, demonstrators marched every Saturday to White Clay to
protest what they called the greedy exploitation of alcoholic Indians.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights took testimony on the case last
month -- as well as possibly racially motivated crimes elsewhere in
South Dakota -- and will release a report within 60 days.
A makeshift camp, called "Camp Justice," was built after the killings
and still stands: three teepees, a heated shack to house mourners
and some tents. The spot where Black Elk and Hard Heart died
is marked with a small shrine. But now that the focus has shifted to
the occupation, the camp is often empty.
"If they were white, the killers would have been in jail a long time
ago," said Loren Black Elk, brother of one of the dead men and
grandson of Black Elk, famed holy man and author of the internationally
famous "Black Elk Speaks."
Not true, Vukelich said. "We had four agents on the ground that day,"
he said. "That's our job on the reservation, to solve murders. We
don't handle the cases of non-Indians." Vukelich said FBI agents
now find themselves in a precarious position: criticized for their
work
in the deaths and, at the same time, asked to intercede in possible
tribal corruption. "We're wearing the white hat in one case and the
black hat in the other," he said. "We've been working hand-in-hand
with the tribe on both issues. Actually, I don't think our relationship
[with the tribe] has ever been better."
AIM leaders this summer claimed there were 100 "unsolved and
uninvestigated" slayings of Indians near the South Dakota reservations,
something Vukelich finds impossible to believe. "If they have a list
of names, I'd love to see it," he said. However, the drownings of
seven Indians and two whites in Rapid City since May 1998 are
suspicious, even to those who distrust tribal "conspiracy theorists."
The case is being investigated by local police, but the FBI has sent
information to a behavioral expert on serial killers. "There's
something going on there," Vukelich said. "I don't think they
are all
murders, but some could be."
Tempered optimism
Despite the recent vortex of problems at Pine Ridge, there is also
an incongruous feeling of tempered optimism.
Sitting in his relatively middle-class double-wide mobile home, its
walls covered with pictures of Clinton's highly publicized visit to
Pine
Ridge in July, tribal president Salway said that Clinton promised
"several multimillion-dollar projects" to help the reservation. "It's
an
historic time," he said.
Back inside the occupied building, Alberta Iron Cloud Miller, who says
she isn't an AIM member and hasn't been involved in local politics,
declared: "This was meant to be. The elders say this is a lot like
Wounded Knee, but this time people are thinking about what's next."
Colhoff said she hopes her client, Jacobs, who was educated in a
prominent East Coast university, won't resign to "appease the terrorists."
"He could work anywhere he wanted," she said. "But he's chosen to
stay here and help his people. He's like the lobster in the pot:
If one
starts to climb out, the others pull him back." Both sides claim to
represent the majority on Pine Ridge. But there are also many who feel
apathetic about the dispute.
A few blocks from the occupied building, a woman in a plywood house
surrounded by garbage, rusted cars and old tires said, "I don't know
much about it." Asked whether a change in leadership would solve
her problems, she wiped the sleep from her eyes and shook her
head. "No," she said.
---
© Copyright 2000 Star Tribune.
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