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From: Libyad817@aol.com
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 14:29:40 EST
Subject: SD Governor has a Change of Heart?
To: kolahq@skynet.be

press release
by David Seals

What's with Bill Janklow? On Friday the notorious anti-Indian Governor
of South Dakota said, "There's no greater tragedy in America than the
economic deprivation that takes place on many of the Indian reservations."

In a speech to the State Legislature he said that federal officials
should start working with Indian tribes to bring them economic prosperity,
along with the rest of the country.  President Clinton talks about the
problem, but not much gets done, Janklow said.  "It's time to do something.
It's time to get off the dime and do something."

In the state of the Union message Clinton proposed $1 billion to boost
economic opportunities, health care, education and law enforcement for Indian
communities. In this election season it might have been necessary for the
Democrats to deal with, or at least neutralize, the glaring crisis on the
gulag of Concentration Camps. Imagine Al Gore's embarrassment if he had to
face Bill Bradley's courageous example of proposing the return of millions of
acres in the Black Hills to the signatory Native Nations of the 1851 Fort
Laramie Treaty, as he did in the notorious 'Bradley Bill' a decade ago.
(South Dakota's lone Congressman, arch-Republican John Thune, said recently
that Bradley wouldn't "have a chance in hell" of ever being elected here, if
he got the nomination; because of the Bradley Bill. "South Dakotans would
reach for their rifles before they would let that happen," he said.)

To Indians, who have seen this periodic political posturing all too
often too many times before, this is just more of the American hypocrisy
about the genocide of the West.  We don't expect a damn thing to happen. And
indeed, Janklow, a Republican,  promptly let himself off the hook by
apologizing that State government cannot really do very much to help deal
with these problems because the state has no legal jurisdiction on the
reservations.

"This is a matter where tribal government and the federal government have
to stand up to the plate, and clearly the federal government has a
responsibility here," Janklow said.

This is the same William Janklow who said back in 1973, when he was
first running for office, for Attorney General, about the current Occupation
of Wounded Knee, "The only way to deal with these AIM leaders is to put a
bullet in their heads"? He was elected in a landslide, and is now serving his
4th term as Governor.

This is the same Janklow whom Tribal Judge Mario Gonzalez subpoened for
the rape of a 15-year old Indian girl, Jancita Eagle Deer, in 1967 on the
Rosebud reservation? Her mother Delphine saw Janklow, a young attorney for
the tribe then, drop off the girl after she was babysitting for him, and
Jancita said Janklow had just raped her. Her mother took her to the hospital
where it was confirmed medically. Janklow refused to appear before the Tribal
Court, and was subsequently banned from ever being allowed on the sovereign
independent land, under threat of arrest. Janklow laughed it off, and so did
the fine farmers and tourism officials of the state.

Several years later Jancita and her mother were both murdered under
suspicious circumstances. A lot of indians around here believe that he did
it, or was working closely with the FBI's Reign of Terror to do it; and other
murders with FBI/AIM complicity such as that of Anna Mae Aquash in 1975.
Author Peter Matthiessen chronicled the awful story in his 1983 book 'In The
Spirit of Crazy Horse', and Janklow sued him for libel. Then he sued Newsweek
Magazine for repeating the story. After 8 years Janklow's case was thrown out
of court with insufficient grounds.

In the 1974 race his opponent also found documents Janklow was arrested
for raping a white girl when he was 16, back in the 1950s. Janklow did not
deny the charges.

He has consistently opposed all efforts to improve the hideous
conditions on the seven Lakota Sioux reservations here, since he's been the
dominant political force in South Dakota for 25 years. Indians have come to
expect his opposition in any efforts they make to improve their lives. He has
consistently backed harsh jail sentences for Indians, and has quadrupled the
Native prison population per capita since 1975.

His sudden change of heart may have to do with an escalating series of
events recently, in which the US Civil Rights Commission held hearings in
Rapid City in December about a number of uninvestigated Indian murders around
the State. And a popular uprising of the Grassroots Oyate (The People) on
Pine Ridge 2 weeks ago, taking over the Tribal Council administration
building in order to seize records of massive theft of millions of dollars,
has further brought unpleasant international attention to the festering
Indian Problem that has continued unabated for 25 years.

But he put on a good act for the cameras and press, almost crying, when
he said, "Many people are suffering. It breaks your heart."
 

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