Subject: SOVEREIGNTY UNDER SIEGE: SHOSHONE
Via The N.Y. Transfer News Service 718-448-2358, 718-448-2683
Topic: SOVEREIGNTY UNDER SIEGE: SHOSHONE
Written: 8:09 am May 22, 1992 by web:greenbase
PRESS RELEASE
CONTACT: Dennis Jennings, Bay Area Indian Alliance
(415) 771-8971
Nilak Butler, Greenpeace Nuclear Campaign
(415) 512-9025
SOVEREIGNTY UNDER SIEGE:
U.S. 'HONORS' SHOSHONE ACTIVIST, THEN TRIES TO SEIZE RANCH
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S.F. Press Conference Wednesday to Discuss Land-Rights Case
SAN FRANCISCO, May 6,1992 (GP) Last month, Congress presented Carrie Dann
with the prestigious Ellis Island Medal of Honor for "preserving the distinct
values and heritage" of her Western Shoshone ancestors. But the government has
an odd way of showing appreciation: Federal agents are also trying to seize
Dann's ranch and livestock.
Carrie and Mary Dann have fought for almost 20 years for the right to
continue grazing their stock on their ancestral homelands in Eureka County,
Nevada. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is trying to force the Dann sisters
to pay grazing fees for land that, by treaty, remains under sovereign control
of the Western Shoshone National Council -- just one of the many examples of
illegal federal seizure of the tribe's land.
Carrie Dann will discuss her case, and the wider struggle for Western
Shoshone land rights, at a press conference at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, May 6, at
the San Francisco Press Club, 555 Post St. The press conference is sponsored
by Bay Area Indian Alliance and is endorsed by Greenpeace, which is
campaigning against nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site and
against the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, both of which are on
land claimed by the tribe.
"The taking of our land is not legal," Carrie Dann said last month, as she
faced down a crew of BLM cowboys who were attempting to round up and take away
her cattle. "We have never given up our homeland. Only tyrants and dictators
take what is not theirs. Is this a democratic country, or a tyranny?"
Although the BLM crew that day backed down and left without Dann's cattle,
the dispute seems headed for another showdown.
In March, the Western Shoshone National Council announced that the Dann's
livestock had been nationalized, or made the property of the council. The
council notified the U.S. State Department that all future negotiations on the
issue must be between the U.S. and Western Shoshone governments, and that any
attempt to confiscate the livestock would be considered an act of aggression
against a sovereign nation, to be met with peaceful -- but determined --
resistance.
"U.S. officials have continually demonstrated their unwillingness to pursue
negotiations as an avenue for resolving the ongoing dispute over Western
Shoshone land rights," said Council Chief Raymond Yowell, after a meeting in
which the Nevada officers of the BLM refused even to carry a request for
negotiations to Washington.
The pattern of broken trust by the government toward the Western Shoshone
dates back more than 100 years. In 1863, the tribe and the United States
signed the Treaty of Ruby Valley, a declaration of peace and friendship which
gave the government certain rights to use Western Shoshone land, but never
extinguished title.
In 1973, the Dann sisters were first served with trespass notices for
trying to graze their cattle on land their family had used for generations.
The case ultimately went to the Supreme Court, which ruled that a government
agency called the Indian Claims Commission had long ago determined that the
tribe had, in effect, lost control of the land.
But because the Commission has no authority make such a decision -- only to
redress tribes for the loss of land -- the Western Shoshone have refused to
accept the Court's judgement.
Now, having apparently exhausted their legal remedies and facing the
refusal of the government to negotiate, the Western Shoshone are using non-
violent civil disobedience to maintain their land claims.
"Western Shoshones throughout Nevada are being arrested for attempting to
use the land that rightfully belongs to them," said Dennis Jennings of the Bay
Area Indian Alliance. "It is tragic that in 1992, which could be a time of
honoring Native Americans and their culture, we are seeing a perpetuation of
the 500-year pattern of destroying the Native American way of life."
--- GoldED 2.40
* Origin: $500 billion to bail out banks? Nationalize them! (1:128/105)