One of the privileges of doing this blog is the immersion in news from Indian Country. Yes, there is much that is troubling – but there is so much more that is uplifting, inspiring, enjoyable and just plain interesting. Those stories are gifts. On this day, we’ll celebrate some of those gifts we’ve received in the past year, in the forms of stories about people who stood up to power, who enriched our lives with the arts, who simply delighted us – and of course, we’ll honor those who have passed. The list is by no means all-inclusive, but we hope you enjoy recalling these moments along with us as we listen to Jana Mashonee sing “Silent Night” in Arapaho.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Standing up for people’s rights

Elouise Cobell. Elouise Cobell. Elouise Cobell. Because of her, literally hundreds of thousands of people in Indian Country will begin to receive financial redress for the way the U.S. government has cheated them for generations of the royalties due them for the use of their lands for oil, gas, grazing, etc. On Dec. 8, the Interior Department announced it would settle her 13-year-old lawsuit for more than $3 billion. The government had tried to settle the case a year early for $455 million – relative chump change, in this case – but Cobell, who is Blackfeet from Montana, stood firm on behalf of Indian people. The settlement amount exceeds that of all other Indian claims combined over the years. Yes, it still fell far short of the more than $40 billion owed. But, as Cobell points out, “We also face the uncomfortable but unavoidable fact that a large number of individual Indian trust beneficiaries are among the most vulnerable people in this country, existing in sheer poverty.”

The news was nearly overshadowed by the settlement in the Cobell case, coming as it did on the same day, but it looks as though Indian farmers and ranchers who allege they were shortchanged to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars on USDA loans may finally be getting their due. A suit named for George Keepseagle, a Fort Yates, N.D., rancher says that Indian farmers were denied the same types of loans that went to white ranchers with no problem. That suit was filed in 2001; it will be going to settlement talks in February.

It may be the Christmas season, but Brandon Sazue, chairman of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, is maintaining his lonely vigil on tribal land recently auctioned off by the Internal Revenue Service to pay a disputed debt. The tribe maintains the auction is a violation of sovereignty. Even though there are assurances that rights to the land won’t actually be transferred until legal questions surrounding the auction are settled, Sazue has set up camp on the tract in a propane-heated trailer. Anybody checked the weather report for South Dakota yet? It’s been miserable. But, says Sazue, “I will not sit in a warm house … while this is going on.”

In Texas, the American Civil Liberties Union went to bat on behalf of 5-year-old Adriel Arocha. The little boy, who is Lipan Apache, was told he couldn’t attend kindergarten in the public Needville schools unless he complied with a dress code by cutting his braids – even though his parents explained that he wears his hair long for religious reasons.

And, finally, a coalition of indigenous groups is petitioning Pope Benedict XVI to repeal the Christian Doctrine of Discovery, a “papal bull” that basically justified – on religious grounds! – the subjugation and brutalization of Native peoples by foreign invaders. It was for their own good, you know. That loathsome doctrine is more than 500 years old, a fact that makes the pace of our present-day lawsuits look downright speedy.

Gwen Florio

As Indian Country Today’s Gale Courey Toensing notes here, indigenous people have most recently been in the news because of their strong voices during last week’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

Less noticed is the fact that they also participated in the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions, asking the Pope to repudiate the Christian Doctrine of Discovery. That conference, which meets every five years, was held earlier this month in Australia.

A Haudenosaunee delegation was among the groups saying it’s time to disavow the racist, 15th century Doctrine that, as Toensing writes, allows powerful countries to dehumanize indigenous people and devastate the Earth in the quest for resources and markets.

“Overall the trip was very successful in bringing forward the idea of rescinding the papal bulls,” said Jake Swamp, Wolf Clan sub-chief of the Kahniakehaka, Mohawk Nation, author, and founder of the Tree of Peace Society, an international organization promoting peace and environmental conservation.

“I think that’s the most important thing in our time is to finally attack the roots of the oppression experienced by indigenous peoples worldwide.”

The papal bulls were 15th century documents issued by the popes of the Roman Catholic Church giving permission to the kings of Spain and Portugal to conquer and claim “undiscovered” lands, enslave or skill their non-Christian populations, and expropriate their possessions and resources. The English monarchy followed suit with “charters” to explorers such as John Cabot to colonize “the New World.”

The Doctrine of Discovery, which these documents formulated, was a principle of international law – a kind of early trade agreement that whichever Christian European country “discovered” lands populated by non-Christians could claim those lands and resources.

The indigenous delegates also called for immediate action on climate change; the protection of earth-based religions and sacred sites both within and outside their territories; strengthening and protecting indigenous cultures and languages, repatriation of the ancestors’ remains and sacred items, and the support and implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Gwen Florio

Everybody is all over this one today, from the New York Times, to the Salt Lake Tribune to SooToday.com, and more. All of them make a basic point – it’s great, really great, that the president is hosting this meeting (which actually will be held at the Interior Department), but it’s probably a stretch to expect significant, immediate results.

In addition to Obama, tribal leaders will also have access to cabinet members, which brings us to this interesting nugget in the middle of the Times story. Reporter Noelle Straub asks Interior Secretary Ken Salazar whether Obama will address the long-long-long-delayed (our longs, not hers!) issue of a congressional apology to tribes.

Salazar “sidestepped” the issue, she reports, “but he acknowledged that the tribes’ story has been ‘swept under the rug in many different ways,’ and said the current administration plans to change that.”

Among the many, many concerns of tribes is a request that Obama’s administration sign on to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Canada, New Zealand and the United States are the only three countries among more than 100 affected by the declaration not to sign the document. (See video.)

Gwen Florio

Even last week, the reports from Peru – where indigenous people blockaded their lands against developers – were encouraging. The government had repealed regulations designed to lead to developers’ takeover of those lands. But now, according to this Indian Country Today story, Native leaders are in exile and Peruvian president Alan Garcia has termed the Shawi Tribe’s Alberto Pizango, the main Native leader, a criminal.

Gwen Florio

Informed reader Megan Lappi reminds me that Canada apologized to its First Nations last year. Specifically, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he was sorry to the former residents of that country’s boarding schools, infamous for their abuse of Native pupils. The Canadian Broadcasting sytem report on that apology can be read here.

Last week, though, Canada continued its opposition to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, saying – according to this Canadian Press story – that it still had concerns with the document. Canada, New Zealand and the United States are the only three countries among more than 100 affected by the declaration not to sign the document. See a copy of the declaration here at the Indian Law Resource Center, located in Helena, Mont., and Washington, D.C.

Gwen Florio

The National Congress of American Indians’ midyear conference is going on now in Niagara Falls. Some really big topics on the agenda today: Counting Indian people in the 2010 census; health care reform and Indian Country; and the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Carcieri vs. Salazar decision that limits the Interior secretary’s abilities to take land into trust for tribes. Also today, Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli, third in command at the U.S. Department of Justice, will address the conference on the issues of crime in Indian Country. See a Washington Post story about that here.

Both Indian Country Today and the Indian Law Resource Center are staying on top of the situation in Peru, the site of bloody clashes between police and indigenous protesters trying to prevent development of their lands. Read their accounts here and here.

The New York Times reported late last week that Nicaragua has granted asylum to Alberto Pizango, the indigenous leader charged with sedition in connection with those protests. And the Washington Post reports that Peru’s Congress has suspended decrees that made it easier for companies to develop indigenous people’s lands.

Over at Native Unity, there’s a good piece by Kathy Helms of the Gallup Independent’s Dine Bureau. It’s on a new water station that was supposed to make life lots easier for Dine people in Black Falls, Ariz., who’d previously had to haul water for miles in barrels. Except, things aren’t quite working out as planned.

And, on Saturday, nearly 100 students graduated from Salish-Kootenai College on Montana’s Flathead reservation. Barb Durglo of St. Ignatius and Democratic state Sen. Carol Juneau of Browning were awarded honorary degrees, and Juneau’s colleague in the state Senate, Carol Williams, gave the commencement address. Read the report in the Char-Koosta news here. Congrats, grads and families!

Australia says it’s trying “tough love” with its aboriginal peoples, warning them against the perils of alcoholism and drug abuse in a campaign that reminds me a little of the Montana Meth Project on steroids.

Alcohol, for instance is banned in the largely aboriginal town of Wadeye in northern Australia – but white people are allowed to drink in their homes.

The history of aboriginal-white interactions in Australia mirrors those of indigenous people in North America – forced resettlements, boarding schools, the whole shameful litany. And, the results are similar. The problems are real, and ghastly.

Does something need to be done? Absolutely. But more rules – especially lopsided ones – imposed by the majority society? Hasn’t there been enough paternalism?

Nonetheless, there has been good news coming out of Australia. Two months ago, it endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. (See a copy of the declaration here at the Indian Law Resource Center site.)

Just three governments remain opposed: Canada, New Zealand and – yep – the United States. However, the U.S. position is under review, according to this article by the Inter Press Service.

And, last year, Australia apologized to aboriginal people for the government’s oppression. The United States has yet to make a similar apology to tribes.

Gwen Florio

On Wednesday, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chair, U.N. Permanent Forum on Indignenous Peoples, said indigenous people around the world were being denied the right to decide whether to accept a U.N. climate document on deforestation. All references to indigenous peoples as having rights were removed from a final draft document during negotiating sessions at a U.N. Climate Change Conference in Poland.  

Four countries spearheaded deletion of climate change language that would recognize the rights of indigenous people to reduce emmisions from deforestation and degradation, also known as REDD. The countries include the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the same countries that refused to sign the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. ”They obstinately refuse to recognize the rights of indigenous peoples and other forest peoples who are the ones who sacrificed life and limb to keep the world’s remaining tropical and subtropical rainforests,” said Tauli-Corpuz in a press release.

She urged the countries to recognize the rights of indigenous peoples as outlined in the U.N. declaration. At the same time, she urged indigenous peoples to actively monitor climate change negotiations, policies and programs at the national and global levels. “We have to use the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as an instrument which will ensure our survival and dignity.

“The climate change crisis, the economic downturn and the destruction of biodiversity and cultural diversity are serious threats to our continuing existence.”

She said indigenous peoples needed to continue their practice “of low-carbon and sustainable traditional livelihoods. At the same time, we should demand that resources be made available for us to adapt to climate change.”

Tauli-Corpuz said the world’s richest and most powerful countries were failing to “save this world.”

 She can be reached at vicky@tebtebba.org.