The case against 21 people accused of trafficking stolen Native American artifacts will continue, despite the suicide of the chief witness against them, the Associated Press reports here.

Ted Gardiner’s death lastweek marked the third suicide among people connected with the case.

“He had a lot of demons,” his 23-year-old son Dustin tells New York Times reporter Kirk Johnson, here.

As the AP reports:

Monday, a magistrate scheduled six separate trials as defense lawyers reacted to the chief witness’s suicide. Defense attorney Richard Mauro said, “We don’t know what impact [Gardiner's death] will be at this point. We’re certainly researching whether or not we have an effective right to cross-examine that witness. That’s something I think all of us in this case will look at,” said Mauro.

Prosecutors say the suicide may change trial strategy, but they told the magistrate they plan to press forward. “Our intention is to marshal our evidence, to respond to any motions that are filed, and to proceed with the trials,” said Carlie Christensen, acting U.S. Attorney for Utah.

Still, much remains unresolved now.

“The confidential informant was involved in every one of the cases, was basically the source in setting everybody up,” says defense attorney David Finlayson.”There’s a lot of issues that has come out of that.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Four Corners, Gwen Florio, Native American artifacts, Nunavut, Utah U.S. Attorney's office

Tetona Dunlap is a graduate student in journalism at the University of Montana. She is an enrolled member of the Eastern Shoshone tribe from the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming.

It came down to milliseconds this year in the Wyoming Class 2A boys basketball championship.

The Wyoming Indian Chiefs players, coaches and fans held their breath as they watched senior guard Colby Sturgeon of the Southeast Cyclones put up the ball. Sturgeon’s shot bounced off the backboard and into the basket, but it was too late, as the final buzzer sounded a repeat championship for the Chiefs.

The final score was 52-51. Both teams entered the state tournament with almost perfect seasons of 25 wins and one loss.

Senior Caleb Her Many Horses told the Casper Star Tribune, “It went down to the end, all the way down to the end,”

Senior Slade Spoonhunter and junior Brian Willow Jr. were selected for the All-State team. Spoonhunter was also selected as Player of the Year and Coach Craig Ferris was honored as Coach of the Year for the Southwest Conference. Spoonhunter, Her Many Horses, Willow and junior Lorenzo Underwood all received All-Conference honors as well.

The Wyoming Indian Lady Chiefs also made it to the state tournament. They placed fourth after losing 46-55 to Lovell. Junior Ranell Oldman received All-State and was the player of the year for the Southwest conference. Oldman was also selected for the all-conference team and was joined by fellow players junior Ambrosia Brugh, senior Kristen Washakie and senior Kirsti O’Neal.

Tags: buffalo post, Chiefs basketball, Gwen Florio, Lady Chiefs, Native American news, Tetona Dunlap, Wind River Reservation, Wyoming Class 2A basketball, Wyoming Indian High School

The short answers are no and no. For longer answers, go to Elouise Cobell’s weekly Ask Elouise column, here.

Not only does Cobell answer questions online about the historic multi-billion-dollar settlement, she’s also traveling around Indian Country this week to talk to people in person. Here’s her schedule for tomorrow and Thursday:

Wednesday, March 10
1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sisseton/Lake Traverse Reservation
SWO Community Center
Sisseton, SD

Thursday, March 11
1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Yankton Indian Reservation
Fort Randall Casino & Hotel – Bingo Hall
Pickstown, SD

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Cobell v. Salazar, Elouise Cobell, Gwen Florio, Indian trust case, U.S. Interior Department

The U.S. Justice Department seeks Native Americans interns are begin sought to help tribal members who worked in the uranium industry or lived downwind from atomic tests.

The interns will help cancer victims apply for compensation under terms of the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, according to this Deseret News story. The internship is designed to ensure that people who qualify for claims get the compensation they deserve. Interns will be based in the Four Corners area and will receive training, housing and a small stipend.

“In addition to helping us reach those Cold War patriots who are suffering and are entitled to compensation, this internship program will provide much needed summer jobs to bright students looking for an opportunity to serve,” says Tony West, assistant attorney general for Justice’s Civil Division.

He added, “The RECA program is an important part of the attorney general’s commitment to this administration’s work in strengthening the nation-to-nation relationship with tribal governments.”

For more information on the internship program or to apply, call (202) 616-4304, or click here.

Gwen Florio

Tags: atomic tests, buffalo post, cancer, Gwen Florio, Kerr-McGee, Native American news, Navajo Nation, radiation, Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, U.S. Justice Department, Uranium mining

It’s interesting that Mark Trahant, in his weekly health care column, writes about Facebook today. (See previous post.)

The social networking site is also being used to protest the multi-billion-dollar Cobell v. Salazar settlement for Indian people owed decades’ worth of royalties from the federal government.

The Facebook page is called “Reject The Cobell V. Salazar Agreement,” and only has 114 members so far. Its mission statement:

This Group was inspired by the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe’s Elders Council deciding to unanimously REJECT the paltry sum so disrespectfully offered by the US Government.

As Sitting Bull Said: “You are fools to make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hard-tack, and a little sugar and coffee.”

The Facebook group speaks to the dissatisfaction some people feel with the settlement – more than $3 billion, as opposed to more than $100 billion that some estimate Indian people are actually owed.

Plaintiff Elouise Cobell, who is Blackfeet from Browning, Mont., says she accepted the settlement, announced last fall, because it’s quite a step up from the originally proposed $455 million and also because many of the 50,000 people who will directly benefit are elderly, and could die if further legal wrangling were to continue.

She’s touring reservations in North and South Dakota this week to answer people’s questions about the settlement. (See previous post.)

And, she also writes a weekly Ask Elouise column to address issues concerning the settlement. Check it out here.

Meanwhile, Congress has yet to approve funds mandated by the settlement, and recently delayed that approval – for the second time – until next month.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Blackfeet, buffalo post, Cheyenne River Sioux, Cobell v. Salazar, Elouise Cobell, Facebook, Gwen Florio, Indian trust case, Native American news, Sitting Bull

Mark Trahant is a Kaiser Media Fellow examining the Indian Health Service and its relevance to the national health care reform debate. He is a member of Idaho’s Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. Comment here.

How does a health care agency listen to patient complaints in the era of social media? Well, the easiest thing to do is to ignore complaints or to explain them away. The best practice: Treat complaints as critical nuggets of information.

Let’s start with a bit of context. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Indian Health Service have an extensive process for tribal consultation. There is a formula for listening to tribal leaders about its operation, priorities and budgets. There’s also an open line for internal IHS reform. The IHS collects data about best practices, ranging from treatments for cardiovascular disease to partnerships with traditional healers. This is a simple, but important, way to share ideas about programs or treatments that work.

So the context is that the Indian Health Service has an extensive practice collecting information – complaints – from tribal and community leaders. In general the Indian Health Service does a better job of listening to its constituents than most health care agencies. But that system was designed for another time.

So back to the question: How does a health agency listen to patient complaints in the era of social media? Each unit, clinic or hospital has a formal process, but most complaints aren’t filed, they are spoken between family members or said in the waiting room? How does a modern health care agency learn from those?

This is where the new world of social media kicks in. Patients are contributing thousands of bits of information on Facebook in a group called, “I just spent 6 hours at IHS just for them to give me Tylenol.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: buffalo post, Facebook, Gwen Florio, Health care reform, Indian Health Service, Mark Trahant, Navajo Nation, Twitter

Yes, we’re in a stubbornly lingering recession, and yes, “cut” is the watchword of the day

Nonetheless, “a general sense of satisfaction” is in the air, Indian Country Today’s Washington, D.C., reporter Rob Capriccioso writes here, as leaders review President Barack Obama’s proposed 2011 budget.

Not only are many programs serving Indian Country maintained, but variety of others – underfunded for decades – would be strengthened under that proposal. That would seem to bear out President Obama’s promises to Indian Country during his meeting with Native leaders last fall, one of the biggest Native American news events of the year. (See video above.)

“Last year, for FY 2010, Congress enacted historic increases to important programs that are essential to tribes, especially during this time of economic recession,” says Jefferson Keel, National Congress of American Indians president and lieutenant governor of the Chickasaw Nation.

“NCAI applauds the administration’s proposals for FY 2011 to continue to make investments in Indian health, tribal public safety, environmental protection programs, and self-determination contract support costs and administrative cost grants.”

That said, Capriccioso notes that there are still areas of concern. Patricia Whitefoot, National Indian Education Association president, proposed the creation of an assistant secretary of Indian education at the Department of Education as a way of dealing with underfunding in that area.

And Marty Shuravloff, National American Indian Housing Council chairman, pointed out that funds for the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act are actually dropping.

“To put this in proper context, funding appropriated by Congress in FY 1998 – 12 years ago – was $20 million more than the president’s budget request for FY 2011,” Shuravloff says.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Gwen Florio, National American Indian Housing Council, National Congresss of American Indians, National Indian Education Association, Native American news, Obama 2011 budget, President Barack Obama, Recession

Quilting project honors Native children who died in boarding schools
Jamestown, N.D., resident Ellen Pfeiffer first learned about Indian boarding schools from her former husband, a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe whose grandmother was taken from her family and sent to the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. She found the story heartbreaking, and began to study the era. Barbara Landis, Carlisle Indian School biographer, reports that nearly 10,000 Indian children went to Carlisle in its 40-year-history. Of those, nearly 200 children died, most of them of respiratory diseases such as pneumonia and tuberculosis.

Pfeiffer believes the schools, whose purpose was to assimilate Indian children, did a disservice to Native Americans. Now she’s making quilts to honor the children who died so far from their families. The project involves 186 quilts, according to this Jamestown Sun story distributed by the Associated Press.

Connecticut tribes blast state’s plan to add keno games
Connecticut is looking at adding keno games to help close a $1.3 billion budget shortfall. But tribal casinos – which already offer it – are crying foul, saying it could cut into their profits, Indian Country Today’s Gale Courey Toensing writes here. Jackson King, general counsel for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, says that if the state launches keno, the tribes could stop making payments to the state based on their own earnings, because of a violation of the compact.

Navajo Nation plans five casinos within two years
Despite a drop in gaming revenues around the country, the Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise says it has secured the funding for five news casinos, and plans to build them within the next two years, according to the Navajo Times. Investment Committee members say gaming looks like more secure route than the stock market these days.

Seneca Nation stops effort to ban mail-order smokes in New York
The New York Times has this story on how the Seneca Nation turned around a bill designed to halt the shipment of mail-order cigarettes. The bill was approved by the New York House of Representatives and a Senate committee, before the Seneca Nation, which sees more than $1 billion annually in gambling and cigarette revenues, launched a full-scale lobbying effort to stop it.

Nunavut to substantially cut polar bear harvest quota; hunters object
Over the next four years, the annual hunting quota for Baffin Bay polar bears will gradually be reduced from 105 to 65, according to the Nunatsiaq News. Biologists are worried the bears are being overhunted, and Greenland has already reduced its quotas. But some hunters are demanding compensation for their communities.

Salish Kootenai College honors lifelong Salish language teacher Sophie Mays
Last month, family and friends on the Flathead Indian Reservation gathered at Salish Kootenai College to dedicate Sophie’s Room. It honors Sophie “Supi” Quequesah Mays died last year at the age of 56, the Char-Koosta News reports. Mays, who grew up with parents who spoke only Salish, dedicated her life to preserving the Salish language. She was the first Salish teacher when the college was founded.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Carlisle Indian School, Connecticut, Flathead Indian Reservation, Greenland, Gwen Florio, Indian gaming, Mashantucket Pequot, Mohegan, Native American news, Navajo Nation, Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise, New York Legislature, Nunavut, Polar bears, Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Salish Kootenai College, Salish language, Seneca Nation

Even though Congress has twice delayed approval of more than $3 billion settlement mandated in an Indian trust case (see previous post here), the lead plaintiff in the case is forging forward.
Elouise Cobell, who fought for more than a decade on behalf of hundreds of thousands of Native people owed money because of federal mismanagement of royalties from the use of their lands, will be in South Dakota next week to answer questions about the case.

As the Rapid City Journal reports, here:

The House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee plans a March 10 hearing on the Cobell settlement, which comes amid growing complaints that the settlement was reached without adequate input from tribal governments. Oglala Sioux Tribe President Theresa Two Bulls is slated to testify at the congressional committee hearing.

Cobell’s tour of South Dakota reservations begins on Pine Ridge Reservation with an informational meeting from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at the Oglala Lakota College center in Kyle. According to a tentative schedule, it continues with a 1 p.m. meeting Monday at Sinte Gleska University in Mission on the Rosebud Reservation. She will attend a meeting from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Eagle Butte High School Auditorium and from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, N.D., on Standing Rock Reservation.

Two Bulls will host a public meeting about the negotiated settlement at 10 a.m. Monday at the Little Wound School in Kyle, but it is unclear if Cobell will attend.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe has yet to take a position on the settlement. But Myron Pourier of the tribe’s Fifth Member’s Office says he personally opposes it.

“I feel like we’re settling for pennies on a dollar again,” he tells the Journal. “We need to bring it back to the drawing board.”

In addition to her speaking tour, Cobell answers questions about the case online every week in her Ask Elouise column. You can access it directly here, or look for a summary and links weekly on Buffalo Post.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Cobell v. Salazar, Eagle Butte High School, Elouise Cobell, Little Wound School, Oglala Sioux Tribe, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Rosebud Indian Reservation, Sinte Gleska University, Sitting Bull College, Standing Rock Indian Reservation, Theresa Two Bulls, U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, U.S. Interior Department