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DOMESTIC: "of or pertaining to ones own or particular Country as apart from other
Countries", Webster's Dictionary
DEPENDENT: "depending on something else for aid, support etc.", "conditioned;
contingent", "subordinate; subject" Webster's Dictionary
"Aforesaid confederated tribes of Indians acknowledge their dependence upon the government of the United States..." Section 8 of the Flathead Treaty of 1855
"Upon incorporation into the territory of the United States, the Indian tribes thereby came under the territorial sovereignty of the United States and their exercise of separate power is constrained so as not to conflict with the interest of the over riding sovereignty. Their rights of complete sovereignty, as independent nations, are necessarily diminished." Johnson v. McIntosh, 1823Oliphant v. Susquamish Indian Tribe 435 US 191 (1978).
The tribes are not a sovereign nation, and they do not have governmental jurisdiction over nontribal members, or nontribal land. It is a myth, invented by tribal attorneys and perpetuated by the media, that the tribes are a sovereign nation with the governmental authority to govern those people and lands within the reservation. The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled otherwise. See:
"Indian reservations and their inhabitants are semi-dependent or totally dependent wards of the federal government. This is reality. It is not sovereignty." "Indians have been drafted into the armed forces, vote in state and federal elections, and receive federal money. Our actions speak louder than our words. Sovereignty is a phrase we have mouthed for over 200 years, but this country has never...treated Indian tribes with any of the courtesy nor respect accorded a true sovereign state or nation, such as a Canada, Mexico, or Great Britain." (Federal Court Judge Randall, as printed in "Indian Country Today", February 29, 1996)
On February 23, 1994, the United States Supreme Court Case #92-6281, Hagen v. Utah, ruled that large portions of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation had been diminished when the reservation was open to non-Indian settlement, and that opened lands were no longer located within the Reservation. The court ruled "jurisdiction within the exterior boundaries of said Reservation apply only to tribal members and tribal or trust lands." Since 1904 Congress has explicitly authorized and promoted the ownership of reservation land by non-members, along with the creation and functioning of local governments under State law on the Reservations. The U&O Tribes had greatly diminished sovereignty over those portions of the reservation settled by non-Indians.
Tribal sovereignty and immunity has also been used by some tribal groups against others within the same reservation, showing that the main point is to keep power in the hands of a few. Letters to the editor of Western Montana local papers:
" I have seen Indian people, who were once strong in the Indian way, turn against their own because they can not afford to stand up for their rights or they'll lose their (tribal) jobs....creating ordinance 96 (granting immunity from suit to tribal employees) is a law that greatly impacts the people and is as unfair as the council being able to grant executive clemency...the inequities have continued so long that it seems only lighter skinned, acculturated Indians predominate over all of us, continuing to impose their law and beliefs on to us....." 86 year old elder from Elmo, Montana
"the accumulation of all the power in a few, be they elected, appointed, or self-appointed will only pave the way for tyranny within our tribal structure. We must make it impossible for a single group of people to exercise such powers." Tribal member from Pablo"They (Tribal Council) throw us peanuts, and we live like a pack of dogs." Tribal member from Elmo
In CSKT Council meeting minutes from January 19, 1996, a tribal member complains that the Tribe had approved a bridge by his place, but nothing had happened yet. He went on to state that he is "a full-blood and can't get hired with the Tribes so he has to work in the woods for the white people."
dyinginindiancountry.blogspot.com
Portions of
SOVEREIGNTY AND CIVIL RIGHTS
By Julie Shortridge for "The Resource"."...Tribal sovereignty," the notion that tribes are self-governing nations, and a concept that many people assume is beneficial to Indian people, actually benefits only a few individual tribal government leaders, and takes rights and freedoms away from Indian citizens.
... There are no checks and balances in the tribal system of government; no separation of the judicial, legislative and administrative branches of government. The Freedom of Information Act and Open Meeting Law do not apply on reservations. Neither does the Bill of Rights. In 1968 Congress enacted a separate " Bill of Rights" in an effort to rectify this fact, but in 1978, a Supreme Court decision ruled that Indian tribal governments themselves could decide how and to what extent Indian civil rights would be applied, if at all.
The decision rendered the Indian Bill of Rights virtually worthless. A tribal chief and tribal council not only have full executive, legislative and judicial authority on the reservation, they also decide if and to what extent their citizens have any rights or freedoms. Tribal chief executives and tribal councils become dictators. They appoint and remove tribal judges as they wish, and can control the outcome of judicial decisions. Tribal Chief executives and tribal councils can and do dictate if, how and against whom tribal laws are enforced.
One of this country's founding fathers, James Madison, wrote in the late 1700's, "The accumulation of all powers - legislative, executive, and judiciary- in the same hands, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." Madison was right, and tyranny is what we see today in tribal governments. Read a month's worth of Indian newspapers, such as Indian Country Today, News from Indian Country, and Native American Press/Ojibwe News and it becomes evident that corruption in tribal governments is the norm, not the exception.
Tribal governments are not obligated to make their financial records available to the public, yet they control who on a reservation gets a job, a house, and health care services. This lack of accountability allows tribal officials to hide criminal conduct, incompetence, and corruption, and has resulted in tribal dictatorships. Several federal convictions of tribal leaders for theft, fraud, money-laundering, vote rigging and other crimes have barely scratched the surface of tribal government corruption. A full 80% of Indian people have left the reservation to escape these conditions.
Congress and the federal courts must take the blame for this corrupt and abusive system. They are the ones who created it, and they have the legal right, power and authority to end it at any time.
...How is it that the United States maintains separate "homelands" for a race of people where they are not protected by the same constitutional rights, receive unequal protection under the law, and are subject to different regulations? How did this country, a nation so vocal, so active in condemning South African apartheid, come to create a similar apartheid situation for millions of its own citizens?
...The federal government has what's called "plenary" power over land that is in trust status, which means they can literally do anything they want with it, and the people living on that land have no direct control or constitutional protections. Indians and non-Indians who live on reservations actually have no control over their lands, and people living near reservations are at risk too, because the federal government is expanding reservation land at an amazing rate.
Tribal members are U.S.citizens, and as such, are eligible to serve in state legislatures, run for Congress as representatives of a state, be appointed to state and federal constitutional office, hold judgeships at all levels...and ...President of the United States. These rights and privileges ARE NOT extended to foreign nationals of sovereign nations. They are extended to Indians because they are, in fact, U.S. citizens, and have been since Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924. Many non-reservation Indians were U.S. citizens in the 1800's as well.
...The policies of tribal sovereignty and tribal sovereign immunity have hurt tribal members, impaired businesses trying to contract with tribal governments, stifled economic development on reservations, and denied basic rights to Indian and non-Indian patrons and employees of tribally-owned operations.
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