And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
X-Originating-IP: [195.147.162.107]
From: "beverley fulford" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Press Release
Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 06:35:48 PDT
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Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed;
PRESS RELEASE
CONGRESS ADDS FUNDING FOR CONTROVERSIAL LAND TRANSFER
TO EMERGENCY APPROPRIATIONS FOR KOSOVO
The U.S. Senate added $800,000 to an Emergency Appropriations bill passed
last Friday to
speed up a controvercial land transfer in South Dakota. The funding was
contained in an
emergency spending bill that was passed to fund the NATO military strikes in
Yugoslavia.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Department of Water and Natural Resources has
been working
on the land transfer issues for the Corps of Engineer’s lands along the
Missouri River since
1986. According to the Department Administrator Shirley Marvin, the Corps of
Engineers owns
land above the Missouri River reservoirs, both on and outside of the
existing Indian
Reservations. “The Corps lands on the Reservations were taken from Standing
Rock and the
other Tribes. The land along the river outside of the Reservations was Sioux
Nation land under
the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty,” Marvin explained.
Under a 1998 budget rider, however, the off-Reservations Corps lands are to
be transferred to
the state of South Dakota. Two Indian Tribes, the Cheyenne River and Lower
Brule Sioux, also
shall receive the Corps lands within their reservations, and the state and
Tribes shall receive
federal Wildlife Trust Funds.
“Most Sioux Tribes and the Great Sioux Nations Treaty Council oppose this
legislation,” Marvin
stated. The Standing Rock Sioux, Oglala Sioux, Rosebud Sioux and Crow Creek
Sioux Tribes
have passed Resolutions opposing the land transfer to South Dakota.
South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle, the Senate Democratic leader, succeeded in
getting
emergency funding to speed up the land transfer over the objections of these
Tribes. The Tribes
are working with the Corps of Engineers to investigate ways to protect the
Native American
cultural resources on the land to be transferred to the state.
In testimony to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on April 26, Standing
Rock Tribal
Chairman Charles Murphy stated that “Native American human remains, funerary
objects and
cultural resouces associated with the Standing Rock and the Great Sioux
Nation are embedded
in the banks...above the Missouri river reservoirs.” Murphy decried the
transfer of the land to
the state on these grounds. “This legislation seriously threatens the rights
of Standing Rock and
the Great Sioux Nation,” Murphy told the Senate Committee.
Meanwhile up to 15 Lakotas from Pine Ridge Indian reservation are encamped
at LaFramboise
Island in Pierre, SD. The campers contend that the land transfer to South
Dakota violates the
Treaty, and that they shall refuse to leave the camp until Congress
reconsiders the land transfer
provision.
That is why the inclusion of funding in the Emergency Spending Bill is
disappointing to Standing
Rock and the other Tribes, according to Marvin. “They are in such a hurry to
transfer the land
that they added money to the Spending Bill for the crisis in Yugoslavia. In
the same Bill they
fund efforts to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, they violate the rights of
the Sioux Nation.”
Standing rock has been working with the Oglala, Rosebud, and Crow Creek
Sioux Tribes in
seeking an Oversight Hearing on the land transfer’s impact on Sioux Nation
Treaty rights, and
the protection of Native American cultural sites along the Missouri River.
No hearing has been
scheduled as of yet, but the efforts of the Tribes are continuing.
For More Information Contact
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
Dept. of Water & Natural Resources
Shirley Marvin, Administrator (888) 783-7134
05/18/1999
______________________________________________________
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Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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