And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Date: Thu, 03 Jun 1999 13:47:40 -0600 From: Zoltan Grossman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Midwest Treaty Network <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Wisconsin letter to Washington state media Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit June 3, 1999 Dear Editor, We in Wisconsin have been following the Makah whaling controversy very closely. It has close echoes of the conflict over Chippewa (Ojibwe) spearfishing in northern Wisconsin in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Substitute "walleye" for "whales" and it seems about the same. In Wisconsin, militant anti-treaty groups carried banners reading "Spear an Indian--Save a Walleye", inspiring the banner at a recent Seattle rally that read "Harpoon Makahs--Not Whales." Wisconsin anti-treaty leaders inflamed public opinion with their claim that the Chippewa would "rape" the fish resource, even though the tribe never took more than three percent of the walleye. Wisconsin anti-treaty mobs committed numerous acts of violence-- including rock-throwing, swamping of Chippewa boats, death threats, and pipe bombings. Riot-clad police and National Guard helicopters were deployed to northern lakes. Like in Washington, the Wisconsin anti-treaty protesters would racially lump the specific treaty tribe together with all other Native Americans. They assumed that the tribe had a commercial reason for exercising its treaty rights--until they found out that tribal members would not accept millions of dollars to give up their rights. They also opposed the tribal use of modern technology (such as motorboats) that were not used in the treaty era, assuming that Native cultures are dead relics instead of living, evolving cultures. They would not similarly oppose Americans' use of electronic voting machines, which were not in use at the time of the U.S. Constitution (a document almost 70 years older than the Makah treaty). The environmentalist facade of Wisconsin anti-treaty groups fell away when mining companies such as Exxon and Rio Algom started coming into the Northwoods for metallic sulfide minerals. Even though this type of mining can release sulfuric acid into trout streams, the anti-treaty groups still chose to blame the Chippewa for all environmental and economic problems. But many sportfishing groups began to get wise, and started to understand the history of the treaties, the Chippewa respect for the environment, and the threat that mining would pose to fishing by Indians and non-Indians alike. The sportfishing groups and the tribes began to realize that instead of arguing over the fish, they could come together to protect the fish from a common outside threat. Today, Wisconsin has a strong interethnic alliance of Native Americans, sportfishing groups, and environmentalists opposed to sulfide mining, and has won victories to protect the fishery. Please see the Midwest Treaty Network web site for more on this story at http://www.alphacdc.com/treaty or see the book "Walleye Warriors," by Walter Bresette and Rick Whaley. Just as Wisconsin anti-treaty leaders focused more attention on the Chippewa than on the mining companies, Sen. Slade Gorton (a strong backer of harmful mining) and the Sea Shepherds focus more attention on one whale taken by the Makah than they do on the threat to the entire North Pacific ecology from companies such as Mitsubishi and Tyson Foods. We trust that the people of Washington will also get wise to this new anti-Indian movement as a diversion from the real environmental problems facing marine life, and facing human beings of all nationalities. Debi McNutt and Zoltan Grossman Midwest Treaty Network 731 State St., Madison WI 53703 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alphacdc.com/treaty/content.html Tel./Fax (608) 246-2256 Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
