Just say NO to Keith Harper for Human Rights Ambassador.

INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY has a terrific article on KEITH HARPER, the Obama nominee for human rights ambassador to the United Nations, read all of it at the link below.  

The conventional wisdom of many Native American-focused policy officials is that Keith Harper, a Cherokee Nation citizen and a lawyer with Kilpatrick Stockton who helped settle the long-runningCobelllawsuit, should be confirmed by the Senate as a human rights ambassador to the United Nations as quickly as possible.

“Keith Harper—we really need to have [him] at the State Department as we plan for the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples,” said Jackie Johnson-Pata, director of the National Congress of American Indians, to a gathering of the United South and Eastern Tribes on February 5 in Arlington, Virginia. Her view is common among Harper’s lobbyist and lawyer friends in Washington, D.C., as well as among tribal leaders who have had positive interactions with him and his firm. Several of these tribal leaders sent letters of support for Harper to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in recent months as the committee twice considered his nomination – first last September, then in February – and approved it both times narrowly along party lines.

There is a counter narrative, too—one that senatorial supporters and detractors of the Indian lawyer may have missed thus far, and one that has implications as to whether Harper should be confirmed by the full Senate: With his nomination now awaiting consideration by the upper chamber, some Native Americans say he should be held accountable for his lack of positions on a number of Indian human rights issues over his long legal career.

“I’ve personally never heard Keith saying anything substantial about Indian civil rights,” says Richard Monette, a law professor with the University of Wisconsin and former chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. “Besides theCobell case, which made him and his firm very rich, he has been absent on most Indian issues—frankly, I’ve never even heard him even be a proponent of tribal sovereignty. Where has he been on Native voting rights and racism in the states toward Indians?”

While John Page, director of communications with Kilpatrick Stockton, has said Harper is not allowed to comment publicly on any matters during his nomination process, Harper’s continuing silence does not sit well with indigenous advocates who have questions about his views on meaty Indian-focused human rights topics, including tribal disenrollment and due process issues, limited tribal immunity from U.S. constitutional restrictions on political power, the Cherokee Freedmen citizenship controversy, and tribal-federal complexities surrounding the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Read more athttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/02/14/indigenous-rights-advocates-question-keith-harper-nomination-153567?page=0%2C0

DC Federal Appeals Court DENIES CHEROKEE Nation Request to Reconsider Overturn of Vann V Salazar (Cherokee Freedmen Case)

Press alert -

DC Federal Appeals Court denies Cherokee Nation/Cherokee Chief request to reconsider overturn of Dismissal of Vann V Salazar (Cherokee Freedmen Case).

Marilyn Vann, President of the Descendants of Freedmen states that "The Cherokee freedmen tribal members are grateful for the decision made by the honorable judges of the DC Appeals Court.

We hope and pray that we and our children will be able to serve our nation as citizens of the tribe as did our fathers and grandfathers based on our rights guaranteed by both the tribe and the US government in the 1866 treaty".

Marilyn Vann
President - Descendants of Freedmen Association
www.freedmen5tribes.com

Cherokee Nation At Odds with BIA Over Approval of 1999 Constitution

A Sept. 9 letter from Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk to Cherokee Nation officials states the Bureau of Indian Affairs has not approved the tribe’s 1999 Constitution or an amendment that led to its implementation.

The letter, sent to then-Acting Principal Chief Joe Crittenden, emphasizes that the BIA hasn’t signed off on the constitution the tribe is operating under nor the amendment of the 1975 Constitution.

“The department has never approved these amendments to the Cherokee Constitution as required by the Cherokee Constitution itself,” Echo Hawk’s letter states

OP: It's past time for the BIA to hold the Cherokee Nation accountable for violating it's treaty with the U.S. and for stripping the citizenship of THOUSANDS of it's citizens, the Freedmen, who are descendents of Cherokee SLAVES, who were dragged on the Trail of Tears as PROPERTY. Should we fund $500 MILLION to a tribe that violates the rights of its people, or rather, some of its people?


Read More at the CHEROKEE PHOENIX

Cherokee Freedmen Case Still in Limbo

Chris Casteel at NEWOK has the story

Nearly four years after Cherokee Nation citizens voted to bar freedmen without tribal blood, the status of potentially thousands of descendants of former slaves still is in limbo.

And it’s not clear when and how the issue will be resolved.

The Cherokee Nation’s attorney general last week asked the tribal Supreme Court to determine whether a March 2007 constitutional amendment that bars freedmen without Cherokee blood is valid.

The tribe also filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Tulsa on the question, but a judge there has deferred for now to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., where a case has been pending for more than seven years.

Marilyn Vann, the lead freedmen plaintiff in the case filed in Washington, was on Capitol Hill last week talking with congressional staff members about ways to help the freedmen’s cause.

Cherokee Freedmen Conversations On FIRE

We had a post up on the Cherokee Freedmen and it's really had the comments coming hot and heavy. For those of you that still need to hear from both sides, I urge you to read the post below, Descendents of Cherokee Black Slaves or click this LINK. PLEASE, get involved in the discussion and let your congressperson know there will be hearing.

Stand up for JUSTICE.

Pechanga, Picayune Rancheria, Redding Rancheria: Tribal Disputes an Issue For Obama Nominees

It looks like the new Obama administration may be willing to step into "tribal disputes", which hopefully means they won't support tribes like PECHANGA, that act against their own constitution and bylaws, with land into trust or federal financial support.

Internal tribal disputes an issue for Obama nomineesTuesday, December 2, 2008Filed Under: Politics Nominees to the Interior Department should be asked about tribal membership and leadership disputes, the Government Accountability Office said in a recent report.

According to the GAO, internal tribal disputes "seem to be occurring more and more frequently." The report recommends nominees be asked about their ability to resolve these controversial matters.

"What experience do you have in working with tribal leadership and trying to resolve these types of disputes or in trying to prevent them?" the report states. The GAO hasn't released any investigations into internal tribal disputes. But the inclusion of the question -- one of three directly related to Indian affairs -- indicates it's on the radar of key members of Congress who will consider president-elect Barack Obama's executive branch nominees.

OP: HALLELUJAH! Finally, someone is hearing what the problems THOUSANDS of Native Americans are encountering. Apparently an UNconstituional act by tribes such as Pechanga, is only a "dispute".

"This letter provides you with a series of questions that Senate committees of jurisdiction could use to help determine the management experience and capabilities of upcoming nominees," the GAO told Sen. George Voinovich, a senior Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The other two questions cover topics that have been the subject of recent GAO reports. They include the land-into-trust process and the backlog of maintenance at Indian schools and at reservation irrigation projects.

OP: Land into trust issues/process should include some consequences when a tribal chair promises before congress that they want the land for it's historic value to the tribe... and then put a GOLF COURSE on it.

Additionally, the GAO included tribes in questions about the Clean Air Act and the sharing of information to prevent terrorist attacks.
But the closest the GAO has come to tribal membership and leadership disputes was in a report that examined the federal recognition process. In some cases, disputes can delay consideration of a petition or lead to confusion in the process.

Still, Congress has been reluctant to step into such disputes out of respect for tribal sovereignty. Tribes retain the right to determine their membership and to determine their leaders.

OP: The respect for tribal sovereignty should go both ways. If tribes wield sovereignty like a CLUB, then Congress should NOT support a nation with new land for trust, or, in the case of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, federal funds. Pechanga has acted unconstitutionally, that's not about sovereignty as it should be.

A controversial incident involving the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma shifted the landscape after the tribe voted in 2007 to exclude the descendants of the Freedmen, or former slaves. Some members of Congress sought to cut off federal funds to the tribe unless the Freedmen were restored to citizenship.
Other high-profile disputes -- especially those involving gaming -- have caught the eye of Congress as well. The Senate Indian Affairs Committee in 2002 held an unusual hearing into a small California tribe whose leaders were fighting over a proposed casino.


A slew of disenrollment disputes among wealthy California tribes have generated significant media coverage but so far members of Congress have not been willing to get involved.

OP: DIANE WATSON, are you reading this? California is YOUR state! GET INVOLVED


Officials at Interior have shied away too, with the exception of the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians, whose constitution gives the Bureau of Indian Affairs authority over membership matters.
According to Indian activists, California tribes have removed at least 1,500 people from their rolls in recent years. One of them was Bob Foreman, who served as the first chairman of the Redding Rancheria before he was disenrolled in 2004. Foreman died on November 19 without seeing a resolution to his struggle.
Obama has yet to announce his pick for Secretary of the Department of the Interior, although at least two members of Congress who have experience in Indian issues have been the subject of speculation. Obama also gets to name a new assistant secretary for Indian affairs.

Read more HERE

Will Democrats Help ERODE Tribal Sovereignty via UNION CARD CHECKS?

Republican congressman Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the only Native American tribal member in the US Congress, says that UNION CARD CHECKS are the biggest threat to tribal sovereignty.

COLE: There is no question in my mind what the answer is, and I respond by saying, “In this Congress and the next, tribes face the greatest threat to their sovereign governments that the U.S. Congress has attempted in decades: the so-called Employee Free Choice Act.”

As Americans, we cherish our right to vote in private when it comes to elections. So, too, it seems to me with the individual right to vote in a union election in private – without some goon looking over our shoulder to make sure we vote “the right way.” This is a part of our democracy and ingrained in our collective sense of being Americans. It is also a fundamental component of our basic labor laws for more than 60 years, a personal freedom exercised by millions of American workers.

Yet that personal freedom is exactly what the Democratic Party leaders and their union boss cohorts want to take from American workers. This ill-conceived proposal represents payback for years of unquestioning loyalty by large union bosses – a proposal that strips union members of their right to have secret-ballot elections to choose their leaders.

For Indian tribal governments, there is no “free choice” at all. Instead, it carries with it a very real threat that goes to the core of their sovereignty. For the first time, this legislation will trample the inherent sovereign rights of tribal governments to govern their internal affairs.

OP: The unions have been trying to get card check for some time now. How long do you think it will take with: A Democratic President, A Democratic House and A Democratic Senate? Isn't ironic that the same party that puts a leader of a tribe that's a KNOWN civil rights violator on their platform committee, will be the party that destroys the rights of tribes?

And here is Cole's conclusion:

This threat to tribal sovereignty makes this election of vital importance to Indian tribes across the United States. To me the question is simple: Will the next president eagerly sign a law that strikes at the very heart of tribal sovereignty and ignores tribal aspirations to govern themselves?
Or will the next president honor the solemn commitments made by the United States to tribal nations – commitments enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and 200 years of treaties and laws?Only one candidate has shown the mettle to reject this legislation as part of the successful Senate blockade of that law last year. That same candidate has defended and successfully worked to strengthen tribal sovereignty for more than 26 years.At the end of the day, I know that this tribal member is voting for that candidate – Sen. John McCain.

So is a vote for Obama, a vote for card check? He's said as much:

Sen.Barack Obama has declared, “We will pass the Employee Free Choice Act. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when, we may have to wait for the next president to sign it, but we will get this thing done.” (Chicago Tribune, March 4, 2007). Sen. Joseph Biden, his running mate, stated that the Employee Free Choice Act is a new “social compact.”

So the unions will no longer have to work to earn the trust of the potential rank and file. Is this what finally erodes tribal sovereignty? Erosion that has been quickened by the violations of civil rights, human rights, elder abuse that tribes like Pechanga, Picayune Rancheria and Enterprise have perpetrated on their people?

Is Obama THE ONE for tribes?

Cherokee Freedmen: 1866 Treaty in FULL FORCE and EFFECT

The 1866 Treaty that gave Cherokee Freedmen the rights of Cherokee citizens is in “full force and effect,” attorney Jon Velie recently told a Freedmen audience.

According to the SN treaty, Seminole Freedmen “shall have and enjoy all the rights of native citizens.” The CN treaty states that Cherokee Freedmen “shall have all the rights of native Cherokees.”
When asked to explain the difference between “native citizens” and “native Cherokees,” Johnson said she could not discuss the difference because it was at the “heart of the ongoing litigation.” DOH!

Just because the white man did not live up to much of their treaties, does NOT make it right for the Cherokee to do the same. MORALLY, do what is right. Don't be like Pechanga, Picayune and Enterprise, BE BETTER.

Cherokee Freedmen Article

Rep. Diane Watson and John Conyers Press BIA on Cherokee Freedmen

BIA is accused of failing to take action to protect the Freedmen. They have failed to take action to protect the Picayune Tribal Members, the Pechanga Disenrolled, the Enterprise Rancheria. They sure get paid a lot of money for inaction.

IS THE BIA GOVERNMENT WASTE?

BIA pressed on freedmen status
by: JIM MYERS
7/6/2008 12:00 AM
A congressional hearing is apparently the goal.

WASHINGTON — Congressional critics of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma continue to press a federal agency concerning the status of the descendants of the tribe's freedmen. One of their major goals apparently is to force the controversial issue before a congressional hearing.

The Cherokee Nation believes such a hearing should be viewed as "blatant interference'' by lawmakers if it is scheduled before pending litigation is resolved. As part of their effort to build a record that could lead to a hearing, U.S. Reps. Diane Watson, D-Calif., the most vocal critic of the Cherokee Nation in Congress, and John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, laid out a series of questions concerning the status of the freedmen and the tribe in a letter to George Skibine. Skibine is the acting head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Their questions range from the legal status of the freedmen and the processing of citizenship applications to the BIA's actions to protect freedmen's rights and the federal government's take on the Cherokee constitution. Noting a March meeting with Skibine's predecessor, Carl Artman, the two lawmakers cite complaints they had passed on then that the BIA had failed to take action to protect rights of the freedmen, former slaves of Cherokees.

TULSA WORLD

Senator Obama VS the Freedmen: Politics as USUAL says Congresswoman DIane Watson

Congresswoman Diane Watson educates Senator Obama on the Freedmen issue. Good work, Rep. Watson. Please continue to press on for the Freedmen and also, consider looking into the civil rights violations of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians in our own state of California. Oh, don't forget Picayune, Redding, Enterprise and others that can be found at tribalcorruption.com

Sen. Barack Obama and the Cherokee Freedmen: Politics as usual

By Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.)
Posted: 05/13/08 05:29 PM [ET]

On the same day that African American voters went to the polls to cast their ballots in North Carolina and Indiana, descendants of the former slaves of the Cherokee Nation (known as Freedmen) fought in the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to enforce their treaty rights guaranteeing them equality and voting rights in the tribe. Attorneys representing the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma have filed to have the case dismissed on the grounds that only Congress can enforce the treaty because the Cherokees have sovereign immunity. Yet the Cherokee Nation on that same day held a conference in the U.S. Capitol on why the Freedmen matter should be left to the courts.

Without a clear understanding of the issue, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has weighed in on the side of the Cherokees by publicly opposing my legislation, H.R. 2824, which suspends U.S. relations with the Cherokees until the rights of Freedmen are restored. Sen. Obama also takes exception to a recent Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in which the caucus declares its opposition to Native American housing legislation if it does not include a provision that would prevent the Cherokee Nation from receiving any benefits or funding under the bill if the Freedmen are expelled from the tribe.

Thirty-five CBC members signed the letter, including its chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-Mich.).

snip

Article IX of the Treaty of 1866 states that Cherokee Freedmen shall have “all the rights” of Cherokees. The language in the treaty has been interpreted on more than one occasion by the courts as that “all rights” include the right of Freedmen citizenship.

Snip

The Cherokee Nation lost its sovereign right to engage in slavery upon enactment of the 13th Amendment and to determine the citizenship of the descendants of its former slaves upon ratification of the Treaty of 1866. Over the past several decades, our nation has stood up for the rights of indigenous minorities, as has the U.S. Congress through its Helsinki Commission as well as other congressional forums. Defending any government’s right to commit gross acts of discrimination under the guise of sovereign immunity is a non-starter. It is as unsupportable in South Africa, China, Zimbabwe and Bosnia as it is in the Cherokee Nation, arguably even more so in the Cherokee Nation since it is located within the continental U.S. and its sovereignty on the issue at hand has already been abrogated by Congress.

African American voters should think about how they would feel if their citizenship rights were suddenly removed because they descended from slaves. This is precisely what the Cherokee Nation wants to do in violation of its own treaty obligations.

It is morally repugnant and legally wrong.Watson is a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform, and Foreign Affairs, committees.

STILL TIME TO CHANGE YOUR POSITION, SENATOR, to the right side.

Senator Barack Obama okays Civil Rights Violations?

Please weigh in on what you think about Senator Obama's stance on the Freedmen Issue. Is this consistent with his stance on Civil Rights issues? Maybe he didn't get all the facts on this case or was misled by his Cherokee advisors.

Please POST your thoughts on this in the comments sections


Barack Obama Upholds Rights of Cherokees, All Native American Tribes, Who Violate Civil Rights of their Members

by First Americans Advocate May 2, 2008 at 04:57 pm

Article

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) has stated his opposition to H.R. 2824, an attempt by his fellow Congressional Black Caucus member Rep. Diane Watson (D-CA) (Who supports HILLARY! Surprise!) to sever government-to-government relations with the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma because of an on-going dispute between the tribe and the “Cherokee Freedmen.” In a March 13, 2008 Letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, members of the Congressional Black Caucus stated that “members of the CBC will not support, and will actively oppose passage of NAHASDA” unless the bill contains a “provision that would prevent the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma from receiving any benefits or funding” until they extended tribal membership to the Freedmen. The letter contained the signatures of 35 CBC members, but not the signature of White House hopeful Senator Barack Obama. Still, the Native American community began raising questions about an Obama Presidency that could potentially support CBC efforts to undermine the rights of tribal governments to determine their own membership. Asked to clearly state his position on H.R. 2824, Obama’s campaign issued the following statement: "Tribal sovereignty must mean that the place to resolve intertribal disputes is the tribe itself,” Obama said. “Our nation has learned with tragic results that federal intervention in internal matters of Indian tribes is rarely productive - failed policies such as Allotment and Termination grew out of efforts to second-guess Native communities. That is not a legacy we want to continue."

With respect to the Cherokee Freedman issue, Senator Obama said that while he is opposed to unwarranted tribal disenrollment, congressional interference was not warranted at this point. "Discrimination anywhere is intolerable, but the Cherokee are dealing with this issue in both tribal and federal courts. As it stands, the rights of the Cherokee Freedmen are not being abrogated because there is an injunction in place that ensures the Freedman's rights to programs during the pendency of the litigation. I do not support efforts to undermine these legal processes and impose a congressional solution. Tribes have a right to be self governing and we need to respect that, even if we disagree, which I do in this case. We must have restraint in asserting federal power in such circumstances."

OP: Congress has show tremendous RESTRAINT! They've done absolutely NOTHING while tribes have decimated Indian people. Where do Native Americans GO for justice when tribes do not follow their OWN Constitution? Pechanga VIOLATED their own constitution and then say they follow the law?