International law protects Native American interes

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International law protects Native American interests

By RUSSELL A. MILLER
seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/266160_indigenous11.html
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With 29 tribes in Washington and five in Idaho, the Pacific Northwest's
Native American communities play an essential part in the region's
contemporary political and cultural life. There have been a number of
significant policy disputes between the federal government, the states
and their Native American populations, most notably involving water
rights. Long viewed as strictly domestic matters, these issues now
reverberate in international law.

The case of the Dann sisters is a poignant example. Mary (now deceased)
and Carrie Dann, Western Shoshone Elders, have long sought access to
Western Shoshone ancestral lands, including much of present-day Nevada
and extending to parts of Idaho, Utah and California. When denied access
by the U.S. courts, the Dann sisters continued their struggle as a
matter of international human rights law.

In a strongly worded rebuke to the United States in 2002, the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (a body of the Organization of
American States) found that the inadequate process afforded the Dann
sisters by the U.S. Indian Claims Commission constituted a violation of
the protections they were owed under the American Declaration of the
Rights and Duties of Man.

Now, in a ruling on March 10 of this year, the U.N. Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination has joined the fray. The United
Nations claimed to have credible information that calls into question
the U.S. government's assertion of federal ownership of nearly 90
percent of Western Shoshone lands. In a landmark ruling, the United
Nations expressed concern about the U.S. claim to the land by theory of
"gradual encroachment" and urged the United States to "freeze," "desist"
and "stop" activities that threaten Western Shoshone ancestral lands.
Diplomatic exchanges rarely take such an urgent and stern tone.

The U.N. ruling signals that international law is emerging as a means of
promoting and protecting Native American interests, including their
rights to live as a distinct community; to practice and revitalize
cultural and religious traditions; to participate meaningfully in the
political and policy decisions that affect them; to enjoy the use of
traditional lands and to govern themselves in sovereign autonomy.

Professor S. James Anaya, the world's leading expert on this emerging
body of international law, recounts in his seminal book on the subject
that "the political philosophy for the Iroquois Confederacy is expressed
in the Great Law of Peace, which describes a great tree with roots
extending in the four cardinal directions to all peoples of the Earth."
If that tree were international law, the roots reaching out to the
world's indigenous peoples, including the Pacific Northwest's Native
Americans, have been deepening and strengthening.
Russell A. Miller is the Alan G. Shepard professor of law at the
University of Idaho College of Law.

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Legislature's move could force Idaho to address murals of Indian
lynching

By JOHN MILLER
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BOISE, Idaho -- For 66 years, two murals depicting the lynching of an
American Indian have hung in a now-abandoned county courthouse in
Idaho's capital, monuments to prevailing attitudes that once dominated
the West but today have become uncomfortable reminders of America's
expansion to the Pacific Ocean.

Starting in 2008, the Idaho Legislature plans to meet in the courthouse
as its century-old Statehouse undergoes a $115 million revamp.

Historic preservationists say they'll fight attempts to remove the
murals, products of the Works Progress Administration Artists Project, a
federal program that employed jobless artists during the Depression. The
1940 works are part of the building, some historians say.

Still, Indian leaders and many lawmakers say turning the old Ada County
Courthouse into Idaho's most public building, even temporarily, will
force to state to confront the future of the murals, which one local
judge in the 1990s found so offensive he draped an American flag over
them. Race relations in Idaho, once home to the white supremacist Aryan
Nations group, are a sore spot.

"It's a perfect opportunity to educate the state of Idaho and its
citizens on the kind of biases that native people endured," said Chief
Allan, chairman of the Coeur d'Alene Indian Tribe in northern Idaho. "If
we could sit down with the historical society, and have a sit-down with
them, we could help make sure this won't happen again in the future."

Some Shoshone-Bannock tribe members, whose traditional territory
included Ada County, say the murals make many Indians uncomfortable.


"As an individual member of the Shoshone-Bannock tribe, those murals do
impact people and their feelings," said Claudeo Broncho, of Fort Hall.
"They should be painted over."


A week ago, the Legislature approved $5.9 million to begin moving its
offices to the Ada County Courthouse, which the state bought five years
ago after a new courthouse was built several blocks to the southeast.
The 2008 and 2009 sessions will be conducted there while an additional
100,000 square feet of space is added to the existing Capitol. It will
be completed by 2010.

Arthur Hart, director emeritus of the Idaho State Historical Society and
author of a 2005 book on the courthouse, says removing the murals would
detract from their historical significance. They're among 26 separate
paintings that were painted in southern California, then shipped to
Boise to be mounted in the courthouse in 1940.

While the lynching murals don't represent a known event in Ada County,
they're representative of what might have occurred in Idaho and the rest
of the West as settlers descended on the region, Hart said.

For instance, Qualchan, a Palouse Indian, was hanged by Col. George
Wright near the Idaho-Washington border along a tributary of the Spokane
River at the conclusion of the Coeur d'Alene War of 1858. And as many as
400 Shoshone Indians were killed by the U.S. Army Cavalry along the Bear
River near present-day Preston in 1863.

"I can understand it's not politically correct anymore," Hart said of
the paintings, which for eight years were covered by an American flag at
the order of District Judge Gerald Schroeder, now the Idaho Supreme
Court chief justice. "But the murals are an integral part of the
building."

Tim Mason, who oversees the Ada County Courthouse as administrator of
Idaho's public works, says pulling them from the staircase wall -
they're attached with a six-decade-old adhesive - would be costly and
time-consuming.

Nonetheless, some lawmakers say removal to a local museum might be best,
since everybody entering the courthouse would be forced to walk past the
murals as they climb steps to where the House and Senate will meet. This
year, leaders from Idaho's five American Indian tribes spent much of
February inside the Capitol, campaigning on sovereignty issues including
gas taxes and tribal gaming rights.

"All of the murals need to be evaluated, both for their appropriateness
and their artistic value. I find those offensive," said Sen. Joe
Stegner, R-Lewiston, whose district includes the Nez Perce Indian
Reservation.

Sen. Mike Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake and the Senate Indian Affairs
Committee chairman, said Idaho should be bold in addressing concerns of
minorities. The late Richard Butler operated his Aryan Nations
headquarters near Hayden Lake for three decades until his death in 2004.
Jorgenson said his constituents know well the power of racist symbols or
representations - be they swastikas or pictures of Indians being hanged
by armed whites.

"We have rapidly improving relations with the tribes," he said. "It's
important that this be dealt with."