Post by blackcrowheart on Jul 3, 2008 12:51:55 GMT -5
TREATMENT OF ABORIGINALS
Harper's apology to natives puts pressure on Bush U.S. lawmaker says he
hopes President will follow suit as bill acknowledging wrongs winds its
way through Congress
July 2, 2008
OTTAWA -- Canada's residential-schools apology has opened the
possibility that U.S. President George W. Bush may do the same in his
final months of office, says Republican Senator Sam Brownback.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail, the senior senator from Kansas
said Canada's apology has increased the pressure on Washington, and he
expressed hope that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will raise the issue
directly with the President.
Mr. Brownback has already secured the support of his Senate colleagues
for a historic, broadly worded apology to native Americans. The
three-page apology was added as an amendment in February to legislation
dealing with Indian health care. It now must be approved by the U.S.
House of Representatives and then ultimately the President.
Mr. Brownback has written Mr. Bush urging him to support the apology,
and said Mr. Harper's statement last month aids his campaign in
Washington.
"It does help. And coming from a Conservative government I think helps,
too," he said. "This is something that I think that people of faith
orientation should be very strongly supportive of. ... I'd love to hear
that [Mr. Harper] would contact [Mr. Bush] or that it would come up in
one of their meetings."
In a U.S. election year, time is running out for Mr. Brownback to get
the apology through the House and onto the President's agenda, but he's
optimistic.
"If the House will move it, it will happen. I think we've got a decent
chance," he said.
A U.S. apology would be a remarkable development for a country whose
history with natives has been far more violent than what occurred north
of the border. The image of heroic cowboys battling Indian enemies has
long been ingrained in American mythology, a staple of pulp fiction and
films. But the apology adopted by the U.S. Senate would turn some of
that on its head.
It acknowledges that "many Native Peoples suffered and perished" due to
official federal government policies that removed natives from the land,
as well as "during bloody armed confrontations and massacres, such as
the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864 and the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890."
The latter saw roughly 300 natives killed, including Sitting Bull, a
Lakota chief who helped lead the resistance against the U.S. government.
The battle is perhaps best known as the concluding chapter of the 1971
book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by historian and author Dee Brown.
Canada's Indian residential schools were in fact modelled after what was
already taking place in the United States, and the Senate's apology
recognizes the impact of the American boarding schools as well.
"The Federal Government condemned the traditions, beliefs and customs of
Native Peoples and endeavored to assimilate them by such policies as the
redistribution of land ... and the forcible removal of children from
their families to faraway boarding schools where their Native practices
and languages were degraded and forbidden," it states.
Should the United States adopt the apology, it would cap a historic year
of reconciliation around the world. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
issued an apology to his country's indigenous peoples in February. The
new Australian PM has since been criticized, however, for refusing to
commit to a compensation package along the lines of Canada's
multibillion-dollar settlement approved by the Harper government in
2006.
The Senate's move would be open to the same criticism.
Nonetheless, American native leader Tex Hall said he can live with that
disclaimer if it produces an apology from the President.
"To me, it's a huge first step for the U.S. to finally say that," said
the former president of the National Congress of American Indians, who
said he received a call from Mr. Brownback out of the blue several years
ago to discuss a possible apology. "It's a breakthrough in Canada that
helps the initiative down here."
Harper's apology to natives puts pressure on Bush U.S. lawmaker says he
hopes President will follow suit as bill acknowledging wrongs winds its
way through Congress
July 2, 2008
OTTAWA -- Canada's residential-schools apology has opened the
possibility that U.S. President George W. Bush may do the same in his
final months of office, says Republican Senator Sam Brownback.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail, the senior senator from Kansas
said Canada's apology has increased the pressure on Washington, and he
expressed hope that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will raise the issue
directly with the President.
Mr. Brownback has already secured the support of his Senate colleagues
for a historic, broadly worded apology to native Americans. The
three-page apology was added as an amendment in February to legislation
dealing with Indian health care. It now must be approved by the U.S.
House of Representatives and then ultimately the President.
Mr. Brownback has written Mr. Bush urging him to support the apology,
and said Mr. Harper's statement last month aids his campaign in
Washington.
"It does help. And coming from a Conservative government I think helps,
too," he said. "This is something that I think that people of faith
orientation should be very strongly supportive of. ... I'd love to hear
that [Mr. Harper] would contact [Mr. Bush] or that it would come up in
one of their meetings."
In a U.S. election year, time is running out for Mr. Brownback to get
the apology through the House and onto the President's agenda, but he's
optimistic.
"If the House will move it, it will happen. I think we've got a decent
chance," he said.
A U.S. apology would be a remarkable development for a country whose
history with natives has been far more violent than what occurred north
of the border. The image of heroic cowboys battling Indian enemies has
long been ingrained in American mythology, a staple of pulp fiction and
films. But the apology adopted by the U.S. Senate would turn some of
that on its head.
It acknowledges that "many Native Peoples suffered and perished" due to
official federal government policies that removed natives from the land,
as well as "during bloody armed confrontations and massacres, such as
the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864 and the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890."
The latter saw roughly 300 natives killed, including Sitting Bull, a
Lakota chief who helped lead the resistance against the U.S. government.
The battle is perhaps best known as the concluding chapter of the 1971
book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by historian and author Dee Brown.
Canada's Indian residential schools were in fact modelled after what was
already taking place in the United States, and the Senate's apology
recognizes the impact of the American boarding schools as well.
"The Federal Government condemned the traditions, beliefs and customs of
Native Peoples and endeavored to assimilate them by such policies as the
redistribution of land ... and the forcible removal of children from
their families to faraway boarding schools where their Native practices
and languages were degraded and forbidden," it states.
Should the United States adopt the apology, it would cap a historic year
of reconciliation around the world. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
issued an apology to his country's indigenous peoples in February. The
new Australian PM has since been criticized, however, for refusing to
commit to a compensation package along the lines of Canada's
multibillion-dollar settlement approved by the Harper government in
2006.
The Senate's move would be open to the same criticism.
Nonetheless, American native leader Tex Hall said he can live with that
disclaimer if it produces an apology from the President.
"To me, it's a huge first step for the U.S. to finally say that," said
the former president of the National Congress of American Indians, who
said he received a call from Mr. Brownback out of the blue several years
ago to discuss a possible apology. "It's a breakthrough in Canada that
helps the initiative down here."