« Followup - Tribe does NOT want to move Geronimo's remains? | Main | Followup - EXCELLENT article on Navajo Nation v. Forest Service (case over spraying "reclaimed" sewage water on sacred mountains) »
February 23, 2009
How a banishment case tears apart a tribe - and may not be legal
It is one of the worst things that can happen to a tribe - to have to banish members. It may be worse that such a case is brought before a federal judge and a court system almost always unfamiliar with a particular tribal culture and practices. The result is unsurprising and always tragic, like a divorce writ large on large billboards for public display.
Read the story of the fight over banishment from the Snoqualmie tribe and the question of whether or not the banished members received due process HERE in the Seattle Times.
twp
February 23, 2009 in Tribal Law and Justice | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341bfae553ef0111689141bc970c
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference How a banishment case tears apart a tribe - and may not be legal:
Comments
I'm one of the banished Snoqualmie Tribe members and this has been a very public and painful experience. This is a political banishment and would have never happened without the assistance of non-tribal members and most especially the tribe's legal council.
The people giving their advice to the tribal members in power have much to gain by keeping them there. They have written their own advantageous contracts with the tribe and do not want any interference from anyone while they pluck the golden goose behind the scenes.
They are taking advantage of the shamefully composed Indian laws and the more shameful Federal Indian policy that leaves us teetering in never ending uncertainty. From this experience I have but one driving goal and that is to change Federal policy so tribes who do not waive their sovereign immunity to tribal members to pursue civil rights violations will leave the door open to a Federal court so those violations can be exposed and prosecuted!
Leave us some dignity please! From this process I feel like this country just continuously rubs away at our Native American pride like sand over a stone. But, there are some stones that simply resist and we have managed to resist and hang on to our traditions and culture through every difficulty known to man. We will survive this. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, ""It may be true the law cannot change the heart, it can restrain the heartless." Banishment is a heartless act and so is disenrollments. The injustice of it makes my heart weep as nothing else could. There is a major crimes act that only allows the tribes to fine someone up to $5000 and detain them for less than a year. Why are they allowed to banish and disenroll members when anyone can see that is a life-time sentence! I wish you law professors would step up and help us with this battle. When there is an injustice anywhere, it is a threat to justice everywhere. You know these laws are bad and you know it must be changed. Does it have to happen through public humiliation? Does it have to happen by taking the very life's savings from people like me to fight this through the Federal courts? Everyone wonders why they never hear about the violations to Native Americans and their civil rights - I can tell you personally - it is extremely expensive to find justice in the United States and no one cares for a population that is less than 5%. Shame on this legal system that proclaims "justice for all".....except you Native Americans.
Posted by: Carolyn Lubenau | Feb 23, 2009 12:05:36 PM
