The following opinion by Kathleen Buerer appears in the latest issue of the
Native Sun News. All content © Native Sun News.
Kathleen Buerer
The Black Hills Claim and continuing controversy
By Kathleen Buerer
Article 21 Paragraph 1 of the Declaration gives Indigenous Peoples “the right … to the improvement of their economic and social conditions including … the areas of housing, sanitation, health and social security. Article 23 gives them “the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for exercising their right to development.” Under Article 18 they “have the right to participate in decision-making in matters which would affect their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures….”
In the court of common opinion, it maybe decided that the “priorities and strategies” chosen by the Tribes’ leaders impose a particularly harsh penalty upon their own people. The Tribes of the Sioux Nation in their inability to come to agreement regarding the disbursal of the settlement trust funds would seem to be extending the suffering of their own people.
While they may someday be able to use the funds as leverage for congressional action allocating portions of the Black Hills to the reservation, that action could take decades to effectuate. And it more than likely will never happen as policy and political reasons preclude the possibility.
The Sioux in arguing that they must have the Black Hills returned to them in order to follow their teachings imply that they have not been performing their spiritual ceremonies for the last 130 years that they have not had possession of the Black Hills. This certainly cannot be the case.
The pressure to maintain an untenable political position is so strong that it seems likely that it isn’t the United States that is the “State” currently inhibiting the welfare of the Sioux People under the terms of the Declaration, but rather a determined leadership promulgating dogma not initially promoted by tribal elders of a past era.
While it is obvious that the trustee management of the Sioux resources has not to date been done to the benefit of the people or that they are living with the “enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health,” it is not so obvious what must be done to bring that standard to the people or that a Congressional Act putting the Back Hills in Trust for the Sioux Nation as going to achieve it.
A Congressional Act transferring lands to the Tribes would doubtless infuse the Sioux Nation with the bliss of a moral victory. But it is questionable whether that victory would improve the daily lives of reservation members living in dilapidated housing, suffering malnutrition or chronically inebriated.
The Black Hills are sacred. In some sense so is all land. The question for those holding out against accepting settlement funds is whether the lives of their children are less sacred than the Black Hills territory.
The tragedies of the Sioux Nation reflect the injustices frequently suffered by a conquered people. As aggressors themselves, the Sioux understand that acts of aggression, if successful, yield victory and result in spoils. The Sioux have suffered as a result of their victor’s acts of aggression. That the United States has arguably (although belatedly) dealt “more justly” with the Sioux than the Sioux Nation dealt with those they vanquished from the Black Hills territory is a possibility that perhaps the Sioux do not wish to contemplate.
The suffering of the Sioux Nation is of concern to many people of conscience. The poverty is obvious. The children, those being taken from their families and those resorting to suicide, are evidence of broken homes and broken lives reflecting the overwhelming presence of poverty. But perhaps more tragic than what a young, victorious nation has done to a tribe of first peoples is what the leaders of a sovereign nation are currently doing to their people. Through their longstanding inability to determine a clear path of recovery for their people, the Sioux tribal leaders have created a void of leadership that perpetuates suffering.
While it is true that solutions may not come easily when problems are complex, the Sioux Nation has at its disposal financial resources to begin its own recovery.
Hanging onto an ideological point of view as though the return of the Black Hills and the imagined “possession” of the land itself will benefit the Tribes ignores the welfare of the people. It places ideological ownership of land above human needs.
Actions that will preserve the integrity of the people include unparalleled attacks on inadequate housing, poor nutrition, and disease. Debating how to distribute the settlement funds from the Black Hills claims settlement, implies that the funds themselves should be distributed on a per capita basis.
In fact the greater benefit to the existence of a wholesome Sioux Nation would be to implement life sustaining development projects: homeless shelters, alcohol and drug treatment centers, food kitchens and pantries as well as food production (gardens and greenhouse) facilities. The Sioux Nation has an opportunity to use the settlement funds to begin to redevelop a healthy self-sustaining community. Hopefully, they will use them wisely.
(Kathleen Buerer can be contacted at: Kathleen.Buerer@gmail.com)
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