Palawatch.com has lots of paperwork showing they do belong, and showing evidence that the porcine chairman Robert Smith even signed off on their right to belong. This is retaliation for daring to not follow the party line and for not wanting a sex offender as Vice Chairman. Take a look Indian Country, this is what happens when you don't stand up.
If you let them do this to them and get away with it, THEN YOU'RE GIVING THEM THE ETERNAL RIGHT TO DO THE SAME DAMN THING TO ANY ONE OF YOU - B. Pusser
Dear Tribal Leaders
Honorable Members of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
Staff, Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs
In a recent decision by the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs, Kevin Washburn, surrendered the sovereign power and pre-emptive authority of the United States to determine the Degree of Indian Blood of an Indian person. He has formally recognized that this is now a reserved power of Tribes or their duly elected/appointed committees governing Tribal membership.
The decision was the result of various appeals made by recently disenrolled members of the Pala Tribe in California as well as myself, challenging a Tribe’s right to determine an individual’s degree of Indian Blood. (Please see the enclosed decision as it pertains to me)
At first glance this decision may appear to be harmless and even innocuous. The fact is this may be the most important decision ever made with respects to the relationship between Indians and the United States.
Tribes are now empowered to adopt ordinances/regulations, delegating to themselves the authority to determine who is and who is not an Indian and not just a Tribal member. This seems harmless but the reality is that such a system is subject to extreme abuse and it already has been.
It means that Tribes, depending upon their governmental structure, can make Indians into non-Indians and non-Indians into Indians and hence duly Federally recognized. As such the United States will be obligated to provide services to these non-Indian Indians and refuse service to Indians made non-Indians. One would have to surmise that Tribes will also have the authority to recognize non-citizens as Indian too. (Remember that Tribes were often split apart by international boundaries) This now provides an opportunity for these affected parties to become members of Tribes within the United States. This is an action long opposed by the United States.
A quick and short summary of the facts in my particular case is that my Tribe’s Executive Committee reduced the Degree of Indian Blood of my great grandmother from 4/4ths Indian to 1/2 Indian. This single action caused the disenrollment of more than 170 descendants of my great grandmother and a reduction of the degree of Indian Blood of more than 100 other descendants of my great grandmother.
On appeal, the Pacific Regional Officer held that my great grandmother was indeed 4/4ths Indian but due to the Tribe’s Ordinance the BIA could not overcome the Tribe’s action and has allowed the decision to reduce my great grandmother’s Degree of Indian Blood to 1/2 to stand. Assistant Secretary, Kevin Washburn concurred.
Many of you, both Tribal and representatives of the United States, may think this a simple matter and of no concern. I promise you that if you take even a minute to consider the ramifications of this decision you will quickly realize that the ability to truly determine who is and who is not an Indian reaches catastrophic proportion.
IF A TRIBE CAN DECREASE DEGREE OF INDIAN BLOOD THEY CAN ALSO INCREASE DEGREE OF INDIAN BLOOD AND EVEN CREATE A DEGREE OF INDIAN BLOOD FOR NON-INDIANS.
A small Tribe can now enroll hundreds of people not entitled to Tribal membership while a large Tribe can now disenroll hundreds of people who are entitled to membership.
I and my family have been rendered helpless in this matter. It is my hope that courageous individuals will take up this matter and stop this new genocide.
You can find the complete details of this case at: http://www.palawatch.com/2013/10/william-pink-appeals-directly-to.html
Sincerely,
William J. Pink
18 comments:
Great Letter, hope other Tribal Leaders Listen and Understand.
If a Tribe decides that ONLY people with blond hair and blue eyes of Aryan descent can be members, then its a internal matter and there sovereign right to do such.
They may have the right to do so, but what they do is not right. Just like the Nazi's. Every dictator falls, its just a matter of time.
Why would it be the right of an Indian tribe to make non-Indians tribal members? Tribal membership in a federally recognized tribe qualifies individuals for federal benefits. The impact spreads beyond the tribe and is not protected by sovereignty. Such action increases the number of persons who receive benefits, and means that some who are entitled by birthright will get lesser share, or might have their benefits delayed, or might not receive any at all.
People need to recognize that tribal sovereignty is not permission for tribes to do anything they want on tribal land. Tribal land is held in trust by the federal government, and tribal members must obey federal laws even on reservations.
The determination of Indian blood degree is a power reserved to the US Government. Even the Assistant Secretary doesn't have the authority to give it away. There will be consequences for this failure on the part of Kevin Washburn.
In the meantime look at your enrollment committee or whoever is in charge of enrollment in your tribe. Do they have the documents, evidence, research skills, and training to make accurate blood degree determinations?
I know who makes these decisions in my tribe. This person is incapable of an objective assessment of evidence. There are people being added to the rolls who have no eligibility to be tribal members. This person claims they are adopted if anyone questions their right to belong.
Look around at your tribe. How many Indians have been eliminated and frauds have been enrolled? It is a ploy used by tribal leaders to reward friends and supporters and increase their power. Maybe you are one of these fake Indians. No wonder why you want to make believe that tribes have the right to create Indians out of thin air.
How about a class action suit,filed by all the dis-enrolled, and the still enrolled,that have the balls to sign-up against the Dept of Interior BIA. Is this possible?
It should mention that by the BIA allowing whoever is in power at the time to determine blood degree then the whole dynamic or membership could change every couple years depending on who's in power at the time. When Roberts out and someone else is in power and has a grudge against Robert for what he did and disenroll's him and his family and reinstates the now disenrolled. Then 10 years after that a new chairman has a grudge and disenroll's another family and raises his relatives blood degree to get his cousins enrolled and so on it goes. Just a huge mess! There needs to be a line across the board that determines blood degree the same for everyone and every tribe.
The BIA officials are well bribed to stay out of the way. If they actually did their job, thy would lose a lot of money.
@ 9:46 PM:
That might the best reason of all to remand the AS-IA's decision and for the BIA to reassert power and authority over the determination of blood degree. As soon as Robert Smith is out of office, and that will happen eventually, probably sooner rather than later, the new Executive Committee will begin the process of cleaning up his mess. Those that were added to the rolls just because Robert said they could be part of the tribe will be removed. Those that were removed just because Robert wanted them out must be reinstated.
Once again the BIA has proven that they are incompetent and their policy of non-intervention is really an excuse to be lazy. Get off your ass Kevin Washburn, admit you were wrong, and get your mess cleaned up.
So now we have to depend on people who violated our rights to decide if we are Indian or not?
Ironic that in falsely deciding that my family line, the descendants of Paulina Hunter, are not Pechanga Indians even they in their bogus Record of Decision said that they were not making a determination of whether or not we are Native Americans just that, to the slim majority on the enrollment committee, we are not Pechanga Indians. So really, they still don't have a leg to stand on regarding our native status
Yes, this whole idea of the AS-IA surrendering the power to determine blood degree is bad for all Indians.
As we have seen, you need someone who is relatively objective and unconnected to review the evidence.
You need someone who has skills, training, and expertise to go over the documents and verify their accuracy, weigh different documents against each other to see which has the more reliable information, and to tally the references to calculate the preponderance of the evidence.
You don't get that kind of training and expertise from appointing yourself to the Enrollment Committee because you have the power to do it and no one will stand in your way because they are afraid of disenrollment.
Then you need someone to double-check your results and to make sure the proper steps were taken, loose ends tied up, and no obvious errors were made.
You definitely don't want all the decisions made by the same person, you don't want people making decisions on their own family and friends, and you don't want someone with a long history of deceit and corruption making the determinations.
Also you want the decisions to stand after they are made unless there is newfound evidence that is superior in nature that can overturn a properly made determination.
The way it stands now one day you are a tribal member in good standing with verified documentation to support your enrollment eligibility, and the next day you are out because some **shole made up a story about someone who has been dead nearly a century and then the door is closed in your face.
Its time to take hostages. Start in Pala with Smith & Nieto. If we do it on the Rez we can claim sovereignty.If they can claim it, then so can we.They are holding some Tribal Members hostage by the
threats of loss of per-capita,loss
of healthcare,banishment,and loss
of housing.So taking them would be no different.Then lets see who wants to help.
The Pala monthly tribal meeting is this Wed March 12 7pm
If we tried to take them at a Tribal meeting, Smith would say,
"YOU CAN'T DO THIS BECAUSE ITS NOT ON THE AGENDA".
Can a general Council meeting be called when Smith is out of town? That would be the best thing and then the outside Police or a private security company would have to be called in to bar him from the premises when he gets back and has been ousted. I do not know how legal it is. Maybe that is why he fired everyone and put his own people in, because he does not want this to happen while he is gone.
If the plan is to remove Robert Smith from office at a General Council meeting, the whole idea is to strip him of power and stop taking orders from him.
Bring a large number of people to the meeting who agree that they want to go forward with this action, or you run the risk of getting thrown out of the meeting. Then when Smith tries to throw his weight around you will have some help leading him from the room because he can't be present during the vote.
So once your hand is raised and you are recognized by the chairman, make the motion to remove the chairman from office. After that you no longer have to recognize the chairman's authority to run the meeting. If the motion is seconded, you can instruct the sergeant at arms to remove the chairman and other members of the executive committee. You may need some help forcing them out of the tribal hall and keeping them out while the vote is conducted.
Some discussion on the motion usually follows. Have a list of the reasons why removal is necessary. For instance:
The chairman violated the General Council order of February 22, 1984 that corrected Margarita Britten's blood degree to full blood.
The Chairman violated the Savings Clause of the Pala Constitution by overturning a General Council order.
The Chairman violated the 1989 Mills Decision which included a Federal Order to Enroll the qualifying descendants of Margarita Britten.
The Chairman violated his oath of office by defying tribal law and a General Council order.
The Chairman has used the Pala Jets for personal junkets on numerous occasions and has not reported the cost to the General Council.
The Chairman committed voter fraud in the 1994 election by bribing non-members to vote in the election as evidenced by the sworn declaration of Lalu Casteneda.
The Chairman dismissed valid petitions submitted by tribal members on numerous occasions, and lied to the General Council about these petitions validity.
The Chairman supported the nominations and election to tribal office of persons with criminal records in violation of the Pala Constitution.
The Chairman authorized the theft of the trust funds of the minors who were disenrolled, and converted the funds to personal use.
And so on. If you need more reasons, I can come up with some more.
After discussion, the motion must be put to a vote. Someone must be appointed to record the vote since the secretary will not be present. If the vote is affirmative, some provision must be made for a temporary government. Tribal security must be notified to bar the former Chairman from entering the Tribal offices. The BIA must be notified in writing of the action. The bank must be notified of the new signatory(s) on the tribe's account, or alternatively, the old account(s) must be closed and a new account(s) must be opened. Also notify the flight manager of the Pala Jets that no flights are approved until further notice.
It might be wise to notify the sheriff's department, but since the sheriff's department has probably been compromised, it might be better to notify the FBI, or request a joint action to insure a peaceful transition of power.
My prayers go with you all, and especially I pray that you have the courage to go through with this action. Keep in mind that most bullies back down when challenged because they are truly cowards at heart. You might want to detain the Chairman. If he is removed from office he is a flight risk.
There were enough people from the area to stop king from being banished. Maybe those same people will show up again. My guess is no. Sorry.
I pray someone is brave enough to follow through with this. Robert has caused so much pain and heartache.
We'll hopefully enough tho to the Pala meeting tomorrow to vote against Roberts new eviction ordinance. Giving that man anymore power is not a good thing.
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