Indians upset with Reid's Shoshone land-rights legislation

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 12, 2002 | by Martin Edwin Andersen

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) appeared to be up to a little historical re-enactment from his part of the country on the Senate floor recently. The theme: gold rushes and land grabs.

As the legislative session drew to a close, Reid raised eyebrows as he tried to get unanimous consent for the Western Shoshone Claims Distribution Act (S 958). Reid's scheme would distribute $138 million under the Western Shoshone Claims Commission Judgment Fund by paying tribe members $20,000 each. The amount covers only 24 million acres of ancestral lands, rather than the 60 million acres that the Shoshone documented in their original claim, according to Indian-rights advocates.

Yomba Shoshone Chairman James W. Birchim appealed to tribal leaders throughout Indian country for their support in killing the bill that the Senate Indian Affairs Committee had reported to the full chamber without opposition. "S 958 is a bad bill," he said. "It will distribute the entire judgment fund 100 percent per capita, leaving nothing of Western Shoshone ancestral heritage for our future. Senator Reid publicly stated that S 958 will finally resolve the Western Shoshone land-claim issue, but the bill makes no mention of preserving our treaty rights."

Birchim continued: "Nor does S 958 provide for return of lands to the Shoshones, or provide for any economic development funds to our tribal governments. Once the distribution is under way, the United States will tell the world that the Shoshones have been fully compensated, however dishonest that characterization may be."

S 958 is opposed by the National Congress of American Indians and other mainstream domestic-rights groups. Consideration of the bill by Congress came after the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found the United States violated international conventions in denying the Western Shoshone their land and treaty rights.

American Indian advocates tell INSIGHT that behind the Reid legislation may be an attempt to give short-shrift to Indian claims on property held by the federal Bureau of Land Management. The worry is that it would then be sold or exchanged for the benefit of gold miners or other non-Indian interests.

MARTIN EDWIN ANDERSEN IS A REPORTER FOR Insight. READERS MAY REACH HIM WITH THEIR TIPS ON GOVERNMENTAL WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE OF POWER AT INSIGHTWATCHERS@AOL.COM.