mcb@presto.IG.COM (Michael C. Berch) (01/17/90)
In the referenced article, jdmann@cdp.UUCP writes: > In view of recent comments about Akwesasne Notes and gambling at the St. > Regis Reserve/Akwesasne Mohawk Nation, I am posting the official communique > of the Onondaga Council of Chiefs prepared at the request of the Mohawk > Council. I caution every reader to keep in mind that native communities are > microcosm's of the larger American and world society--they are, after all, > human beings just like the rest of us, subject to the same vices and weakness, > modified but not eliminated by their unique culture. [...] I found the statement of the Onondaga Chiefs singularly unimpressive, and the clear message I came away with was that it is the Chiefs and the Mohawk Nation authorities who are in the wrong. Perhaps Mr. Yarrow can explain why the Mohawk Nation government has given itself the right to deny certain basic freedoms to its members, such as the right to engage in the business or profession of one's choice, the right to risk one's private capital in a business venture, and the right to form business associations with non-members of the Nation. It is also stated in the communique that these business associations "violate the sovereignty" of the Nation. Perhaps someone would care to set forth a definition of "sovereignty" that would justify this assertion. Merely because the Mohawk Nation and other Indian tribes enjoy certain sovereignities and exemptions from State and Federal laws does not entitle the tribal bureaucracy, it seems to me, to suppress the human rights of its members. Merely because the U.S. government and the states have decided that gambling should be banned (in all but a few places) except where run as a state monopoly does not mean that the Indian Nations should make the same mistake, based on similar paternalistic, moralistic rhetoric about the "evils of gambling". (How would you like it, for example, if you lived in New Jersey, and the NJ State government asserted that you could not enter into a business partnership inside New Jersey with a non-New Jerseyan because it "violated the sovereignty" of New Jersey? Or if it prohibited you from taking your business revenues out of the state?) -- Michael C. Berch mcb@presto.ig.com / uunet!presto.ig.com!mcb / ames!bionet!mcb