Rick Greybuffalo stands in the shadow of his tipi on La Framboise Island, a two-mile-long, wooded strip in the Missouri River just outside of Pierre, S.D.

La Framboise is a remnant of the bountiful sandbars that, before construction of the Pick-Sloan Dam System, were common along the grassy banks.

Greybuffalo can make out the dark silhouette of the state capitol dome, seat of Gov. William "Wild Bill" Janklow's administration. The American Indian Movement veteran of the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation has battled Janklow for survival of the Great Sioux Nation for nearly three decades.

Greybuffalo and members of the Lakota Student Alliance, who began an occupation of the island March 22, say they are locked in a life or death "last stand" for their people. They vow to remain until the borders of the Great Sioux Nation, promised in the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851 and 1868, are recognized by the state and federal governments.

"This is my land." Greybuffalo says, gesturing toward the capitol. "If I'm going to die here, so be it."
 
The Mitigation Act

The La Framboise occupation is in response to a Congressional act, co-written by Janklow and Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., transferring 200,000 acres of Great Sioux Nation treaty land to the state. The "Wildlife Mitigation Act" establishes a $108 million "wildlife habitat restoration trust fund" for South Dakota. The bill was pushed through the Senate Transportation Committee, then tacked on, as a rider, to a 14,000-page appropriations bill which President Clinton signed. Missouri River banks in South Dakota that should, according to Pick-Sloan, revert to the ownership of the Sioux Nation will instead be turned over to the state following an environmental impact study.

Robert Quiver, an organizer for the alliance, was among the first to camp at La Framboise.

Quiver says the Lakota feel betrayed.

"We learned about the transfer by reading it in the paper," Quiver says. "We had no pre-warning. Congress held no oversight hearings. They never put it before the Indian Affairs Committee. É We felt that it's time to act. If we lose this it's going to affect all Indian country.

The camp

The site was chosen for its visibility from both east and west banks of the Missouri River, as well as its proximity to the very government institutions that seized the land.

Two months later the encampment consists of five tipis, a sweat lodge, a kitchen fashioned from a picnic shelter, two outhouses and several tents. Many protesters have given up homes, relationships, jobs and school to be here. There is a permanent core group as well as a transient 20 to 30 supporters, including a three international human rights observers from the Christian Peacemaker Teams.

Peacemaker Joanne Kaufman says the government violated basic human rights. Her last assignment was in the Palestinian West Bank. In Hebron, she stood face to face with Israeli soldiers, preventing them from firing on Palestinian demonstrators.

Kaufman met with Bob Mercer, Gov. Janklow's press secretary. "We let him know that we consider this situation as serious as Chiapas and the West Bank."

Mercer insisted recreational development of the river was the only objective. In the act, South Dakota would oversee 64 recreation areas while the tribes would receive 19. Many of the 64 recreation areas would have reverted to the tribes had the Mitigation Act not passed. This is viewed by many Lakota as economic racism.

"We asked about industrial development and he flat out denied that was going to happen."

Kaufman also contacted Pierre-based FBI Special Agent Joseph Weir who "hoped the FBI would not be called upon to do an eviction." Both the FBI and the Janklow forces believe the campers will pack up and go home come fall, she said.

Camp supporters say that won't happen. "The state isn't entitled to any of this (treaty) land. It belongs to the Sioux. That's who it should go back to É we're going to stay here until this so-called law is repealed," says Dan Merrival, Oglala, one of the occupation leaders.

The land in question

The 1944 Missouri River Basin Pick-Sloan Dam plan allowed seizure of treaty lands. The Army Corps of Engineers estimates the project's overall annual contribution to the nation's economy averages $1.27 billion.

For 1868 treaty tribes human and economic costs far outweigh project benefits. Two main-stem dams, Fort Randall and Big Bend, flooded more than 22,000 acres of Lower Brule bottom lands - 10 percent of the reservation. It required resettlement of nearly 70 percent of the tribal population.

Lake Oahe took 104,000 acres of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe's bottom lands (80 percent of its fertile land), requiring forced resettlement of some 30 percent of the population, including four communities.

The same law promised return of any "non-essential" acreage. After extensive study, the Corps determined 200,000 acres of land along the east and west banks were "non-essential."

In 1995 the Corps sought to return 13,500 acres of west bank land to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Before the transfer could happen, then-South Dakota Republican Sen. Larry Pressler halted the deal.He introduced legislation to remove Corps authority to transfer South Dakota lands acquired for the reservoirs.

Pressler said it would be "foolish" for the Corps to "politicize the land transfer" while ignoring what he called the "strong public sentiments of South Dakotans." To transfer the land, said Pressler, would "further the belief that a war on the West is being waged by Washington bureaucrats."

Quiver agrees a war is being waged - against the Lakota Nation and the environment. He worries that federal laws protecting hundreds of Native American sacred and burial sites in the "Mitigation" area, would not be honored by the state.

"I believe that the state won't protect the medicine that grows on the ground here, they won't protect the wildlife " I believe they're mainly interested in commercialization. " The consequences of development would be that the spirit of Mother Earth and Wakan Tanka (The Great Mystery) would be under attack," Quiver says.

An April 1999 report by the American Rivers association says the federal government has done a dismal job of managing the once pristine Missouri River. It ranks the Missouri number two of "America's Most Endangered Rivers."

"The river no longer has the natural flow of rising in the spring to trigger fish reproduction, build sandbars and regenerate cottonwoods, followed by declining flows in the summer." Because of this "nearly 100 Missouri River species are threatened," the report says.

The Great Sioux Nation

The Great Sioux Nation today exists only in the hearts and minds of the Lakota Nation (named Sioux by the French who distorted the Ojibwe word for "snake").

The Lakota once enjoyed a much larger territory. But after years of bloody wars, in which they stood as equals against American might, the Lakota agreed to establish their country in the western half of what is today South Dakota.

In the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the United States recognized an independent, sovereign nation to be established on the "east bank of the Missouri River" westward to the current state borders. In exchange for peace with neighboring white settlers, road and rail builders, this land was set aside for the "absolute and undisturbed use of the Great Sioux Reservation " No persons " shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in Indian Territory described in this article, or without the consent of the Indians pass through the same " ."

Article 12 states that no land under the agreement can be given or sold by the Lakota people unless signed away by "at least three-fourths of all the adult Indian males." But within a generation, the U.S. military, eager to open corridors for prospectors seeking gold in the Black Hills, had forced the Sioux onto separate reservations (20 percent of their territory) - Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, Lower Brule, Crow Creek, Yankton and Flandreau.

By 1900, all were prisoners in their own country, robbed of the right to speak their language, practice their religion, raise their children, travel off reservation or make a pilgrimage to their sacred Black Hills.

In one of the most shameful events in American history, Chief Bigfoot's band was gunned down at Wounded Knee Dec. 29, 1890, by the 7th Cavalry. At least 300 men, women and children were riddled with bullets before being hurled into a mass grave.

For 83 years the United States called Wounded Knee a battle and the Lakota Nation, half underground and half enduring forced assimilation, was unable to tell the world otherwise. Then AIM, a pan-Indian warrior society that grew out of the civil rights struggles of the time, arrived at Wounded Knee in 1973.

Wounded Knee sparked La Framboise

 
Robert Quiver was 4 when AIM came to the Pine Ridge Reservation. He and other members of the alliance credit AIM with shaping their belief that the Great Sioux Nation can and will live again. Quiver recalls the bloody Pine Ridge civil war that pitted traditional Indians and AIM against the tribal and federal governments.

"Our house became an AIM house," Quiver says. "The AIM people would come over for a shower, something to eat or to rest. We always had tight security in case the GOONs (Guardians of the Oglala Nation, President Dick Wilson's supporters subsidized by the federal government) came around.The GOONs were death squads, just like they had in El Salvador and Guatemala, Quiver says.

On Feb.27, 1973, AIM stood alongside the traditional Lakota people as they took over the village of Wounded Knee. For 71 days AIM occupied the tiny hamlet. Government assurances to address the Indians' demands prompted an end to the stand-off. Many of those promises were, however, never fulfilled, he said.

Wounded Knee 1973 arose out of desperation. Tribal members had been murdered in white towns surrounding the reservation. Few deaths were investigated, few were resolved. Traditional Oglalas felt oppressed by a progressive tribal government led by Wilson, a man accused of nepotism and corruption and ignoring needs of people in the districts who languished in hunger and near total unemployment.

Janklow, a driving force in the "Mitigation Act" was South Dakota attorney general during the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation which sparked a firestorm of anti-Indian hatred."The only way to deal with the Indian problem in America," Janklow told reporters in 1974, "is to put a gun to the AIM leaders' heads and pull the trigger."

Twenty years later Gov. Janklow continued using anti-Indian rhetoric for political gain. Before an all-white audience in 1994, Janklow claimed that South Dakota tribes were engaged in a "master plan" to take over all of South Dakota west of the Missouri.

"I think Janklow's still bitter about what happened during the Wounded Knee days," says Robert Quiver.

The Janklow administration turned down requests from media and the alliance to publicly debate the Mitigation Act.

AIM: The next generation
 
Most island protesters have parents who were involved in Wounded Knee and other AIM activities. While there are older AIM members at the camp, the 20- and 30-year-olds from the alliance are in charge, looking to the future with a vision of their own.

"Wounded Knee was more about anger and direct confrontation," says  Quiver. "It was good that it happened. Without that, we would not have been able to stand up here. The difference between us and Wounded Knee is nothing bad. É We're trying to encourage our youth by showing them there are different methods, spiritual and peaceful methods, available . We want to destroy the myth that AIM is a militant group of hell-raisers. We have to let South Dakota know that we're here in peace," says Quiver.

Wambli Yellowbird, 23, is carrying on a family tradition at La Framboise. His father, Bob Yellowbird, was one of the first Lakota to stand-up against racism in the White Nebraska communities bordering the Pine Ridge reservation.

"My dad's had a quick temper and wouldn't take no abuse." Wambli says he realized there might be a better way to deal with conflict after watching his dad. "We're going to have to go non-violent here. I don't think showing violence to anybody would really solve anything," he says, adding his attitude might change if the state began industrial development of the Missouri.

"If we let this happen, pretty soon we're going to have no place to live. I think they've taken enough land. ' We were supposed to get the land back when the government was done with it. I think they should have kept their word on it," says Yellowbird.

Edgar Bear Runner, an elder-advisor to the camp who fought at Wounded Knee, has nothing but praise for the non-violent tactics of the alliance, but says he's worried about the lack of attention by the local and national press. "Indian issues have always taken a back seat. When you're doing something good, you don't get media coverage. But as soon as you break a window or burn something you get front page coverage," he complains.

Talking to the wrong chiefs

Protesters are upset at one of their own - Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe President Gregg Bourland - who they say conspired with Janklow and Daschle to write the "Mitigation Act." In exchange for his signature, Bourland's reservation will share a $57 million "wildlife trust fund" with its down-river neighbor, Lower Brule, whose government also signed onto the act. Under the agreement both reservations take control of their Missouri banks.

Merrival says once again the United States is deciding who the Lakota chiefs will be. "Bourland is not a treaty leader. He's only a quarter Lakota and he doesn't represent our nation. He is not even a member of the Treaty Council."

District Six of the Cheyenne River Reservation voted to impeach Bourland for treason against the Great Sioux Nation. Bourland himself wrote to President Clinton asking for a veto complaining that the language in the bill was changed at the last minute. "This is not the language we agreed to. Someone changed it without consulting us."

A spiritual camp

La Framboise's inhabitants begin the day by offering tobacco to the sacred fire and to the waters of the river. They spend their time in council, cooking, singing, sweating, drumming, chopping wood, gathering water and maintaining security. Organizers don't allow weapons or drugs, but say anyone is welcome to come, stay, contribute and learn as long as they "come in a good way."

Some visitors failed to follow camp protocol. Ron Eastman, a Native from Wisconsin, says he was nearly run down in a racist attack near the island.

"The young white people come by and holler racist, obscene gestures. We just let them say it. These are drunk little white boys who don't know any better," says Greybuffalo.

The night of Sunday, May 2, the situation turned ugly when a white Dodge van containing several young white males shot at the camp as they drove by. No one was injured. Three people in the camp identified the van to Pierre police. No arrests have been made.

Treaty rights valid as Constitution

When the United States fails to honor its treaty obligations it is breaking its own laws, campers say. Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution states that "treaties are the supreme laws of the land," and that "treaty lands cannot be taken unilaterally by an act of Congress." In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld the treaty rights of the Chippewa to hunt and fish in unceded territory in Minnesota (Minnesota vs. Mille Lacs Band). A similar Supreme Court ruling, upholding the spirit of the 1868 treaty concerning the use of Missouri River lands, was made in favor of the Lakota in 1993 (South Dakota v. Gregg Bourland).

They only want the government to abide by its own policies, such as the memorandum issued by President Clinton May 3, 1994. It orders government leaders to "consult ... with tribal governments prior to taking actions that affect federally recognized tribal governments. All consultations are to be open and candid so that all interested parties may evaluate for themselves the potential impact of relevant proposals."

Edgar Bear Runner says all people should take notice when a government is above the rules it makes for its people. "It disturbs me to see covert meetings between Daschle and Janklow that will decide our fate," he says.

The consequences of failure

"The consequences of failure would be that we would lose the bulk of our treaty rights, the rights that were described in the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie treaties. Those rights will be weakened and will be reflected on by Supreme Court decisions in the future that will be against the treaties. The second consequence will be that we'll lose our land, our culture, and our way of life," says Quiver.

Contact the La Framboise Resistance Camp: C/O The South Dakota Peace and Justice Center, PO Box 405, Watertown, SD 57201, Phone: (605) 222-1780,  Fax: (attention Robert Quiver) (605) 224-2520.
 

© 1999 Indian Country Today
Reproduced here as a portion of an ongoing documentation project under Title 17 of the Fair Use Act