{news} Schaghticoke to rally against state neglect 1/29 in Hartford

Mon Jan 12 02:07:55 EST 2009

I hiked the Appalachian Trail
through the Schaghticoke Reservation in Kent, CT, last summer. Most of the land is mountain
wilderness, and the tribe inhabits a narrow strip along a dirt road, with
fishing rights on the Housatonic
 River across the road.

Please sign the petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/STN129
to protect CT woodlands and indigenous rights.

David Bedell

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/national/northeast/37332954.html

Indian Country Today

Schaghticoke to rally against state neglect

Destruction on reservation is healing tribal rift

By Gale Courey Toensing

Story Published: Jan 9, 2009

SCHAGHTICOKE RESERVATION, Conn. – The Schaghticoke Tribal Nation will
march on the state capitol on the fifth anniversary of its reversed federal
acknowledgement to protest the refusal to protect the tribe’s reservation land.

The tribe has put out a call to its 300-plus members, to the
communities of northeastern tribes and any non-tribal supporters to gather on
the south side of the state capitol building and the legislative office
building Jan. 29 between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. to protest the state’s refusal to
stop Michael Rost, a non-Schaghticoke trespasser, from cutting down trees,
bulldozing roads and desecrating sacred burial sites on the tribe’s 400-acre
reservation on Schaghticoke Mountain in Kent, Conn., said tribal member
Katherine Saunders. The state claims its hands are tied because of a
“leadership conflict.”

“Jan. 29 is a very significant date for the Schaghticoke.
That’s the day we were federally recognized in 2004 before the Connecticut politicians
got to work and influenced the BIA to reverse it,” Saunders said. She is the
chair of the tribe’s Preservation Committee and an organizer of the rally.

In a notorious decision that rocked Indian country, the BIA
reversed the tribe’s federal acknowledgment in 2005 after an intensely
organized campaign of political opposition by state Attorney General Richard
Blumenthal and other elected officials.

For more than a year now, tribal members’ requests for help
have been rebuffed.

“Rost was arrested in 2004 for the very same thing he’s
doing now, however, now the state will not intervene in assisting Schaghticoke
with a cease and desist order. We’ve asked through e-mail, snail mails, phone
calls and they basically say they won’t help,” Saunders said.

Why is the state refusing to help?

“Part of me believes that through the attorney general the
state doesn’t want to recognize the Schaghticoke as a state tribe any longer
and I think they’re trying to basically take away any rights we have by
committing cultural genocide to our tribe.”

Tribal members have turned to each other, and technology for
support. They wrote and posted a petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/STN129/petition.html
which they intend to present to Gov. Jodi Rell at the rally.

The petition calls on the governor “to investigate and order
an immediate halt to the hate crimes, destruction, desecration of sacred lands
and encroachment” that continues despite the tribe’s requests for help.

“We are deeply concerned about the overwhelming, negative
environmental impact affecting our ancestral lands,” the petition states. “Much
of this devastation includes: severing, ripping and cutting down trees which
cause the unnecessary fragmentation of forest blocks, selling timber off an
Indian reservation, quarrying large boulders, destroying endangered species and
their habitats, and purposely inflicting irreparable harm to sacred land.”

Blumenthal said the situation on the reservation is being
monitored. “My understanding is that DEP [Department of Environmental
Protection] has investigated potential violations of environmental law and will
continue to review evidence. We are prepared to take any enforcement action
that the DEP considers appropriate in light of the facts that it finds. If
members of the tribal groups claim there have been potential criminal law
violations, they should contact the state police.”

But Saunders and other tribal members said the state police
have refused to take their complaints.

“We’re asking everyone everywhere to go online and sign our
petition,” Saunders said.

Saunders, who served in the U.S. Navy from 1984 to 1989, is
the daughter of the late Pauline Crone Morange, an almost legendary figure
among the Schaghticoke and other Native communities in the state for her
tenacity and advocacy for American Indians. She was lead chairman of the
Connecticut Indian Affairs Council and led the Schaghticoke to federal
acknowledgment.

Crone Morange died in March 2004, just two months after the
tribe received federal acknowledgment.

“Our family took her ashes to rest as she had requested on Schaghticoke Mountain. I buried her in three places
in addition to the rattlesnake den, because with my disability I knew I
wouldn’t be able to make it up to the top of the mountain on a regular basis,”
Saunders, who suffers from back problems, said.

The endangered timber rattlesnake is the tribe’s emblematic
protector.

“When I visited recently I found the sites desecrated and
disturbed in two areas. The objects that we buried with her have disappeared.”

Rost could not be reached for comment. In a recent issue of
the local Lakeville Journal, Rost said he is the “executive coordinator of the
Schaghticoke Indian Tribe,” and that he is building “The Great American Freedom
Pyramid” on Schaghticoke land, a $30 million project. The article did not
report the source of the funding.

“STN stands for ‘socially transmitted neurosis’ while SIT
stands for ‘strength, integrity and truth,’” Rost said. “We have not recognized
STN, ever, and we don’t plan on recognizing them now. The STN is a country
within a country. We are sovereign to the United States and sovereign as far
as federal law. We do not fall under any DEP rules.”

But the unresolved conflict has resulted in a positive
unintended consequence. It has started to heal a rift between STN Chief Richard
Velky and his cousin Alan Russell who heads the Schaghticoke Indian Tribe
faction, a position Russell’s sister also claims.

“Yes, we’ve talked and I just told Rich, do you think we can
get along and share the land and share the pavilion and I guess we are so far.
It’s about time that we’re at least on a talking basis. We need unity,” Russell
said.

Russell, who lives on the reservation, expressed his love
for the beautiful tract of undeveloped northeastern woodlands on Schaghticoke Mountain, a place that is home to herds
of deer, vernal pools, mountain streams and a stopover for migrating birds in
the spring.

“This place really is my life. I’ve been her all my life and
my father before me, nine generations. I love the place. I love being here and
I’m going to defend it to my last breath,” Russell said. He plans to attend the
rally.

Schaghticoke chief condemns state for failure to abide by
laws

Since the BIA federally acknowledged the Schaghticoke Tribal
Nation in January 2004, then reversed its decision in October 2005, the State
of Connecticut
has allowed a non-Schaghticoke trespasser to destroy areas of the tribe’s
400-acre reservation under the pretext of a “leadership conflict,” Chief
Richard Velky told Indian Country Today in the first interview he has given
since then.

Soon after the 300-plus member STN received federal
recognition, Alan Russell, who leads a faction called Schaghticoke Indian Tribe
(SIT) and Michael Rost, a non-Schaghticoke, were arrested for placing massive
boulders on and around the reservation pavilion where meetings and social
events take place. The court dropped charges against Russell, but charged Rost
with reckless endangerment and disturbing the peace, and ordered him to stay
off the reservation for 18 months.

In the fall of 2007, Rost returned to the reservation and
began cutting down trees and bulldozing the land. He said he had permission
from Gail Harrison, Russell’s sister, who claimed she had recently “deposed”
her brother and was now the chief of SIT, according to documents filed with the
Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

STN members have tried for more than a year to stop Rost
from damaging the archeologically sensitive land and desecrating burial sites.
The DEP, which holds the land in trust for the tribe, has refused to issue a
cease and desist order. The Connecticut State Police have refused to take members’
complaints.

STN’s appeal of the reversal of its federal acknowledgment
was dismissed last August and a further appeal is pending in the 2nd Circuit
Court in New York.

Meanwhile, the tribe has organized a protest march at the
Capitol in Hartford
Jan. 29, the fifth anniversary of the tribe’s stolen federal acknowledgement.

Indian Country Today: Are you going to the march?

Richard Velky: Of course. We’ll protest the state’s lack of
responsibility toward the Schaghticoke reservation.

ICT: What do you hope will come out of it?

RV: We hope there will finally be an understanding that our
land is being destroyed and that needs to be stopped. It should never have
gotten to this point. The state statutes clearly say that the Schaghticoke
people control the practice and usage of our land, not non-Schaghticoke people.
But since our fight for federal recognition and the state’s successful
political opposition to reverse it, the state has taken a different position.

They pretend they can’t do anything to stop the destruction
because they don’t know who the tribe’s leader is. There is a formal, legal
protocol to challenge a chief’s leadership through the Connecticut Indian
Affairs Council. No one has challenged my leadership according to that
protocol. The DEP’s coordinator of Indian Affairs confirmed that as recently as
last summer.

ICT: I understand Schaghticoke Indian Tribe (SIT) was the
tribe’s original name.

RV: We changed it from SIT to STN formally in 1991. Later
Alan claimed he was chief of SIT and now his sister Gail Harrison claims she’s
the chief.

ICT: But what actually does the tribal leadership have to do
with protecting the land, which is the DEP’s responsibility?

RV: Exactly. Tribal leadership directed by members decides
what happens on the reservation, otherwise you have what the state is claiming
exists by refusing to recognize my leadership – a bunch of different people
doing whatever they want and claiming they are chiefs of tribes.

There are approximately seven people in the Alan/Gail group
who qualify for recognition as Schaghticoke as compared to more than 300 STN
members. So how can the state possibly be confused over leadership, or give
weight to seven people against 300? It’s simple. In our ongoing fight for
federal recognition, the state’s position is they don’t recognize the
Schaghticoke people, they recognize the land. If they went ahead and recognized
me as chief, it would contradict that position, they’d have to recognize that a
leader leads people.

ICT: Where is this coming from?

RV: Attorney General Richard Blumenthal without a doubt is
orchestrating this among the state agencies. Our reservation is considered an
archeological site. When the damage was done in 2004 the state stepped in and
stopped it under pressure from us and the state archeologist who said Rost’s
activities were threatening our land and artifacts and endangering our
children. The same situation exists today, plus he’s created a hostile and
dangerous atmosphere for all tribal members who are now deprived of their use
of the land.

ICT: Why doesn’t the tribe kick him and the other
non-Schaghticoke people out?

RV: How? If we kick them out, we’d be taking the law into
our own hands. We don’t have our own police force and there’s no way this tribe
wants to go to court when the state can’t even enforce the statutes on the
books that require them to act against this person who is breaking both civil
and criminal laws. We don’t trust the state. The state keeps telling us to take
it to court. Why? The laws are already there that say this land is for the
Schaghticoke people’s benefit. Has the state asked these trespassers who they
are? We just went through a rigorous recognition process that affirmed who we
are and these 100 people that Gail Harrison has supposedly put on a “tribal
list” – where were they and how come they weren’t on the STN list or even Alan
Russell’s list. Because they’re phony names with phony backgrounds and the
state is allowing it.

ICT: What changed after 2004?

RV: The state picked up the momentum to reverse our federal
recognition and its position became, ‘Well, if we can make five tribal leaders
up there and create chaos, let’s do that.’

ICT: Sounds like the colonial tactic of divide and conquer.

RV: So far they’ve been successful

ICT: Do you think the state is after the land?

RV: We know they’ve taken a great deal of land away from us.
Has that stopped? No, I don’t think so.

ICT: The attorney general said in a statement that if
“tribal groups” – apparently he refuses to call STN a tribe – think there’s
criminal activities going on they should contact the state police.

RV: The AG is right – that should be the way to go, but the
state police won’t take our complaints, because he won’t let the state police
take them and turn it into a criminal offense, which is what it should be,
because then it would be out of his hands. Where else can you go to destroy
thousands of dollars worth of acreage and desecrate sacred places with
impunity? When does it stop being civil and start being criminal? The AG is
fueling the fire and waiting for something to explode on our reservation so he
can try to show a different reflection of the Schaghticoke people.

ICT: Will you march to his office?

RV: I wouldn’t waste my time. There’s only one person who
can do anything about this and that’s Gov. (Jodi) Rell. According to the
statutes, the only people I should be talking with are the governor and the DEP
commissioner.

ICT: It’s an election year for the governor. If Rell turns a
deaf ear on Schaghticoke will you consider talking to her opponent?

RV: Our elected officials all told us to play by the rules
for federal recognition and they would support us. Well, we played by the rules
and they stabbed us in the back. If our governor is not going to act on behalf
of all the people of Connecticut
including the Schaghticoke, yes, we’ll go to other people. We’re not asking the
state for help. We don’t need help in running our tribe. We’re asking them to
enforce the laws that are on the books that were put there by state legislators.
We didn’t put them there, they did. But they don’t have the right to pick and
choose when and where to enforce them.

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