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By ERICA BULMAN | Associated Press
03.11.06
GENEVA (AP) - A United Nations' anti-racism panel Friday said it had evidence the
U.S. government was working with industry to ride roughshod over the rights of an
American Indian tribe by exploiting its ancestral land in the western United States.
The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination ruled that the United
States was failing to respect an international anti-discrimination treaty, to which
it became a party in 1994.
Organizations defending the rights of the Western Shoshone hailed the decision as a
victory, but the U.S. mission to the U.N. and other international organizations in
Geneva had no immediate response to the decision, an official said.
"Maybe this will make the United States start looking at itself and at the problem
of discrimination, and make it start to look at us as people instead of subhumans,"
said Western Shoshone delegate Bernice Lalo. "We feel the decision will be helpful
by opening the door. We will continue this struggle to give our children a better
chance."
The panel of independent experts said it had received "credible information alleging
that the Western Shoshone indigenous people are being denied their traditional
rights to land."
The committee of 18 independent experts said it was concerned that the U.S.
government's position is based on processes "which did not comply with contemporary
human rights norms, principles and standards that govern determination of indigenous
property rights."
The committee said it was particularly concerned about reported legislative efforts
to privatize Western Shoshone ancestral lands for transfer to multinational mining
industries and energy developers, federal efforts to open a nuclear waste dump and
the reported resumption of underground nuclear testing on Western Shoshone ancestral
lands.
The panel said it also was worried about reported intimidation of the Western
Shoshone people by U.S. authorities, through the imposition of grazing fees,
trespassing and collection notices, the impounding horses and livestock,
restrictions on fishing and hunting as well as arrests.
The committee was also unhappy that the conduct or planning of all these activities
was done without consulting and despite the protests of the Western Shoshone people.
Western Shoshone rights to the land _ some 60 million acres stretching across
Nevada, Idaho, Utah and California _ were recognized by the United States in 1863 by
the Treaty of Ruby Valley.
However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1979 that the treaty gave the U.S.
government trusteeship over tribal lands and it now claims them as "public" or
federal lands.
But some Shoshone have kept up the fight, even after a majority of their fellow
tribe members voted to accept a government settlement that has grown to $145
million.
Jim Manley, a spokesman for bill proponent Democratic Senator Harry Reid of Nevada,
said last month that the tribe had twice had voted decisively in favor of the
settlement.
The U.N. committee said in August that the U.S. government should respond to the
tribe's argument that the U.S. policy of "gradual encroachment" amounted to racism
against an indigenous people.
The committee says it "regretted" the United States had failed to meet the Dec. 31,
2005, deadline to answer a list of questions and had not considered it necessary to
appear before the panel to discuss the matter.
The U.S. government initially failed to submit the information because it believed
the case of the Western Shoshone is "an old one" and that the U.N. panel was not
competent to hear it. However, the committee said the United States had since agreed
to respond to the list of issues, though it did not say when.
The committee oversees global compliance with the 1969 International Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. All countries that have
signed the treaty are meant to submit regular reports showing how they respect it.
There are an estimated 10,000 Western Shoshone people. Supporting the claims in
Geneva were the Western Shoshone Defense Project, the Western Shoshone National
Council and the rights organization Oxfam America.
Headline: U.N. panel backs Shoshone's
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