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Beth Brownfield, Honor Our Neighbors’ Origins and Rights
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Those of us who consider Minnesota a liberal state might be surprised to note that there is a well-funded and organized anti-Indian network of organizations and individuals who are actively working to undermine the sovereignty and treaty rights of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.
The Band has been under attack by anti-Indian groups in the Mille Lacs area for quite a long time. Groups like Proper Economic Resource Management (PERM) and the Mille Lacs Tea Party have many of the local elected officials as their allies, and seem to use them against the Mille Lacs Band as often as possible.
The Mille Lacs County Commissioners, joined by the First National Bank of Milaca, took the Band to federal court with a lawsuit that cost the county over $1 million to challenge their existence as a sovereign nation. The lawsuit attempted to abolish the Mille Lacs reservation and have 61,000 acres declared outside the reservation. On the day that the court ruled in the Band’s favor, there was a bomb threat on the tribal government office center. The Mille Lacs County Commissioners are appealing the decision, which is continuing to drain the limited resources of the county and create further stress in the community.
The Mille Lacs County Commissioners are also seeking to block the opening of a cooperative sewer project on the Mille Lacs reservation between the Band and the Garrison Kathio West Mille Lacs Sanitary Sewer District. This state-of-the-art sewer project, established with the help of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), aims to protect the quality of the lake. It is now completed and ready to operate. The Mille Lacs County Commissioners claim that the EPA does not regulate the land, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) does, therefore bringing the wastewater project to a complete halt, impacting the environment and costing all in the partnership a great deal of money.
The EPA does regulate the land because trust land, by treaty, is federal land, not state land. Not only is this lawsuit costing the Band, it is costing several surrounding communities. For example, every family in one of the cities will be losing over $300 per year as this suit drags on, not to mention the cost to ML Waste Management, which still has to pay for insurance and for machinery warranties on the facility.
HONOR (Honor Our Neighbors’ Origins and Rights) is a non-profit American Indian and Alaska Native advocacy organization dedicated to the struggle for justice. HONOR is working with the Band to help counter racism, as well as the misinformation and distrust generated by groups that work against the sovereignty of the Mille Lacs Band and the Band’s community-building efforts.
To find out more about the Mille Lacs situation, or to help out with other American Indian issues in Minnesota or nationwide, contact HONOR at 612-827-2766, or email or online. |
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© 2003 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete October 2003 Index - click here
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