Bahe's Latest Big Mountain Update

Big Mountain Resistors Refuse to Accept Recent B.I.A. Apology

(Formulated on October 6th, 2000 by Bahe Y. Katenay: interpreter for the original, traditional Dineh resistance movement of Big Mountain.)

The remaining resistors of the Big Mountain community were quite surprised and appalled that, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) had the idiotic nerve to publicly announced that, it acknowledged its agency's 175 years of undermining and inflicting terror on the indigenous nations within the United States. On September 8th, 2000, the BIA issued this ill-considered apology to, perhaps, all Indians during a Department of Interior Indian Affairs' 175th Anniversary ceremony. Though, the BIA failed to go into detail about the initial objectives for its creation in 1824 by President James Monroe, the illogical apology lightly touched upon its nearly two century of inhumanity and genocide which they instigated upon the aboriginal tribes of Turtle Island, North America.

The Indian Affairs agency under the Department of War was especially designed for Indian territories to conduct covert, intelligence gathering about: tribal chiefs, medicine people, social structures, strengths in sovereignty, seasonal movement patterns, natural resources which sustained the cultures, non-Indian sympathizers, warrior societies, potential slaves, and population. They were the primary military advisors who not only directed all military operations of 'scorch the earth policies,' but also maintained and equipped disgruntled tribal members to act as scouts, informants, agitators, assassins, advocates for military compromises, and assistance to missionary efforts.

This false-intended apology from the BIA lacks the actual truth of reconciliation, contrition, and contemplation. This has been another sad time for all indigenous peoples in liberation struggles. This immoral act of apology from the BIA is merely an insult and offense to Indian communities who are currently defending their last remnants of: burial grounds, sacred shrines, old growth forest, ancient fishing and hunting areas, holy rivers and mountains, and breathable clean air. Less than 10 percent of the Indian population are, now, actively protecting the cultural and natural resources from the capitalistic influences and ventures of multinational corporations.

Finally, for the Dineh who are resisting the BIA and the Department of Interior's relocation policies, it is, only, another reminder of how such agencies of the state are still willing to continue their programs of dehumanization and subjugation of the last, remaining traditional Indian populations. The BIA has only failed, again, in its attempt to support the U.S. Government's portrayal that Indian policies are concurrent with Human Rights standards of the world. The original Dineh resistors from the Big Mountain region wishes that, world communities to, again, be aware that this BIA 'apology' is only equivalent to, perhaps, a Neo-Nazism apology to Jewish or Polish decedents for their extermination during World War II.

It is felt and understood among the Dineh resistance movement that, the issuance this BIA apology statement, basically, merits as a celebration for victories over and the conquering of Indian nobility and obedience. The BIA knows very well that nearly 90 percent of the Indian population in 'Amerika' have adapted to or surrendered to the ideologies of mainstream Amerika and the ideologies of Euro-American, political themes. Obviously, these 90 percent of the 'Americanized' Indians may accepted such a disgraceful apology from the BIA, but for those of us who still denied our citizenship to the colonist, United States of America and those who still value our sovereignty based on treaties and spiritual covenants, we refuse the acceptance of the BIA's expression of: their 'profound sorrows' or their anti-Indian agency's attempt for reconciliation. No words of apology will ever heal the scars or replace the losses put upon our ancient cultures and homelands. The BIA and its related agencies of the federal government knows what our demands are, and they are: self determinations without the 'American-designed' tribal governments or sovereignty, re-ratify all treaties signed between the U.S. government and Indian nations, the immediate exclusions of all destructive forms of energy explorations from our ancestral lands, and a Repeal of the ultimate, annihilation policy, Public Law 93-531! Until the U.S. Department of Interior BIA take our demands under advisement and take actions thereof, similar apology in the future (maybe) taken under consideration by the sovereign, indigenous communities like ours, at Big Mountain.

 

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