i hs negative

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2009 1Pointer/Kelly/Corrigan I.H.S. Negative

Indian Health Service Negative

No Health Solvency – Language Barriers ................................................................................... 3

No Health Solvency – Lifestyle Barriers ...................................................................................... 5

No Health Solvency – Urban Indians ........................................................................................... 6

No Health Solvency – Doctor Negligence ..................................................................................... 7

No Health Solvency – Welfare Stigma ......................................................................................... 8

No Health Solvency – Government Money Fails ........................................................................ 9

No Health Impact – SQ solves .................................................................................................... 10

No Poverty Solvency – Substandard Housing ........................................................................... 11

No Poverty Solvency – Structural Barriers ............................................................................... 12

No Trust Doctrine Solvency – Federal Control ........................................................................ 13

No Trust Doctrine Solvency ........................................................................................................ 14

No Trust Doctrine Solvency ........................................................................................................ 15

Trust Doctrine Bad ...................................................................................................................... 17



Self-Determination Bad – Secessionism ..................................................................................... 20



A2: Internal Self-Determination Solves ..................................................................................... 23




Self Determination Bad – Modeling ........................................................................................... 27

Self Determination Bad – Modeling ........................................................................................... 28

Self-determination Bad – Domestic ............................................................................................ 29

Self-Determination Bad – Domestic ........................................................................................... 30



Self-Determination Bad – Kurds ................................................................................................ 33





Self-Determination Bad – Indonesia .......................................................................................... 37

Self-Determination Bad - Nationalism ....................................................................................... 38

Self-Determination Bad – Colonialism ...................................................................................... 39

Self Determination Bad – Colonialism ....................................................................................... 40

Self Determination Bad – Colonialism ....................................................................................... 41

Self Determination Bad – Russia-China .................................................................................... 42

Self Determination Bad – China ................................................................................................. 43

Self Determination Bad – China ................................................................................................. 44

Self Determination Bad – Terrorism/War ................................................................................ 45

No Modelling Solvency ................................................................................................................ 47

No Secession Impacts ................................................................................................................... 49




Ethnic Conflict Declining ............................................................................................................ 53





No Waste Solvency – Illegal Dumping ....................................................................................... 58

No Waste Impacts – Safety Measures ........................................................................................ 59



Waste Good – Tribal Economies ................................................................................................ 62






Waste Good – Sovereignty .......................................................................................................... 68

Waste Good – Hormesis .............................................................................................................. 69



Waste Good – No Health Impact ................................................................................................ 72


Waste Good – African Tradeoff Turn ....................................................................................... 73

Waste Link turns – Trust Doctrine Links ................................................................................. 74

Tribal Economic Growth Bad .................................................................................................... 76

Biopower Links - Social Control ................................................................................................ 77

Biopower Links – Blood Quantum ............................................................................................. 78

Biopower Links – Blood Quantum ............................................................................................. 79

Biopower Links - Race ................................................................................................................ 81

Capitalism Links .......................................................................................................................... 83

Politics Links (Obama Bad) ........................................................................................................ 84

Politics Links (Obama Bad) ........................................................................................................ 85

Politics Links (Obama Good) ..................................................................................................... 86

Politics Links (Obama Good) ..................................................................................................... 87

Politics Links – Obama Pushes ................................................................................................... 88

Consult Natives CP ...................................................................................................................... 89

Native American Challenge CP .................................................................................................. 90

Native American Challenge CP .................................................................................................. 91

States Cp ....................................................................................................................................... 92

Day of Mourning CP ..................................................................................................................... 93


***Solvency Answers***


No Health Solvency – Language Barriers

Language barriers hamper health care quality Barry et. Al., Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission of Human Rights, 2004(Mary, U.S. Commission on Human Rights, “Broken Promises: Evaluating the Native American Health Care System,” September. Page 36 & 37 MAG)

In addition to cultural barriers, language barriers present obstacles to communication with providers for those Native Americans who maintain their traditional language. These obstacles necessarily increase the difficulty of receiving care and understanding treatment procedures and provider instructions. Research has found that non-English proficient and limited English proficient patients: Receive less information about the therapeutic regimen for their condition and understand fewer of the instructions related to medication. Are less likely to keep subsequent appointments and are more likely to make emergency room visits than patients in same-language encounters. Are less likely to receive preventive services. Many studies have also found that patients with limited English proficiency cite the language barrier as an obstacle to receiving care. In addition, language obstacles create problems for patients in understanding provider instructions. According to the 2000 census, 381,000 Native Americans speak a native North American language, representing an increase from the 281,990 identified in the 1990 census. The most common of the Native American languages is Navajo, with 178,014 speakers. While language assistance needs vary among Native American tribes, for those Native Americans whose primary language is other than English, language assistance is crucial to ensuring that they receive proper health services. Currently, IHS does not provide formal language assistance to its patients.80 In many situations, IHS programs may have staff and employees who speak the same language as the patients and provide informal translation. At other times, patients themselves bring family members to act as translators. This informal translation is problematic as it can cause semantic errors and breaches of confidentiality, and may even disturb familial hierarchies and relationships. The IHS reports that lack of language assistance is not a major problem within its direct facilities, though IHS has identified language barriers as affecting access to care for Native Americans whose primary language is not English. The language assistance needs at contract facilities, however, are unclear. Generally, non-IHS facilities do not have staff capable of acting as translators for Native Americans. Aside from occasional language assistance provided by family members, patients can be expected to encounter communication problems with their providers at non-IHS facilities. Nonetheless, IHS has failed to devote resources and has failed to implement any formal assistance measures to address this barrier.


No Health Solvency – Lifestyle Barriers

There must be a paradigm shift in the lifestyle of people living on the reservation in order to prevent 70% of all diseases on the res.Barry et. Al., Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission of Human Rights, 2004(Mary, U.S. Commission on Human Rights, “Broken Promises: Evaluating the Native American Health Care System,” September. Page 42. MAG)

Many would argue that health status is determined by one’s lifestyle and behaviors such as cigarette smoking, heavy alcohol use, and diet. Specifically for Native Americans, there is limited data on behavioral risk factors associated with morbidity and mortality. In the absence of authoritative figures, there is no consensus as to the exact degree to which lifestyle and health behaviors affect health outcomes. Nonetheless, the Indian Health Service reports that “lifestyle and behavioral issues contribute to almost 70% of the diseases that occur at a higher rate in Indian country.” Similarly, the National Healthcare Disparities Report estimates that “up to 50 percent of health status can be accounted for by health behaviors and only 15 to 20 percent by the health care delivery system.


No Health Solvency – Urban Indians

The IHS does little to nothing for urban Indian Americans, and when they are, they are expensive and do not cover basic services.Barry et. Al., Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission of Human Rights, 2004(Mary, U.S. Commission on Human Rights, “Broken Promises: Evaluating the Native American Health Care System,” September. Page 68 & 69. MAG)

Unlike IHS and tribal health services that are provided without charge to eligible Native Americans, Urban Indian Health Programs provide services on a sliding fee basis and many of the services are restricted to primary care. The opportunity to use contract health services when primary and specialty care is unavailable is not an option for urban Indians as it is for Indians using IHS direct delivery and tribal programs. As explained in the Contract Health Services section, contract health services are available only to those Native Americans who live within the Contract Health Service Delivery Areas. Tribal members who live off the reservation for over 180 days are not eligible to receive contract health services. Accordingly, urban Indians must pay for themselves when referred for such services as inpatient hospital care, specialty services, and diagnostics. IHS acknowledges that Native Americans in urban areas face barriers to accessing hospitals, health clinics, and contract health services provided by IHS and tribes. The agency attributes urban Indian access problems to poverty, lack of health insurance, and the dearth of culturally sensitive physicians and other health professionals. While as tribal members, Native Americans in urban areas can access tribally operated services, access to that care is further impeded by lack of transportation. According to Norman Ration, executive director of the National Indian Youth Council, although Native Americans are moving to urban areas in growing numbers, “IHS does not get it when it comes to addressing the health care needs of urban Indians.” Kay Culbertson, executive director of the Denver Indian Health and Family Services, also testified that urban Indians have become invisible to federal policies; everything is geared toward tribal members living on the reservations. She added that the health care needs of Native Americans living off reservation are as great or even greater than the needs of Native Americans who live on their homelands—and their needs should be recognized.


No Health Solvency – Doctor Negligence

Indian Health Service doctors negligence directly => high cancer rate Barry et. Al., Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission of Human Rights, 2004(Mary, U.S. Commission on Human Rights, “Broken Promises: Evaluating the Native American Health Care System” September. Pages 84. MAG)

Even more troubling is the misdiagnosis and late diagnosis of diseases such as cancer. As IHS admits, IHS providers do not always screen for preventable diseases early enough to provide timely treatment. Cancer death rates among Native Americans are unnecessarily high as a direct result of IHS providers failing to take early preventive measures to detect and treat cancer. These barriers, whether a result of physical access or quality issues, lead to the presence of disproportionate health disparities among Native Americans. Accordingly, the Commission makes the following recommendations:


No Health Solvency – Welfare Stigma

Stigma against welfare recipients stops American Indians from seeking help.Barry et. Al., Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission of Human Rights, 2004(Mary, U.S. Commission on Human Rights, “Broken Promises: Evaluating the Native American Health Care System” September. Page 113. MAG)

The stigma sometimes associated with public programs also limits Native American enrollment in Medicare and Medicaid. Historically, stigma has centered on the perception others have of welfare recipients. Many beneficiaries of public programs feel that they are perceived as lazy and undeserving, and fail to get respect as a result of their decision to accept public assistance. A study by George Washington University researchers has found that the actual stigma is even broader. Stigma is related as much to how recipients will be treated in the application process and how health care providers will treat those recipients once they are enrolled, as it is to public perception. This stigma is amplified by several of the procedural factors discussed below.


No Health Solvency – Government Money Fails

Any aid from the federal government would only cause more problems for the American Indians.Roubideaux, an American Indian doctor,2002(Yvette, “Perspectives of American Indian Health,” American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 92 No. 9, September 2002, p. 1401, ESM)The Federal Trust Responsibility. The federal government has a trust responsibility to provide health care for American Indians and Alaska Natives, based on multiple treaties, court decisions, and legislative acts. However, the IHS is critically underfunded. Although its budget for fiscal year 2002 is $2.8 billion, tribal leadership has estimated that a needs-based budget for Indian health care should be closer to $18 billion. Per capita expenditures for Indian health care were approximately one third as much as expenditures for individuals in the US general population in 2001.4 Lack of adequate funding and services is a constant stress on the Indian health system and plays a significant role in the continuing health disparities in Indian communities. From my current perspective as a public health professional, I have learned of the adverse impacts of past policies, such as the Dawes Act of 1887, which served to attempt to acculturate Indian people into the dominant society at the time. This act made it illegal to speak traditional languages or practice traditional customs, and it also divided Indian lands into allotments for each family, which disrupted the social and group structure of the tribes.5 As a result of this policy, the health of American Indians declined rapidly and thousands died. Fortunately, this decline in health status was recognized in the early 1900s, and Congress passed the Snyder Act in 1921 to authorize funding for the “conservation of health” in Indian communities. The Dawes Act is an important reminder of the horrible impact that public health policies can have on the health of a population, but is it any less horrible for the present-day federal government to fund the Indian health system at levels far below the real level of need?


No Health Impact – SQ solves

American Indian Health care systems are more successful when run by the American Indians themselves, and this allows the tribes to act as sovereign nations.Roubideaux, an American Indian doctor, 2002(Yvette, “Perspectives of American Indian Health,” American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 92 No. 9, September 2002, p. 1401, ESM)Positive Changes in Indian Health. From a public health perspective, I see hope for the health of Indian communities in a number of positive changes occurring in the Indian health system. The number of American Indians and Alaska Natives is growing, according to the US Census Bureau, which counted 4.1 million people who self-identified as AI/AN alone or in combination with other races in 2000 (US Census Bureau, February 2002, http://www.census.gov/prod/ 2002pubs/c2kbr01=15.pdf). Along with this increase in population comes an increase in the numbers of AI/AN health professionals who are returning to Indian communities to provide health care. One of the most significant changes in the Indian health system has been the Indian Self- Determination and Educational Assistance Act of 1975 (PL 93- 638; 88 Stat 2203; 42 USC 450-458), which allows tribes to manage the health programs in their community previously managed by the IHS.6 The number of tribes that have opted to manage their health programs has grown rapidly, and approximately half of the IHS budget is now managed by tribes.4 A recent survey showed that tribes that manage their own health programs, on average, were able to provide more new health programs, build more new facilities, and collect more third-party reimbursements than had been the case under IHS management.7 Evidence is growing that tribal management of health programs can be successful and can lead to better ways to address the health problems of American Indians and Alaska Natives. Another positive change has been the recognition that Indian communities must play a central role in improving their health. As sovereign nations, tribes are now asserting their rights and taking responsibility for their health. Many tribes are establishing wellness programs and fitness centers and are relearning their tribal traditions related to health.8 Tribes are also taking more control over the research that is conducted in their communities and are establishing institutional review boards to ensure that the research benefits their tribes, addresses their own research priorities, and involves the community at all levels of the research—design, conduct, and interpretation of the results.9,10 It is no longer acceptable for researchers and public health workers to enter Indian communities without the approval and participation of the tribe, collect data, and leave. The Public Health Response. As public health professionals, we have new responsibilities to support these positive changes in Indian health that provide hope and create opportunities to restore the health of Indian communities. We must learn more about the health challenges and disparities in Indian communities and about the specific tribes we serve. In our public health efforts we must insist on the full participation of the tribes and community in all phases of planning, implementation, and evaluation of programs, services, and research. We also must resist the temptation to enter Indian communities as “experts” who will control programs and outcomes. A more productive role is to be a resource to the community and to help build local capacity. We also must help educate others, especially our country’s leaders, on the severe levels of underfunding and lack of resources in the Indian health system and the need for more funding for Indian health care. The federal government has a responsibility to provide health care for American Indians and Alaska Natives, and it is time for all of us to respect the sovereignty of tribes, help build capacity in Indian communities, and help reduce the health disparities that affect this population.


No Poverty Solvency – Substandard Housing

Poverty and substandard housing leads health problems and a never ending cycle of povertyBarry et. Al., Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission of Human Rights, 2004(Mary, U.S. Commission on Human Rights, “Broken Promises: Evaluating the Native American Health Care System,” September. Page 38 MAG)

Throughout Indian Country, poverty has had a devastating effect on the health and well- being of Native Americans. Native Americans are faced with high unemployment rates resulting from lack of economic opportunities on the reservations. Frequently, poverty and the lack of economic opportunities lead to inadequate housing. A new study by the Housing Assistance Council, a national rural housing organization, found that poverty, the lack of economic opportunity, and the shortage of financing for affordable housing have led to deplorable housing conditions for Native Americans living on reservations. Substandard housing has been long recognized as contributing to worse health outcomes. While the specific problems vary from tribe to tribe, in general, Native Americans living on reservations in rural areas live in poor housing conditions. Overcrowding in Native American households is three times the national rate. Overcrowding and substandard housing conditions are linked and often lead to increased incidences of tuberculosis, pneumonia, gastrointestinal disorders, head lice, conjunctivitis, hepatitis, and a variety of other infectious diseases that are easily transmitted in crowded spaces. Another housing problem is affordability. Native Americans spend over 30 percent of their household income for housing each month. A more serious housing problem is lack of adequate plumbing. While 4 percent of Native Americans nationwide live in housing that lacks adequate plumbing, about 10 percent of Native Americans living on reservations have inadequate plumbing; this figure is 10 times the national level. In addition, while only 0.7 percent of U.S. households lack kitchens, 8.7 percent of Native American households lack kitchens. The Housing Assistance Council attributes Native American housing problems to the lack of financing for decent homes because of legal, socioeconomic, and cultural constraints.101 Poverty and substandard housing go hand in hand. One way to improve housing conditions in Indian Country is to reduce the high poverty and unemployment rates and provide more economic opportunities on the reservations. Unfortunately, very few economic opportunities exist on the reservations. Despite the common belief that gambling casinos on reservations have brought increased economic opportunities for Native Americans, studies indicate that only a few tribes have benefited from gaming.102 Data show that gaming on the reservations has yet to reduce poverty among Native Americans.103 Persistent poverty results in substandard housing for Native Americans. Both poverty and substandard housing conditions have led to serious health effects. It is generally recognized that income relates to health status because it increases access to care, enables living in better homes and neighborhoods, and increases opportunities to engage in healthy lifestyles.Because Native Americans have the highest poverty and unemployment rates, their health is inevitably compromised.


No Poverty Solvency – Structural Barriers

Too many structural barriers to reservation economic developmentCobb, Assistant Professor of History, Miami University, 2004(Daniel, Poverty in the United States: An Encyclopedic History, Gwendolyn Mink & Alice O'Connor (eds.) p. 492).

Policies may have improved since the late 1970’s, but poverty remains prevalent. Many tribes possess natural resources, while others have take advantage of gaming and tourism. However, the remoteness of most reservations from large markets presents a structural barrier to economic development, state governments are often hostile to tribal initiatives, investment capital is difficult to obtain, and dependency on federal dollars persists. Reservation employment opportunities are seldom available outside the BIA and tribal government, and Indians continue to face discrimination when seeking non-reservation jobs. Another struggle revolves around securing hunting, fishing, and resource rights guaranteed in law by government-to-government treaties but often not realized in practice (Trosper 1996, 197-181). Finally, the gross mismanagement of individual money accounts by the BIA has recently led to multimillion dollar legal suits seeking compensation.


***Trust Doctrine Answers***


No Trust Doctrine Solvency – Federal Control

IHS doesn’t solve self- determination: The IHS does not respect Indian American culture in the application and construction of policies. It favors larger tribes and small tribes’ views are often underrepresented. Barry et. Al., Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission of Human Rights, 2004(Mary, U.S. Commission on Human Rights, “Broken Promises: Evaluating the Native American Health Care System,” September. Page 73. MAG)

While the tribal consultation policy calls for effective and meaningful participation of tribes and individual Native Americans, the policy lacks a measure to assess the effectiveness and meaningfulness of the tribal consultation and participation. Tribes vary in size, resources, health needs, and expertise in health policies. While larger tribes with more resources hire representatives and experts to study the impact of IHS policy on their tribes and to best present their views, some of the small tribes lack the resources and expertise necessary to represent their issues and concerns. One tribal representative stated that while IHS frequently “invites” tribes to consultative meetings and sessions, unless travel is fully funded, many small tribes and some large ones cannot afford to send representatives. Another tribal representative expressed the frustration that tribal consultation is often “one-sided” and structured in a “non-Native” way, without respect to the Native culture. According to one tribal representative, the sheer number of tribes nationally can create logistical difficulty in tribal consultation. Another tribal representative added that while IHS is better at considering tribal views than other federal agencies, IHS tribal consultation does not equate to responsiveness. He stated that because of distance and revenue, small tribes have a disadvantage when it comes to consultation. Any consultation and participation policy aimed at increasing effective and meaningful participation must also include a mechanism to provide the necessary assistance. Existing IHS policy does not have a mechanism to provide this type of assistance. Absent such a mechanism, it is difficult to conclude that tribes have meaningful and effective participation in the decision- making process at IHS. Thus, many tribes and their tribal members continue to face geographical challenges in accessing IHS facilities.


No Trust Doctrine Solvency

The plan does not solve, federal assistance will not be effective in aiding the American Indians, only abandoning tribal sovereignty will solve.Lawrence, 2004(Bill, Publisher, Ojibwe News, Freedom of Information Award, The Ojibwe News, “Not much ‘new’ in Indian Healthcare Report,” 9-3-04, http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=21&did=755654581&SrchMode=1&sid=4&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1246257026&clientId=10553&cfc=1, accessed 7-5-09)EM

A discussion of The U.S. Civil Rights Commission's latest report entitled Broken Promises: Evaluating the Native America Health Care System, appears on page one of this issue. It appears to be well documented, and I do not doubt the sincerity of those who compiled the information. The thesis of the report is, a disparity exists in health care for Native Americans. The Government has failed in its obligation to provide health care for Indians. More funding for Indian Health Services is the answer to the problem. This is pretty much the conclusion of last year's study, A Quiet Crisis: Federal Funding and Unmet needs in Indian Country. The report contains a lot of information we've read many times before. This year's version gives some pretty convincing information that a considerable amount of Indian health issues are self-inflicted. For example, data indicated that Native Americans are 770 times more likely to die from alcoholism, that the alcohol-related death rate is 5.3 times greater for Native Americans than it is for the general population. It further states that Native Americans have the highest prevalence of Type 2 diabetes in the world and that it is largely preventable, as it is dependent in large measure on life-style choices. My observations tell me that life on the reservation has become increasingly sedentary. There is a visible lack of exercise. Sitting at a slot machine or riding around in a car seem to have replaced the traditional activities such as walking, gardening and playing baseball. While adults are at the casinos, the kids are not being cared for. I'd like to see more programs involving youth in athletics, getting kids off the couch and outside onto the playing field where they'd learn team work, discipline and get some healthy exercise. The draft points out that life style choices contribute to major health problems, but it doesn't offer any specific solutions. It suggests that health status is linked to individual lifestyle choices such as cigarette smoking, heavy alcohol use, diet. It tells us "the Indian Health Service reports that 'lifestyle and behavioral issues contribute to almost 70% of the diseases that occur at a higher rate in Indian Country.' Similarly, the National Healthcare Disparities Report estimates that 'up to 50 percent of health status can be accounted for by health behaviors and only 15 to 20 percent by the health care delivery system.'" However, the report then states that "Other research has found that one's lifestyle and behavioral risks account for only a moderate portion of his or her health status.... The research explained that the increased risk-taking behaviors among Native American males are caused by 'loss of cultural identity, anomie, loss of traditional roles for males, failure of primary socialization, and unresolved grief from historical trauma.'" The report continued to explain that to disregard the "underlying factors [lack of cultural identity and unresolved grief from historical trauma] and simply state that Native Americans make their own decisions on cigarette smoking, alcohol or drug use, and diet could be interpreted as blaming the victim." I agree with the report when it notes that Native Americans are seized with a tremendous sense of hopelessness. I do not doubt that "unresolved grief over historical trauma" could indeed be an issue. However, it seems more to the point that what is causing the hopelessness in the people is the current state of affairs on most, probably all, of the reservations. I fail to see a connection between dispossession of tribal lands 100 years ago and the current levels of alcohol abuse, violence and truancy. I do see disillusioned and dispirited people who are down trodden by their own tribal governments. I do see deprivation of civil rights and lack of a fair and impartial system of justice as problems that contribute immeasurably to the despair that is observable on reservations. Tribal governance is not stable; it doesn't provide a sense of security for its people because the rule of law and equal protection under the law are not paramount. Homelessness, unemployment, poverty, crime, fear and violence are typical on most reservations. I see tribal governments failing to take ownership of the problems, and blaming other entities. I see other problems with the report. I believe the problem was created initially by a paternalistic attitude, fostered and sustained by a very large feeling of guilt on the part of white America to make amends for historic ill treatment of Indian peoples. Through many misguided Indian policies, native initiative and culture was destroyed. An inherent error in most of the Commission's reports is the assertion that the government, because it stripped Native Americans of their ancestral land, is obliged to provide handouts to Indians, forever. That, in my view, is what created the problem. What is wrong with expecting human beings to be responsible for themselves? When individuals are treated as though they are incapable of caring responsibly for themselves, it is no time at all before that in fact happens.

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=21&did=755654581&SrchMode=1&sid=4&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1246257026&clientId=10553&cfc=1




No Trust Doctrine Solvency

Lawrence, 2004This is a good time to talk about my personal history, which I believe is germane to the discussion. Of the five members of my family, only one has ever received services from Indian Health. We have mostly had insurance provided through employment. Our ages are now 83, 81, 77, 69 and 65. We are all eligible for and are on Medicare and therefore will have no future need of Indian Health Service. We have all led active lives, and have moved away from the reservation. None of us has diabetes. I don't hold our example out as being perfect, but life style choices do make a difference. The report errs in its underlying assumption that right action consists of retaining the current reservation system and creating there another microcosm of American society. Support for the concept of tribal sovereignty, as currently practiced, is another misguided theory. Tribal governance is notorious for civil rights abuses, mismanagement of tribal resources, unilateral decision-making, lack of accountability and downright fraud. This situation is as much responsible for the depression found in tribal members as is the "unresolved grief of historic trauma." In fact, I submit that the oppression experienced by tribal members by their own governing bodies is the cause of much of the substance abuse, crime and violence found on the reservations. Members, it is safe to say, feel frustrated and turn to alcohol and drugs to comfort themselves. The poverty and unemployment experienced by members is another debilitating fact of life. Crime, violence and fear are constant in the lives of reservation residents. These factors as much as anything else contribute to the life style choices made and the associated health issues that result. The government created the guardian/ward concept. That may have been appropriate 130 years ago when Native Americans were ignorant of the conventions of Euro-American civilization. That situation has certainly changed. Why then do some continue to insist that we follow premises that have proven fallacious over time? Admittedly, some think they are entitled to be taken care of but many Indian people do not want to be considered wards and have expressed that they want to see that guardian/ward bond broken. What is needed is some out-of-the-box thinking, some brainstorming that will lead us in a new direction. We've been trying the same old, same old solutions for over 100 years, and they simply haven't worked. We've already spent billions of dollars and very little has changed for the better. The Commission offers the same old hat traditional talk. It asserts -- there is a problem! Asks how to solve it and the answer is always the same -- spend more money. The Commission's desire to see enormous increases in federal spending for health care ignores the fact that health care is but one item on a very long list of issues that are in need of resolution. The list includes drug use, educational failures, homelessness, unemployment, poverty, lack of adequate housing, the presence of crime and violence on the reservations. Does it make sense to spend a huge amount on just one component without looking at how all the issues are interrelated? Substantive change can only be accomplished through systemic reform. It's past time that the old archetypes should be replaced with new, improved models. Tribal sovereignty needs to be abandoned or at the least re-invented. Not to do so is to perpetuate a concept that has never been effective. The initial concept behind tribal sovereignty was to provide Native Americans with representative government, assure civil rights, due process and equitable treatment for all. Unfortunately, most of these ideals have never been met. The effect of this has been the oppression of Indian peoples by their own governments, accompanied by wide spread despair and a sense of hopelessness by the governed. Education, the traditional means of creating productive, responsible citizens has been ineffective on the reservation because, on any given school day, half the upper grades of the school population is truant. Unemployment is endemic, poverty is inevitable. Many of the people are immersed in apathy, and have given up on the idea that their lives have meaning, while others are shamelessly helping themselves to tribal largess and enjoying the many benefits of American culture. It is disheartening to see some tribal employees that have huge salaries and unbridled power while the majority of members live in poverty. Is it any wonder that self destructive behavior is the norm rather than the exception on reservations? Tribal officials, noticeably local ones, have a vested interest in continuing to deny civil rights and to assert unregulated power. It is to the advantage of those in tribal power to continue the status quo wherein people have lost the desire to help themselves. An alert, vigilant, self-reliant and self-possessed populace would not abide the abuses that exist in tribal government. The report embraces all the old assumptions. The rhetoric is based on faulty concepts and awash with historic guilt. There is no acknowledgement of or comment on the wrongs that exist on reservations and the effect that has on its residents. There is no mention of the economic and status disparity that exists on many reservations between the 'ins' and the 'others.' These issues absolutely need be recognized and recommendations made to correct the wrongdoing. The draft is unrealistic in its attempt to collect relevant information and make recommendations for the entirety of all Native Americans in this country. They report a total of 560 federally recognized tribes in 35 states. To assume that there can be one comprehensive, legitimate assessment that covers all these entities is not reasonable. One of the more laughable recommendations of the report says: "Indian Health Service and other federal agencies, working in partnership together, should create and implement economic development strategies aimed at increasing tribal economic opportunities. These strategies should be tailored to meet the needs of each individual tribe as identified through tribal consultations and sound research." Imagine the enormity of this challenge. While I sincerely wish it could happen, how in fact could the federal government, with all its agencies, develop an economic development program that would be effective and appropriate for 560 tribes in 35 states? Instead of insisting on more federal dollars (always the easy and often the most unrealistic answer), the Commission would be well advised to create an initiative that would foster the development of future leaders: create and implement a plan for reform of tribal governments, instituting the traditional checks and balances on governmental powers; facilitate constitutional revision and foster court reform. When, and if, reservation residents ever have the security and freedom enjoyed by most of the rest of the nation, they would inevitably and wisely address their own educational, governance and economic development issues. Under that scenario, health care, along with employment, housing and other pertinent societal needs, would begin to be resolved.


Trust Doctrine Bad

The trust doctrine fails: it fails to incorporate the diverse interests of various tribesWood, assistant professor of law at the University of Oregon, 1995(Mary Christina, “Protecting the Attributes of Native Sovereignty: A New Trust Paradigm for Federal Actions Affecting Tribal Lands and Resources”, Utah Law Review 109. EKC)

III. Tribal "Best Interests" at a CrossroadsWhile various sources of law may provide standards from which to develop a more meaningful trust doctrine, any effort to reshape this area of law inevitably encounters a striking modern dilemma as to where the "best interests" of tribes really lie. Virtually any rendition of the "best interests" standard will fail to resonate with every tribe and every tribal member. The modern Indian community encompasses native nations and Indian people with enormously diverse backgrounds, traditions, and beliefs. At the broadest level, Native America reflects a complex mosaic of assimilationist and traditionalist values. n58 This diversity often finds acute expression [*127] in the relationship between Indian people and their lands and renders consensus on appropriate use of lands extremely difficult. The recent vacillation of Mescalero tribal members over whether to accept a nuclear waste repository on their reservation presents a vivid modern-day example of divided native views on the proper use of reservation lands. n59 As Peter Matthiessen has described in his book, Indian Country, n60 the combined pressures of forced assimilation and an encroaching market-based economy have caused a significant part of the Indian population to abandon the traditional land-dependent "Indian way." n61 Yet others hold steadfast to their heritage and age-old belief systems, participating in the dominant culture and society only when absolutely necessary. n62 For them, reservation lands are the enclaves which protect their cultural survival.The tension between the two value systems and the recurring pattern of intratribal divisiveness over land management policies brings into question whether it is even possible to fashion guiding parameters for the trust doctrine, at least in the land management context. As one commentator has noted: [T]he real problem with the fiduciary obligation [toward Indian tribes] . . . suggests a more fundamental difficulty with all of Indian law and policy: no one, not even the Indians themselves, seems to know where the best interests of the Indians as a whole do lie amid the restricted range of options presented by the dominant culture. n63The modern dilemmas mirror a more generalized tension in Indian law between two doctrinal poles: native separatism and assimilation. These two precepts are inherently irreconcilable, yet trust analysis must make a choice between the two as to where the tribal "best interests" lie. Inevitably, that choice will serve as a magnetic pull that guides the development of more precise standards to protect tribal interests.


Trust Doctrine Bad

Cultural preservation efforts for Native Americans leads to racism and morally repugnant treatment of nativesKay, staff writer for the National Post, 2008 (Jonathan, National Post, “The Cruellest fom of Racism” 5-27-09, http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T6875877469&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=26&resultsUrlKey=29_T6875877472&cisb=22_T6875877471&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=10882&docNo=30 7-1-09, WPW)

And so -- following an explicitly racist logic that our society would deem abhorrent in just about any other context -- child services sentenced Gage to a lice-ridden life amidst the anonymous alcoholics traipsing through his paternal grandmother's house; and then with a great-aunt, a former car thief who'd been imprisoned for assault. Gage's bloodline sealed his fate: The day after his second birthday, he died -- allegedly after falling down a flight of stairs. (Gage's sister was immediately removed from the same house, alive but covered in bruises. Some nasty stairs in that house, apparently.) The Winnipeg media covered the story. But otherwise, it didn't get much play: Just one more child victim sacrificed to "native identity In 2007, child-service officials informed Sylvia that Rachel's biological mother and father had gotten their act together, and were now deemed competent to have their child back for extended visits. But there's a problem -- and you can probably guess what it is. Here is the crucial line that appears in Dianne's 2007 case-worker report: "The placement is not of aboriginal ancestry ... which may offer a barrier to the long-term plan for adoption." But what is deeply troubling about her tale is the sheer institutional stupidity and hypocrisy behind it. We live in a society that generally treats racism as a sin beyond pardon. Whole "human rights" agencies are set up with no other function except to extirpate it from our souls (and our magazines). We even are willing to subject ourselves to greater danger in airplanes and inner cities lest an overzealous security guard or policeman cross the line into "racial profiling." Yet when it comes to that one area of life where the stakes are the highest -- the safety and care of a helpless young child -- we throw all that aside and let public officials decide matters of life and death on the basis of pure, unadulterated racism. Cultural purity , apologists of the status quo racist system will answer: The chance to fulfill her DNA-ordained heritage as a member of Canada's First Nations. It's one of those arguments that's supposed to shut up guilty white people. A mere label -- " cultural genocide" -- is enough to convince our politicians that somehow it's people like me and Sylvia who are the true racists. (Last year, I was even publicly accused of advocating a "final solution" against natives just for making the same argument advanced in this article.) How dare we think of living, breathing children when there's a culture to protect?. In another era, white Canadians willingly inflicted untold horrors on natives because we thought our religion, our technological advancement and out race made us their natural superiors. We now know better. And in our zeal to remedy past sins, we've flipped yesterday's racism on its head. The intentions are more noble, but the result is just as unconscionable.

http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T6875877469&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=26&resultsUrlKey=29_T6875877472&cisb=22_T6875877471&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=10882&docNo=30




Trust Doctrine Bad

Cultural preservation efforts for Native Americans leads to racism and morally repugnant treatment of nativesKay, staff writer for the National Post, 2008 (Jonathan, National Post, “The Cruellest fom of Racism” 5-27-09, http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T6875877469&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=26&resultsUrlKey=29_T6875877472&cisb=22_T6875877471&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=10882&docNo=30 7-1-09, WPW)

And so -- following an explicitly racist logic that our society would deem abhorrent in just about any other context -- child services sentenced Gage to a lice-ridden life amidst the anonymous alcoholics traipsing through his paternal grandmother's house; and then with a great-aunt, a former car thief who'd been imprisoned for assault. Gage's bloodline sealed his fate: The day after his second birthday, he died -- allegedly after falling down a flight of stairs. (Gage's sister was immediately removed from the same house, alive but covered in bruises. Some nasty stairs in that house, apparently.) The Winnipeg media covered the story. But otherwise, it didn't get much play: Just one more child victim sacrificed to "native identity In 2007, child-service officials informed Sylvia that Rachel's biological mother and father had gotten their act together, and were now deemed competent to have their child back for extended visits. But there's a problem -- and you can probably guess what it is. Here is the crucial line that appears in Dianne's 2007 case-worker report: "The placement is not of aboriginal ancestry ... which may offer a barrier to the long-term plan for adoption." But what is deeply troubling about her tale is the sheer institutional stupidity and hypocrisy behind it. We live in a society that generally treats racism as a sin beyond pardon. Whole "human rights" agencies are set up with no other function except to extirpate it from our souls (and our magazines). We even are willing to subject ourselves to greater danger in airplanes and inner cities lest an overzealous security guard or policeman cross the line into "racial profiling." Yet when it comes to that one area of life where the stakes are the highest -- the safety and care of a helpless young child -- we throw all that aside and let public officials decide matters of life and death on the basis of pure, unadulterated racism. Cultural purity, apologists of the status quo racist system will answer: The chance to fulfill her DNA-ordained heritage as a member of Canada's First Nations. It's one of those arguments that's supposed to shut up guilty white people. A mere label -- "cultural genocide" -- is enough to convince our politicians that somehow it's people like me and Sylvia who are the true racists. (Last year, I was even publicly accused of advocating a "final solution" against natives just for making the same argument advanced in this article.) How dare we think of living, breathing children when there's a culture to protect?. In another era, white Canadians willingly inflicted untold horrors on natives because we thought our religion, our technological advancement and out race made us their natural superiors. We now know better. And in our zeal to remedy past sins, we've flipped yesterday's racism on its head. The intentions are more noble, but the result is just as unconscionable.





Self-Determination Bad – Secessionism

Self-determination causes secessionismAndersen, Latin America specialist for Freedom House, 1999(Martin Edwin, “Native American rights; State targets indigenous people” The Washington Times, November 25, 1999, p. A19)

Another argument bandied about by the State Department lawyers is that recognizing the right of native peoples to self-determination would confer upon them a right of secession and independent statehood, a move that would be destructive both of the territorial integrity of states and of international order. Not only is the secession argument countered by almost every scholar on the subject, it flies in the face of the fact that "self-determination" is a right of "all peoples," the first right proclaimed in the leading international human rights covenant, already ratified by the United States.

Establishment of a right to self-determination allows nationalists to mobilize secessionist movements internationallyRonald Beiner, Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, 1998, National Self Determination and Secession, p. 166-167

Let’s now transpose the discussion to the problem of putative rights to national self-determination. It is not hard to see how a similar set of considerations apply; how, here too, a sort of leveling effect is at work once one frames one’s moral claims in a rhetoric of rights. Consider, first, the case of a national group like the East Timorese, who have been trampled on by their Indonesian captors, and have had to endure conditions that approach, or that actually constitute, systematic genocide (the plight of Kurds in Northern Iraq would be an equally apt example). One would have to be morally obtuse to an extreme degree not to see the justice of the demand by the East Timorese for self-determination, since they have little or no reason to expect from the Indonesian state any respect for their cultural integrity or even their physical survival. The only way they can be assured of their cultural and physical security is by re-assuming control over their own fate. This example clearly corresponds to the case, in the domain of individual rights, of the prisoner who demands not to receive abusive treatment from his or her gaolers. In both cases, we have a set of claims that possess a profound moral seriousness. But if we grant a universal moral right to self-determination, then groups with a much more frivolous basis for their national claims will borrow the moral authority rightly granted to national groups that are genuinely oppressed. Hence the levelling of moral entitlements: nations that suffer merely symbolic slights from the majority culture; that aspire to what Wayne Nor¬man has referred to as ‘vanity secessions’ that succumb to the demagogic promptings of nationalist entrepreneurs—all of these will presume that they have a moral entitlement no less sacred or inviolable than that of the most oppressed national minority. Here we have a group-rights equivalent to our twinkie glutton to whom the language of rights has yielded the moral high ground. Part of the problem here is the essential universalism of rights claims. The whole point of asserting a rights claim is to identify an aspect of human existence that is so fundamental that its violation, anywhere, at any time, constitutes an affront to human dignity as such. For instance, if we have a right not to be tortured, any instance of torture, anywhere, at any time, is morally intolerable. Applying this logic to the problem of the moral status of nationalities raises a problem, for it puts a moralistic language at the disposal of nationalists everywhere, who, as such, are in the business of playing the ethnic grievances game. This isn’t, of course, to suggest that there aren’t, in various situations, ethnic grievances that are morally serious; in some cases, they are of the utmost moral seriousness. As I suggested above, no reasonable person, I think, could deny the moral claims of the East Timorese or the Iraqi Kurds. But phrasing these moral claims in the universalistic language of rights at the same time equips entrepreneurs of nationality politics whose moral claims are much more dubious—extending even to the absurd ‘Padanian’ project of opportunists in Northem Italy, as we mentioned earlier.



Empirically, recognizing self determination opens the floodgates for secession.Michael Kelly, Director of Legal Research, Writing & Advocacy at Michigan State University's Detroit College of Law, 1999, Drake Law Review http://histpres.mtsu.edu/tncivwar/sources/prewar.pdf (DS)

In the final analysis, the basic axiom is this: the principle of self- determination undermines the sovereignty of the nation-state in which the principle is invoked. Moreover, when some groups are seen to have asserted the principle and successfully achieved internal or external self-determination, other groups, perhaps with less of a claim to it, will assert the principle themselves. Consequently, the old common-law policy argument against "opening the floodgates" is applicable here. However, it may be too late. The world has witnessed such a cascade effect in this decade. Moreover, the principle has re-emerged in a multi-faceted form, making it plausibly applicable to many diverse situations. But widening the definitional umbrella of self-determination like this presents its own dangers: namely, the diminution in value of a workable paradigm and an accompanying decrease in its legitimacy.

Appeals to self determination legitimate secession movements.Patrick Thornberry, Professor of International Law, Keele University, 2000, Operationalizing the Right of Indigenous People to Self Determination, p. 40-41

When indigenous peoples invoke a general concept such as self-determination, they inevitably take on board its non-indigenous dimensions as well as the particular ‘spin’ or adaptation they impart to self-determination for their own uses. Self-determination is a general principle. Indigenous peoples take from it what they can, but it is not in their ‘ownership’. The fact that the principle is universally recognized is also the beginning of a problem, since inevitably the understandings of the wider world press upon the peoples’ understanding of self-determination. This is the difficulty of using general concepts, which were not generated in their dominant contemporary forms by those who claim under them. In its practical expression, self-determination has developed from a state-dominated international legal order, albeit one in which non-state groupings represent an increasingly important presence.6 It is still probably true that for ‘the wider world’, the paradigm case—the ‘image’—of self-determination is accession to independence, to the formation of a new state in the mould of existing ones. The gods in this legal pantheon of self-determination are: the United Nations Charter, Articles 1(2) and 55,8 and Chapters XI and XII;9 and General Assembly Resolutions 1514 (XV) (the Declaration on Colonial Independence), 1541 (XV), and 2625 (XXV) (the Declaration on Friendly Relations).10 There is more ambiguity from the decolonization or post-colonial state perspective about the common Article 1 of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR) and the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), especially since the CCPR’s Human Rights Committee began to insist that it applied to all states internally, and was not simply a measure of external support for the peoples of Namibia, Palestine, and South Africa. It is not surprising if states who perceive or claim that they would be affected by analogous decolonization processes, resist the extension of any such principle, certainly to themselves, and to their neighbours—or even to their enemies, since ‘the Lord makes his sun to rise on the just and the unjust’ alike.



Granting self-determination models globally- leads to world breakupMoore, associate professor of political science at Waterloo University, 1998(Margaret, National Self Determination and Secession, 1998, http://books.google.com/books?id=koLxOs_oz-QC&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=self-determination+conflicts+lead+to+secession&source=bl&ots=OGk0CSvpXs&sig=qkvA_AkhdXS1EsAWpawBuaQAx3g&hl=en&ei=ztBXSrD8DoOosgOMqJyeCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5, accessed 7-10-09, AN)

Another criticism of the principle of national self-determination is that its demonstration effect would be destabilizing for the international state system. The source of concern is the destabilizing effects of a principle, which, it is alleged, could license a secessionist free-for-all and lead to the breakup of most of the world's states. This argument is expressed by Ernest Gellner, in Nations and Nationalism, who claimed that the principle of national self-determination is impractical because there are many potential nations (on his linguistic criterion for determining a potential nation) but only room for a small number of political units.

http://books.google.com/books?id=koLxOs_oz-QC&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=self-determination+conflicts+lead+to+secession&source=bl&ots=OGk0CSvpXs&sig=qkvA_AkhdXS1EsAWpawBuaQAx3g&hl=en&ei=ztBXSrD8DoOosgOMqJyeCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5




A2: Internal Self-Determination Solves

Internal-self determination leads to secession in host countries who give discriminatory governments. Park 06.(JUNGWON PARK. LL.M, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Ph.D Candidate in Public International Law, the London School of Economics. “Integration of Peoples and Minorities: An Approach to the Conceptual Problem of Peoples and Minorities with Reference to Self-determination under International Law.” International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 13: 69–93, 2006.) IS

Kirgis’ approach on self-determination in regard to the possibility of secession by a minority group in a State illustrates that a people of a State have a legal right to representative government, the existence of which does deny the possible right to secession. 46 He bases this on the penultimate paragraph of the Declaration on Friendly Relations bringing a right to secession for minorities from their State of residence. He argues that territorial integrity and political unity could not be impaired by self-determination where the State was conducting itself in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination as described above and “thus possessed of a government representing the whole people belonging to the territory without distinction of any kind”.47 On this basis, however, he maintains that if any State is not providing ‘internal self-determination’ through non-discriminatory representative government, then excluded ethnic, religious or linguistic groups within their State of residence could secede.48 The Supreme Court of Canada in the Quebec Secession case by implication also accepted that where “a people is blocked from the meaningful exercise of its right to self-determination internally”, then it could secede.49 In sum, the ‘consent of the governed’ and ‘true representative quality’ of the government are necessary components to guarantee the right to internal self-determination for minority groups within States. Given that the internal aspect of self-determination requires true representative governance and government without distinction of race, creed or colour, it may be argued when a State precludes effective participation of ethnic minority groups, it denies its people their right to internal self-determination.



We still access our self-determination impacts. Even international modeling of internal-self determination still leads to secession. Estonia and Latvia prove. Park 06.(JUNGWON PARK. LL.M, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Ph.D Candidate in Public International Law, the London School of Economics. “Integration of Peoples and Minorities: An Approach to the Conceptual Problem of Peoples and Minorities with Reference to Self-determination under International Law.” International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 13: 69–93, 2006.) IS

There are doubts, however, as to whether the legitimate interests of ethnic, religious or linguistic groups can be effectively secured under such internal self-determination, even if the normative basis for the protection of minorities may be established in the internal aspect of self-determination. The problem is acute in countries where democratic decisions have led to progressive disenfranchisement of minority groups. Even when the territory is relatively undisputed in terms of possible secessionist movements by minority groups, the question of citizenship for persons belonging to such groups can arise in the context of political participation. Estonia and Latvia in the Baltic region, for instance, who attained independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, have argued that the presence of the ethnic Russians in these republics is a denial of self-determination for all Estonians and Latvians.50

The status of the ethnic Russians in Estonia and Latvia has been the main cause of the conflicts between titular Estonian and Latvian nationals and the Russian populations in Estonia and Latvia. The Baltic States put the question of independence to a referendum as they experienced historical transformation in 1990s. Relying on claims of a right to self-determination, the Balts asserted that if their populations voted for self-governance, then continued rule from Moscow would be impermissible. In Estonia, 78 percent of those who turned out to vote chose independence, while in Latvia the corresponding figure was 74 percent.51 Despite the fact that 30 to 40 percent of the Russians in the Baltic States supported the move to independence, Estonia and Latvia disenfranchised most of their ethnic Russian populations through restrictive citizenship laws.52 It is important to note that both the Balts and the ethnic Russians have relied on the right to self-determination to justify the validity of their own views in the territories of Estonia and Latvia. Ethnic Latvians and Estonians on the one hand, and the ethnic Russians, on the other, both view themselves as victimized minorities.53 Under former Soviet rule, the Baltic peoples experienced discrimination and believed that they were in danger of becoming minorities in their own States. Since independence, they have been determined to safeguard their language, identity, and nationhood.54 As peoples who had managed to free themselves from the yoke of foreign domination, there is no doubt that the titular Estonians and Latvians have the right to self-determination. But the question is if the right to self-determination did grant the Estonians and Latvians the right to pursue their political, economic, social, and cultural development as peoples, are the titular Estonians and Latvians the only peoples with the right to self-determination? Isn’t there any room in the right that could provide the same entitlement to the ethnic Russians who had lived and even actively participated in the Estonian and Latvian independence movements from the former Soviet Union? The case of the status of the Russian stateless persons in Estonia and Latvia illustrates that protection of minorities under internal self-determination is also a problem of how to define the term ‘people’ for the purpose of self-determination. Because even if the democratic character based on ‘representative government’ without distinction of race, creed or colour of a State is required by internal self-determination in the context of a normative basis, what is not clear is what is meant by the ‘people’ who shall enjoy the right to self-determination. The marginal status of the ethnic Russian stateless persons or non-citizens in Estonia and Latvia clearly illustrates that a State can arbitrarily limit the membership of a people as the holders of the right to self-determination, thereby excluding some particular ethic, religious or linguistic groups in the political process in the form of citizenship. The UN Charter was adopted in the name of “We the Peoples . . .” and it recognises, in Article 1(2), the principle of “self-determination of peoples”. Common Article 1 of the 1966 International Human Rights Covenants declares the right of ‘peoples’ to self-determination. In spite of this concern for ‘peoples’ and peoples’ rights, the term ‘people’ has not been authoritatively defined in any of the instruments that employ it.55 As the text of the UN Charter and the traveaux prepatoire provide


little insight into identifying what was meant by the term people, the definition of the term people must be examined by reviewing international practice and making theoretical observations.



Internal self determination inevitably leads to external self determination Klabbers, Professor of Law at the University of Helsinki, 06, (Jan, Human Rights Quarterly, “The Right to be Taken Seriously: Self Determination in International Law”, 2-1-06,http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/human_rights_quarterly/v028/28.1klabbers.html, 7-10-09, WPW)

If this democratic6 appeal is the main attraction of the right to self-determination, its main problem is also wellrecognized: it tends to stimulate instability and disorder. Self-determination, while a beacon of hope to oppressed people, becomes subversive when regarded from other perspectives, eventually favouring a break-up of states over other modes of settlement and co-existence.7 The two sides are intimately connected, so much so that Cassese could diagnose, a few years ago, a built-in ambivalence, positing the following "simple" dynamic:... self-determination is attractive so long as it has not been attained; alternatively, it is attractive so long as it is applied to others. Once realized, enthusiasm dies fast, since henceforth it can only be used to undermine perceived internal and external stability. Indeed, as Martti Koskenniemi has pointed out, there are essentially two versions of self-determination, competing with each other and eventually lapsing into each other. Thereis a "good" version of self-determination which appeals to our democratic instincts and our sense of fairness, and there is a less benign version which appeals to our nationalistic, isolationist, exclusionary instincts. In the end, self determination "both supports and challenges statehood"9, and we are unable to consistently apply a right to self determination precisely because we cannot distinguish, much less choose, between the two.

Self-determination of subgroups is incompatible with state integrityHannum, Associate Professor of International Law at Tufts University, 1993(Hurst, “Rethinking Self-Determination”, Virginia Journal of International Law. EKC)

Where independence is the goal, acceptance of one group's claim to self-determination necessarily implies denial of another group's competing claim of territorial integrity. When a self-determination claim comes from only a portion of the entire population of a state - the latter having already been recognized by the international community as representing its "people" - denial of self-determination to the group n168 can be seen as merely supporting the self-determination of the larger "people." n169 [*42] Secession is not presently recognized as a right under international law, nor does international law prohibit secession.

Subgroups view self-determination as a right, and it leads to secessionHannum, Associate Professor of International Law at Tufts University, 1993(Hurst, “Rethinking Self-Determination”, Virginia Journal of International Law. EKC)

The first might be termed the liberal democratic theory. n174 This theory holds that, since the legitimacy of any government must rest upon the consent of the governed, the governed have the inalienable right to withdraw that consent whenever they wish. A similar position is espoused by individuals identified by Buchheit as "parochialists," who essentially hold that any genuine "self" has the right to determine its own political destiny. n175This power of withdrawal extends not only to rejection of any particular government, but also to rejection of the state itself. Harry Beran has suggested some limits to this power; for example, the group should possess an awareness of itself as a distinct group, have a certain territorial concentration, and be of sufficient size to be an independent political community. n176 The right of self-determination should otherwise be absolute and may be exercised more than once. n177 The possible proliferation of "ministates" and secessionist agitation are viewed simply as unavoidable consequences of true democracy and self-determination. Indeed, while fear of the proliferation of ministates was widespread in the 1960s and 1970s, few such concerns have been voiced lately; there were no objections to the recent admission of San Marino, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Andorra to the United Nations. [*44]



Even internal self-determination leads to secessionism: empirically provenShen, Professor of Law at St. John's University, 2000(Jianming, American University International Law Review, “Sovereignty, Statehood, Self-determination, and the Issue of Taiwan”. EKC)

Since the decolonization process is essentially complete, the principle of self-determination is increasingly used, and often abused, as a tool by sub-groups within States to demonstrate their continued existence as diverse and uniquely different cultures. In the international community consisting of some 200 sovereign States, there are some 3,000 different linguistic groups and 5,000 distinct ethnic minorities. n169Particularly in the post-Cold War era, ethnic, linguistic, religious, or cultural groups within nations reemerge demanding devolution or secession in pursuit of limited or full sovereignty. n170 Examples of such groups invoking self-determination include the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, the plight of the Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, the demands of the Basques in Spain, and those of the Quebecois in Canada. n171 Self-determination was "proclaimed by, and on behalf of, non-state populations as diverse as the Kurds, the Quebecois, the Basques, the Scots, the Palestinians, the East Timorese, and the Tamils." n172

Trust territories seek independence through claims of wanting self-determinationShen, Professor of Law at St. John's University, 2000(Jianming, American University International Law Review, “Sovereignty, Statehood, Self-determination, and the Issue of Taiwan”. EKC)

Self-determination does not require any particular form of government and politics. A former trust territory, for example, might well achieve independence by exercising the right of self-determination, not necessarily through plebiscite, but through the actions and proclamations of local political leaders or organizations that could speak on behalf of the territory or its population.Indeed, self-determination has nothing to do with the degree and form of democracy. Where a "people" is entitled to self-determination, that people, through plebiscite, popular representation [*1149] or even dictatorship, may choose its own form of government free of any external interference. This freedom of choice is in reference to other States. The "people" exercising the right to self-determination is free to determine its own form of government vis-a-vis all other members of the international community. It may choose a "people's republic," a republic, a federation, or a monarchy. The former administering State or any other State may not dictate to such "people" on what to do in that regard.

Self determination leads to secessionMiller, Associate Professor, University of Idaho College of Law, 2007(Russell A., American Indian Law Review, “LANDS, LIBERTIES, AND LEGACIES: INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND INTERNATIONAL LAW: THEORETRICAL APPROACHES TO INTERNATIONAL INDIGENOUS RIGHTS: COLLECTIVE DISCURSIVE DEMOCRACY AS THE INDIGENOUS RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION”, EKC)

For their part, States rightfully counter that self-determination can lead, and in its practice often has led, to secession. n5 They argue that this conflicts with the post-war international legal order's emphasis on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states. n6 States contend that, above all else, the United Nations Charter stands for these principles. n7 States urge that this foundation was reiterated, in response to ever more frequent assertions of a right to self-determination, in the preamble of the General Assembly's 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations, which declared: "any attempt aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and territorial integrity of a State or country or at its political independence is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter." n8

.


Self Determination Bad – Modeling

Self determination leads to war and instability- prefer our empirical evidenceGrant, PhD in Political Studies, 2006 (Andrew J., allacademicresearch.com, “National Self Determination and Secession: East Timor, Eritrea, Aceh, and Cabinda in Comparative Study”, 3-25-2006, http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/9/8/7/9/pages98794/p98794-1.php, 6-29-09, WPW)

Following the end of the Cold War, the so-called triumph of liberal democracy revitalized the international norm of national self-determination and provided justification for the creation of several new states. In the South, East Timor and Eritrea enjoyed United Nations-brokered referendums on independence, and, after turbulent and violent transition periods, achieved formal statehood. As the 1990s unfolded, however, support for self-determination in the North and South receded amid fears that the creation of numerous new states might lead to the outbreak of hostilities and increase instability in the evolving post-Cold War international system. Undeterred, dozens of sub-national territories, such as the Indonesian province of Aceh and the Angolan province of Cabinda, continue to agitate for self-determination and secession despite ever-dimming prospects for achieving de jure statehood.The questions that animate this paper are as follows. What factors enable sub-national independence movements to make a successful claim of national self-determination in the post-Cold War era? Are claims based on shared ethnic identity, colonial treaties, and international law sufficient grounds for national self-determination? Does secession require widespread recognition by and support from the international community? Ultimately, this paper is a unique comparative analysis that seeks to make an important contribution on two fronts. First, this analysis contributes to the literature on contemporary independence movements and improves our understanding of the divergent outcomes in East Timor and Eritrea in comparison to Aceh and Cabinda. Second, and perhaps more importantly, this comparative study has wider implications for other statehood-seeking territorial entities in other parts of the North and South.

Self determination fails because of fears of regional instabilityBose, Professor of international and comparative politics at the London school of Economic and Political science, 2008 (Sumantra, Open democracy, “Kosovo to Kashmir: The self determination debate”, 5-22-09, http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/kosovo-to-kashmir-autonomy-secession-and-democracy, 6-29-09, WPW)

This status-quo proclivity of the international system is not surprising. The most influential member-states of the international system have an obvious interest in not rocking the boat, and this is reflected in the behaviour of international institutions. The international system is apprehensive of encouraging, or seeming to encourage, instability and fractiousness. It is alive to the sensitivities and clout of major states, such as India or China, that contain groups seeking self-determination. It is acutely conscious of the risk of regional destabilisation - the blocked independence aspirations of the Kurds of northern Iraq are a case in point. And it is reluctant to admit new members to the club of sovereign states except in instances of a fait accompli on the ground - such as Bangladesh, Eritrea in the early 1990s, the break-up of the Soviet Union, or the "velvet divorce" of the Czechs and Slovaks.

Self determination fails because of fears of regional instabilityBose, Professor of international and comparative politics at the London school of Economic and Political science, 2008 (Sumantra, Open democracy, “Kosovo to Kashmir: The self determination debate”, 5-22-09, http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/kosovo-to-kashmir-autonomy-secession-and-democracy, 6-29-09, WPW)


http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300090635

http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-iraq/kurdistan_4085.jsp


http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/kosovo-to-kashmir-autonomy-secession-and-democracy

http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300090635




http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/9/8/7/9/pages98794/p98794-1.php


Self Determination Bad – Modeling

Self-determination leads to secession, terrorism, and regional conflicts. Weller 09(Marc Weller. Reader in International Law and International Relations at the University of Cambridge, Fellow of the Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law and Fellow of Hughes Hall. “Settling Self-determination Conflicts: Recent Development.” The European Journal of International Law Vol. 20 no. 1 © EJIL 2009. http://ejil.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/20/1/111) IS

The claim to self-determination often encapsulates the hopes of ethnic peoples and other groups for freedom and independence. It provides a powerful focus for nationalist fervour, and it offers a convenient tool for ethnic entrepreneurs seeking to mobilize populations and fighters in pursuit of a secessionist cause. Indeed, self-determination conflicts are among the most persistent and destructive forms of warfare. Given the structural inequality between an armed self-determination movement and the opposing central government, self-styled ‘national liberation movements’ will at times resort to irregular methods of warfare, possibly including terrorist tactics. Such a campaign may trigger a disproportionate response by the government, at times putting in danger the populations of entire regions. This may lead to profound destabilization of societies placed at risk of disintegration, as can be seen in Sri Lanka or Sudan. And, due to the doctrine of non-intervention, international actors are traditionally hesitant to involve themselves in attempts to bring about a settlement of the conflict. At present, there are about 26 ongoing armed self-determination conflicts. Some are simmering at a lower level of irregular or terrorist violence; others amount to more regular internal armed conflicts, with secessionist groups maintaining control over significant swathes of territory to the exclusion of the central government. In addition to these active conflicts, it is estimated that there are another 55 or so campaigns for self-determination which may turn violent if left unaddressed, with another 15 conflicts considered provisionally settled but at risk of reignition. Self-determination conflicts, therefore, remain highly relevant, as the most recent episode involving Georgia has demonstrated. The powerful force of nationalism or ethnic entrepreneurship does not alone explain the explosive nature of self-determination claims. At the structural level, the very doctrine of self-determination contributes to the fact that, traditionally, few existing or new conflicts were addressed. Instead, such conflicts have often seemed beyond resolution. For the doctrine of self-determination has traditionally been seen as an all-or-nothing proposition. True, self-determination has numerous layers of meaning. This includes a right to democratic participation for individuals which can be derived from the doctrine of self-determination, group rights and certain additional human rights entitlements for minorities, and for indigenous peoples. But at the sharp end, where opposed unilateral secession is concerned, the doctrine in its simplicity and mono-dimensional application has contributed to conflict, rather than helping to resolve it.


Self-determination Bad – Domestic

Self-governance decreases the amount of government funding going to IndiansCarlyle, Ak Chin Indian Community council chairwoman, 06 (Delia M., “Hearing Before the Committee on Indian Affairs United States Senate one Hundred ninth congress second session on oversight hearing on tribal self-governance: obstacles and impediments to expansion of self-government” , Us Government Printing Office, , Sept 20, KEH)

This committee wonders with good reason why self-governance is not more popular around the country, and we need look no further than the tribes which have enthusiastically taken on Federal responsibilities under their self-governance compacts, but have then discovered that the Federal Government is unwilling to live up to its responsibilities under those compacts. The lack of funding for contract support costs, which have been promised under the Indian Self-Determination Act and self- governance compacts leads the list of concerns that I frequently hear from Alaska tribes. I would hope this morning each of the witnesses will address themselves to the question of whether inadequate contract support costs deterred tribes from entering into self-governance compacts. Now, we hear that BIA is giving their employees cost of living increases, but will not fund cost of living increases for tribal employees who perform the same functions under the self-governance compacts. While it is true that tribes can ask the Federal Government to take back the responsibility for delivering programs and services, self-governance is truly a matter of pride. Self-governance tribes will squeeze as much as they can out of a dollar, but more and more I am hearing that there is less and less to squeeze.


Self-Determination Bad – Domestic

Self- governance just adds another layer of bureaucracy to the tribal affairsJourdian, Red Lake band of Chippewa Indians of Minnesota chairman, 06 (Louis, “Hearing Before the Committee on Indian Affairs United States Senate one Hundred ninth congress second session on oversight hearing on tribal self-governance: obstacles and impediments to expansion of self-government” , Us Government Printing Office, , Sept 20, KEH)

One of our biggest problems for my tribe's self-governance program is that the BIA's Office of Self-Governance has become an additional layer of BIA bureaucracy. The problem is that our negotiator is not a local person. The individual is located over 1,000 miles away and three States away in Vancouver, WA. Thus, they do not know the local resources of our area. Another example is that my tribe may need a social worker, teacher, nurse, therapist, or police officer to help implement a self-governance program. Because there are no local resources through the OSG, my tribe has to turn to the BIA agency and/or regional office for administrative and technical support to implement and operate our self-governance programs. This creates several problems. First, there is no local BIA support because of the BIA's agency or regional office lost their technical support person, who was let go or reassigned when OSG took over the program administration. Furthermore, tribes may be stuck in the middle of an OSG and agency regional office turf battle. At times, tribes pay the price for BIA internal strife when an agency office loses personnel and funding to the OSG. The result is that the tribe gets the bureaucratic runaround instead of its questions answered. In addition, technical assistance funding is practically gone. This hurts tribal program development because of the lack of BIA program technical assistance and support. This is especially true for navigating through the complex funding formula process. Besides a lack of adequate funding for tribal programs, a huge problem is getting the available self-governance funding drawn down to my tribe. These funds are already authorized and appropriated, but my tribe gets excuse after excuse from OSG that the BIA central office has not forwarded the funds. For example, in my case, my tribe has not yet received our fiscal year 2004 reservation roads funding. Because of my area's hyper-growth, roadway infrastructure is a major need. From 2004 to the present, we were promised almost $200,000 for road construction from OSG. Based on that information, we planned and negotiated, along with State and local county officials, for a joint roadway project to help alleviate the mass congestion of traffic going through the main road in my village. The road was built, but the funding has yet to come. Therefore, my tribe had to cover the funding gap, which meant that other tribal programs such as meals services to our elders, as well as budget cuts to early childhood development programs, as examples, were used to make up for the self- governance shortfall. Finally, we have recently been informed by OSG that the funding should be available soon, but the amount is less than originally promised. Another glaring problem is the expanded use of administrative hold-backs by the BIA. In short, the BIA central office is not releasing the full amount of authorized and appropriated funds for tribes, and holding back about 5 percent to 10 percent of tribally earmarked funds. This is a direct violation of section 405 of the Interior Appropriations Act, which requires any hold-backs to be approved by the Appropriations Committee. To this date, there has been no such approval. In some cases, the BIA claims that hurricane relief or Cobell litigation fees consumed the funds. In addition, at times we have also been told by staff within the BIA that instead of the funds going to the tribes, those funds were returned to the Treasury. In any case, the funds are not going to tribal programs. As a result, tribes have to cut other much- needed tribal programs to make up for the hold-backs. We offer the following recommendations to hopefully resolve some of these problems. First, positive impact comes simply from the BIA following Federal law and not enabling administrative hold-backs. It seems that streamlining the funding process would be another good start. There are still too many bureaucratic layers involved. It should not take over 2 years to have funds drawn down to my tribe or any other tribe. We rely on the promised self-governance funding and incorporate those funds into our annual budgets. If we do not receive those funds, we have to make cuts from other important tribal programs, which impact our elders, youth, and all our tribal members.


Self-Determination Bad – Domestic

Self-governance causes lack of service programs to NativesJourdian, Red Lake band of Chippewa Indians of Minnesota chairman, 06 (Louis, “Hearing Before the Committee on Indian Affairs United States Senate one Hundred ninth congress second session on oversight hearing on tribal self-governance: obstacles and impediments to expansion of self-government” , Us Government Printing Office, , Sept 20, KEH)

Then, beginning with the devastating $100 million cut to the TPA in fiscal year 1996 when Senator Gorton was an Appropriations Chairman, Red Lake saw in that year alone a sudden reduction of 16 percent to 18 percent in funding for our core service programs, including law enforcement, fire protection, social services and natural resources. That was the year we began self-governance and we have never recovered, what with the mandatory and targeted rescissions and pay cost cuts. No matter how efficient we have become at spending our funds as a result of self-governance authority, we have gone backward because of all the funding cuts and BIA miscalculations of our pay cost increases. Core service funding is less today than 1 decade ago. Contract support has been chronically inadequate and uncontrollable fixed costs have not been funded. It might seem easiest for some tribes to simply revert back to BIA direct service. At least the BIA service providers would get their annual and step pay increases. But is that really in our best interest? Red Lake does not think so. We want to continue on the self-governance path, but we will need your continued help, Mr. Chairman, and that of this committee, to ensure that self-governance tribes are treated fairly by the BIA, by Interior's Budget Office, by OMB and by the appropriators. To that end, we have a couple of requests we have outlined in my written testimony. We suggest a series of questions for you to consider asking the department, and some of them you have asked today; a letter to trigger a GAO investigation of the pay cost debacles at Interior; and a request that you demand that the department immediately provide the Red Lake Band with the pay cost report promised to us by April 1, 2006; and provide us with the funds that should have been given us in prior years and add them to our base funding in future years. We need your help and we need the help of this committee. In closing, Mr. Chairman, the failure to fully fund tribes' uncontrollable costs, especially pay costs, during the last 5 fiscal years, has caused serious and irreparable harm to tribal core service programs. Errors, omissions, and miscalculations on the part of the BIA have compounded this problem. These matters are clearly a disincentive for tribes to continue participating in or to expand their participation in self- governance.

Giving Native Americans complete sovereignty and self-government, hurts outsiders, only a non-domination form of government with the Native Americans will work.Levy, MA and PhD in Politics, professor of political theory, AB, LL.M, 2008(Jacob T. “Self-Determination, Non-Domination, Federalism”, Hypatia, Vol. 23, no. 3, July – September, MEL)

She built on these thoughts and developed an account of s elf-determination as non- domination. Unlike its contrast concept, self-determination as non-interference, self-determination as non-domination could allow affected outsiders to have a voice in the decisions of a self-governing group; outsiders to override those decisions to protect potentially oppressed group members such as women in patriarchal cultures; and intergroup or interjurisdiction demands for resources. The prima facie principle of non-interference in the internal jurisdiction of a self-determining unit may be suspended, then, in order that the common decisions of units be enacted to prevent domination of one of the units by another. Non-interference is also suspended, moreover, in order to prevent some members of a self-determining unit from dominating members internally. The autonomous units that potentially can harm one another by engaging in their own self-regarding activities should participate in a process that decides when such intervention to prevent domination is called for. Promoting self-determination as nondomination , finally, requires providing positive support for units that are weak or poorly resourced, to a level that enables them meaningfully to pursue their way of life, autonomy, and ability to interact with and negotiate with other self-determining units . Young’s paradigmatic case was self-government among indigenous peoples, especially (though not only) American Indians.4 She held that “if we conceptualize a concept of self-determination which responds to the situation and claim of indigenous people, such a concept might serve as a better general paradigm of self-determination” (2006, 63). She was centrally concerned to establish, first, that Indian tribes could be meaningfully “sovereign” without the implication that they would, could, or should establish independent Westphalian states; and second, that recognizing them as sovereign in this manner would not mean the end of obligations to them from the surrounding settler stat e (for example, the United States). She also aimed to show that recognizing sovereignty in indigenous peoples


would not require the balkanization of the world into ever smaller, more homogenous, or more threatening to local minorities mini-states.


Self-Determination Bad – Kurds

A. A US model is the only mechanism by which Kurds can achieve self-determination Middle East Times ’07 (Claude Salhani, “Kurdish Self-determination ‘by All Means’’, December 24, http://www.metimes.com/Politics/2007/12/24/kurdish_self-determination_by_all_means/3979/) (ET)

Geography, history -- and geopolitics -- has not been very kind to the Kurdish people. Geography has spread Kurdistan across Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Armenia. History has only allowed Kurdistan to exist as an independent nation intermittently throughout 'the ages. As a minority in all the lands they ended up in, the Kurds have suffered at the hands of local authorities for refusing to give up their national identity. Possessing a strong sense of nationalism, they have resisted forceful attempts to assimilate into the cultures of the countries they found themselves living in as an accident of history, or rather as a result of Western arrogance and shifting geopolitical alliances. The carving up of the spoils of the Ottoman Empire by France and Great Britain, compliments of the Sykes-Picot agreement and signed toward the close of World War I, placed the Kurds in their respective geographic positions: Roughly 15 million ended up in Turkey where they comprise about 20 percent of the population; in Iran they count over 4.5 million, or 7 percent of the population; and Iraq's Kurds make up about 20 percent of the population, or some 5.5 million people. Those in Syria and Armenia are less significant in numbers, respectively about 1 million (9 percent) and a few thousands in Armenia. In Iraq under Saddam Hussein, entire villages were gassed, bombarded with heavy artillery and mortars, and strafed from above by helicopter gunships. In Iran, hundreds were executed by the Revolutionary Guards. "The history of Iraq has always been very easy to create dictators," Dindar Zebari, chief coordinator for the Kurdistan Regional Government at the United Nations told the Middle East Times. For the longest time Kurds had their language banned and their customs outlawed. It is only recently that the Kurds in Turkey, where the outlawed Kurdish Worker's Party has been fighting a guerrilla war for decades -- that Ankara has authorized Kurds to establish their own radio and television networks. And the Kurdish language is now allowed to be taught in local schools. Yet, Kurds today say they hold no grudges. At least that is the official line from Iraq's Kurds. Zebari told the Middle East Times last week that Kurds need "to forget the past, but the same time take lessons from what has been done." Rejecting notions that the Kurds are looking to reunite by seceding from Iraq and Turkey, in a first step, Zebari told the Middle East Times that "[Iraqi] Kurdistan is part of the Republic of Iraq." "The KRG [Kurdish Regional Government] has joined Iraq after 2003 on a voluntary basis. And together with the rest of the country a referendum has been held. People of the region of Kurdistan voted for three elections. What I'm trying to say here, frankly, is that KRG is part of the republic, part of the state, and any incursion in this state is an incursion on the sovereignty of the state of Iraq. That last statement was aimed at Turkey, whose troops in recent weeks have crossed into Iraqi Kurdistan hot pursuit of PKK fighters who, according to the Turkish government, infiltrate Turkish territory from neighboring Iraq to carry out attacks against Turkish troops and then retreat across the border. Zebari told the Middle East Times that "There are commitments from the international community toward Iraq; commitment by the multinational forces in Iraq. The sky of Iraq and the security of Iraq are in the hands of the multinational forces, which are guided and directed by the Americans." Any license to Turkish intervention will create disagreement and dissatisfaction among public opinion. Kurdistan survived because of the help of the Americans. But since World War I the Kurds have placed their trust in the United States to support their bid for nationhood, only to be sold short. First by the Woodrow Wilson administration after World War I, and more recently by the first President Bush. Will history treat the Kurds any better this time? "[Iraqi] Kurdistan is the only long-term stable area in the region," said Zebari. The KRG has been working hard to make a success of American policy in Iraq. The United States underwent a great change of policy after Sept. 11, 2001. "We believe that the Kurds of Iraq have been a main ally of the United States of America in the war against terror." As for accusations from Ankara that Kurdish Workers Party militants are finding refuge across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan, where they find sympathy among the locals, Zebari had this to say: "The sympathy is not toward the PKK. The sympathy is to the Kurdish aspirations and to the Kurdish community wherever they are," said the Kurdish leader who stressed that the Iraqi Kurdish community supports a peaceful solution both for the Iraqi Kurds and for the Kurds living in Turkey, and even for the Kurds living in Iran. But what exactly are the Kurdish aspirations? They differ from one part to another part. The struggle of the Iraqi Kurds has always been for autonomy, and right now for federalism, and for Iraq to be a stable and democratic state. "The aspiration is self-determination, by all means," Zebari told The Middle East Times.



B. Self determination sparks Kurdish secession and triggers global war.Larison, 04Daniel, a Ph.D. graduate from the University of Chicago, “Kurdistan and Secession” <http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2004/12/27/kurdistan-and-secession/> 3/27/04 Accessed 7/10/09) WBTA

By all liberal democratic theories of self-determination and human rights, virtually no people on earth more deserves its own state than the Kurds. An overwhelming majority desires independence, the Kurds are an identifiable and self-identified ethnicity with a long history in roughly the same territories they have inhabited since their first emergence as a people–the liberal standards of consent and the right to rebel ought to guarantee Kurdish statehood at once, if the democratists were to take their own propaganda seriously. Kurdish secession would nonetheless spark a ruinous series of conflicts, into which the War Party would assuredly pull our country and as many others as it could, and could only lead to the devastation of a Kurdish territory that has enjoyed some of the finest years of peaceful development in its history. Mass nationalist movements of this kind usually lead to bloody insurrection and remain a thorn in the side of all other nations for decades to come. The disasters brought upon Greece by her pursuit of the Megale Idea, the reconquest of all Greek-inhabited lands, would be just as great if an independent Kurdistan were to pursue a similar vision, and everything in the history of Kurdish nationalism suggests that it would. What democratists find again and again, however, is that theories of self-determination and human rights, founded on abstractions and half-baked modern mythology, have very little to do with the real world. If they are at all realistic, they must become rank hypocrites and deny rights even to those who, according to their own standards, are most deserving. That their ideas do not mesh with the real world and must be betrayed frequently in practice while advancing them “in theory” does not appear to them to be a drawback or proof of the falsity of their beliefs. Yet it must be the surest sign that democracy is founded on a series of fantasies, each more improbable and incredible than the least. For its part, the notion of national self-determination is the international equivalent of the anarchist bomb-thrower: it compels a people to sacrifice all that they have and all that they are for the ephemeral prize of an independence that is inevitably only nominal, except for very large states. The suffering Chechen people, victimised by the conflict begun by separatist extremists and escalated by Islamist fanatics, are a testament to the moral villainy of proponents of self-determination. Perhaps, theoretically, some grinding tyranny might justify such rebellion (which was not true in the case of Chechnya), but it is precisely at this moment that the Kurds are the least oppressed that they have ever been. These liberal ideas do not actually embody real justice and they tend on the whole to lead to greater bloodshed, devastation and chaos. It is difficult to think of an occasion in history where the introduction of liberalism has led to less upheaval, instability and violence in a country. Those who may be only mouthing democratist phrases, or who are unconcerned with the means to their democratic utopia, may not be troubled by the ruinous effects of these absurd ideas. Everyone else should be deeply worried at the proliferation of such democratic notions, especially in regions with so many competing claims for territory and power as the Near East, for the consequences for the present century may be terrible, just as mass politics in the last century was a veritable disaster for all established order, traditional society and the life and property of almost every nation.



The international community is currently blocking independence aspirations of the Kurds of northern IraqBose, Sumantra, Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, “Kosovo to Kashmir: the self-determination dilemma,” May 22 2008. http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/kosovo-to-kashmir-autonomy-secession-and-democracy(ET)


U.S. support for self-determination destroys U.S.-Turkey relationsNewsweek, INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL HISTORY, 1/28/2002 “Asian Periodicalsat the IISH” ET

Turkey's nightmare is not that an invasion of Iraq will produce an independent Kurdish state on its southern border. "That's not an option," a senior source close to the military explained. The nightmare is that the Army would be forced to preclude that option by occupying northern Iraq. (With 12 percent of its population Kurdish and having battled a terrorist movement for decades, Turkey believes that Kurdish self-determination even across the border would mean the end of the nation's unitary existence.) There are already contingency plans for such an operation in Ankara. "If there is an American intervention," this source told me, "we would have to watch and see whether the Kurds began rising up in northern Iraq--and they likely will. We would be forced to make sure that once the war ends we are in a military position to affect the political settlement that follows. It's a last resort, but we have to be masters of our own fate." Washington has told Ankara that it supports the principle that Iraq should remain one nation. Many Turkish generals don't believe it. They think that once the war begins, all bets are off. The Iraqi Kurds have been the chief opposition to Saddam Hussein for a decade. Were they to declare independence, the United States would not crush them. We're for self-determination, remember? As a result, Turkey wants assurances that no Afghan-style operation--bombing plus reliance on local forces--will be attempted. (In such a scenario, the Kurds would play the role of the Northern Alliance and thus would become the victors.) A senior military officer observed that if 500,000 American troops were required to evict Saddam from Kuwait, then surely the much larger task of occupying Iraq would require at least as many American troops.



Kurds will turn partial self-determination into a bid for their own state—now is the key time for the US to stabilize the crisisMartin Chulov, November 6, 2006 *Middle East correspondent for The Austrailian* (LexisNexis) (ET)

In Baghdad, the dream of national unity appears to be slipping away, with little that the new Shia-led Government can do to stop it. The Shi'ites have willing benefactors across the border in Iran. And the Kurds will not take a lot of convincing to turn their partial self-determination into an outright bid for a state of their own. Iraq is now at its most delicate phase since Saddam fell. Baghdad and Washington need his sentence to build confidence in a deeply fragmented society, but they know peace requires more than the slaying of a monster. TURKEY'S current military offensive inside northern Iraq has touched off a crisis - one to which several other players in the region have contributed. Although the ultimate responsibility for ending this crisis falls on Turkey, all of the others, including the United States, must do their part to prevent a larger regional conflagration. Turkey's ostensible reason for sending 10,000 troops into the mountainous north of Iraq is to punish the separatist guerrilla group known as the PKK for its terrorist operations and attacks on Turkish soldiers inside Turkey. However, the Kurdish Regional Government in the north of Iraq has charged that Turkey has an ulterior motive: to destabilize that relatively peaceful and prosperous area.

Western oriented Turkey is key to check Russian imperialismZbigniew Brzezinski, Professor of American Foreign Policy at John Hopkins University, 1997, The Grand Chessboard, p. 149-150 ET

In this region, America shares a common interest not only with a stable, pro-Western Turkey but also with Iran and China. A gradual improvement in American-Iranian relations would greatly increase global access to the region and, more specifically, reduce the more immediate threat to Azerbaijan’s survival. China’s growing economic presence in the region and its political stake in the area’s independence are also congruent with America’s interests. China’s backing of Pakistan’s efforts in Afghanistan is also a positive factor, for closer Pakistani-Afghan relations would make international access to Turkmenistan more feasible, thereby helping to reinforce both that state and Uzbekistan (in the event that Kazakstan were to falter). Turkey’s evolution and orientation are likely to be especially decisive for the future of the Caucasian states. If Turkey sustains its path to Europe—and if Europe does not close its doors to Turkey—the states of the Caucasus are also likely to gravitate into the European orbit, a prospect they fervently desire. But if Turkey’s Europeanization grinds to a halt, for either internal or external reasons, then Georgia and Armenia will have no choice but to adapt to Russia’s inclinations. Their future will then become a function of Russia’s own evolving relationship with the expanding Europe, for good or ill.

Russian nationalism leads to global warAriel Cohen, Senior Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation, 1/25/1996, Heritage Foundation Reports(ET)

Much is at stake in Eurasia for the U.S. and its allies. Attempts to restore its empire will doom Russia's transition to a democracy and free-market economy. The ongoing war in Chechnya alone has cost Russia $ 6 billion to date (equal to Russia's IMF and World Bank loans for 1995). Moreover, it has extracted a tremendous price from Russian society. The wars which would be required to restore the Russian empire would prove much more costly not just for Russia and the region, but for peace, world stability, and security. As the former Soviet arsenals are spread throughout the NIS, these conflicts may escalate to include the use of weapons of mass destruction. Scenarios including unauthorized missile launches are especially threatening. Moreover, if successful, a reconstituted Russian empire would become a major destabilizing influence both in Eurasia and throughout the world. It would endanger not only Russia's neighbors, but also the U.S. and its allies in Europe and the Middle East. And, of course, a neo-imperialist Russia could imperil the oil reserves of the Persian Gulf. Domination of the Caucasus would bring Russia closer to the Balkans, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Middle East. Russian imperialists, such as radical nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, have resurrected the old dream of obtaining a warm port on the Indian Ocean. If Russia succeeds in establishing its domination in the south, the threat to Ukraine, Turkey, Iran, and Afganistan will increase. The independence of pro-Western Georgia and Azerbaijan already has been undermined by pressures from the Russian armed forces and covert actions by the intelligence and security services, in addition to which Russian hegemony would make Western political and economic efforts to stave off Islamic militancy more difficult.


Self-Determination Bad – Indonesia

A. U.S. signal for self-determination leads to Indonesian fragmentationRajan Menon, Monroe J. Rathbone Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University, Fall 2001, The National Interest (Lexis-load date September 19, 2001) (ET)

Washington should also declare its support for a unified Indonesia, particularly because prominent Indonesians have accused it of conniving to destroy their country. Growing violence in Indonesia will bring human rights to the forefront of American debates, and properly so. But the mechanical application of the principle of self-determination to so large and important a country will assuredly not curb but increase long-term violence and disorder. The United States should also favor settlements in Aceh and West Papua that offer autonomy and address in bold, convincing ways the economic and social problems that feed separatism in these provinces. It must, as a corollary, convey to nationalists in these regions that it will support devolution, but not secession. This is because the proliferation of mini-states in Southeast Asia and the implosion of its most important country will increase poverty and violence and unsettle the balance of power in ways that may cast a long and dark shadow. The United States should therefore help identify the providers of arms and training to separatists and militias in Indonesia and use its influence to cut the supply. To help stabilize the Indonesian economy, the United States should organize a fund to support the rupiah and coordinate a long-term program to rebuild what is a ravaged country.

B. That leads to massive violenceThe Australian, literary journal, 12/13/2001 http://www.pecc.org/trade/rtas.htm (ET)

The other nightmare scenario is the break-up of Indonesia. The objections to this again are extremely powerful. The process would likely be unimaginably violent, with savage ethnic cleansing all over the archipelago. The TNI would certainly object and come back to the centre of Indonesian politics. And even if all the violence could somehow be avoided the result would likely be one new Brunei, three Bangladeshes and a new Papua New Guinea -- not what you'd call an inspiring prospect.

C. Indonesian collapse would destroy U.S. leadershipRajan Menon, Monroe J. Rathbone Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University, Fall 2001, The National Interest Lexis ET

The consequences of Indonesia's breakup would affect American interests, as well. American energy and raw materials companies (Exxon-Mobil, Texaco, Chevron, Newmont Mining, Conoco and Freeport-McMoRan, among others) operate in Indonesia, particularly in Aceh, Riau, and West Papua, and many of the ships that traverse the Strait of Malacca are American-owned. The United States is also a major trader and investor in East Asia and is to some degree hostage to its fate, especially now that the American economy is slowing. Moreover, if Indonesia fractures, worst-case thinking and preemptive action among its neighbors could upset regional equilibrium and undermine the American strategic canopy in East Asia. The United States has a network of bases and alliances and 100,000 military personnel in the region, and is considered the guarantor of stability by most states-a status it will forfeit if it stands aside as Indonesia falls apart. America's competitors will scrutinize its actions to gauge its resolve and acumen. So will its friends and allies-Australia, Japan, Singapore, Thailand and South Korea-each of whom would be hurt by Indonesia's collapse.

D. US leadership is essential to prevent global nuclear exchange.Zalmay Khalilzad, RAND, The Washington Quarterly, Spring 1995 ET

Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.


Self-Determination Bad - Nationalism

Self determination increases nationalityMikulka, Vaclav, Special reporter for the United Nations, 1995 Succession of States with respect to nationality/Nationality in relation to the succession ET

The right of option was also quite recently envisaged by the Arbitration Commission of the European Community on Yugoslavia. The Arbitration Commission recalled that, by virtue of the right to self-determination, every individual may choose to belong to whatever ethnic, religious or language community he or she wishes. In the Arbitration Commission’s view, one possible consequence of this principle might be for the members of the Serbian population in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia to be recognized under agreements between the Republics as having the nationality of their choice, with all the rights and obligations which that entails with concerned The role of the right of option in the resolution of problems concerning nationality in cases of State succession is closely related to the function that international law attributes to the will of individuals in this field. There is substantial doctrinal support for the conclusion that the Successor State is entitled to extend its nationality to those individuals susceptible of acquiring such nationality by virtue of the change of sovereignty, irrespective of the wishes of those individuals. Nevertheless, the right of option was provided for in a substantial number of international treaties, some of which have been mentioned above. In exceptional cases, this right was granted for a considerable period of time, during which affected individuals enjoyed a kind of dual nationality. For the majority of authors, the right of option can be deduced only from a treaty. Some authors, however, tend to assert the existence of an independent right of option as an attribute of the principle of self-determination.

Nationality leads to State successionMikulka, Vaclav, Special reporter for the United Nations, 1995 Succession of States with respect to nationality/Nationality in relation to the succession ET

The change of nationality resulting from State succession is a matter of great importance because it occurs on a collective basis and has numerous serious consequences for the persons involved. Nationality is a precondition for the exercise of a number of political and civil rights. But this matter also has important implications with respect to the exercise of the sovereign powers of the States concerned, i.e. the successor and Predecessor State. Thus, the employment of alien officials or alien control of natural resources or public utilities after the date of succession of States may constitute a real problem. Moreover, the loss of the nationality of the Predecessor State and the difficulties connected to the acquisition of the nationality of the Successor State may lead to in tragedies.

Nationalism leads to succession.Mikulka, Vaclav, Special reporter for the United Nations, 1995 Succession of States with respect to nationality/Nationality in relation to the succession ET

In the judgement of the Special Rapporteur, for the purposes of the current study of State succession and its impact on nationality of natural and legal persons, it would be appropriate to keep the categories which the Commission adopted for the codification of the law of succession of States in respect of matters other than treaties rather than those it arrived at when considering the topic of succession of States in respect of treaties. The reason for so doing is quite straightforward: during the consideration of the current topic, the question of the continuity or discontinuity of the international personality of the Predecessor State in cases of secession or dissolution of States has direct implications in the area of nationality. The issues which arise in the first case are by nature substantially different from those which arise in the second case. Moreover, there is a need for an additional adjustment to the categories as prepared by the Commission: for cases of uniting of States, a distinction is required between the situation in which a State unites freely with another State, consequently disappearing as a subject of international law, while the other State continues to exist as a subject of international law— “absorption” hypothesis—and the situation in which the two predecessor States unite to form a new subject of international law and therefore both disappear as sovereign States.


Self-Determination Bad – Colonialism

The State department uses domestic policy to promote internationally exploitative “domestic dependent nation” modelFourth World Center for the Study of Indigenous Law and Politics Marc Sills and Glenn Morric, Spring/Summer 1996, Fourth World Bulletin, http://carbon.cudenver.edu/public/fwc/Issue10/fwbtoc.html ET

One of the greatest ironies in US indigenous policy is that it is represented internationally by the State Department, The State Department runs on a teleology that proclaims that Indians should have the right to be "domestic dependent nations" precisely because that is what Indian Policy compels them to be. The reality is that the "domestic dependent Indian nation" is primarily a product of great acts of dispossession, genocide, and other gross violations of human rights which does not actually have indigenous policy under its institutional jurisdiction. US Indian policy emanates from Congress and is implemented by the Interior Department; the State Department has no particular or historical expertise in Indian policy and operates from a great bureaucratic distance in its search for a coherent international indigenous position. State Department representatives are often embarrassingly uninformed or misinformed about the policy that they preach as "exemplary" to the world. State has no experience in the structural conflicts of interest that prevail in Interior, where the Bureau of Indian Affairs is consistently overpowered by institutional competitors like the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, or Office of Surface Mining. State has no real contact with the territorial disputes between the Interior Department and other major executive agencies or the Congress which makes the laws under which Indians are forced to live. State has nothing to do with how multinational corporations are given sweetheart deals that permit them to tear the earth apart on Indian reservations and leave permanent ecological, social and cultural damage in their wake. State has no role in the administration of Indian "health care" or "education" or "social services," among the most impoverished and anomic segment of the entire population ruled by the US government. The State Department runs on a teleology that proclaims that Indians and other indigenous peoples should have the right to be "domestic dependent nations" precisely because that is what Indian Policy compels them to be. The reality is that the "domestic dependent Indian nation" is primarily a product of great acts of dispossession, genocide, and other gross violations of human rights of all categories, including the rights of the individual. If the State Department were serious about the protection of human rights as individual rights, then what explains its silence in cases like that of Leonard Peltier, a most egregious example of how the rights of Indians as individuals are abused by the United States?

The affirmative makes the U.S. more able to export its evil, colonial vision of self determination throughout the worldFourth World Center for the Study of Indigenous Law and Politics Marc Sills and Glenn Morric, Spring/Summer 1996, Fourth World Bulletin, http://carbon.cudenver.edu/public/fwc/Issue10/fwbtoc.html ET

The reticence of the US to extend international law is most clearly evident on the issue of self-determination. Again, the US wants to confine any discussion to a domestic context and offers the distorted definition of self-determination that it has fabricated in US Indian Law for application within a global context. According to the US statement, self-determination "means promoting tribal self-government and autonomy over a broad range of issues." In domestic practice, the US definition of "self-determination" has meant the opportunity for "tribal" governments, as subordinate sovereigns (sometimes referred to as comprador or puppet governments), to expend money that has been allocated (and can as quickly be unallocated) by the federal government. The US brand of domestic "self-determination" is exercised in indigenous territories where the ultimate, overarching title is claimed by the US, contrived through the miraculous "Christian discovery doctrine" which was sanctified through US case law. "Self-determination" in US Indian Policy is deliberately shaped around the British colonial model of "indirect rule." In the US version of "self-determination," indigenous peoples have rights only as "domestic dependent nations," and only to the degree that the "plenary (absolute) power" of the US Congress and the President allows them to exercise those rights. US policy has allowed the government to make solemn international treaties with indigenous nations (sometimes with their consent, but often through coercion), take the benefits of the treaties, and then unilaterally violate or completely abrogate those agreements, without any effective or impartial recourse for the indigenous peoples. The effect has been to create a state enterprise built on stolen land and resources, with the dispossessed peoples condemned to an eternity of internal colonialism. Under US "self-determination" policy, the territorial integrity of every indigenous nation has been violated, every indigenous government has been altered, supplanted or destroyed, every indigenous economy has been subverted, and the cultural integrity of virtually every indigenous nation within the claimed US territory has been assaulted. Now, the US would like to export its version of "self-determination" and indigenous freedom to the rest of the world.


Self Determination Bad – Colonialism

The U.S. uses support of “self-determination” to legitimize its self serving exploitative foreign policyFourth World Center for the Study of Indigenous Law and Politics Marc Sills and Glenn Morric, Spring/Summer 1996, Fourth World Bulletin, http://carbon.cudenver.edu/public/fwc/Issue10/fwbtoc.html (ET)

As explained in the lead article of this issue, there has recently been a major shift in the posture of the United States Government regarding the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the UN Working Group on Indigenous Peoples (UNWGIP). Some have applauded the U.S. awakening in the indigenous-rights arena, replete with its dubious interpretation of the language of "self-determination," as a welcome and positive change. Unfortunately, we are unable to share that optimism. In our view, the position shift should be viewed cautiously as perhaps the latest reflection of a long tradition in U.S. policy, which is characterized by massive contradictions of legal and moral obligations. American Indians, more than any other indigenous peoples, should understand the implications of U.S. posturing on human rights. The possibility or probability that the U.S. will support or promote the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples can and should be measured in relation to the attachment of the U.S. to other, comparable pieces of international legislation on human rights. It should be understood that the Declaration on Indigenous Rights, even when finally concluded, will not create any immediately binding legal obligation on any state, because it is not a treaty. Subsequent to its adoption by the UN General Assembly, the Declaration may eventually be transformed into a Convention, just as the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights was put into force in the form of two competing (or complementary) human-rights covenants, in 1976, but this development will take many years, if it happens at all. Present U.S. support for the Draft Declaration, therefore, can be understood to be virtually risk-free, as far as immediate legal obligations are concerned. More importantly, the United States has consistently refused to participate in international human-rights institutions over the past fifty years. The U.S. Senate, which must ratify all treaties to which the country might become state-party, rejected all opportunities for the U.S. to accede to the 1948 Genocide Convention, until 1986. Similarly, it refused to ratify the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (which codifies that set of human rights expressed in the U.S. Bill of Rights itself), until 1992. Only last year, in 1994, did the Senate ratify the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. But did ratification in these very few cases indicate that the United States would actually abide by the terms of the agreements? No, because whenever the Senate has ratified human-rights treaties, it has appended "provisions" and "reservations" that have made international laws subordinate to the laws of the United States. There is little reason to believe that the treatment of the Declaration on Indigenous Rights will be different. The stated U.S. position should not be regarded as an insignificant policy change in an obscure area of international human-rights discourse, nor should it be viewed in isolation from the evidence of U.S. behavior when indigenous rights are obviously at stake. Rather, the policy statement should be viewed as intimately related to several other important foreign-policy areas that are implicated by past and present indigenous (or "nationality") conflicts around the globe. For example, the U.S. supported a Tibetan rebellion against Chinese occupation in the 1950s and 60s, but when President Nixon decided to play the "China card" against the USSR, in 1972, the Tibetans were abandoned to be slaughtered and exiled by the Chinese Army. Similarly, the U.S. supported Iraqi Kurds in their rebellion against Saddam Hussein, in 1973 (the prelude to the events of the Gulf War in 1991), but when U.S. interests in the region shifted, the Kurds, too, were abandoned to be slaughtered by the thousands. On the other hand, because of the strategic importance of Turkey, the U.S. virtually ignores the fate of Kurds in that country. In another, similar policy contradiction, the U.S. supported and instigated Ukrainian secessionist rebellion against the USSR until 1991, when President Bush strangely attempted to persuade Ukraine not to seek independence, after all (of course, he was too late). Bush's address to the Ukrainians, in which he reversed forty-five years of policy to warn of the "excesses of suicidal nationalism," was labeled his "Chicken Kiev Speech" by New York Times columnist William Safire, marking the first evidence of a major dispute within the ranks of U.S. conservatives on indigenous nationality policy generally and the policy applied toward Russia, in particular. It is difficult to underestimate the cynicism of U.S. policy on human rights. At the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, in July 1993, President Clinton and Secretary of State Christopher swore before the world that the United States was prepared to join the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. That promise could not have been less believable, considering the fact that the ESC Covenant has always been understood as the major human-rights statement of socialist regimes, led by the former USSR, and so it hardly could have been expected ever to gain approval in the Senate. Clinton and Christopher also preached human rights to the Chinese government and threatened to withhold Most-Favored Nation (MFN) trading privileges unless China reformed its behavior according to Western precepts of "democracy" -- and then reversed themselves, when China indicated that it was not about to be pressured on human-rights issues. Meanwhile, within the U.S. itself, indigenous human-rights issues go largely unacknowledged and unaddressed by the public, because of the myth that the U.S. is the world's leader in observance of human rights. This myth probably explains why, though people in western Europe, Russia, and elsewhere are aware that President Clinton has refused to deal with the worldwide campaign to grant clemency to the American Indian political prisoner Leonard Peltier, Americans themselves hardly know his name. The illusion that the U.S. alone is the hegemonic arbiter of good and evil may account for its pursuit of the forced relocation of Diné on the Hopi Partitioned Lands, while it forbids the UNWGIP to discuss that issue, lest the U.S. scuttle that forum.


Self Determination Bad – Colonialism

Moral Imperatives for self-determination empirically re-entrench imperialism and adventurismKagan, Prof. of History and Classics at Yale University, 1983 (Robert, Washington Quarterly, v. 6 no. 1 (ET)

Enemies of the American presence in Vietnam could point to shortcomings of the various governments of South Vietnam as evidence of the impropriety of our involvement there for our policy as justified, to a large extent, on the high moral grounds of national self-determination, that is, helping a people defend its freedom and autonomy against an aggressive communist regime. But if it could be argued that the people we were helping were not free, and that their own government was oppressive, if it suppressed human rights, if Buddhist monks set themselves afire to protest such misdeeds, then how could we explain our actions on grounds other than self-interest, which the critics translated immediately into imperialism? As the war dragged on without victory, Americans grew weary of paying the price in men, money, and the fear that, far from acting on the side of virtue, they were supporting its enemies.

Moral Imperatives for self-determination empirically re-entrench imperialism and adventurismKagan, Prof. of History and Classics at Yale University, 1983 (Robert, Washington Quarterly, v. 6 no. 1 (ET)

Enemies of the American presence in Vietnam could point to shortcomings of the various governments of South Vietnam as evidence of the impropriety of our involvement there for our policy as justified, to a large extent, on the high moral grounds of national self-determination, that is, helping a people defend its freedom and autonomy against an aggressive communist regime. But if it could be argued that the people we were helping were not free, and that their own government was oppressive, if it suppressed human rights, if Buddhist monks set themselves afire to protest such misdeeds, then how could we explain our actions on grounds other than self-interest, which the critics translated immediately into imperialism? As the war dragged on without victory, Americans grew weary of paying the price in men, money, and the fear that, far from acting on the side of virtue, they were supporting its enemies.


Self Determination Bad – Russia-China

U.S. support for self determination angers Russia and ChinaUnited Press International, 7/17/2001

These passages reveal the genuine deep fear, amounting now to virtual paranoia, with which decision makers in Beijing and Moscow regard the Bush administration over the issues of their continued national unity. American policy and opinion-makers scoff at such concerns. But Russians are citizens of a country that lost more than half its population with the disintegration of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. And they have experienced a catastrophic collapse of the standard of living that has already cost millions of lives ever since. China is a nation that endured unimaginable horrors of civil war, national disintegration and foreign invasion in the dark century from 1840, when Britain forced its doors open to huge influxes of opium, to 1949, when Mao Zedong completed the Communist revolution. And only 12 years ago, China's leaders feared their nation was on the verge of disintegration and civil war again, at the time of the enormous pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. From their leadership compound in Beijing, they had fearfully observed the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union after Gorbachev introduced the policies of glasnost, or openness, and they feared their giant nation might split asunder the same way. Since the collapse of communism, Russia has already had to fight two bloody wars to crush Muslim secessionist rebels in the autonomous republic of Chechnya. The vast Russian Federation alone has 300 ethnic minorities still residing within it. So, many Russians believe the specter of national disintegration fanned by deliberate U.S. policies championing democracy and national self-determination is a real one. Most Chinese feel the same way. While U.S. leaders, politicians and diplomats almost uniformly see Taiwan as a gallant little independent offshore island

U.S.-Russian relations are key to prevent nuclear miscalculationSam Nunn, former senator, and Brent Scowcroft, former national security advisor, Boston Globe, 9-13-99 (ET)

First, although we can afford it far better than the Russians, we too have an interest in being freed from the increasingly anachronistic and expensive strategic nuclear forces dictated by the START I agreement (and related congressional requirements that these higher levels be maintained). - Second, we want to do what we can to avoid Russia - which still has a vast nuclear arsenal, but one that is plagued by growing problems - overreacting to our missile defenses in ways that undermine strategic stability and increase the risks of nuclear accident and miscalculation. - Third, although it no longer seems quite so self-evident as it did at the end of the Cold War, we have both a near- term and a longer-term stake in our relationship with Russia. As we have seen on current issues, ranging from the war in Kosovo to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to countries like Iran, even a Russia that is vastly diminished from the Soviet superpower that preoccupied us for a generation can still measurably hurt or help our interests. Strategically, US foreign policy ought to proceed on the premise that while Russia may be down, it is not out: Sooner or later, Russia will again be a great power. We should not yield to the temptation to exploit its short-term weakness at the expense of reaping its enduring enmity , for if we do, then history indicates that our children will pay the price.

A collapse of US-Chinese relations risks multiple scenarios involving nuclear conflictConable, Former Congressmen, Foreign Affairs, Winter 1993 (ET)

The most serious threats to American security and economic interests in Asia include armed conflict with nuclear potential between the two Koreas and between Beijing and Taipei that could lead to economic or military conflict; a re-ignition of the Cambodian conflict; and a botched transition to Beijing's sovereignty in Hong Kong in 1997. None of these problems can be handled effectively without substantial Sino-American cooperation . Constructive relations with Beijing will not assure P.R.C. cooperation in all cases; needlessly bad relations will nearly ensure conflict.


Self Determination Bad – China

Uighurs are on the brink of secession but haven’t seceded yet because they are being faced with assimilation and violence by the Chinese government.UAA, 2007(Uyghur American Association, “China’s Right to Punish Secessionist Activities”, 6/13/07, http://www.uhrp.org/articles/345/1/Chinas-Right-to-Punish-Secessionist-Activists/index.html, DA: 7/10/09, MEL)

Authoritarian states are typically less stable than they appear, and China is no exception. This week's ethnic riots in western Xinjiang province are the deadliest on record since the end of the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s. Until the Chinese government is truly accountable to its citizens -- both the majority Han and other ethnic minorities -- these kinds of deadly uprisings will continue.Sunday's riots started when around 3,000 ethnic Uighurs, including many high-school and college students, gathered to protest ethnically motivated killings in a factory in China's southern Guangdong province. The riots turned violent but, thanks to China's information firewall, no one knows exactly why. State-run media report that Uighurs had attacked Han Chinese and count at least 156 people killed and more than 1,000 injured.Government outlets blamed Uighur "separatists" and labeled U.S.-based Rebiya Kadeer, president of the World Uighur Congress, the "mastermind" of the violence. Ms. Kadeer denies this in an article on a nearby page. Yesterday, thousands of Han Chinese, armed with homemade weapons, swarmed the streets of Urumqi, calling for revenge. Police stopped them with tear gas, but not before they had destroyed some Uighur shops. Other protests and violent outbreaks ripped across the city.China's draconian policies in Xinjiang stem in part from fears that the Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic group who speak a Turkic language, want to secede from China. The province is rich in oil and gas reserves and shares a sensitive border with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Russia (which has tried to foment uprisings in Xinjiang in the past). There are about 10 million Uighurs in Xinjiang.But these fears are no excuse for China's punitive and often violent suppression of the Uighurs. Beijing has poured money into a quasimilitary conglomerate, the "Bingtuan," which runs businesses and large farms in the region. Bingtuan jobs often go to Han Chinese immigrants who receive economic incentives to move west. Meanwhile, a 2006 government policy encourages migration in the opposite direction -- i.e., getting young Uighur men and women to work in coastal factories. The program is designed to get young Uighurs to "integrate" (read: marry) into Han society.

Self-determination efforts within China would result in a global warCallahan, 2002(David, historian, author, founder of Demos think tank, Ph.D in politics from Princeton, Carnegie Corporation of New York, “The Enduring Challenge: Self Determination and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century,” 2002, http://www.carnegie.org/pdf/ethnicconflict.pdf, accessed, 7-10-09, EM)

While the vast majority of China’s 1.2 billion people are Han Chinese, China contains significant ethnic minorities and future self-determination efforts within China could have profoundly destabilizing consequences. Most notably, a serious secessionist bid by Tibet could bring the international community and the United States into conflict with Beijing’s authoritarian government. Currently, no such secessionist bid is on the horizon, and the indigenous population of Tibet continues to grow weaker. However, if China moves in a more democratic direction, it is likely to embolden Tibetan opposition leaders and the situation could deteriorate quickly. Another significant self-determination movement in China is that of the Uighurs, a Muslim people of Turkic ethnicity who live in Xinjiang in Western China (part of an area the Uighurs refer to as Eastern Turkestan or Uighuristan.) Over seven million Uighurs live in China, and they have a long history of resisting Chinese rule; twice, in 1933 and 1944, the Uighurs temporarily constituted an Eastern Turkistan Republic. Over the past decade, protest activities against Chinese rule have been ongoing, and Uighur representatives and human rights groups have complained repeatedly about Chinese repression of Uighurs. Since September 11th, the Chinese government has arrested many Uighurs and closed mosques in Xinjiang, alleging ties between Uighur activists and al-Qaeda.

http://www.carnegie.org/pdf/ethnicconflict.pdf

http://www.uhrp.org/articles/345/1/Chinas-Right-to-Punish-Secessionist-Activists/index.html


Self Determination Bad – China

Uyghur secession triggers a domino effect of multi-ethnic secessions in china. Lufti 04Ahmad Lufti. London-based terrorism analyst. “Uyghur Separatism And China's Crisis Of Credibility In The War On Terror.” Publication: China Brief Volume: 4 Issue: 3. 2004. http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=3624

Uyghur emigre communities around the world support a number of Uyghur political organizations in exile. On the whole, these groups are small, unthreatening, and dispersed in a manner that makes it impossible to speak of a powerful Uyghur movement that could aspire for an independent state. The danger their presence constitutes, from Beijing's standpoint, is that they represent a reminder of the dispute over a territory that holds the strategic key to Central Asia. Additionally, Xinjiang is home to a variety of rich natural resources, including China's largest oil and gas reserves, which makes it a star attraction for foreign investment. Current and future plans include energy pipelines, railways, and major investment projects that may involve further relocations of millions of Han Chinese to Xinjiang to dilute the remaining 40 percent Uyghur presence. The post-Soviet Central Asian states, ruled by Muslim minorities, and the domino effect of disintegration in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia are additional reminders for China that if one part goes, other parts of multi-ethnic China--Tibet included--may follow. Beijing is therefore likely to use any excuse to justify its firm grip over Xinjiang; the War on Terror happens to be a most convenient and timely one. Beijing's policy of Strike-Hard in dealing with Uyghurs in Xinjiang has continued to demonstrate that violence only breeds violence. Militant Uyghur groups that may have received training in Afghanistan stand accused of a long list of attacks throughout the 1990s and beyond. Indeed, the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement appears to have operated in Afghanistan. Others, such as the Turkey-based Organization for Turkistan Freedom is held responsible for numerous attacks against Chinese interests at home and abroad. As Beijing chose to continue ignoring the Uyghurs' legitimate demands for religious freedom and equal opportunities, it was only a matter of time before the adverse effects of such misguided policies would occur.

Economic and political collapse of the PRC triggers a nuclear civil warYee and Storey 2002(Herbert Yee, Professor of Politics and International Relations at the Hong Kong Baptist University, and Ian Storey, Lecturer in Defence Studies at Deakin University, 2002 (The China Threat: Perceptions, Myths and Reality, RoutledgeCurzon, pg 5 bham))

The fourth factor contributing to the perception of a China threat is the fear of political and economic collapse in the PRC, resulting in territorial fragmentation, civil war and waves of refugees pouring into neighbouring countries. Naturally, any or all of these scenarios would have a profoundly negative impact on regional stability. Today the Chinese leadership faces a raft of internal problems, including the increasing political demands of its citizens, a growing population, a shortage of natural resources and a deterioration in the natural environment caused by rapid industrialisation and pollution. These problems are putting a strain on the central government's ability to govern effectively. Political disintegration or a Chinese civil war might result in millions of Chinese refugees seeking asylum in neighbouring countries. Such an unprecedented exodus of refugees from a collapsed PRC would no doubt put a severe strain on the limited resources of China's neighbours. A fragmented China could also result in another nightmare scenario - nuclear weapons falling into the hands of irresponsible local provincial leaders or warlords.'2 From this perspective, a disintegrating China would also pose a threat to its neighbours and the world.

Chinese collapse causes Asian instability and war. Plate 03.(Tom Plate. Professor of Communication Studies, UCLA, “WHY NOT INVADE CHINA?” 30 June 2003. http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/TomPlate2003/06302003.htm ) IS

But imagine a China disintegrating -- on its own, without neo-con or CIA prompting, much less outright military invasion -- because the economy (against all predictions) suddenly collapses. That would knock Asia into chaos. Refugees by the gazillions would head for Indonesia and other poorly border-patrolled places, which don't want them and can't handle them; some in Japan might lick their chops for World War II Redux and look to annex a slice of China. That would send small but successful Singapore and Malaysia -- once Japanese colonies -- into absolute nervous breakdowns. India might make a grab for Tibet, and while it does, Pakistan for Kashmir. Say hello to World War III Asia-style! That's why wise policy encourages Chinese stability, security and economic growth -- the very direction the White House now seems to prefer.

http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/TomPlate2003/06302003.htm


Self Determination Bad – Terrorism/War

Self-determination conflicts could result in international terrorism, or create world-wide wars, empirical examples proveCallahan, 2002(David, historian, author, founder of Demos think tank, Ph.D in politics from Princeton, Carnegie Corporation of New York, “The Enduring Challenge: Self Determination and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century,” 2002, http://www.carnegie.org/pdf/ethnicconflict.pdf, accessed, 7-10-09, EM)

While all ethnic conflicts are tragic, not all equally threaten U.S. national security interests or the stability of the international system. Some ethnic conflicts can rage for years and have only a minor impact outside the country being torn apart. The two-decade civil war in Sri Lanka, for instance, has had little impact on the outside world, even as it has ruined a country and affected the lives of millions of Sri Lankans. In the years ahead, as in years past, ethnic conflicts will greatly differ in their implications for outsiders. At their most dangerous, future ethnic conflicts are likely to pose profound security threats to the United States and important allies. These conflicts may also produce a range of negative spillover affects. The bad things that can arise from ethnic conflicts and threaten outside parties include: Terrorism. Lacking the military capacity for conventional war, minority groups pursuing self-determination often resort to terrorist tactics of warfare —the “weapons of the weak.” Indeed, much of the history of terrorism over the past quarter century reflects ethnic struggle: recent bombings in Israel by Palestinians and, earlier, airplane hijackings by Palestinians during the 1980s; bombings in England by the Irish Republican Army; bombings in Spain by Basque separatists; bombings in India by the Tamil Tigers; and bombings in Russia by Chechen separatists.6 Also, the attacks of September 11th— as well as the earlier attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the U.S. barracks in Saudi Arabia and the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen—can be seen as partly related to an ethnic conflict. Sympathy for the Palestinian cause has been a central hallmark of various Islamic terrorists, including Al-Qaeda. While most terrorist attacks are narrowly targeted, such attacks have a long history of claiming innocent bystanders as their victims, including Americans. With terrorists potentially turning to weapons of mass destruction in future years, the likelihood of wider and more indiscriminate carnage from terrorism related to self determination struggles will grow. Conflict Between Major Powers. Ethnic conflicts that begin at a small level can and do draw in major outside powers. The result can be that internal conflicts produce major tensions and the threat of violence among outside powers. During the 1990s, U.S. and NATO intervention in the Balkans created significant tensions between the U.S. and Russia, which was allied with Serbia. NATO’s intervention in Kosovo also created a major rift in U.S.- Chinese relations when an American bomber accidentally destroyed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. During the 1980s, the civil war in Lebanon drew in Israel, the United States, Syria, France and Great Britain. In the future, a range of simmering hotspots could well explode in ways that produce 7 conflict between major powers. For example, although the probability is low, conflict between ethnic Russians living in the Baltic states (primarily Estonia, and Latvia) and the majority populations in those states, could bring the United States and Russia into direct conflict as Russia moves to defend its people in sovereign countries that have close ties with the United States. Likewise, in Asia, repression of future Tibetan or Uighuran self-determination efforts could trigger clashes between China and outside powers

Self-determination causes endless warNye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor, 09(Joseph S., “The Dark Side of Self-Determination,” Daily News Egypt, 1-11-09, http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18773/dark_side_of_selfdetermination.html, accessed 7-10-09, AJP)

Self-determination has turned out to be an ambiguous moral principle. Woodrow Wilson thought it would solve problems in central Europe in 1919, but it created as many as it solved. Adolf Hitler used the principle to undermine fragile states in the 1930's. Today, with less than 10% of the world's states being homogeneous, treating self-determination as a primary moral principle could have disastrous consequences in many regions. The best hope for the future is to ask what is being determined as well as who determines it. In situations where groups have difficulties living together, it may be possible to allow a degree of autonomy in the determination of internal affairs. Internal self-determination could allow degrees of cultural, economic, and political autonomy similar to that which exists in countries like Switzerland or Belgium. Where such loosening of the bonds is still not enough, it may be possible in some cases to

arrange an amicable divorce, as happened when Czechoslovakia peacefully divided into two sovereign countries in 1993. But absolute demands for self-determination are likely to become a source of endless violence unless handled carefully.

http://www.carnegie.org/pdf/ethnicconflict.pdf


Self Determination Bad – Nuclear War

Self-determination leads to extinctionMack et Al., psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital, 93(John E., Stephen L. Ablon, Daniel Brown, and Edward K., “The Passions of Nationalism and Beyond: Identity and Power in International Relations,” Human Feelings, 1993, p.334, AJP)

Waves of nationalistic passion are not, of course, limited to the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe. They have force in the struggles between Serbs and Croats, Palestinians and Israelis, northern and southern Irish, ethnic French and English Canadians, and Tamil and Sinhalese or Hindus and Sikhs in Sri Lanka and India. The growing power of the drive for self-determination among peoples all over the world and the decline of central political authority are part of a single process that has at its core the human yearning for self-fulfillment. The process offers a great opportunity and at the same time poses terrible dangers for humankind. Opportunity lies in the possibility that new reverence for the lives of individual human beings in an ecologically sustainable and politically secure environment might emerge. Danger resides in the very real chance that hostile passions – aggravated by fear and fueled by the sale of weapons for profit – might lead to Hobbesian chaos, a war of all against all that could, in turn, through the use of nuclear weapons, ultimately lead to extinction of life as we know it.


No Modelling Solvency

Human Rights abuses will continue post-plan, so they can't access their leadership advantage. The Bush administration provesAka, professor of Political Science at Chicago State University, 06(Philip C., “Analyzing U.S. Commitment to Socioeconomic Human Rights.” Akron Law Review, 39: 417, EKC)

The participation in international human rights regime endured only briefly before it came to an abrupt end with the onset of President George W. Bush's war on terrorism, launched in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The attention to human rights by the U.S. and other Western countries during the 1990s was not because these countries committed themselves to a new era marked by the backing of human rights principles with political will and military power; n70 instead, "in reality, it was only an interregnum, made possible because Western militaries had spare capacity and time to do human rights work." n71 The war on terrorism, marked as it is by "indefinite military campaign against terrorists," means that the U.S. has little time and energy - and inclination - for international human rights work. n72 The international human rights movement does not have its headquarters in Washington, so the U.S.'s being entirely absorbed by domestic priorities related to the [*429] war on terror does not and cannot spell an end to the movement. n73 However, "if Washington turns away, the movement loses the one government whose power can be decisive in stopping human rights abuses." n74From a foreign policy standpoint, President Bush's war on terrorism evokes, as Professor Ignatieff thoughtfully points out, the atmosphere of the Cold War. "Then the imperative of countering Soviet and Chinese imperial advances trumped concern for the abuses of authoritarian governments in the Western camp. The new elements in determining American foreign policy is what assets, in terms of bases, intelligence[,] and diplomatic leverage" an ally brings to the table in the war against terrorism. n75 Whereas, under President Ronald Reagan, the international human rights movement "merely risked being unpopular," "in the Bush era, it risks irrelevance." n76 If the Cold War taught any lesson, Ignatieff said, it is that "cozying up to friendly authoritarians is a poor bet in the long term." n77 Therefore, to promote the building of secure states that do not sponsor terrorism, the U.S. "will have to do more than secure base agreements. It will have to pressure these countries to provide basic political rights and due process." n78 Ignatieff advised the international human rights movement "to challenge directly the [U.S. government's] claim that national security trumps human rights. The argument to make is that human rights is the best guarantee of national security." n79 One more danger of the continuing self-insulation of the U.S. from international human rights standards, complicated now by the war on terror, is a possible risk of a reduction in the attractiveness of the U.S. model of development to foreign countries. n80


No Secession Impacts

Secessionism won't happen: the major powers are opposed to it, and everyone knows it.Bose, professor of international and comparative politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, 08(Sumantra, “Kosovo to Kashmir: the Self-Determination Dilemma”, May 22, http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/kosovo-to-kashmir-autonomy-secession-and-democracy. EKC)

The position of the United States and most of its major allies on this matter does not signal the emergence of a more general permissiveness towards self-determination claims among these influential players in the international system (at the other end of the spectrum, Russia's position on Kosovo is determined by the Kremlin's decision to promote a muscular foreign policy in Europe and Eurasia; remote and peripheral Kosovo is merely a pawn in that strategy). So while the Ahtisaari plan describes Kosovo as "a unique case that demands a unique solution", its recommendation of "independence, to be supervised for an initial period by the international community", can be characterised as a nearly unique solution to a not particularly unique case.And that is where the espousal by most of "the west" of Kosovo's independence throws up some troubling questions. During a conversation in Helsinki a few days before the declaration of independence in Pristina, Martti Ahtisaari noted that Kosovo has a compelling moral case for independence, given the escalating mistreatment and injustice suffered by its vast Albanian majority at the hands of an authoritarian Serbian regime between 1989 and 1999. To be sure; but then, don't many other self-determination movements across the world have a similar case? The comment, at once petulant and poignant, of a veteran of the Palestinian national struggle in the wake of 17 February is relevant here: "Kosovo is not better than Palestine." The Israeli-Palestinian impasse can indeed be ended only by an equitable two-state solution, but the vast majority of confrontations between states and self-determination movements in the contemporary world can be assuaged without creating new states. Kashmir, again, is a prime example: there, territorial autonomy combined with internal power-sharing and cross-border institutions linking Indian and Pakistani-administered Kashmir constitutes a necessary and sufficient solution. If only such compromises were to come to pass, the world would be a much more democratic and much more peaceful place.

Secession does not mean statehood and can be peacefulCorlett, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at San Diego State University, 2000(J. Angelo, “Secession and Native Americans,” Peace Review; Mar2000, Vol. 12 Issue 1, p7-14)

Secession is the exercise of the right to self-determination by a political collective. It involves, among other things, the collective's claiming of territory as its own. Secession does not oppose or seek to overthrow the government. Instead, it attempts to break away from its government's authority. As demonstrated in the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, secession need not involve physical violence, though it often leads to violence where severe conflicts arise concerning territorial boundaries or alleged human rights violations.Not all secession movements involve the desire by a collective to become an independent state. In some cases, a collective simply seeks to opt out of the authority of one state and become subject to another state's authority. An example of this would most likely occur should Quebec secede from Canada. The Cree Nation has made it clear that it would under such circumstances secede from Quebec and remain under Canada's authority. Moreover, instead of either forming an independent state or integrating into an existing one, a seceding conglomerate might choose a relationship of free association with an independent state. Nor must secession be justified only in cases where it leads to the formation of a political democracy. As a right to self-determination, the right to secede is one that can be exercised in whole or in part, as the secessionists see fit, in accordance with their own customs and traditions and their own appreciation of their needs. Normatively, secessionists decide for themselves what degree of political autonomy they want to enjoy; they themselves decide what sorts of political relationships, if any, they desire to have with other political units.




US model fails – other violations of sovereignty make our model unsustainablede la Cadena and Starn, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, 2007(Marisol & Orin, Indigenous Experience Today, pp. 168-9)

Especially in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the United States has held itself up as a model nation in its respect for the political rights of minority populations within its borders and its promotion of multiculturalism. It claims to provide a safe haven for its indigenous peoples, offering them ample room to exercise their sovereignty, pursue their rights to self-determination, and achieve a high degree of economic and political autonomy. However, this state model of the political accommodation of tribes in the United States, a model that has received a great deal of international attention, cannot itself accommodate the tribal experiences described in this chapter. Choctaws and doubtless other tribes in the United States continue to experience repeated assaults on their sovereignty, the imposition of unreasonable constraints on their pursuit of self-determination, and attempted and actual seizures of their property. Indigenous peoples would best look elsewhere for an ideal for which to strive.

Status quo model is internal self-determinationAnaya, James J. Lenoir Professor of Human Rights Law and Policy, University of Arizona Rogers College of Law, 2006(S. James, Journal of Law and Policy, “Indian Givers: What Indigenous Peoples Have Contributed to International Human Rights Law” Vol. 22, http://www.wulaw.wustl.edu/Journal/22/p107Anaya.pdf)

In pressing their demands internationally, indigenous peoples have pointedly undermined the premise of the state as the highest and most liberating form of human association. Indigenous peoples are seen, and for the most part see themselves, as different from but not inferior to states. The model that is emerging from the interplay of indigenous demands and the authoritative responses to those demands is one that sees indigenous peoples as simultaneously distinct from, and yet parts of, the states within which they live, as well as part of other units of social and political interaction that might include indigenous federations or transnational associations. Within this model, self-determination is achieved not by independent statehood, but by the consensual development of context-specific arrangements that uphold for indigenous peoples both spheres of autonomy commensurate with relevant cultural patterns and rights of participation in the political processes of the states in which they live.

There is an international norm against secessionism nowAnaya, James J. Lenoir Professor of Human Rights Law and Policy, University of Arizona Rogers College of Law, 2006(S. James, Journal of Law and Policy, “Indian Givers: What Indigenous Peoples Have Contributed to International Human Rights Law” Vol. 22, http://www.wulaw.wustl.edu/Journal/22/p107Anaya.pdf)

A new conception of self-determination is emerging around indigenous peoples’ claim to self-determination that applies to claimants of self-determination across the globe beyond the specific context of indigenous peoples. This new conception of self determination, reflected in the preamble of the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, makes clear that the right affirmed is not the right of indigenous peoples to secede from the states within which they live. Rather, the new conception of selfdetermination recognizes the freedom of individuals and groups to form associations and to collectively pursue their own destinies under conditions of equality within the framework of the states within which they live.



Existing self-determination norms reflect the nuanced interpretation of the 1ACAnaya, James J. Lenoir Professor of Human Rights Law and Policy, University of Arizona Rogers College of Law, 2006(S. James, Journal of Law and Policy, “Indian Givers: What Indigenous Peoples Have Contributed to International Human Rights Law” Vol. 22, http://www.wulaw.wustl.edu/Journal/22/p107Anaya.pdf)

The kind of particular arrangements needed to allow for this conception self-determination will necessarily vary from case to case and adapt to the specific context of individual indigenous groups. For example, the Yanomami of the Amazon region of Brazil and the Navajo people of southwestern United States exist under very different economic, political, and geographic situations; therefore, these groups will necessarily develop different kinds of structures to accommodate their right of self-determination. Nevertheless, the underlying norm reflecting the fundamental right of these groups is the same: it is the right of each one to be in control of its own destiny. This conception of self-determination assumes a more nuanced character by taking into account the interdependencies that exist among and between indigenous communities and the larger societies within which they live. This substantial innovation in the doctrine of self-determination moves beyond the classic understanding of selfdetermination as wedded to a right of independent statehood, and has implications far beyond the context of indigenous peoples.

International law already protects minority rights and provides accomodationAnaya, James J. Lenoir Professor of Human Rights Law and Policy, University of Arizona Rogers College of Law, 2006(S. James, Journal of Law and Policy, “Indian Givers: What Indigenous Peoples Have Contributed to International Human Rights Law” Vol. 22, http://www.wulaw.wustl.edu/Journal/22/p107Anaya.pdf)

There have been significant advances in international law in favor of indigenous peoples over the last two to three decades. These advances are largely the result of indigenous peoples’ own resilient efforts, both domestically and through international channels. Without the resilient efforts by indigenous peoples themselves— people from the grass roots, their leaders, and their elders—these advances would not have occurred. There are two principal frameworks of argument used by advocates in the effort to use international law in favor of indigenous peoples: the states rights framework and the human rights framework. Of these two the human rights framework is that which has yielded the most favorable results for indigenous peoples over the last several decades.

International support for collective rights now – existing human rights regimes solve their impactAnaya, James J. Lenoir Professor of Human Rights Law and Policy, University of Arizona Rogers College of Law, 2006(S. James, Journal of Law and Policy, “Indian Givers: What Indigenous Peoples Have Contributed to International Human Rights Law” Vol. 22, http://www.wulaw.wustl.edu/Journal/22/p107Anaya.pdf)

Indigenous peoples have helped forge new ground within the human rights regime of international law by moving it to embrace collective human rights. Until recently, the focus of the international human rights regime has been almost entirely on the rights of the individual against the state, without much attention to the collective and associational dimensions of human existence beyond the state. Bypassing the individual/state dichotomy of rights and duties, indigenous peoples have claimed and articulated their human rights in terms of group or collective rights. In multiple written and oral statements to international audiences, indigenous leaders and representatives have provided lucid explanations and illustrations, detailing the convincing justifications for collective human rights that have seemingly eluded the academic elite. The international system is increasingly embracing the ideal of collective rights for indigenous peoples and not just the individual rights of members of indigenous communities. In doing so, the international system has acclimated itself to collective rights in a way that has potentially broad implications beyond simply the context of indigenous peoples.



The trend is toward internal accommodationAnaya, James J. Lenoir Professor of Human Rights Law and Policy, University of Arizona Rogers College of Law, 2006(S. James, Journal of Law and Policy, “Indian Givers: What Indigenous Peoples Have Contributed to International Human Rights Law” Vol. 22, http://www.wulaw.wustl.edu/Journal/22/p107Anaya.pdf)

Also relevant is the practice of important international human rights bodies, including the UN Human Rights Committee, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, each of which has referred to indigenous “peoples” as holders or beneficiaries of rights. Although many states have resisted usage of the term “peoples” without the kind of qualifier that appears in the Convention, that resistance generally indicates opposition toward a recognition of indigenous collective rights. The trend that can be seen among states participating in international discussions about indigenous rights is to accord legal entitlements to indigenous peoples as collective entities. This international practice is also consistent with the trend in the domestic laws of virtually every state that admits to having indigenous groups within its borders, including virtually all of the American states.

The trend is against independent statehoodAnaya, James J. Lenoir Professor of Human Rights Law and Policy, University of Arizona Rogers College of Law, 2006(S. James, Journal of Law and Policy, “Indian Givers: What Indigenous Peoples Have Contributed to International Human Rights Law” Vol. 22, http://www.wulaw.wustl.edu/Journal/22/p107Anaya.pdf)

A third, and again related, area of change has to do with the concept of self-determination. Self-determination is affirmed as a principle in the UN Charter and as a right of “all peoples” in the international human rights covenants. Much scholarly effort has gone into trying to explain the meaning of the right of all peoples to self determination as a human right in the context of an international legal order that presumptively upholds the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political unity of states. Typically, self-determination has been understood to mean, in its fullest sense, a right to independent statehood. Hence the central focus of inquiry has been on identifying the necessarily limited universe of groups that are entitled to become independent states if they so chose. A premise underlying this approach is that the state is the highest form of self-determination for cultural or national communities. This premise is of course subject to question, if only because of accelerating developments over the last several decades by which the importance of the state has diminished in light of the growth of both local and transnational spheres of community and authority.

Indigenous groups have abandoned statehood as an alternativeAnaya, James J. Lenoir Professor of Human Rights Law and Policy, University of Arizona Rogers College of Law, 2006(S. James, Journal of Law and Policy, “Indian Givers: What Indigenous Peoples Have Contributed to International Human Rights Law” Vol. 22, http://www.wulaw.wustl.edu/Journal/22/p107Anaya.pdf)

In pressing their demands internationally, indigenous peoples have pointedly undermined the premise of the state as the highest and most liberating form of human association. Indigenous peoples are seen, and for the most part see themselves, as different from but not inferior to states. The model that is emerging from the interplay of indigenous demands and the authoritative responses to those demands is one that sees indigenous peoples as simultaneously distinct from, and yet parts of, the states within which they live, as well as part of other units of social and political interaction that might include indigenous federations or transnational associations. Within this model, self-determination is achieved not by independent statehood, but by the consensual development of context-specific arrangements that uphold for indigenous peoples both spheres of autonomy commensurate with relevant cultural patterns and rights of participation in the political processes of the states in which they live.


Ethnic Conflict Declining

Ethnic warfare is on the decline – all social scientific indicators proveGurr, Ditinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, 2000(Ted Robert, “Ethnic Warfare on the Wane,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 3 pp. 52-64)

The conventional wisdom, of course, is that tribal and nationalist fighting is still rising frighteningly. But in fact, the rash of ethnic warfare peaked in the early 1990s countered, in most regions, by the application of these principles. The brutality of the conflicts in Kosovo, East Timor, and Rwanda and the messiness of the international responses to them obscures the larger shift from confrontation toward accommodation. But the trends are there: a sharp decline in new ethnic wars, the settlement of many old ones, and proactive efforts by states and international organizations to recognize group rights and channel ethnic disputes into conventional politics. In Kosovo and East Timor, intervention was chosen only after other means failed. The fact that the United States, nato, the United Nations, and Australia intervened was itself a testament to the underlying premise that managing ethnic conflict has become an international responsibility. Evidence about the shift toward accommodation comes from tracking some 300 politically active ethnic and religious groups over half a century. The eruption of ethnic warfare in the early 1990s was the culmination of a long-term general trend that began in the 1950s and peaked shortly after the end of the Cold War. The breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia opened the door to new ethnic and national claims, and about a dozen new ethnic wars erupted in the erstwhile Soviet empire between 1988 and 1992. In the southern hemisphere, more than two dozen ethnic wars began or resumed in roughly the same period, most of them not direcdy related to the end of the Cold War period, most of them not directly related to the end of the Cold War. By mid-decade, a strategic shift was under way. Over the course of the 1990s, the number of ethnic groups using violent tactics fell modestly (from 115 to 95). But a more important indicator was the bal ance between escalation and de-escalation: of the 59 armed ethnic conflicts under way in early 1999, 23 were de-escalating, 29 had no short-term trend, and only 7 were escalating?including Kosovo. By the late 1990s, the most common strategy among ethnic groups was not armed conflict but prosaic politics.

Ethnic dissimilation and secessionism is on the decline nowGurr, Ditinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, 2000(Ted Robert, “Ethnic Warfare on the Wane,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 3 pp. 52-64)

Another way of tracking the trends is by timing when new episodes of ethnic and political conflict start. Two-thirds of all new campaigns of protest and rebellion since 1985 began between 1989 and 1993; few have started since. The decline in new protest movements foreshadows a con tinued decline in armed conflict. Recent history shows that ten years of nonviolent political action generally precede the start of a new ethnic re bellion. Since the number of new ethnically based protest campaigns has declined?from a global average often per year in the late 1980s to four per year since 1995?the pool of potential future rebellions is shrinking.



Self-determination movements are waning and conflicts are deescalatingGurr, Ditinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, 2000(Ted Robert, “Ethnic Warfare on the Wane,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 3 pp. 52-64)

The third perspective on the overall trends comes from examining wars of self-determination, such as those in Aceh, Sri Lanka, southern Sudan, and Nagorno-Karabakh. Their protagonists claim the right to their own communally based zones or demand unification with their ethnic kindred across state borders. These wars are among the most deadly and protracted of all ethnic conflicts, and their spillovers have posed the greatest regional security threats of the post-Cold War decade. But they also are being contained. Between 1993 and the beginning of 2000, the number of wars of self-determination has been halved. During; the 1990s, 16 Separatist wars were settled by negotiated peace agreements, and 10 others were checked by cease-fires and ongoing negotiations. Fewer separatist wars are being fought today by my count than at any time since the early 1970s. This steep decline puts the Kosovo rebellion in perspective. The bombings and ambushes by the Kosovo Liberation Army in late 1997 started the only new ethnic war in Europe since 1994.

Self-determination conflicts are declining - the trend is toward accommodation Gurr, Ditinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, 2000(Ted Robert, “Ethnic Warfare on the Wane,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 3 pp. 52-64)

Less visible than the shift toward settling separatist wars is a parallel trend toward accommodating ethnic demands that have not yet escalated into armed conflict. Leaders of ethnic movements appeal to minorities' resentment about rights denied political participation, autonomy, and cultural recognition. In the 1990s, separatists almost always justified such claims by invoking international norms. But minority groups are doing better these days, so such appeals now sometimes fall on deaf ears. Discrimination eased for more than a third of the groups monitored by the Minorities at Risk Project between 1990 and 1998, mainly because governments formally recognized and guaranteed their political and cultural rights. The new democracies of Europe, Asia, and Latin America were especially likely to protect and promote minority rights. Even authoritarian governments were not immune to this trend, especially in Asia. Vietnam and Indonesia both lifted some restrictions on their Chinese minorities, although for reasons that had more to do with improving relations with mainland China and maintaining access to Chinese capital than any newfound fealty to group rights. Still, the overall trend is unmistakable: ethnic conflict is on the wane.

International norms prevent secessionist conflictGurr, Ditinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, 2000(Ted Robert, “Ethnic Warfare on the Wane,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 3 pp. 52-64)

No "invisible hand" guided the global decline in serious ethnic conflict during the 1990s. Rather, it was the result of concerted efforts by a great many people and organizations, including domestic and international peacemakers and some of the antagonists them selves. Relations between ethnic groups and governments changed in the 1990s in ways that suggest that a new regime governing minority-majority relations is being built?a widely held set of principles about how to handle intergroup relations in heteroge neous states, a common repertoire of strategies for handling crises, and an emerging domestic and international consensus on how to respond to ethnic repression and violence. The first and most basic principle of this emerging regime is rec ognizing and actively protecting minority peoples' rights. This means freedom from discrimination based on race, national origin, language, or religion; it also entails institutional remedies that or ganized ethnic groups can use to protect and promote their collective cultural and political interests. A corollary is the right of national peoples to exercise some autonomy within existing states. After all, it follows that if minorities who make up a majority of one region of a multiethnic democracy have the right to protect and promote their collective interests, they should have the right to local or regional self-governance.



The spread of democracy prevents minority rights crackdownsGurr, Ditinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, 2000(Ted Robert, “Ethnic Warfare on the Wane,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 3 pp. 52-64)

Western democracies have taken the lead here. After World War II, the Atlantic democracies emphasized the protection of individuals, but during the early 1990s, Western advocates shifted their emphasis from individual rights to the collective rights of national minorities. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (osce) and the Council of Europe adopted standards in 1990-95 that prohibit forced assimilation and population transfers, endorse autonomy for minorities within existing states, and acknowledge that minority claims are legitimate subjects of international discussion at both U.N. and European regional organizations.

No European ethnic conflictGurr, Ditinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, 2000(Ted Robert, “Ethnic Warfare on the Wane,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 3 pp. 52-64)

Virtually all European democracies have implemented these princi ples. In the first stage of democratization in postcommunist Europe, some ethnic leaders manipulated democracy to stoke nationalist passions at the expense of minorities like the Russians in the Baltics, the Hungarians in Slovakia and Romania, and the Serbs in Croatia. In most of these countries, a combination of diplomatic engagement by European institutions and elections checked the new wave of discrimination. The status of Hungarians in Slovakia and Romania improved markedly in the late 1990s, when old-line communists turned-nationalists were ousted by coalitions that included ethnic parties. European diplomatic initiatives and osce missions helped persuade Baltic nationalists to moderate their treatment of Russians. Croatia's new, more moderate government today promises to respect the minorities that suffered from former President Franjo Tudjman's ultranationalism. That leaves Serbia as the last holdout, and once Slobodan Milosevic's successor takes office, the Serbian government, too, will probably give more than lip service to minority rights.

Accommodation is the normGurr, Ditinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, 2000(Ted Robert, “Ethnic Warfare on the Wane,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 3 pp. 52-64)

If the parties in separatist wars recognize that the costs of accom modation are probably less than the costs of prolonged conflict, it is only a short step to mutual decisions to settle after an initial show of forceful resolve rather than after prolonged warfare. Gagauz and Moldovan nationalists came to such a conclusion in 1992, as did Tuareg rebels and the governments of Mali and Niger in the mid-1990s. Nationalist Serbia became the pariah state and the bombing range of Europe in 1999 precisely because it refused to negotiate with the Kosovars throughout the 1990s and (most immediately) blatantly violated principles about group rights accepted elsewhere in the region.

Global democratic transition solvesGurr, Ditinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, 2000(Ted Robert, “Ethnic Warfare on the Wane,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 3 pp. 52-64)

Protecting collective rights is one of the three elements of the new preferred strategy for managing ethnic heterogeneity. Democracy is another; it provides the institutional means whereby minorities in most societies secure their rights and pursue their collective interests. Of course, other institutional mechanisms can protect groups' interests? take, for example, the communal power-sharing arrangements found in many nondemocratic African states. Nonetheless, European-style democracy is widely held to be the most reliable guarantee of minority rights. It is, after all, inherent in the logic of democratic politics that all peoples in heterogeneous societies should have equal civil and political rights, and democracy also implies resolving civil conflicts by peaceful means.



The trend is toward negotiating self-determination conflictsGurr, Ditinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, 2000(Ted Robert, “Ethnic Warfare on the Wane,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 3 pp. 52-64)

The third element of this new regime is the principle that disputes over self-determination are best settled by negotiation and mutual accommodation. One of democratic Russia's most important but least-noticed achievements has been its negotiation of power-sharing agreements with Tatarstan, Bashkiria, and some 40 other regions in the Russian Federation, only some of which have non-Russian na tionalities. The agreement between Russia proper and Tatarstan went the greatest symbolic distance: strikingly, it actually treated the parties as equals. (This pact could and should have been a model for settling the dispute between Moscow and Chechnya, but Chechen leaders were interested only in total independence.) The principle that serious ethnic disputes should be settled by nego tiation is backed up actively by most major powers, the U.N., and some regional organizations, especially in Europe and Africa. These entities mix diplomacy, mediation, sweeteners, and threats to encourage accommodation. Preventive diplomacy is widely popular?not only because early engagement can be cheaper than belated crisis man agement but because it is the preferred instrument of the new regime. Coercive intervention, as in Kosovo, is the international system's response of last resort to gross violations of human rights and to ethnic wars that threaten regional security.

Great UN involvement and democracy promotion is reducing ethnic conflictGurr, Ditinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, 2000(Ted Robert, “Ethnic Warfare on the Wane,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 3 pp. 52-64)

Four regional and global forces reinforce the trend toward accom modation in mixed societies. First is the active promotion of democratic institutions and practices by the Atlantic democracies. Modern democracies fight one another rarely and temper their repression against internal opponents. Before-and-after comparisons of national and minority peoples in new democracies show that their status usually improves substantially during democratic transitions. A second buttressing factor is engagement by the U.N., regional bodies, and interested nongovernmental organizations on behalf of minority rights. International entities such as the osce, the Council of Europe, the Organization for African Unity, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference have often used diplomacy and mediation to soften their members' policies toward minorities and move ongoing conflicts toward agreement. The Organization of the Islamic Con ference, not usually considered a peacemaker, was for two decades the key international player supporting a negotiated settlement to the Muslim Moros' separatist war in the Philippines.

Ethnic conflicts are too costly – they either burn out or are accommodatedGurr, Ditinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, 2000(Ted Robert, “Ethnic Warfare on the Wane,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 3 pp. 52-64)

Finally, the costs of ethnic conflict have become evident to both governing elites and rebel leaders. The material and social costs of civil war have been bitterly acknowledged in countries where postwar set tlements are taking hold?in Bosnia, the Philippines, Mozambique, and elsewhere. The lesson drawn by outside observers of the mid 1990s war in Chechnya was that the Russian military could not defeat highly motivated guerrillas?remember Afghanistan. But the lesson the protagonists in Chechnya should have learned was that the war was not worth fighting; neither side gained much that could not have been won through negotiations before the Russian tanks rolled. Caution about the likely costs of war and the unlikely chances of victory on either side probably helped check ethnic rebellions else where on Russia's periphery and in most Soviet successor states. Nato's spring 1999 campaign against Serbia conveyed a similar message to other states whose leaders have refused to compromise with ethnic nationalists. The lesson has reached as far as Beijing, where the Kosovo crisis reportedly prompted Communist Party officials to begin drafting alternative policies for dealing with restless Tibetans and Uigur



International norms favor accomodationGurr, Ditinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, 2000(Ted Robert, “Ethnic Warfare on the Wane,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 3 pp. 52-64)

The evolution of good international practices for managing ethnic conflict is one of the signal accomplishments of the first post-Cold War decade. It also has had some unintended consequences. The most obvious is that accommodation of ethnic claims encourages new groups and political entrepreneurs to make similar demands in the hope of gaining concessions and power. Some latecomers are the Cornish in Britain, the Reang tribe in India, and the Mongols in China each of which is now represented by organizations calling for autonomy and more public resources. But the pool of potential ethnic contenders is not infinite, and we have already heard from most of them. Ethnic identity and interest per se do not risk unforeseen ethnic wars; rather, the danger is hegemonic elites who use the state to promote their own people s interests at the expense of others. The "push" of state corruption and minority repression probably will be a more important source of future ethnic wars than the "pull" of opportunity. A less obvious threat is the potential emergence of alternative forms of popular opposition. During the last several decades, the entrepre neurs behind ethnic political movements tapped into a reservoir of resentment about material inequality, political exclusion, and govern ment pr?dation and channeled it to their purposes. They drew on some of the same grievances that once fueled revolutionary movements. In fact, some conflicts are hybrids: ethnic wars when seen through one set of analytic lenses and revolutionary wars when seen through another. Leftists in Guatemala recruited indigenous Mayans to fill the ranks of a revolutionary movement, Jonas Savimbi built his rebel movement through the support of Angolas Mbundu people, and Laurent Kabila led a revolutionary army to Kinshasa made up of Tutsi, Luba, and other disaffected tribal peoples in the eastern Congo. The larger point is that popular support for mass movements is to some degree fungible. All but a few of the Cold Wars socialist move ments failed, discrediting revolutionary rhetoric and action for most of their target audience, the urban and rural poor. Ethnic-national move ments have met greater political success, but their appeal is limited to groups with some prior sense of cultural identity. And since ethnic conflicts tend to end in compromise, disillusionment is inevitable. So the field is open for other forms of mass opposition that may supplant ethnic movements, just as ethnic nationalism in its time preempted most revolutionary movements. Faith, in the form of militant Islam, Chris tianity, or Buddhism, can also motivate mass movements: consider the Falun Gong, a personal and spiritual movement whose persecution by the Chinese government virtually ensures its politicization. Today, class, ethnicity, and faith are the three main alternative sources of mass movements, and class-based and religious movements may well drain away some of the popular support that now energizes ethnic political movements. With a little bit of luck and a great deal of international engagement, ethnic conflict's heyday will belong to the last century? [64] FOREIGN AFFAIRS' Volume 79 No. 3


***Tribal Economy Answers***


No Waste Solvency – Illegal Dumping

Illegal dumping and native entrepreneurs make radioactive genocide inevitable, and kill the health and sovereignty advantages.Brook, Professor at the University of California, Davis MA and PhD in sociology, MA in political science BA in Sociopolitical Economy, 1998 [Daniel, “ENVIRONMENTAL GENOCIDE: NATIVE AMERICANS AND TOXIC WASTE”, AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY, JANUARY P105-109]

Sadly, this may not be the worst environmental hazard on tribal lands. Kevin Grover and Jana Walker try "[t]o set the record straight" by claiming that "the bigger problem is not that the waste industry is beating a path to the tribal door [although it is of course doing so]. Rather, it is the unauthorized and illegal dumping occurring on reservations. For most Indian communities the problem of open dumping on tribal lands is of much greater concern than the remote prospect that a commercial waste disposal facility may be sited on a reservation" (Haner 1994, 107).(3)There are two major categories of people who illegally dump waste on tribal land. They have been called "midnight dumpers" and "native entrepreneurs." Midnight dumpers are corporations and people who secretly dump their wastes on reservations without the permission of tribal governments. Native entrepreneurs are tribal members who contaminate tribal land, without tribal permission, for private profit or personal convenience. Both midnight dumpers and native entrepreneurs threaten Native American tribes in two significant ways: tribal health and safety, and tribal sovereignty.


No Waste Impacts – Safety Measures

Nuclear Deposits Pose no Threat, Smart Negotiations and Parameters Satisfy Safety ConcernsGowda & Easterling, PhD, Professor of Economics & Social Sciences at Indian Institute of Management and PhD, Founder of Community-Based Evaluation, 98 (M. V. Rajeev Gowda & Doug Easterling, Nuclear Waste and Native America: The MRS Siting Exercise, (Summer 1998) http://www.piercelaw.edu/risk/vol9/summer/gowda.pdf, accessed 7-9-09, MND)

The specific level and form of the benefits provided to a host state or tribe would be determined through negotiations with Leroy, subject to congressional approval. Grants could be obtained for such purposes as infrastructure improvement, cleanup of environmental problems, educational assistance programs, economic development, and recreational facilities. Although Leroy acknowledged that theavailability of benefits provided key leverage, he took pains to avoid the perception that he was “buying” the host community. He asserted that “affected stakeholders must satisfy themselves on all conceivable issuesof safety, control, technology, and acceptability.”13 Leroy emphasized the variety of non-monetary incentives available and stressed the importance of fully dealing with safety concerns before discussingeconomic benefits. He guaranteed that: the choice of technology is negotiable. So are oversightcontrols, size and time limitations, operating parameters, fees and facility ownership…. The host will have a powerful, if not controlling, influence on how it proposes to address this national problem. Finally, Leroy recognized the importance of providing communities with the means to investigate and develop their interests in hosting an MRS facility. “Study grants” were offered to allow communities a way to investigate the risks and benefits of hosting an MRS facility without making a committment.

http://www.piercelaw.edu/risk/vol9/summer/gowda.pdf



Nuclear Storage on Federal Lands have federal regulations to keep the waste safe from natives and allow for Natives to make a lot of money:Costello, Staff Writer for Science World,95(Emily, Science World, “Nuclear showdown: would you store nuclear waste in your backyard? A New Mexico Apache tribe says yes! Good idea – or raw deal,?” November 17, 1995, http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Nuclear+showdown:+would+you+store+nuclear+waste+in+your+backyard%3F+A...-a017834528, 7-09-09, KK)

Imagine renting out a piece of your land for $25 million dollars a year. Nice chunk of change, huh? But there's a catch: The renters are a group of nuclear power companies that want to use the land to store nuclear wastes - wastes that remain potentially harmful for thousands of years. Despite the possible risks, members of the Mescalero Apache tribe of New Mexico voted to accept such a deal last winter. Tribal leaders say that storing the nation's nuclear wastes on their land will bring jobs and money to the reservation. But some tribe members and concerned outsiders - including actor Steven Seagal, who is interested in Native-American affairs - say the risks are not worth any price. The tribal leaders, these protesters say, are selling the Mescaleros' "sacred" land and the future of their children just to make money. Do you think the Mescalero tribe should accept the nuclear waste? Read on to learn more about nuclear power and nuclear waste, then debate and decide. NUCLEAR NATION When the first U.S. nuclear power plant was built in 1957, nuclear power was considered exceptionally clean. Unlike power plants that burn fossil fuels (coal and oil) to generate electricity, nuclear power plants don't spew any pollutants into the air. Instead, nuclear plants split atoms - the tiny building blocks of matter - to release enormous amounts of energy. All of the by-products from this process are trapped inside the plant. But nuclear power plants do produce used, or spent, fuel - a type of nuclear waste. Since 1957, U.S. nuclear power plants have generated 28,000 metric tons of spent fuel. That's enough to cover a football field in 3 meters (10 feet) of the extremely dense waste. That may not sound like much. But keep in mind that the atoms in spent fuel, like the atoms used to power the plant, are radioactive. That means their nuclei (centers) are unstable and tend to break apart, or decay. When they decay, they give off radiation: high-energy particles (called alpha and beta particles) and waves of energy (called gamma rays). These particles and rays can damage cells and cause cancer if they get into your body. So, not too many people want nuclear waste anywhere near their homes. $AFE $TORAGE The Mescalero tribe may turn out to be an exception. In 1991, the federal government asked many communities if they would store nuclear wastes temporarily. The Mescalero leaders were interested. But before long, the government decided to concentrate on building a long-term storage facility elsewhere. Realizing it would take the government years to build a long-term facility, the Mescalero leaders took matters into their own hands. They contacted nuclear power companies directly. Now they're trying to work out a $25-million-a-year deal to store nuclear wastes for up to 40 years. According to Mescalero Silas Cochise, the profits will "open doors to better-paying jobs and allow us to deal with our housing and education problems on the reservation." One in three Mescalero adults is unemployed, tribe leaders say; almost half live in poverty. Cochise and the power companies insist that the waste-storage facility will be safe. The waste win be stored in containers made of steel and reinforced concrete. According to Steve Unglesbee of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the dense metal blocks radioactivity. The metal and concrete, he adds, make the containers very unlikely to break open by accident. And even though this facility is being built on a reservation - essentially an independent nation within the state of New Mexico - it has to fully comply with all U.S. government regulations. Those regulations include high security and continuous monitoring for radiation leaks.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Nuclear+showdown:+would+you+store+nuclear+waste+in+your+backyard%3F+A...-a017834528

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Nuclear+showdown:+would+you+store+nuclear+waste+in+your+backyard%3F+A...-a017834528



Technology is making nuclear storage safer and will allow Native Americans to make a lot of money without the risk of death:Wald, Staff writer for the NY Times,06(Matthew L. Wald, Greehaven Press, “Nuclear Waste Can Be Handled Safely,” 2006, http://find.galegroup.com/ovrc/retrieve.do?subjectParam=Locale%2528en%252C%252C%2529%253AFQE%253D%2528su%252CNone%252C15%2529Nuclear%2Bstorage%2524&contentSet=GSRC&sort=Relevance&tabID=T010&sgCurrentPosition=0&subjectAction=DISPLAY_SUBJECTS&prodId=OVRC&searchId=R1&currentPosition=1&userGroupName=gonzagaufoley&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&sgHitCountType=None&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28ke%2CNone%2C15%29Nuclear+storage%24&inPS=true&searchType=BasicSearchForm&displaySubject=&docId=EJ3010220248&docType=GSRC, 7-09-09, KK)

While nuclear waste would be easier to handle in 50 or 100 years, it would still require isolation for several hundred thousand years. But there is every reason to expect that storage technology will improve in the next century. When we decide to permanently dispose of the waste, either after reprocessing or without reprocessing, we may be smarter at metallurgy, geology, and geochemistry than we are now. Today, the basic technology at Yucca is a stainless-steel material called alloy 22, covered with an umbrella of titanium—a "drip shield" against water percolating down through the tunnel roof. That could look as primitive in 100 years as the Wright brothers' 1903 Flyer looks to us in 2004. Or it might simply be obsolete. Space-launch technology could become as reliable as jet airplanes are today, giving us a nearly foolproof way to throw waste into solar orbit. The mysteries of geochemistry might be as transparent as the human genetic code is becoming, which would mean we could say with confidence what kind of package would keep the waste encased for the next few hundred thousand years. Or there might be easier ways to process the waste. For example, particle accelerators, routinely used to make medical isotopes, could provide a means to make the waste more benign. The principle has already been demonstrated experimentally: firing subatomic particles at high-level radioactive waste can change long-lived radioactive materials to short-lived ones. Richard A. Meserve, a former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and now the chairman of a National Academy of Sciences panel on nuclear waste, says this technology, known as transmutation, might become more practical in 100 years. The technology of accelerators has advanced in the last few years, he says, and it is a good bet that it will continue to do so. Some alternative storage technologies may need only a few more years of research and development. One is ceramic packaging. Ceramics have good resistance to radiation and heat, and they don't rust. At the moment, nobody casts ceramics big enough to hold fuel assemblies, which are typically about four meters long. But there is no theoretical limit to the sizes of ceramics; there has simply been no economic incentive to make giant ones. Nor will there be, until the only likely customer for them, the Energy Department, decides that the metal it is shopping for now isn't up to the job. Another alternative calls for mixing waste with ceramics or minerals to form a rock-like material comprising about 20 percent waste. The waste would be chemically bound up in stable materials that are not prone to react with water. With a few decades' grace time, engineers could build samples and test them in harsh environments. But even though the idea has been around for more than 10 years, no one has put serious research money into it, since its only possible American customer, the Energy Department, has been committed to Yucca. That situation shows no sign of change. The Energy Department, following Congress's orders, has so far declined to consider alternatives. Man-Sung Yim, a nuclear researcher at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, argues that some of these technologies are already mature but have been shoved aside in the Energy Department's rush, possibly futile, to open Yucca. "My reading at this point is, people working at the Yucca Mountain project office do not really want to change the design. The more change you bring in, the more delayed the processes," Yim says. "It's a pity, because we could make it better." Central Casking. But the pursuit of the perfect solution (assuming deep geologic disposal even could be perfected) has ignored a realistic solution. And when the perfect fails, as now seems likely, we will be left with something no rational person would have chosen: waste sites scattered from coast to coast, in places where reactors used to be, each with its own security force, maintenance crew, and exclusion zone. "We're here to run a business as efficiently as possible," says John Sanchez, the project manager who oversaw the planning for the pad at Indian Point when he worked at Consolidated Edison, the site's former owner. "In a perfect

http://find.galegroup.com/ovrc/retrieve.do?subjectParam=Locale%2528en%252C%252C%2529%253AFQE%253D%2528su%252CNone%252C15%2529Nuclear%2Bstorage%2524&contentSet=GSRC&sort=Relevance&tabID=T010&sgCurrentPosition=0&subjectAction=DISPLAY_SUBJECTS&prodId=OVRC&searchId=R1&currentPosition=1&userGroupName=gonzagaufoley&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&sgHitCountType=None&qrySerId=Locale(en%2C%2C)%3AFQE%3D(ke%2CNone%2C15)Nuclear+storage$&inPS=true&searchType=BasicSearchForm&displaySubject=&docId=EJ3010220248&docType=GSRC




world, you would not have 60 of anything, if you could have one." But after 20 years of pursuing geologic disposal, and 15


Waste Good – Tribal Economies

Waste dumping is an optimal way for Natives to make money, and it solves dependence on the federal government - they freely choose to accept the waste. It has no health risks for Natives, it's safer than Yucca Mountain, and provides funding to create health and education programs. They can also appease the earth, solving environmental impactsJones, Ph.D and director of the Bauu Institute and Press 07(Peter N., “Nuclear Waste Dump on American Indian land in Utah?”, Indigenous People's Issues Today, 6/20, EKC)

Sometimes I'm accused of being a romantic. People have commented that indigenous peoples are not always peaceful, harmonious with their environment, socially responsible, and so on. I agree. You could almost categorize me as being cynical, but that would leave me (and most others) with little options for affecting change in the world - a position that I would like to believe is incorrect.So, after I posted yesterday about the uranium mining in South Dakota, I get to post today about the opposite side of the nuclear debate. With the development of nuclear energy, the spent nuclear reactor rods need to be disposed of. Well, were else than on indigenous people's land? I'm not a big fan of this alternative, but in the case below, the Goshute tribe of Utah has actually requested that they receive the nuclear reactor waste. Why? So they can make some money (actually quite a bit) and perhaps better their people. If you have never been out to the Goshute Skull Valley area, it is quite beautiful in the typical Great Basin way: sparse vegetation, open stretches of land, few people, and a peaceful silence like few places left in America. In fact, it is one of the more beautiful places out there, but sadly, there is no way to make a living out there. For the Goshute, their options are few: either move away from family, land, and culture to the city, or stay in the area and live in poverty on government checks.Well, the Goshute tribal leaders came up with their own solution to bettering themselves. Accept nuclear waste. Of course, they won't just be dumping the waste all over the top-soil. No, rather it will be buried deep in the earth in accordance with strict nuclear waste disposal guidelines. I'm not one to judge the regulations about how safe it is to dispose of nuclear waste in the area. It seems safer than Yucca Mountain. Further, it gives the Goshute people a way to bring money to the reservation and potentially create health programs, educational programs, and the like. So, what is one to do? I'm in favor of the environment. I'm in favor of planet earth. I'm in favor of giving indigenous peoples an equal voice. I'm in favor of alternative energy. Should I fight this? Well, I may not agree with it, but at least this is the Goshute doing it for themselves. It's not like some big nation-state government or giant multinational corporation is forcing them to take the waste (as would have happened at Yucca Mountain). I say let them have it. If nothing else, they may actually be able to work with the spirits of the place so that the waste is accepted by the land and slowly (I'm talking millions of years here) become incorporated back into mother earth.

Tribes have control over dumping on their lands – empirically provenAmbler, editor of the Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education, 1991(Marjane. On the Reservations: No Haste, No Waste. Planning 57(11): 26-29. EKC)

In the late 1980s Congress gave Native Americans the authority to adopt their own standards and regulations and to make contracts with the EPA controlling waste dumping on Indian lands. Tribes such as the Umatilla in Oregon, the Sioux in South Dakota, the Kaibab-Paiute in Arizona, the Kaw in Oklahoma, and the Choctaw in Mississippi have rejected proposals to place solid and hazardous waste landfills on the reservations. Their ability to regulate the use of reservation lands has enabled them to work with county planning boards and state and federal agencies to influence environmental decisions which benefit the tribes.



Radioactive waste dumping sites help American Indian economiesPizac, 2005(Douglas, C., Associated Press writer, The New York Times, “U.S. Panel Backs Nuclear Dump On Reservation in Utah,”9-10-05, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A03EFD81331F933A2575AC0A9639C8B63, accessed 7-9-09 EM)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission authorized a license on Friday for a private company to build a nuclear waste storage plant on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah, rejecting the state's argument that the site was too dangerous. Utah officials vowed to fight the decision, with Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. immediately declaring that he would challenge it in the courts. Representatives of the impoverished Goshute band, who have eagerly courted the dump as a boon to their economy, did not immediately respond to a call or e-mail seeking comment. A group of utilities, Private Fuel Storage, wants to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel at the site, about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The plant would be temporary, lasting until the opening of a national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Utah officials have argued that the temporary plant would be too close to Salt Lake City and that there is too great a risk that a jet fighter from nearby Hill Air Force Base would crash into the storage casks. But in a meeting that lasted about two minutes, commissioners dismissed the argument on Friday, affirming an earlier ruling that the waste containers would not release an unacceptable amount of radiation if a jet crashed into them. Then the panel voted, 3 to 1, to authorize its staff to issue the license. Governor Huntsman said in a statement that he was ''deeply disappointed'' in the commission's decision. ''This is a battle that will take several years to fight to completion,'' he said, ''but it is also a battle that I intend to win.'' The state's senior senator, Orrin G. Hatch, like the governor a Republican, said the plan was ''dead on arrival.'' ''This is a reckless, dangerous proposal,'' Mr. Hatch said, ''and I am pulling out all the stops to make sure this waste never makes a home in Utah.'' Leaders of the Utah Congressional delegation asked Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton to help block the plan, which still requires permits from two agencies within her department: the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Land Management.

American Indians want to use their land for nuclear waste storageGorman, 2002(Tom, Los Angeles Times Staff writer, Los Angeles Times, “Tribe Offers Up Its Land to Store Nuclear Waste,”5-29-02, http://articles.latimes.com/2002/may/29/nation/na-nuclear29, accessed 7-9-09, EM)

SKULL VALLEY, Utah — They're only a few dozen adults, these Goshute Indians who call this lonesome range land home, but they've whipped Utah into a fit with their get-rich plan to store the nation's nuclear waste. The tribe, with 70 mostly poor adults, hopes to make tens of millions of dollars by storing 40,000 tons of highly radioactive waste from eight utility companies. The waste would be kept on their reservation here, 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, until a permanent depository is built, most likely at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The Indians' deal with the utilities needs only the blessing of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which infuriates Utah's leaders. They complain that the whole state would be imperiled for the financial benefit of a tiny tribe over which they have no regulatory control. The tribe argues that its reservation, where 25 members live, is better suited for storing nuclear waste than for farming. It was once described by Mark Twain as a rocky and repulsive wasteland. "We were given the land to use--and this is how we want to use it," said Tribal Chairman Leon Bear, 46, a onetime security guard. The state has filed multiple lawsuits, contesting the NRC's right to license a private storage facility and the utilities' creation of a private company that shields them from liability should something go wrong. It has seized control of the two-lane Skull Valley Road leading to the reservation and banned the transportation of radioactive waste on it. And it's supporting federal legislation that would prevent the utilities from constructing a 30-mile-long rail line to convey the waste to the reservation. "I have one focus these days--to stop the storage facility from being licensed," said Gov. Mike Leavitt. "We don't produce nuclear waste, and we refuse to store it for those who do." The utilities have filed their own lawsuits to defend the plan. The dispute--a recurrent one in the West where Indian lands are plentiful--derives from the special status Indian tribes were granted by treaties they signed in the 19th century. Theoretically, they were regarded as sovereign nations, the equal of the United States, with absolute control over their land. That independence has been eroded over time and they are ultimately subordinate to the federal government, but they have maintained independence from most state and local government regulation.

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/may/29/nation/na-nuclear29

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A03EFD81331F933A2575AC0A9639C8B63



Native communities welcome nuclear repositories which boost the economy and the benefits far outweigh the risks.

James Lovelock, University of Oxford , 2004.[“NUCLEAR POWER IS THE ONLY GREEN SOLUTION” INDEPENDENT, MAY 24 HTTP://WWW.JAMESLOVELOCK.ORG/PAGE11.HTML] WBTA

Now, several Native groups in North America, including the Mescalero Apaches of the south-west U.S., have closely examined the nuclear waste disposal issues, consulted their people and decided to take advantage of this window of opportunity before others recognize the outrageously generous rewards for little work and practically no risk. They are considering offering reservation land as an interim repository to at least 30 utilities with whom they are negotiating. They see the jobs in engineering and health physics, and financial rewards and economic prosperity that far outweigh the small risks of managing such wastes with the available technology. The risks of being poor, without jobs or future prospects (stress, alcoholism, general ill-health, tuberculosis, substance abuse, violence, suicide), are thousands of times more detrimental to them than any risk from nuclear waste disposal, and all could be countered by increased prosperity and education that comes with wealth. Additionally, the Meadow Lake Tribal Council in Saskatchewan representing 8,000 natives have also examined the issue, the costs, the benefits and the minuscule risks, and decided that there are up to billions of dollars to be made, over hundreds of years, just for offering a permanent repository and looking after something that poses little more than a public relations problem. Of course, various so-called environmental groups are climbing all over them to try and stir up tribal fears in order to sink the negotiations in the only way they know how – Distort the facts, and terrify them as much as possible! A majority (about 72%!) of the residents of the nuclear community of Blind River, Ontario, voted recently to become the first Canadian municipality to offer to take radioactive waste. They know that the benefits far outweigh any risks, and have sufficient education and knowledge of the industry to be able to evaluate the risks.



Storing nuclear waste on American Indian reservations would help the tribal economies, provide jobs, and bring more people to the areaWald, 1999(Matthew, L., New York Times writer, The New York Times, “Tribe in Utah Fights for Nuclear Waste Dump,”4-18-1999, http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/18/us/tribe-in-utah-fights-for-nuclear-waste-dump.html?pagewanted=all, accessed 7-9-0, EM)

The desert here is silent, but for birdsong and wind. The vegetation is springtime green, the mountaintops covered with snow for the next month or so, and all is still except for the jack rabbits, hawks and occasional antelope, and a rare car on the two-lane blacktop road. But this is a rough neighborhood, environmentally speaking. Behind the Stansbury mountains, which are the only source of potable water here, the Deseret Chemical Depot holds half the nation's chemical weapons and an incinerator. To the north, a magnesium factory has let clouds of chlorine gas loose into the reservation's air. To the northwest, a private company buries low-level nuclear waste under a license obtained after the operator gave gold coins and a condominium to a state environmental regulator. Three sites nearby store toxic chemicals. To the southwest, the Army tests protective gear for chemical and biological warfare at the Dugway Proving Ground. And to the west, the Air Force trains F-16 pilots, who sometimes crash. The reservation could also provide storage for more than half the nation's civilian nuclear waste, says the tiny Skull Valley Band of the Goshute. The tribe has signed a 50-year lease with eight electric companies, led by Northern States Power Company of Minnesota and including Consolidated Edison Company of New York, to use 840 of the reservation's 18,000 acres for storage. The tribal chairman, Leon D. Bear, argues that the project is safe and that his tribe is using its last asset, its land, to assure its preservation. But Governor Michael O. Leavitt, who grew up downwind of atmospheric nuclear tests, says he will do whatever it takes to stop the plan. ''I have seen with my eyes the effects of radioactive material,'' Governor Leavitt said. ''I had friends in childhood die, farmers lose herds of sheep only to be told by the Federal Government, it must have been something they ate.'' The Skull Valley Band has about 120 members ( depending on who is counting), half of them adults, but only 24 people live here, about 50 miles west of Salt Lake City. Nuclear waste could bring the others back, Mr. Bear said. ''It's because of the economics, that's why people left,'' he said. ''There's nothing there for them.'' The waste storage site, which would be a concrete pad covered with concrete silos, surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, would produce 40 or 50 permanent jobs, Mr. Bear said, for guards, technicians and administrative workers. Today, a plant on the reservation that tests rocket motors employs a few tribal members as security guards. A tribally owned convenience store sells gas, six kinds of beef jerky and beaded knickknacks, but most of its shelves are empty. The ''village'' area, overlooking where the waste would go, is a rundown collection of sheds, shacks, trailers, campers and weather-beaten homes, some abandoned; rusting hulks of cars and farm equipment dot the area. Here, the utilities would pay rent, perhaps millions of dollars a year. For all their wants, the Goshutes are a sovereign tribe. So the state cannot veto the project, which will begin accepting waste in 2002 if the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which begins hearings later this year, grants a license. The commission has already licensed similar arrangements near reactors, and opponents, who include some tribal members, think it will do so here. Margene Bullcreek, who lives on the reservation, argued that the lease should have been put to a vote of all the adults, not just those who came to a small meeting where it was approved. Calling the waste dangerous and inconsistent with traditional respect for the land, her faction is asking the Interior Department to overturn the Bureau of Indian Affairs' approval of the lease. ''We need to fall back on who we really are and what we really want,'' Ms. Bullcreek said. ''This is where wisdom comes in. It wouldn't be wisdom if we go for the money. ''It's really pretty down there,'' she said. ''It's not a desert. There are deer in the mountains, eagles, badgers, raccoons, foxes.'' Other members of the tribe see it differently. ''It's just land; it just kind of sits here,'' said Mary Allen, vice chairwoman of the tribe. Ms. Allen accompanied a reporter past the long row of wood stakes that mark where an access road to the storage site would be built. ''What can we do with this?'' she said. ''There's no water out here.''

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/18/us/tribe-in-utah-fights-for-nuclear-waste-dump.html?pagewanted=all



Nuclear dumping provides an immediate cash flow into dying tribal economies- the Goshute tribe provesMilun, professor of justice studies and English at Arizona State University 2006(Kathryn, On The Commons Blog, http://onthecommons.org/content.php?id=1020, accessed 7-9-09, AN)

In the Goshute case, invoking the trust doctrine provided a foothold outside of the market logic. Given the market’s interest in short-term, quarterly profits, market advocates reasoned that a nuclear dump was a good form of economic development. It would bring immediate cash flow to the tribe, allowing them to “choose” to make needed improvements to the reservation and/or purchase more pristine land elsewhere.

Nuclear storage is popular among tribes- provides jobs, self-sufficiency, and massive tribal revenueLewis, associate professor of History at Utah State University, 1995(David Rich, "Native Americans and the Environment: A survey of twentieth century issues." American Indian Quarterly, 19: 423-450, 1995, http://cpluhna.nau.edu/Research/native_americans7.htm, accessed 7-9-09, AN)

Several tribes continue to explore the projects. In February 1994, Mescaleros signed an agreement with Minnesota's Northern States Power Company, representing thirty-three nuclear energy companies, to establish a private site for 40,000 metric tons of spent fuel from commercial power plants. Wendell Chino, council president, told reporters, "Over the last 20 years, the Mescalero Apache Tribal Council has sought to achieve economic independence through the creation of jobs in tribal businesses. Our agreement with Northern States represents another step along our road to self-sufficiency. If we are successful in concluding a joint venture agreement ... it will provide jobs and other economic benefits for nearly forty years." Those benefits include an estimated tribal profit of $250 million with total revenues exceeding $2 billion over the forty-year life of the project.

Even Native Tribes say having the dumps on their land is essential—it provides entertainment and a stimulus for the economy. Pember, freelance print journalist working with Native Americans, 2007(Mary Annette, journalist, 10/23/07, http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/10/23/pember_commentary/, accessed on 7/9/09, M.E)

Native Americans have been employing waste reclamation for centuries. We call it "going to the dump because we're too poor not to." For many people on the reservation, the dump has been a store with infinite variety and a drive-in movie theater all rolled into one.During my career as a native journalist covering Indian country, I have found that the dump looms large for many native folks. The economic necessity to reclaim waste and scrounge for entertainment seems to be intertribal. An Iowa friend remembers the dump as "the Indian furniture store" for his mobile family. At each new home, his dad would announce "We need some furniture kids, let's go to the dump." In my Ojibwe mother's day, the dump was even a date destination. She recalls the time she wore her famous silk stockings with her beau to shoot rats at the dump. In retrospect, she noted she was a bit overdressed.My Ojibwe colleague reports that his brother could never resist carrying home old radios from the dump and plugging them in. At best, nothing happened; at worst, they sparked and blew all the fuses in the house, causing his Dad to yell, "You guys are no good!"Native people are born to "making do" with what life offers us. We go to the dump when we need to. We go with humor and a genuine spirit of discovery. In true Indian form, we laugh in the face of such forces that seek to grind our spirits down. Recalling the importance of landfills in our lives, we soar high above the dump, so high that it doesn't really touch us.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/10/23/pember_commentary/

http://cpluhna.nau.edu/Research/native_americans7.htm

http://onthecommons.org/content.php?id=1020



Money from nuclear dumping allows for economic independenceTauber, Instructor at University of South Carolina,99(Alan, ,“Sovereignty and Solid Waste: The Siting of Refuse Facilities on Native American Lands”, http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~uofla/Fall99/Tauber.html, Fall, AD:7-9-09, KEH)

Without much success the Mescalero Apache have been working for several years to house a MRS on their lands in New Mexico. Wendell Chino, the President of the Mescalero Apache, has been President of the tribe for thirty years. During his term of office he had been a driving force behind the Native American Sovereignty movement. Chino’s driving goal has been economic independence for the tribe, and despite hosting a casino and other industry on reservation lands, over one third of the tribal members were unemployed, with half living below the poverty line. It is for these reasons that Wendell Chino and the Mescalero Tribal Council first approached the Office of the United States Nuclear Waste Negotiator (NWN) about hosting a MRS facility. The tribal council was quite excited to receive a two pound package from the NWN in early October 1991. On October 11, 1991 the Mescalero Apache Tribal Council, without verifying the wishes of the majority of the tribe, officially applied for a Phase I grant to study the feasibility of hosting the MRS. The council received $100,000 six days later. To facilitate the project, the Mescalero set up an experienced task force within the tribe whose responsibility it was to oversee the project. Several contracted scientists and other individuals from the nuclear industry acted as consultants. With the help of these consultants the tribal council applied for a Phase II-A grant in March of 1992; they received the additional $200,000 a month later. On August 4, 1993, the Mescalero leadership applied for the final stage of funding. At this point, however, local resistance to the project had grown, and due to the political attention, this grant was denied. New Mexico Senator Jeff Binghaman had used a "rider" to cut the funding for NWN and managed to put the project on indefinite hold. In the meantime, opposition to the project had time to grow, ensuring that funding would not be renewed. In response, and citing native sovereignty, Chino and the tribal council went to Northern States Power (NSP), a nuclear power company from Minnesota, to talk about the possibility of building a private MRS facility. An official agreement was reached on February 3, 1994 and for the next few months the partners went around the nation courting other utilities companies who needed a place to store spent nuclear fuel rods. On March 10, 1994, an agreement between the leaders of the Mescalero Apache Tribe and thirty-five private utilities was signed. In it, the utilities agreed to provide funds for "initial studies of cost and feasibility." It was with this agreement that controversy started. In December, 1994 NSP along with thirty other utilities signed a "non-binding letter of intent" to store waste on Mescalero lands. The controversy started when Chino decided to put the agreement up to a tribal vote. Although Chino did not believe that tribal approval was necessary, he felt confident that a positive outcome would bolster his bargaining position. This ultimately did not occur. The powerful leader "suffered his most significant defeat" when the tribe voted 490 to 362 to reject the project. Tribal leaders, while shocked, claimed that they would abide by the vote, because it was the "will of the people." It was at this point that Fred Kaydahzinne, the Housing Director appointed by Chino, a "self described, grass roots tribal activist," circulated a petition asking for another referendum. Many members of the tribe, specifically traditional female leaders, claimed that they were threatened and coerced during the campaign for a re-vote, in order to quiet their opposition. As a result, 700 signatures were collected and the new vote was scheduled. In that vote, the project was approved overwhelmingly by a vote of 593 to 372. Since the re-vote, the tribe has lost the support of many of the original thirty-five utilities who signed the "non-binding letter of intent." Some reports indicate that only seventeen utilities are still on board. Additionally, Wendell Chino faced a challenge from his former Vice-President, Fred Peso, in the last tribal election. While Peso once supported the project, his backers were a traditional group called the "Apache Stronghold" that opposes the MRS facility. While this opposition had been vocal since the time of the vote, the election cycle for President was when they had the opportunity to wield the most power, by attempting to oust Chino. The key obstacle now was applying for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) which they were scheduled to apply for in early 1996. Another blow befell the MRS facility on April 16, 1996, when talks between the Mescalero Apache Tribal Council and the NSP-led coalition of utilities were "indefinitely suspended." Disagreements over location, compensation and legal liability doomed the agreement. Yet, President Chino was not dissuaded. Two days after the "indefinite suspension" Chino released a statement that the tribe will "continue with plans for the development and construction of a temporary facility." As of this day, no further advances have been made. In this case, money and jobs were the motivating factors that led the Mescalero Apache to consider hosting a nuclear waste facility on their land.

http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~uofla/Fall99/Tauber.html


Waste Good – Sovereignty

Natives have the right to accept nuclear waste as an expression of their sovereignty.Leonard, 1997 [LOUIS G., III, Executive Editor of the Boston College Third World Law Journal, “COMMENT: SOVEREIGNTY, SELF-DETERMINATION, AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN THE MESCALERO APACHE'S DECISION TO STORE NUCLEAR WASTE,” 24 B.C. ENVTL. AFF. L. REV. 651, L/N] WBTA

V. CONCLUSION This analysis of the Mescalero Apache's decision to construct an MRS facility does not offer any easy solutions. The issue is set in a long history of tribal exploitation by federal and state governments. The relationships among federal, state, and tribal governments have been shaped by centuries of federal statutes and policies, limiting a tribe's right to govern itself as it chooses. Suffering from these limited rights, Native Americans have seen their reservation land used and abused for the purposes of mainstream society. We must be careful, however, not to label all economic development opportunities involving waste storage on tribal lands as exploitation. After enduring centuries of poor treatment Native people must be given opportunities to pull themselves out of poverty and despair. When these decisions involve self-condescension and self-degradation in the form of [*693] accepting extremely dangerous nuclear waste, however, they must be scrutinized carefully. Legitimate tribal self-determination must be safeguarded by employing an environmental justice approach and working for a true, informed consensus within tribes through empowerment and education of tribal members. Only when making a decision with all of the appropriate information and with all stakeholders participating can tribes legitimately be said to determine their own destiny. Given the federal interest in staying out of the private MRS siting process, and the likely preemption of state power, the Mescalero Apaches will probably be given the freedom to place an MRS facility on their reservation. Before the site is built and spent nuclear fuel is transported across the country, Wendell Chino and the Mescalero Tribal Council should take all steps necessary to ensure the consensus of their people and to provide for their safety. As the final word on this project, they have a responsibility to their people and to the land.


Waste Good – Hormesis

Radioactivity has many medical benefitsHolcomb, MD in psychiatry, National Institutes of Health, Radiation Safety Branch/Radiation Safety Training Unit, 99(William F., “Humanity and radiation: the good, the bad, and the unusual”, July, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3912/is_199907/ai_n8867314/pg_2/?tag=content;col1, DA: 7/9/09, MEL)

What is radiation? Is it all bad or is there some good, and what is it used for? Radiation is not a modern creation, a result of tinkering with the atom; rather, it is a natural energy force that has existed on Earth and in the universe since the beginning of time. There is wide disagreement regarding the merits and dangers of nuclear energy. However, the fact is that radiation, radioactivity, and the resulting nuclear technology are all around us and part of our daily lives. The term radiation often conjures up the great mushroom cloud associated with bombs, followed by fallout, destruction, and death. True, accidents and incidents have happened in the nuclear industry over the years, with the surrounding publicity providing a major source of concern and apprehension to the population. Some of the accidents have resulted in fatalities, such as the Idaho SL- 1 accident and the Ukrainian Chernobyl reactor accident. Most incidents have not involved fatalities but have nonetheless inspired the regulatory agencies to develop additional safety rules and requirements to decrease the possibility of future accidents. Since the advent of nuclear energy, a number of consumer products available to the general public have used radionuclides. Rarely do the media focus on the beneficial medical applications of radiation or on the use of radionuclides in industry and science. Nuclear technology can save lives. In the area of health, nuclear technology is used in a variety of techniques to prevent, diagnose, and treat disease. Today, the radiation in these products is essential to their proper performance, whereas earlier in this century the use of radiation or radioactivity was incidental or extraneous to the purpose for which the consumer product was designed.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3912/is_199907/ai_n8867314/pg_2/?tag=content;col1



Scientific studies prove that even radiation from reactors decreases cancer mortality.Cutler 2004[Jerry M., Cutler and Associates, INC. A medical care corporation. “WHAT BECOMES OF NUCLEAR RISK ASSESSMENT IN LIGHT OF RADIATION HORMESIS?” PAPER PRESENTED AT THE 25TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE CANADIAN NUCLEAR SOCIETY. TORONTO. JUNE 6-9, 2004. WWW.ATOMICINSIGHTS.COM/GUESTS/CUTTLER%20-%20RISK%20VS%20HORMESIS.PDF] WBTA

Intensive, wide-ranging research has been carried out on the effects of radiation on living organisms, including humans. Generally, cellular stimulatory effects are observed following low doses – short-term exposures in the range 0.01-0.50 Gy (1-50 rad) – while damaging or lethal cellular effects are observed following high doses. This biphasic radiation dose response is known as radiation hormesis, an adaptive response of biological organisms to low levels of stress or damage – a modest overcompensation to a disruption–resulting in improved fitness. “The hormetic model is not an exception to the rule – it is the rule.” Recent discoveries indicate that oxidative DNA damage occurs naturally to living cells at an enormous rate. Survival to old age depends on the performance of a very capable damage-control biosystem, which prevents, repairs, or removes almost all the DNA alterations. Those DNA alterations not eliminated by this protective system are residual mutations, a very small fraction of which eventually develops into cancer. The rate of DNA mutations caused directly by background radiation compared with the rate produced by endogenous oxygen metabolism is extremely small. Nevertheless, radiation has a very important effect on the damage-control biosystem. While high doses decrease biosystem activity, causing increased cancer mortality, low doses stimulate biosystem activity causing lower-than-normal cancer mortality. Stimulation of the immune system increases the attack and killing of cancer cells (including metastases) globally. These stimulatory effects reduce or delay significantly the incidence of cancers due to oxidative DNA damage or other causes. The evidence of hormetic effects of radiation exposure on cancer has lead to recent applications of whole-body, low-dose irradiation therapy for cancer, with no symptomatic side effects. As mentioned earlier, iodine-131 is a prime concern in reactor safety. It is easily released (as seen in the 1957 Windscale incident) and is readily absorbed (in the thyroid). Safety analysts assume that it causes cancer deaths according to the LNT hypothesis, but does it really? Medical studies of cancer incidence and mortality after radioiodine treatment for hyperthyroidism indicate otherwise. The Birmingham Study of 7417 patients revealed an incidence of 634 cancer cases, compared with an expected number of 761 (standard incidence ratio [SIR] 0.83 [95% CI 0.77 to 0.90]). The relative risk of cancer mortality is also decreased (observed cancer deaths 448, expected 499; standard mortality ratio [SMR] 0.90 [0.82 to 0.98]). The mean cumulative dose of iodine-131 is 308 MBq; the standard deviation is 232 MBq. The whole body dose corresponding to 300 MBq is 0.28 Sv (28 rem), but the thyroid dose is 500 Sv (50,000 rem)! Surely there is a significant increase in thyroid cancer. Not so. The number of observed diagnoses is 9 (expected 2 to 8), and the number of deaths is 5 (expected 1 to 8).



Low level exposure is scientifically proven to improve health, increase life span, and decrease instances of cancer mortality.Luckey 1999[T.D., Proffessor Emeritus of the University of Missouri, Columbia and Honorary Professor of Olde Herborn University, “RADIATION HORMESIS.” LECTURE GIVEN AT ICONE-7, TOKYO,APRIL. HTTP://WWW.RADPRO.COM/641LUCKEY.PDF.] WBTA

Evidence of health benefits and longer average life-span following low-dose irradiation should replace fear, “all radiation is harmful,” and “the perception of harm” as the basis for action in the 21st century. Hormesis is the excitation, or stimulation, by small doses of any agent in any system. Large doses inhibit. “Low dose” is defined as any dose between ambient levels of radiation and the threshold that marks the boundary between biopositive and bionegative effects. That threshold negates the “linear no threshold” (LNT) paradigm. This overview summarizes almost 3,000 reports on stimulation by low-dose irradiation. “Hormesis with Ionizing Radiation” presented evidence of increased vigor in plants, bacteria, invertebrates and vertebrates. Most physiologic reactions in living cells are stimulated by low doses of ionizing radiation. This evidence of radiogenic metabolism (metabolism promoted by ionizing radiation) includes enzyme induction, photosynthesis, respiration and growth. Radiation hormesis in immunity decreases infection and premature death in radiation exposed populations. Increased immune competence is a major factor in the increased average life-span of populations exposed to low-dose irradiation. “Radiation Hormesis” presented evidence for radiation hormesis in major physiologic functions of vertebrates. Evidence of radiation hormesis in reproduction emphasizes the safety of low-dose irradiation. “Low-Level Radiation Health Effects: Compiling the Data” summarizes recent papers on radiation hormesis. During the previous decades, statistically significant evidence showed that whole body exposures of humans to low doses of ionizing radiation decreased total cancer mortality rates. This is based on information compiled from 7 million person-years of exposed and control workers in nuclear shipyard and atomic bomb plants in Canada, Great Britain and the United States. Other human experiences with unusual exposures confirm radiation hormesis in cancer mortality. A variety of external sources are beneficial. Internal sources (plutonium, radium and radon) are also effective. The conclusions have both personal and national significance. Ionizing radiation is a benign environmental agent at background levels. We live with a subclinical deficiency of ionizing radiation. Low doses of ionizing radiation significantly decrease premature cancer death. Health benefits should replace risk and death as the guide for safe exposures to ionizing radiation. Safe supplementation with ionizing radiation would provide a new plateau of health.

http://WWW.RADPRO.COM/641LUCKEY.PDF


Waste Good – No Health Impact

Natives have enzymes that allow them to digest toxic waste without health problems, and they're more effective because they eat healthierNemenhah 2008(http://www.nativeamericannutritionals.com/Product_Desc.aspx?Inventory_ID=7. EKC)

The Native Enzymes from Native American Nutritionals contain a full spectrum of plant based digestive enzymes that are synergistically combined with liquid copal (Essential Oils). The importance of enzymes has long been overlooked and ignored, but now their involvement in daily bodily functions is becoming a major issue. The enzymatic content present in our bodies is directly related to the quality of our health and longevity.Enzymes are needed for every chemical action and reaction in the body. Enzymes are an important factor for overcoming sickness, maintaining vitality, weight management, longevity of life and superior health. ithout enzymes life cannot exist. Metabolic enzymes run all our organs, tissues, and cells. Minerals, vitamins, and hormones need enzymes present to perform their work properly. Enzymes are the work force of the body. The better we maintain and build up our enzyme reserves, the healthier we will be.It is important to understand that enzymes initiate all cellular activity. Enzymes break down toxic substances so that the body can eliminate them without damaging the elimination organs. Our immune system, bloodstream, liver, kidneys, spleen, pancreas, as well as our ability to see, think, and breathe all depend upon enzymes.

As we become enzyme deficient through improper diet, stress, illness and other factors, we start to age faster. A shortage of enzymes may cause serious health problems. Because enzymes must break down every food we eat into simpler building blocks, eating only cooked foods can eventually cause enzyme exhaustion at the cell level. Our bodies are not maintained by our food intake, but rather, by what we digested. Cellular enzyme exhaustion lays the foundation for a weak immune system and ultimately disease.A common misconception is that vitamin and mineral supplements will make up for dietary deficiencies. The fact is, without enzymes nothing works in the body, no matter how well formulated the supplement might be. If food is not completely digested, the body does not get the full complement of nutrients it deserves. That is why people with food allergies often have vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Enzymes ingested either in the form of raw, whole organic foods or supplements, optimize digestion and not only can the allergy disappear, but so can the accompanying vitamin and mineral deficiency as well. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies develop in a relatively short period of time, 60 to 90 days, but enzyme deficiencies take longer to develop, simply because the body has so many compensation mechanisms. When an allergic reaction occurs, an enzyme deficiency has likely existed for months or even years prior to its onset.Enzymes assist to increase oxygen levels, while helping to raise your pH; this can protect you from free radical damage. The plant enzymes provide energy directly to the individual cells and enhance the electromagnetic fields in the body causing increased energy. It is important to have an enzyme reserve for your body to draw from to maintain optimal health. There are two ways to build the body''s enzyme reserve, one by eating raw foods and two by taking an enzyme supplement.

Here are some of the ways we use up our enzyme reserve:· During an illness or when under stress – enzymes are being used up rapidly.· Athletes – any time the body temperature is raised, enzymes are used up quickly.

· Over-eating of cooked foods - causes the digestive organs to quickly use the enzymes. Enzymes are destroyed in foods cooked over 118 degrees. · Digest protein / breaking down antigens - most antigens, bacteria, viruses, and yeast are protein. In most cases, enzymes are secreted that break down the antigens so the body can eliminate them via the lymphatic system.· Cleansing and short fasts – during fasts, enzymes go to work to clean up undigested materials in the blood and to purify the entire body.

Enzymes are so wonderful; they help digest toxic waste and gases thus assisting to retard the aging process. They influence the thyroid gland and are a key to permanent weight loss. Enzymes can help dissolve cholesterol in the liver and other body parts, thereby controlling weight, which also protects your heart. Enzymes create a penetrating action on stored fats, dissolving them out of the body’s adipose (fat) cells. The importance of enzymes cannot be overemphasized.It is important to know that nature’s way of preserving the life force in cereal grains, legumes, tree nuts and seeds is by enzyme inhibitors. It was discovered in the 1940''s that it is necessary to remove the enzyme inhibitors from our plant foods for proper digestion. Sprouting is the natural way the

inhibitors are inactivated thus allowing the enzyme rich foods to come to life. Now days how many of us have the time to sprout our food before we eat it. Most of us just cook our food, which will destroy the enzymes as well as the enzyme inhibitors. So in our modern day diet, the addition of supplemental enzymes to inactivate the inhibitors and allow proper digestion is a must.Also it is wise to use an enzyme supplement to assist in taking the stress off the body. Nutrients that are present in the foods you eat cannot be utilized without enzymes. The work force of the body is in enzymes. They are important in meeting the demands of our modern life-styles. What we put in our

mouths strongly determines the daily and long-term quality our lives. Improper eating habits are a major cause of our skyrocketing health-care costs today. We must learn to take control of our own health. If you want superior health and vitality, getting an adequate intake of enzymes will make the difference.

http://www.nativeamericannutritionals.com/Product_Desc.aspx?Inventory_ID=7


Waste Good – African Tradeoff Turn

Dumping on Native American land better than Africa for a myriad of reasons including the worst effects on Africa such as ongoing death, disease, and tragedy The Independent, 06 (“Toxic shock; how Western Rubbish is destroying Africa”, 09-21-06, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/toxic-shock-how-western-rubbish-is-destroying-africa-416828.html , accessed 07-09-09, ET)

One August morning, people living near the Akouedo rubbish dump in Abidjan, capital of the Ivory Coast, woke up to a foul-smelling air. Soon, they began to vomit, children got diarrhoea, and the elderly found it difficult to breathe. "The smell was unbelievable, a cross between rotten eggs and blocked drains," said one

Abidjan resident. "After 10 minutes in the thick of it, I felt sick." As they live near the biggest landfill in Abidjan, the people of Akouedo are used to having rubbish dumped on their doorstep. Trucks unload broken glass, rotting food and used syringes. Children try to make the best of their dismal playground, looking for scraps of metal and old clothes to sell for a few cents. But this time, the waste would benefit no one. By yesterday, at least six people, including two children, had died from the fumes. Another 15,000have sought treatment for nausea, vomiting and headaches, queuing for hours at hastily set up clinics. Pharmacies have run out of medicines and the World Health Organisation has sent emergency supplies to help the health system . The Ivorian government had resigned over the matter and, so far, eight people have been

arrested. The tragedy is said to have begun on 19 August, after a ship chartered by a Dutch company offloaded 400 tons of gasoline, water and caustic washings used to clean oil drums. The cargo was dumped at Akouedo and at least 10 other sites around the city, including in a channel leading to a lake, roadsides and open grounds. The liquids began to send up fumes of hydrogen sulphide, petroleum distillates and sodium hydroxides across the city. As the tidy-up operation begins, environmental groups have begun to ask how this occurred. "We thought the days when companies shipped toxic waste to poor countries were over ," said Helen Perivier, toxics co-ordinator for Greenpeace. "It peaked in the 1980s but since then the determination of African countries to stamp the trade out has helped yield results. That this has happened again is extraordinary." Probo Koala, the ship that offloaded the waste, is registered in Panama and chartered by the Dutch trading company Trafigura Beheer. Trafigura had tried to offload its slops in Amsterdam, but the Amsterdam Port Services recognised its contents as toxic and asked to renegotiate terms. Trafigura said shipping delays would mean penalties of at least 250,000 US dollars (£133,000) so handed it over to a disposal company in Abidjan alongside a "written request that the material should be safely disposed of, according to country laws, and with all the correct documentation." This story is a common one. All down the West Africa coast, ships registered in America and Europe unload containers filled with old computers, slops, and used medical equipment. Scrap merchants, corrupt politicians and underpaid civil servants take charge of this rubbish and, for a few dollars, will dump them off coastlines and on landfill sites. Throughout the 1980s, Africa was Europe's most popular dumping ground, with radioactive waste and toxic chemicals foisted on landowners. In 1987 an Italian ship dumped a load ofwaste on Koko Beach, Nigeria. Workers who came into contact with it suffered from chemical burns and partial paralysis, and began to vomit blood. Thereafter, the UN drew up plans to regulate the trade in hazardous waste through the Basel Convention. By 1998, the European Union had agreed to implement the ban, which prohibited the export of hazardous wastes from developed countries to the developing world, but the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand refused to sign up;global waterways are still filled with ships looking to unload their toxic waste. And now, there is a new threat - the dumping of electronic waste, or e-waste: unwanted mobile phones, computers and

printers, which contain cadmium, lead, mercury and other poisons. More than 20 million computers become obsolete in America alone each year. The UK generates almost 2 million tons of electronic waste. Disposing of this in America and Europe costs money, so many companies sell it to middle merchants, who promise the computers can be reused in Africa, China and India. Each month about 500 container loads, containing about 400,000 unwanted computers, arrive in Nigeria to be processed. But 75 per cent of units shipped to Nigeria cannot be resold. So they sit on landfills, and children scrabble barefoot, looking for

scraps of copper wire or nails. And every so often, the plastics are burnt, sending fumes up into the air. "There is a tradition of burning rubbish all over Africa, but this new burning of electronic equipment is incredibly dangerous," said Sarah Westervelt of the Basel Action Network, a pressure group that monitors the trade in hazardous

waste. In China, workers burn PVC-coated wires to get at the copper, and swirl acids in buckets to extract scraps of gold. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that worldwide, 20 million to 50 million tons of electronics are discarded each year. Less than 10 per cent gets recycled and half or more ends up overseas. As Western technology becomes cheaper and the latest machine comes to be regarded as a disposable fashion statement, this dumping will only intensify. "Electronic goods are the fastest growing area of retail," said Liz Parkes, head of waste regulation at the Environment Agency. "We need to encourage people to think about whether they really need a new electronic item, and to consider what happens to the goods they throw out."


Waste Link turns – Trust Doctrine Links

The Trust Doctrine justifies nuclear colonialism.Endres, Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Utah, 2009(Danielle, “The Rhetoric of Nuclear Colonialism: Rhetorical Exclusion of American Indian Arguments in the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Siting Decision,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. March, Vol. 6, No. 1, Page 43-44, MAG.)

Although the material implications of nuclear colonialism are undeniable, it is important to turn to the discursive dynamics of the phenomenon. Nuclear colonialism fundamentally depends on discourse because the policy decisions go through deliberation before being implemented. The decisions to site parts of the nuclear production process on or adjacent to indigenous lands rely on complex arguments and rhetorical strategies that invoke the interrelated discursive systems of colonialism and nuclearism. Colonialism: Post-colonialism attends to the legacies of colonial systems. Diasporic Indian literary critic and theorist Gayatri Spivak has argued that attention must be paid to the identities of colonized peoples in relation to race, gender, ethnicity, and nationality. Raka Shome and Radha Hegde’s scholarship has pushed post-colonialism into critical-cultural communication scholarship. Although post-colonialism is a crucial area of study, it unfortunately implies that colonialism is over. For some countries (e.g., India, the Congo) the colonizers have left, leaving post-colonial peoples to grapple with the legacies of colonialism. However, colonialism still exists for indigenous people across the globe. Indigenous scholars such as Glenn Morris and the late Gail Valaskakis resist the notion of post-colonialism. As stated by Linda Tuhiwai Smith, “naming the world as ‘post-colonial’ is, from indigenous perspectives, to name colonialism as finished business… post-colonial can mean only one thing: the colonizers have left. There is rather compelling evidence that in fact this has not happened. Despite the surprisingly common contemporary belief that colonization of indigenous nations is a thing o the past, we must not only recognize that colonialism still exists but also explore the communicative practices that maintain colonialism.” The present form of colonialism in the US is what Al Gedicks has called resource colonialism, whereby “native peoples are under assault on every continent because their lands contain a wide variety of valuable resources needed fro industrial development.” As described by Marjene Ambler, the US government works in collusion with large national and multinational corporations to facilitate leases and access to indigenous resources that benefit the government and corporations to the detriment of indigenous communities. Resource colonialism depends on ignoring the land ownership rights of the colonized. As such, it also relies on the country’s legal and political system to limit the rights of the colonized, specifically drawing on both the domestic dependent relationship and the trust relationship that holds American Indian lands and monies in “trust” through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. As American Indian Studies scholar Sharon O’Brien states “today’s ‘Indian wars’ are being fought in corporate boardrooms and law offices as tribes endeavor to protect and control their remaining resources.” Resource colonialism is a reality for many tribes in the US, especially those with oil, gas, coal, and uranium reserves. In the American West, the Shoshone, Navajo, Southern Ute, Paiute and Laguna nations possess a wealth of natural resources including uranium ore and vast desert “wastelands” for nuclear waste storage. Historian Gabrielle Hecht noted that “the history of uranium mining… shows that colonial practices and structures were appropriate-not overthrown- by the nuclear age, and proved central to its technopolitical success.” Nuclear colonialism is a tale of resource colonialism.


Tribal Economic Growth Bad

Tribal economic growth leads to resources exploitation, class stratification, systemic debt, and oppressionBarsh, 1993(Russel Lawrence, “The Challenge Of Indigenous Self-Determination,” 26 U. MICH. J.L. REFORM 277, 311)

These are all examples of what John Kenneth Galbraith once aptly described as "symbolic modernization."59 The official visitor to any Third World capital will get the same kind of tour: office blocks, factories, armies, and airports. These are symbols of success, in Western terms, but they do not necessarily reflect self-determination or development. On the contrary, they demonstrate the increasing power of "indigenous" governments to oppress their own people, and they tend to mask growing gaps between rich and poor and among ethnic groups in society-which, incidentally, create the need for those armies and jails. A society that can parade an army or build office towers is not a fairer, freer, or happier one as a result. Nor is it "progress" to have the ability, and the need, to control people. From a traditional Indian viewpoint, the accumulation and use of power is evidence of social breakdown and decay, not progress, and the number of battered children, inmates, and suicides is a better measure of social welfare than public budgets and payrolls. Financing the symbolic accumulation of elite payrolls and public buildings takes more than aid flows. Emerging governments, whether in Africa or the Americas, must help pay their own way. Because their appetite far exceeds their fledgling industrial capacity, they must raise funds by borrowing and by exporting raw materials. This leads to a cycle of growing indebtedness and resource liquidation that is environmentally destructive and gradually forecloses everyother development option." In the case of American Indian tribes, the driving force was less debt than a reduction in aid lows, beginning in the late 1970s. Cutbacks were not across-the-board, but targeted resource-rich reservations on the theory that they could afford to pay for a larger share of program costs.6' Many tribal governments had to choose between shutdowns and accelerated natural resource extraction. The net effect has been to reduce the environmental assets of reservations without replacing them with industrial assets.

Tribal growth leads to corporatism, capitalist exploitation, and tyrannyBarsh, 1993(Russel Lawrence, “The Challenge Of Indigenous Self-Determination,” 26 U. MICH. J.L. REFORM 277, 311)

Some observers are prescribing even greater authoritarianism, and more technocratic decisionmaking, toremedy the reservations' sluggish economies and endemic corruption. It is implied that having adopted a capitalist path, tribal governments have no choice but to engage in good capitalism, even if this conflicts with the personal autonomy, kinship loyalties, and political values embedded in tribal traditions. "Modern tribalism," in this view, is equated with the collective self-interest of shareholders in a joint-stock company. It is pure materialism with all countervailing, inefficient cultural elements deleted. This, too, is symbolic development. An Indian tribe that is run like a Fortune 500 company appears successful to visitors, and the foreign press may praise its leaders, but to its own citizens it still may be an insufferable tyranny. American economists promoted the same authoritarian prescription in the Third World a generation ago. While it worked in some parts of Southeast Asia, such as Singapore and South Korea, it was a disaster nearly everywhere else. More democratic and less culturally disruptive development paths have worked about equally as well as the corporatist solution. American Indian tribal leaders and their academic supporters are locked in a conspiracy of denial. They fear that should white Americans discover that there is nothing qualitatively different, or substantially better, about Indian self-government, they will abolish it. There is plentiful historical evidence to support this proposition.6" Thus, tribal leaders pretend that their governments are culturally distinct when they are not. Simultaneously, they insist that the right to self-government does not depend on whether or not it works, either in Indian or Western terms. This strategy may prolong tribal autonomy in the short run. If the contradiction between cultural ideals, rhetoric, and practice persists for another generation, however, American Indian governments may self-destruct without any help from outsiders. In the long run, tribal governments will survive only by becoming culturally and spiritually superior governments.


***Links***


Biopower Links - Social Control

The U.S. government agreed to cover tribal health care because they wanted to use it as a means to track and control American IndiansBarry et. Al., Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission of Human Rights, 2004(Mary, U.S. Commission on Human Rights, “Broken Promises: Evaluating the Native American Health Care System,” September. Page 23, MAG)

As discussed, the federal government promised health care services to Native Americans in exchange for land very early in the life of this country. The motive for providing health care was not solely altruistic. The government was also attempting to gather information on the numbers of Native Americans; to control the Native American population; and to protect white citizens from the spread of infectious diseases.115 In 1803, the federal government initially assigned the responsibility for Native American health care to the Office of Indian Affairs in the War Department. Health care duties were subsequently transferred to the newly formed Department of the Interior in 1849, where the responsible office was eventually renamed the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).116 The BIA administered the funding provided by Congress for health care programs for Native Americans.


Biopower Links – Blood Quantum

Blood quantum is used to determine eligibility for federal social servicesWeaver, Assistant Professor at the School of Social Work at the State University of New York at Buffalo, 1998(Hilary, “Indigenious People in a Multicutural Society: Unique Issues for Human Services,” Social Work, May98, Vol. 43, Issue 3)

No single criterion exists for determining who is an American Indian. Each Indian nation sets its own criteria for membership. Some nations require that a person document a certain percentage of Native American heritage to be considered a member. This criterion is referred to as blood quantum. Some nations require that ancestry be traced to someone who was on a tribal census in a particular year. Other nations trace descent only through the mother or only through the father. Criteria for citizenship in Indian nations may or may not be directly linked to biological heritage or cultural identification. Only the nations themselves are capable of setting standards for citizenship, and these standards are subject to change just like any other policy. The federal government has no right to determine who is a member of an American Indian nation, but it does set criteria to identify who is Indian for the purposes of federal programs. These standards typically include measures of blood quantum and vary from program to program (Jaimes, 1992).Citizens of American Indian nations are "enrolled" or listed on the tribal roles. Enrollment provides access to a variety of social and health benefits through the nations and through the federal government and some state governments as fulfillment of treaty obligations. Many American Indians are not enrolled for one reason or another. They may have Native American heritage yet not meet the enrollment criteria of a particular nation. In addition, some individuals who qualify for enrollment may not have completed the necessary paperwork. This is particularly common for American Indians who have been adopted by non-Indian people or who

Blood quantum is used to determine eligibility for health carePfefferbaum et al., Ph.D. Director of Gerontology, Phoenix College, 1997(Rose L., “Providing for the Health Care Needs of Native Americans: Policy, Programs, Procedures, and Practices,” American Indian Law Review, Volume 21, p. 248)

Increasing demand, escalating costs of production, and wide variations in eligibility for tribal membership make eligibility an issue of growing importance in the provision of Indian health services. Eligibility concerns arise primarily with respect to identifying who is Indian and determining which Indians should receive services, a question dealt with in other contexts including education. There is a commonly overlooked issue of the exclusionary aspect of rules of eligibility: Such rules are designed to identify those for whom services are not intended. The Solicitor of the Interior stated, "The function of the definition of Indian' is to establish a test whereby it may be determined whether a given individual is to be excluded from the scope of legislation dealing with Indians . "129 For Indians, it seems, the very definition of a people is tied to matters of service eligibility. The question of eligibility is inextricably intertwined with questions of tribal membership. The courts have repeatedly recognized the rights of tribes to determine their membership. Today, membership is typically defined by a tribal constitution or law and is implemented by a tribal roll.130 While specific membership requirements vary widely, the overwhelming majority of tribes have required some level of blood quantum to establish membership.


Biopower Links – Blood Quantum

Blood quantum requirement for health service leads to widespread denial of coverage and fractures Indian communitiesPfefferbaum et al., Ph.D. Director of Gerontology, Phoenix College, 1997(Rose L., “Providing for the Health Care Needs of Native Americans: Policy, Programs, Procedures, and Practices,” American Indian Law Review, Volume 21, p. 248)

A recent analysis of the ramifications of restricting Indian eligibility for health care by requiring minimal (one-quarter) blood quantum levels found the following: a consistent declining trend in the distribution of blood quantum by age group; a consistently lower level of service utilization among Indians with less than one quarter Indian ancestry; and lower proportionate cost of care for those with less than one quarter Indian blood quantum. Serious negative consequences may result from eligibility requirements based on blood quantum levels: for the individual with a low blood quantum, care will be denied; for families, there will be fragmentation in the delivery of health services ; for the service unit, the relatively low user and less costly segment of the service population will be removed resulting in higher per capita costs for the remaining users; and for the Indian culture, there may be a forced exodus from reservations and decreased participation in Indian affairs.137 While these effects may be exacerbated by stricter eligibility criteria, they are already operative as part of continuing demographic changes.

Blood quantum leads to denial of coveragePfefferbaum et al., Ph.D. Director of Gerontology, Phoenix College, 1997(Rose L., “Providing for the Health Care Needs of Native Americans: Policy, Programs, Procedures, and Practices,” American Indian Law Review, Volume 21, p. 248)

Eligibility restrictions based on blood quantum also may be problematic for Indians with multiple tribal heritage. One's entire heritage may be Indian, without having sufficient blood quantum to qualify for membership in any specific tribe. Thus, a full-blood with tribal heritage from a number of bands might be excluded while a quarter or eighth blood from a single tribe would be eligible. While it would be relatively simple to provide IHS services based upon the total degree of Indian blood possessed by individuals, eligibility for service under self-governance may be questioned. This entire issue of blood quantum will only grow more serious and complex; it must eventually be addressed by tribes, the Congress, and/or the courts . An unexpected development of the self-governance process is already having an effect on eligibility. For example, some tribes are beginning to resist the provision of services to "non-indigenous" local Indians (that is, Indians belonging to tribes not traditionally resident in that particular location).


Biopower Links - Race

Racial classifications assume a hierarchy of races, and empirically lead to attempts to eliminate this deviation through assimilation.McWhorter, Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at the University of Richmond, 04(Ladelle. “Sex, Race, and Biopower: A Foucauldian Genealogy.” Hypatia 19.3: 52-62. EKC)

Yet, despite its having no biological, genetic, or even clear morphological or social referent, race is a significant part of contemporary Western reality. It functions in social institutions—both officially, as a means for distributing goods and determining representation, as in affirmative action law and the U.S. census, and unofficially as a means of identification, discrimination, and affiliation. It does not so much mean (that is, direct our attention to a given object) as operate (that is, create divisions that enable systems of control to maintain themselves). And, again, in this respect race is very much like sex.

Second, are racial identities, like sexual identities, products of normalizing power? I believe I have shown that this is so, that racial identities came into existence as the names of reified stages of development that formed in what Foucault calls power/knowledge networks in the nineteenth century, in much the same way that sexual identities did. To be a member of a particular race on the terms of nineteenth-century biology was to inhabit a niche on a scale of development relative to members of other races. It was to be a deviant of a certain type, to differ from the civilized norm in certain measurable ways. These measurable forms of deviation amount to what we might now call “stereotypical racial characteristics.” We may condemn them as ideological illusion, but they are no different in essence (from the perspective of normalizing management strategies) than measurable deviations from norms of intellectual development that give us categories like “developmentally delayed” and “gifted” or measurable deviations from the norms of sexual development that give us categories like “frigid” and “homosexual.” And the processes by which individuals become the subjects of these characteristics and identities are likely quite similar.

Third, is it theoretically possible to jump start developmental forces and cause people with an arrested racial identity to begin to develop again? Is it possible to move beyond one’s race? One might think the answer to this is no, but in fact in the nineteenth century many people thought that races could be eliminated if racial groups could be brought to develop to the level of healthy white Europeans— that is, if members of those races could be civilized. The United States Office of Indian Affairs (precursor to the Bureau of Indian Affairs) undertook such a project in the late nineteenth century. Monogeny had won out against polygeny, finally, and extermination of native populations had begun to seem barbaric as well as unnecessary (the latter being the more salient consideration, no doubt), so by 1883 officials decided on a program of assimilation, which was an explicit attempt to turn so-called Indians into white people.26 Children were separated from parents, supervised mercilessly, forbidden to speak their own language or worship their own gods, forced to walk, talk, dress, love, labor, and think like their conquerors. Variations on this policy continued for sixty years, until 1933 (Bonfiglio 2003, 113–14). The basic idea was that deviation—whether racial, sexual, or other—could be remedied; individuals who deviated from the norm could be forced back “on track,” on the developmental trajectory deemed healthy by the officials in charge. Public policy regarding deviants of all sorts stemmed directly from this assumption and played out in arenas as seemingly distinct as immigration law and therapy for homosexuals.

Finally, can it be said that there is a group that has reached maturity on the racial developmental trajectory and so has no racial identity? I think so. As many writers have pointed out, in ordinary speech white people are seldom tagged as white (not “I saw a white man in the lobby,” but “I saw a man in the lobby”). Whites are simply people, whereas if a black person is mentioned a speaker will often refer to him or her as a black person rather than just as a person. White people seldom experience their race as a central fact about themselves and are sometimes surprised to discover that other people notice it and react to it. Writer Laurie Fuller asserts, “Most white people do not conceptualize whiteness as an identity. Instead, white people assume that we are really just Americans or humans and we don’t need to think critically about being white people because white is just the normal, natural way of being human. Race is something that describes a quality of African Americans or Asian Americans, not white people” (Fuller 1999, 70).27 If race is conceived as a form of deviance in a schema where whiteness is the norm, then whiteness does not constitute a race. Where “race” is a name for a kind of a physiological and sociological defect, whiteness is held up as nothing less than the glow of health.


Capitalism Links

Attempts to force Native Americans into the “modern” economy exploit tribes and hurt their culture, as well as the environmentWood, assistant professor of law at the University of Oregon, 1995(Mary Christina, “Protecting the Attributes of Native Sovereignty: A New Trust Paradigm for Federal Actions Affecting Tribal Lands and Resources”, Utah Law Review 109. EKC)

Any discussion of the trust doctrine's role in the economic context must first acknowledge the presence of two diametrically opposed economic paradigms evident in Indian Country today, and the reality that many Indian tribes are at a crossroads between the two. The first can be called the indigenous subsistence model. Even at the threshold of the twenty-first century, many Indian people living on reservations toil in the tradition of their ancestors, whether through subsistence hunting, fishing, handicraft, or harvest. n174 The Navajo's grazing, the Pueblo's farming, the Umatilla's salmon fishing, the Chippewa's wild rice harvest, and the Inupiat's whale harvest all exemplify native people struggling against imposing forces of technological and social change to maintain their traditional economic enterprise, some established thousands of years ago. For these people, the means of production assumes a spiritual significance and is part of a holistic life which joins tradition, family, labor, and the land. n175The other paradigm is an industrial development model which revolves around resource exploitation and other industrial activity on the reservation. The model generally entails a flow of capital from the non-Indian economy to the Indian reservations, and, consequently, results in a non-Indian industrial presence within Indian Country. Tribes may receive economic returns in the form of lease [*153] payments, mineral royalties, business taxes, and reservation employment created by the particular economic activity.These two economic paradigms have vastly different implications for Native America. n176 In some important respects the indigenous model is the very antithesis of the industrial model. n177 The industrial model incorporates the dominant features of capitalism, including technology-based production, a paid labor force, surplus goods, and access to outside markets. The labor force which produces the goods is generally comprised of people other than the consumers (except in the broadest sense). By contrast, indigenous subsistence economies integrate the production and consumption of goods, and often the economic enterprise is largely self-contained within the native community. n178 Moreover, while the capitalist economy relies on surplus accumulation and production growth, the traditional harvest economy relies on stable harvest levels and incorporates prohibitions against resource exhaustion. n179 Native subsistence economies may display attributes of self-sufficiency, sustainability, and communality wholly lacking in the capitalist system. N180


Politics Links (Obama Bad)

Anti-abortion amendment was responsible for I.H.S. funding cuts – Congressional allies can be rallied to support the planCapriccioso, Indian Country Today Staff Writer, 08(Rob, Indian Country Today, “Some blame NCIA for lack of health bill passage”, Oct 17, 2008, http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/home/content/31167799.html, Accessed 6/28/09, CAF)

As Indian Country Today previously reported, the reauthorization, which passed the Senate in February, largely failed to make headway in the House of Representatives due to anti-abortion language added to the bill by Sen. David Vitter, R-La. His amendment forbade the use of federal funds to pay for abortions under the reauthorization.One lobbyist familiar with the situation, said he believes the biggest strategic error on behalf of NCAI and its lobbyists was not realizing that Democratic supporters would not take a stand against pro-lifers to encourage the bill’s passage.“I was stunned that traditional Democratic allies in the House … believed that it was more important for them to make a point on [abortion] choice than reauthorizing Indian health care,” the lobbyist said. “Tribal leadership really needs to think long and hard about how it wants to move forward [in dealing with House leadership].”When Vitter posed his amendment early this year, he inserted support letters from the National Right to Life, Family Research Council, and Concerned Women for America organizations into the congressional record. It was a move that some say should have immediately set off alarm bells, especially given the stature of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as the first female House leader.Given that backdrop – and the hindsight of the bill’s lack of progress – some tribal advocates are now saying that NCAI officials failed to anticipate the vast problem the Vitter amendment would pose, and should have worked harder with congressional allies to ultimately get that language quashed, so as not to become a sticking point in the House. “The reality is that from the moment Sen. Vitter tacked on his anti-abortion language to the Indian bill, it was doomed,” said another Washington lobbyist and former House staffer who believes that NCAI and its lobbyists dropped the ball in dealing with the situation.

Bipartisan effort to reach out to Native Americans- key to reelection Brown, political commentator for Politico, 2008 (Carrie Budoff, Yahoo News, “Dems. Woo Native American Vote”, May 29, 2008, http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080529/pl_politico/10676, 7-2-09, WPW

The rarely publicized meetings are one piece of what Indian Country leaders describe as an unprecedented effort this year by the presidential field to pay heed to this small and historically overlooked voting bloc. In the past two weeks alone, Obama, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, campaigned on Indian reservations across South Dakota and Montana as Sen. John McCain met with tribal leaders in New Mexico. “I would like to believe these efforts reaching into Indian Country are truly altruistic — and for the large part, they are — but these candidates know that in order to win, Indian Country can be a deciding factor,” said Kalyn Free, an Oklahoma superdelegate and founder of the Indigenous Democratic Network’s List, a political organization that mobilizes the Indian vote and recruits, trains and funds Native American candidates.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080529/pl_politico/10676

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/home/content/31167799.html


Politics Links (Obama Bad)

Democrats support pro Native American legislation- multiple warrants Fogarty, staff writer Indian Country Today, 2004 (Mark, Indian Country Today, “Democrats Court Native Vote”, 10-27-04, http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=8&did=755640341&SrchMode=2&sid=4&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1246553731&clientId=10553, 7-2-09, WPW)

WASHINGTON - Looking to prompt American Indians to come to the polls this Election Day and support their candidates, House Democrats have published a Native American agenda emphasizing recognition of tribal sovereignty and reinforcement of the federal government's trust responsibility to tribes. The Democrats have also pointed to a dozen bills they have sponsored in the current Congress to help Indians on issues such as health, housing, economic development and education. "With this agenda, Democrats pledge to work together with Native Americans to improve education, create jobs, and provide good health care for our nation's first citizens," said Rep. Pelosi. On the health front, the initiative supports the reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act "to increase funding for health care and improve health delivery services."

Republicans support Native American healthcare- prefer our evidence it is predictive Capriccioso, staff writer Indian Country Today, 2008 (Rob, Indian Country Today, “GOP Platform Includes Native Specific Language and Goals, 9-5-08, http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/living/27907429.html, 7-2-09, WPW)

WASHINGTON – Delegates and leaders of the Republican National Convention have approved a national party platform for the next four years that includes several Indian-focused provisions. “Republicans reject a one-size-fits-all approach to federal-state-tribal partnerships and will work to expand local autonomy where tribal governments seek it,” according to the platform. “Better partnerships will help us to expand opportunity, deliver top-flight education to future generations, modernize and improve the Indian Health Service to make it more responsive to local needs, and build essential infrastructure.”

Indian lobbies will rally allies to support the planReynolds, staff writer Indian Country Today, 2008(Jerry, Indian Country Today, “Health Care Reauthorization Act Fails,” 10-3-08, http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/home/content/30274779.html, 6-28-09, ESM)

Other principal committees of jurisdiction on the bill – House Natural Resources under Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va.; Senate Indian Affairs under Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.; and Senate Finance under Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. – performed “exceptionally well” on the bill’s behalf, Rodgers said. As the 110th Congress approached recess, the failure of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act reauthorization left an angry mood among its advocates . “They’re bitter, very bitter,” said Gregory Smith, of Smith and Brown-Yazzie LLP in Washington, D.C. The National Congress of American Indians had made the bill its top legislative priority. NIHB, the National Council of Urban Indian Health, the National Steering Committee on Reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, the California Rural Indian Health Board, a host of other organizations and tribes, tribal leaders and individual Native people, lawmakers and legislative staff and lobbyists by the score have poured their efforts into refining the bill and passing it, many of them for years running. They’ll try again next year, Rodgers said, with new strategies for the new political landscape of the next Congress.


http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/living/27907429.html

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=8&did=755640341&SrchMode=2&sid=4&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1246553731&clientId=10553




Politics Links (Obama Good)

Republicans are anti- Native American Graham, Founder of United Native America, 2006 (Mike, American Chronicle, “Republican Party Declares Economic War Against Native Americans” 8-4-06, http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/12126, 7-2-09)

From the time republicans took over the U.S. House and Senate, Native Americans have had to deal with the extreme anti-Indian right wing of the republican party. Under the leadership of President Bush, elected republicans, federal and state, have been given a green light to block any legislation that would benefit the economic development of Indians living on and off reservations. That includes the anti-Indian actions of republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff! President Bush made it a point in his budget to cut funding for Indian education programs. Bush also found it in his "God" loving heart to end funding of Indian health services. His action would bring about the closing of over 36 Indian health clinics around the country. President Bush did not see fit to cut funding of any other ethnic group's health services. President Bush stood before Americans and announced that the U.S. would send billions of taxpayers' money to Africa for their AIDS problem, knowing full well that AIDS is a growing problem in the Indian community right here in America. Diabetic health problems are out of control within the American Indian community. Obviously President Bush is more concerned about the health of people in other countries!

The Plan is unpopular with energy and health lobbies – they will overwhelm native lobbiesReynolds, staff writer Indian Country Today, 2008(Jerry, Indian Country Today, “Health Care Reauthorization Act Fails,” 10-3-08, http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/home/content/30274779.html, 6-28-09, ESM)

Lead organizations and lobbyists have admitted the defeat of efforts to reauthorize the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. Declaring efforts to enact the bill “shut down” in Congress, the National Indian Health Board stated on its Web site Sept. 29 that it will continue to pursue strategies for enacting the reauthorization bill during what little remains of the current 110th Congress. But already by the evening of Sept. 26, a longtime lobbyist on Indian health issues, speaking on condition of anonymity when anything could still happen, said key congressional committee staff had put its chances of passing at slim to none. By then, as recounted by NIHB, attempts to attach the bill (H.R. 1328 in the House of Representatives) to a “continuing resolution” on the budget – i.e., a measure to fund the federal government until Congress can pass a national budget – had faltered. The bill’s chances didn’t improve over the weekend of Sept. 27 – 28. In the process of trying to move smaller parts of a larger bill that has faltered through the legislative system separately, the bill’s advocates tried to strip out Title II of the larger bill – the section providing enhanced Native access to Medicare, Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program – as a stand-alone bill. “Kind of like taking apart an automobile,” as Blackfeet lobbyist Tom Rodgers of Carlyle Consulting described it. But when that process gets started, he said, it’s not long before the separate parts add up to less than the sum of the whole. “Unfortunately,” NIHB summarized on its Web site (www.nihb.org), “House [l]eadership was not able to fund the first five years of the bill in an amount of $53 million.” That was for the proposed stand-alone bill comprised of Title II. Though the Congressional Budget Office had estimated the original reauthorization bill to cost $129 million over 10 years, funding had become a problem for the bill as Congress arranged the well-known $700 billion bailout bill for the financial credit system, along with at least $1 billion in tax giveaways and a $25 billion loan package for Detroit automakers. On Sept. 24, as conditions in credit access built toward the $700 billion crisis, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., enrolled Chickasaw, urged passage of H.R. 1328. Budgetary pressures in 2009 could work against even modest new expenditures, he warned. But House leadership had decided not to offer the bill for a vote in the first instance because of the abortion issue. An amendment forbidding the use of federal funds to pay for abortions under the reauthorization had been added to the Senate version of the bill by Sen. David Vitter, R-La. House Republicans, despite what NIHB calls Indian country’s consistent position that abortion is inappropriate to an Indian health bill and already restricted under current law on federal funding, now wanted to attach the Vitter amendment to the House version. In addition, NIHB relates, the National Right to Life Committee threatened to “score” votes on the bill as pro- or anti-abortion if the amendment were not permitted. Because the committee would score a vote on the amendment in any case, the political calculus boiled down to this for House leadership: to bring the bill forward would be to register a vote on abortion little more than a month before every member of the House faced the voters on Nov. 4. Lawmakers are generally allergic to making choices so close to an election, Rodgers explained. The abortion amendment “dominated and clouded the whole debate,” he added. He cited another reason for the bill’s setback. “Indian country needs to have more allies on the [House] Energy and Commerce Committee . It is basically an urban committee which does not reflect historical ties to Indian country. ” Indian country, especially health care advocates and professionals, must work to address the problem substantively and procedurally as Nov. 4 approaches, he said. “That’s what elections are for. ... You do that by embracing your friends and punishing your enemies, and that can only be done by hard work.”


http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/12126


Politics Links (Obama Good)

Politicians do not support Native American PolicyGipp et al, President of United Tribes Technical College, 2003 (David, Tribal College Journal, “Contract With Native Americans”, Winter 2003, http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=7&hid=103&sid=dee62c71-1f36-4656-b747-eb76274f64cb%40sessionmgr109&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=11712180#db=aph&AN=11712180, 7-3-09, WPW)

However, with some notable exceptions, the parties and politicians are still not responding sufficiently to Native American needs. Despite their potential voting and financial clout, Native Americans have not always been able to count on politicians to represent their interests once elected. Democrats often have taken the Native American vote for granted. With the exception of certain individual, progressive candidates, Republicans have regarded the Native American vote as either insignificant or not worth pursuing, assuming votes are going to the Democrats.

No turns - Native issues are a low priority in CongressTom Rodgers President of Carlyle Consulting, Blackfoot tribal member, 2008“Native American Poverty, A Challenge Too Often Ignored”http://www.spotlightonpoverty.org/ExclusiveCommentary.aspx?id=0fe5c04e-fdbf-4718-980c-0373ba823da7

It is here, in America. In our own backyard. Yet beyond these bleak statistics, there is very little discussion of the causes of Native American poverty and what to do about it. The sad truth is only a handful of policymakers give Native Americans priority on the national agenda. Few even know that November was Native American Indian Heritage Month and that, by Congressional resolution, the Friday after Thanksgiving is Native American Indian Heritage Day.

http://www.spotlightonpoverty.org/ExclusiveCommentary.aspx?id=0fe5c04e-fdbf-4718-980c-0373ba823da7

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=7&hid=103&sid=dee62c71-1f36-4656-b747-eb76274f64cb@sessionmgr109&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3D%3D#db=aph&AN=11712180%23db=aph&AN=11712180




Politics Links (Obama Pushes)

Obama supports the plan – he’d get attached to itGiago, president of the Native American Journalists Association, 2009(Tim, Native American Times, “Healthcare in Indian country a historic failure,” 2009, http://nativetimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2023&Itemid=1, 6-29-09, ESM) RAPID CITY, S.D. — Health care in America is a failing proposition. An estimated 47 million Americans do not have health insurance. And yet Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius calls the health care of American Indians a “historic failure.” What about health care in the rest of America? The efforts to introduce universal health care can be traced to the days of Woodrow Wilson and more recently to the political fiasco during the Bill Clinton administration in 1993 and 1994. The most powerful opposition to universal health care can be found in the medical profession and the insurance companies. They present a formidable lobby on Capitol Hill. Those Americans opposed to it compare it to Canada’s or Britain’s health care systems, which they say are nothing but socialized medicine. The Indian Health Care system has also been labeled as socialized medicine, and the fact that Sebelius would label it as a failure does not place much faith in an even larger universal health care system. It just seems that every time the federal government takes total control over anything, failure is almost assured. Watch out, General Motors. Key Senate committees will begin writing legislation this month. President Barack Obama expects to have a bill on his desk by the end of the year, and he is confident that universal health care will become the law of the land. If this legislation passes, how will it impact the Indian Health Service? If all Americans are provided health insurance, will that include Indians? How will it affect the Indian hospitals in urban areas and out on the Indian reservations? President Obama has called for an increase in funds for Indian health care of 13 percent in Fiscal Year 2010. This would bring the largest funding increase in 20 years to the Indian Health Service. Will the introduction of universal health care change any of this? There is not an Indian alive today who has not witnessed the many shortcomings of the Indian Health Service, but as the head of the Indian Health Service, Dr. Yvette Roubideaux, has said, most of the failures were because of an extreme shortage of funds. An article in Time magazine asks some important questions. Will there be a big, new government system? How can a nation already deeply in debt afford health care reform, too? Can we really cover everyone? And if so, what will be covered? How will we bring down the costs? With a deficit nearing $1 trillion, this last question is very relevant. I believe Sebelius and Roubideaux are stepping into a situation that, for the first time in the history of the Indian Health Service, will be dramatically swayed by what is happening on the national scene. Fighting for funding every year for the Indian Health Service was a given. It was an ongoing battle that never changed, and the IHS was often the loser. But with universal health coverage looming on the horizon, the funds now available will become even more stretched because the federal government will be looking for ways and means to cover health care for everyone, not just the Indians. Some experts predict the cost of universal health care will be somewhere around $1.5 trillion. Drastic budget cuts in other areas will have to occur to

free up more money to cover the costs. As I asked earlier, how will that affect the Indian Health Service?

Obama is sympathetic to American Indian’s health care concerns – he’d push the planCOCHRAN, Bilings Gazette News Journalist, 2009(Diane, Tribes keep eye on health care reform, Missoulian, June 29, 2009, CME)Even as they worry that their voices will be drowned out in the fervor to fix health care, American Indian advocates think they are closer than ever to achieving their goals. For the first time, Indian nations seem to have the presidential ear. More than any other president in recent history, President Barack Obama appears to be sympathetic to American Indian concerns.

http://nativetimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2023&Itemid=1

http://nativetimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2023&Itemid=1


Consult Natives CP

The CP solves - uniform standards and intervention fail, turns case; consultation is keyPinel, assistant professor of Conservation and Social Sciences at Idaho State University 07(Sandra Lee, “Culture and cash: how two New Mexico pueblos combined culture and development,” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, January 1, Page 9, 32:1, EKC).

The application of planning and development theory presents a special challenge for indigenous peoples. Former modernist development planning marginalized cultural groups, fostered the idea of underdevelopment in order to justify intervention, assumed that the rational application of economics and other social sciences served a unitary public interest, and overlooked the practical value of indigenous knowledge to sustained development. (9) Scott's critique of high modernism showed how state-sponsored plans that applied uniform standards and ignored local and indigenous place-based knowledge destroyed the very institutions necessary to sustain local culture and development. (10) In response to critiques, planning theory has largely replaced rational, comprehensive, and state-run planning with a focus on communicative/collaborative planning and radical planning. (11) Communicative/collaborative approaches seek local and culturally based knowledge and consensus through dialogue or social learning, while radical planning emphasizes social mobilization in opposition to state bureaucracies and modernist forms of knowledge. (12) Inspired by Habermas's focus on civic dialogue as the basis of knowledge for planning, communicative and collaborative planning theorists suggest that culturally based worldviews are best included in plans when the rational/comprehensive process is replaced with participatory planning that involves all stakeholders in developing a consensus. (13) The planner can facilitate dialogue that includes stories, symbols, "other ways of knowing."(14) Development theory and practice followed a similar trajectory from centrally planned development toward participatory development with proscriptions for decentralized and democratic governance involving civil society. (15)

Prior consultation is key to tribal sovereigntyHaskew, Managing Attorney, DNA-People's Legal Services, Navajo Nation, 2000(Derek C., “Federal Consultation with Indian Tribes: The Foundation of Enlightened Policy Decisions, orAnother Badge of Shame?” American Indian Law Review, Vol. 24, No. 1 (1999/2000), pp. 21-74Published by: University of Oklahoma College of Law

The proliferation of tribal consultation requirements in federal statutes and policies is arguably a laudable first step toward a mature understanding by the federal government of the sovereignty of Native American tribes. Indeed, successful consultations between tribal liaisons and federal decision makers far beyond the halls of Congress can contribute to the creation of more enlightened, better constructed, and more effective federal policies, projects, and regulations. However, "consultation" remains an ill-defined term in the context of recent (fashionable) use by Congress, the President, and other federal policymakers. Consultation requirements vest tribes with uncertain benefits and create an unsettled set of responsibilities for federal stewards, most prominently the Secretary of the Interior and Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs. A useful definition of "meaningful consultation" is found in Lower Brule Sioux Tribe v. Deer, which explains what potentially takes place during the formal process of consultations between federal agencies and tribal government officials. The typical consultation described in Lower Brule Sioux would have taken place between the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the tribe: [consultation comprised a one to two hour meeting, not more than one half day, during which meeting the [BIA] superintendent notifies the Council of the BIA's proposed action, justifying his reasoning. The Tribal Council may either issue a motion or resolution of support for the decision, or reject the decision. The tribe recognizes that the BIA need not obey the Council's decision. Meaningful consultation means tribal consultation in advance with the decision maker or with intermediaries with clear authority to present tribal views to the BIA decision maker. The decision maker is to comply with BIA and administration policies.7 This definition omits all the procedures that would precede any such meeting, such as notice and response, which are generally understood to be a part of the consultation process.8 But more importantly, while this definition is perhaps a useful starting point, it fails to note the larger perspective, more subtle meanings, and contentious issues that are at the heart of federal-tribal consultations as they have come to be practiced. This article explores the problematic social and political dynamics and legal issues that underlie the obvious meaning of "consultation."


Consult Natives CP

Consultations given the tribes a voice in policy implementationHaskew, Managing Attorney, DNA-People's Legal Services, Navajo Nation, 2000(Derek C., “Federal Consultation with Indian Tribes: The Foundation of Enlightened Policy Decisions, orAnother Badge of Shame?” American Indian Law Review, Vol. 24, No. 1 (1999/2000), pp. 21-74Published by: University of Oklahoma College of Law)

At bottom, consultations are about communicating: they are the legal mechanism used to facilitate communication between tribes and the federal government in the context of a pending decision. This communication is important not (only) as an end in itself, but because of its relationship to the decision being made. However, this point may be lost on the decision makers for whom tribal consultations are just one more procedural rung on the ladder of bureaucratically acceptable decision-making processes. As a result, there is a natural tension between participating parties as to the definition of a successful consultation. For tribes, consultations will be successful when the outcome that they advocate is adopted, in whole or in some significant part. Or, as suggested by Navajo tradition, it may be that by talking things out, a completely different outcome is possible, however, unforseen, and one with which everyone can agree. For federal agencies, success may be measured merely in procedural terms: the decision will be acceptable if and only if the proper procedures were used to reach it, and those procedures include consulting (dutifully, if not enthusiastically) with tribes. This tension alone is enough to make consultations problematic.


Native American Challenge CP

Counterplan text: the United States federal government should provide developmental assistance to eligible tribes through grants and long-term legal, regulatory, and investment policy reforms.

The counterplan is amazing:White 07(Bristol Bay Native Association, July, “White Paper on the Native American Challenge Demonstration Project Act”, EKC)

The proposed Native American Challenge would require that eligible entities negotiate and enter agreements (Native American Challenge Compacts) with the United States that in general serve to allocate the roles, responsibilities, and resources to be dedicated by each of the parties, and set out clearly defined and measurable goals to be achieved.Because the proposed initiative is a demonstration project, the universe of entities eligible to participate is limited to the following entities: (1) the Association of Village Council Presidents, the Bristol Bay Native Association, and the Alaska Federation of Natives applying jointly; (2) in the State of Hawaii, a consortia of local community organizations to be determined by the Secretary in consultation with the Secretary of Interior and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs; and (3) in the contiguous states, three organizations to be determined by the Secretary, which organizations may be Indian tribes, consortia of Indian tribes, or nongovernmental entities authorized by one or more Indian tribes.For those communities without the financial wherewithal, the Secretary is authorized to enter into contracts or make grants to an eligible entity to facilitate the development and implementation of a Compact between the United States and the eligible entity. The Secretary is required to develop an application process and criteria for eligible entities that encompass the purposes of the Act, the economic development strategy of the eligible entity, the remoteness of the reservation or community to be served, its general economic status, poverty rates, and the capacity of the applicant.Through the negotiated Compacts, the Native American Challenge’s strategic goal is to support long-term legal, regulatory, and investment policy reforms and facilitate technical assistance to eligible entities. Eligible entities and the United States would conduct diagnostic studies of Native economic conditions, and provide recommendations for reforms in the policy, legal, regulatory, and investment areas and general economic environment of the community. The Compacts will establish a multi-year plan for achieving those development objectives within the Native community involved and consistent with the purposes of the Act. Initial Compacts may not exceed five years, but an eligible entity and the United States may renegotiate and/or extend the Compact for as many periods as the parties agree, with each period not to exceed ten years.


Native American Challenge CP

Counterplan solves poverty bestWhite 07(Bristol Bay Native Association, July, “White Paper on the Native American Challenge Demonstration Project Act”, EKC)

The Compacts are to be drafted to achieve the broad purposes of the Act and must include the following five elements:1. An articulation of the specific objectives for sustainable economic development and the reduction of poverty that the eligible entity and the United States expect to achieve during the term of the Compact;2. A description of the respective roles and responsibilities of the eligible entity and the United States in the achievement of such objectives;3. A list and description of regular benchmarks to measure progress toward achieving such objectives;4. An identification of the intended beneficiaries, disaggregated by income level, gender, and age, to the maximum extent practical; and5. A multi-year financial plan to guide the implementation of the Compact, including the estimated level of funding and other contributions by the United States and the eligible entity; proposed mechanisms to execute the plan; and periodic assessments to determine whether the requirements of subparagraphs (1) through (4) are being met. Assistance provided pursuant to a Compact may be suspended or terminated --- in whole or in part --- if the Secretary determines that the entity has failed to adhere to its responsibilities under the Compact, or the entity has engaged in a pattern of actions inconsistent with the purposes of the Act. Similarly, the Secretary may reinstate assistance for an entity but ch subsequent fiscal year through 2012. To ensure that a total, cumulative appropriation of $100,000,000 is made available, the Act authorizes that any funds authorized in any one fiscal year that fails to be appropriated shall be available for appropriation in subsequent years. Because it is also likely that not all of the authorized funding will be obligated and made available in year one, the Act provides that sums appropriated are available until expended. In addition, the Act requires that Federal funding dedicated to a Compact must be made available contemporaneously with the execution of the Compact.


States Cp

There are large tensions between Natives and the USFG; state governments are best for total solvencyRitchey, VOA News Writer, 2009(Julia, VOA News, “American Indians Outline Priorities for Obama Administration,” 2-13-09, http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2009-02/2009-02-13-voa5.cfm?CFID=241984597&CFTOKEN=76912286&jsessionid=0030be6222f18cf39fe73f2527e421772486, accessed 6-29-09, CME)

The tension between Native Americans and the government is part of the reason American Indians started getting involved in state politics. Washington State Representative John McCoy is chairman of the National Caucus of Native American State Legislators. He says the idea behind electing American Indians within state governments is that it was usually easier for tribes to deal with the state than the federal government. If their legislative priorities are passed through the state, there's the hope it will be adopted federally as well.

Federal funding ineffective: A cumbersome legal process means implementation can take years, by which time the problem has changed.Barry et. Al., Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission of Human Rights, 2004(Mary, U.S. Commission on Human Rights, “Broken Promises: Evaluating the Native American Health Care System” September. Page 109. MAG)

First, Gallup Indian Medical Center officials explained how even minor facilities modifications were not permissible at the local level unless specifically authorized by Congress. The director of the facility explained one change that would have improved service, but lamented that the change would take years to go through the approval and appropriations process. In a similar situation, the Navajo Nation had been appropriated funds for the provision of substance abuse–related services. The IHS interpretation allowed the money to be spent on the construction of modular facilities, but would not allow permanent structures. A typical solution to this problem entails drafting legislation, or amendments to legislation, including the specific land or facility modifications. Depending on the vagaries of the legislative process, this might take years and, in some cases, be overcome by events prior to enactment. A related complaint by administrators of the Gallup center addressed the 18–24 month IHS process of negotiating lease agreements for facilities.

Local authority is more efficient: they’re more flexible, and American Indians feel more comfortable and therefore will lead to higher quality of care.Barry et. Al., Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission of Human Rights, 2004(Mary, U.S. Commission on Human Rights, “Broken Promises: Evaluating the Native American Health Care System” September. Page 112. MAG)

Significantly, tribally operated facilities have proved to be more effective at increasing enrollment in and collecting from public insurance programs than federal IHS facilities. This has been the case because Native Americans are typically more comfortable releasing private information to other Native Americans; the tribal facilities are motivated to seek additional funds available to them; the tribal facilities use a more flexible billing system capable of adapting to changing reimbursement requirements; and the tribal facilities experience less turnover, enabling the facility to build relationships with state government officials. Furthermore, studies indicate that “one-to-one interaction and oral communication modes are critical to communicating information” to Native Americans.

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2009-02/2009-02-13-voa5.cfm?CFID=241984597&CFTOKEN=76912286&jsessionid=0030be6222f18cf39fe73f2527e421772486

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2009-02/2009-02-13-voa5.cfm?CFID=241984597&CFTOKEN=76912286&jsessionid=0030be6222f18cf39fe73f2527e421772486


Day of Mourning CP

A national day of mourning would facilitate tribal renewalJay Adler, Professor of English, Los Angeles Southwest College, 2008(“Aboriginal Sin,” Tikkun, March/April, Vol. 23, 2, p. 15-62)

A call for gestures of atonement toward the word's conquered and exploited aboriginal populations need not rely first on resolving the differing perspectives of left and right; the symbolism of the gestures may help to initiate the resolution. Whatever progress may have been made over the past century--consisting of even very great and significant achievements--there is so much more to do, and it seems appropriate to ask how we can repair the world before we have fully acknowledged the nature of the damage that requires our repair. Part of a Global Marshall Plan should be dedicated, in appropriate countries and in appropriate percentages of the funds invested in each country, to reparative policies specifically targeted at the surviving indigenous population, to assist it in its educational, economic, and political development, and to aid it in the reclamation of its history and culture. The United States alone can act both symbolically and substantively. On the symbolic but very significant level, the United States should follow the lead of Australia and institute a national day of mourning and atonement in permanent recognition of the various crimes against the Native American population. At the appropriate levels, school curricula should more fitly educate American students in the complex legacy that would call for such a day. The day might even be instituted to coincide with Columbus Day. As it is, an unacknowledged divide exists in the nation with respect to Columbus Day. Some casually look upon it as an honorific occasion for the origin of American history and culture, and others ironically, even bitterly, disdain the day. To join a day of atonement with Columbus Day would capture all of the contradictions and ambivalence with which a developed, mature, and confident nation and culture should regard human history.

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