by Tom Louie
Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2002 at 10:09 AM
tclouie@pacbell.net
Do these words seem familiar?
WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) -- A Defense Ministry spokesman today discounted
the possibility that Natives will be allowed to form their own
independent state, alluding to recent terrorism as evidence that Natives
are not ready for self-rule.
The nation has been shocked recently by a series of "suicide scalpings,"
whereby Native terrorists infiltrate settlements and scalp and knife
settlers, including women and children, before being felled by the guns
of the local militia.
However, due to the high death toll among terrorist perpetrators, recent
Native attacks have seemed to indicate a gradual abandonment of the
"suicide scalping" tactic in favor of making lightning-fast strikes with
dozens of horsemen and simply burning the whole blamed settlement down.
The President reiterated yesterday that no peace is possible as long as
Native Authority leader Sitting Bull remains in power, and has called
for the election of new native leaders. "Every time a White man is
killed," continued the President, "it is Bull's responsibility. The
Native people need more moderate leadership."
Hearing of this statement, an unidentified Native retorted, "We will
choose our own leaders, not Big White Wanker."
Bull has been under house arrest since surrendering to Federal troops,
but is still suspected of supporting the Ghost Dancers, a hard-line
militant organization.
Recently the option of "mass removal" has been gaining popularity among
the White citizenry, particularly in frontier areas. A settler
spokesman, speaking to a local assembly, fulminated in the following
fashion: "Let's ship them all to Canada! Let those soft-hearted limeys
take care of 'em!"
The governments of Great Britain and Canada have strongly rejected all
such proposals. Worldwide condemnation of the United States' treatment
of the Natives has largely fallen on deaf ears.
One seemingly intractable sticking point in this conflict has been the
disposition of the 1836 refugees. Native spokesmen claim that
international law as well as several Supreme Court decisions give them
the right to return to their ancestral homes in Georgia and Tennessee,
from which they were removed by the Jackson Administration.
According to Administration sources, this is no longer a viable
solution. "We already have our own people living on those lands now, "
said one source, "and they don't want no danged Natives living near
them. Sorry, but that's a 'fact on the ground.'
"Besides, all we did in 1836 was remove the Natives from one Native
territory to another. Hey, sorry about the people who died on the way,
but that's progress and manifest destiny."
The prospects also seem dim for the withdrawal of more recent
settlements on Native lands in the West. Native spokesmen have accused
these settlers of taking the best hunting grounds and killing all the
buffalo, leading to economic hardship in Native communities.
Settler communities on the Western frontier constitute a powerful bloc
of votes, and settler spokesmen have often justified their presence on
the land in patriotic or even Biblical terms.
Natives dwelling outside the White frontier are not considered citizens
of the United States or any other country, and hence cannot vote in
United States elections.
So far the death toll in this conflict is up to 1,000 white deaths and
an undetermined number of Native deaths. Native spokesmen, as well as
notorious Native sympathizer Helen Hunt Jackson, claim the figure is
many times the number for Whites, including both civilian and combat
deaths.
Testifying before Congress last week, a United States Army spokesman
downplayed the importance of Native non-combatant casualties, such as
those at Sand Creek and the Washita River, calling them "tragic, but
necessary."
"Those cowardly Natives hide among their civilian population, and in
close-quarters fighting it is very difficult to avoid harming women and
children," declared the spokesman. "Besides, you know as well as I do
that those children would only grow up to be indoctrinated with hatred
for Whites. It may be more merciful to nip that in the bud.
"For Christ's sake, don't you remember Little Big Horn? Don't you
remember Minnesota in '62? These people hate us and will always hate us.
We cannot let up on them for even a second."
The spokesman also strongly defended the practice of "collective
punishment," whereby the home villages of suspected terrorists are
destroyed by the Army.
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