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International Indian Treaty Council CONSEJO INTERNACIONAL DE TRATADOS INDIOS |
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February 24, 2006
U.N. panel says it can't consider Shoshone claim, blames U.S. By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER ASSOCIATED PRESS (http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2006/feb/24/022410405.html) GENEVA (AP) - A United Nations' anti-racism panel said Friday that it could not yet consider an appeal by an American Indian tribe that the U.S. government stole its ancestral land because the United States has withheld requested information. The U.S. government has failed to submit the information because it believes the case of the Western Shoshone is "an old one" and that the U.N. panel is not competent to hear it, according to a summary of the hearing released by the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. But committee member Patricia Nozipho January-Bardill of South Africa said the case could be taken up again next week when a Shoshone representative is set to appear before the Geneva-based group. The U.S. mission to U.N.'s European headquarters, however, said it would respond to the accusation in its next periodic report to the panel, which has yet to be received, according to the summary of the hearings held behind closed doors. The committee is made up of 18 independent experts and oversees global compliance with the 1969 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. All countries that have signed the treaty are meant to submit regular reports showing how they respect it. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1979 that an 1863 treaty gave the U.S. government trusteeship over tribal lands in parts of what are now the states of Nevada, Idaho, Utah and California. But, some Shoshone have kept up the fight, even after a majority of their fellow tribe members voted to accept a government settlement that has grown to $145 million. "We see no way we can continue internally in the United States, so we're taking our argument across the water to the United Nations, and the United Nations is listening," Raymond Yowell, chief of the Western Shoshone National Council, told reporters earlier this week. The committee said in August that the tribe's argument that the U.S. policy of "gradual encroachment" after the treaty amounted to racism against an indigenous people deserved a response from the U.S. government. Lawyers for the Western Shoshone say the U.S. never established a right to the indigenous land and was granted only limited access under the 1863 treaty. But a bill signed by President Bush in July 2004 gave approval to distributing the
more than $145 million in compensation and interest from a
1946 settlement.
The tribe voted twice in favor of the settlement, say
supporters of the bill.
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