School abuse victims getting $1.9B

Last Updated Wed, 23 Nov 2005 17:43:22

The Liberal government offered tens of thousands of survivors of abuse at native residential schools up to $30,000 each in a $1.9-billion compensation package announced Wednesday morning.

Another $195 million will be spent on a truth and reconciliation process, a commemoration program and other projects designed to promote healing in First Nations communities.

AFN National Chief Phil Fontaine during a purification ceremony before the announcement Wednesday."We have made good on our shared resolve to deliver what I firmly believe will be a fair and lasting resolution of the Indian school legacy," Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan said at a news conference in Ottawa.

She was flanked by other federal cabinet ministers and abuse survivors, including National Chief Phil Fontaine of the Assembly of First Nations.

"It's a wonderful day," said Fontaine, speaking of the years of negotiations that led to the agreement in principle. "I know that every moment has been worthwhile. Justice has prevailed."

• FROM THE CBC ARCHIVES: A Lost Heritage: Canada's Residential Schools
  

Fontaine said the package covers "decades in time, innumerable events and countless injuries to First Nations individuals and communities."

Justice Minister Irwin Cotler also hailed the package, calling the decision to house young Canadians in church-run native residential schools "the single most harmful, disgraceful and racist act in our history."

The agreement must still be approved by the courts because of the high number of outstanding lawsuits launched over residential school abuse, McLellan said.

She said she hopes the seven courts in different provinces that have been dealing with class-action suits will see that the deal "is fair and just and will bring an end to this complex set of litigation that we have seen for many years."

A federal official said the courts will be approached as early as May to approve the agreement, once it is put into formal language.

Tens of thousands of former students could benefit

As many as 86,000 native Canadians who attended church-run schools across the country may be eligible for payments under the plan.

For decades, they had been fighting to have the government recognize the abuses they suffered in the school system that Ottawa supported financially between the 1870s and 1970s.

Tens of thousands of First Nations young people were taken from their families for months at a time and deprived of their culture, and many were sexually or physically abused by school staff.

The average age of survivors is 60, Fontaine noted Wednesday.

The package includes:

• A "common experience payment" of up to $10,000 per person, plus $3,000 for every year a victim spent in the schools, at a cost to the federal government of $1.9 billion.
• Compensation for claims based on sexual and physical abuse, as well as loss of language and culture.
• A speeded-up process to get an initial $8,000 payment to claimants aged 65 and over while the rest of the program's details are sorted out.
• Five-year funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, totalling $125 million.
• $60 million for a truth and reconciliation process.
• $10 million to commemorate what happened in the schools, to assist in victims' healing.
• An agreement that victims accepting compensation payments cannot sue the federal government and the churches running the schools except in cases of sexual and serious physical abuse.
• An alternate dispute-settling process to deal with separate claims for sexual abuse and serious physical abuse.

The federal government's package did not include a national apology for the abuses. McLellan said that was not a part of the negotiations "for this process."

Karen Shaboyer, a former residential school student who works at an aboriginal cultural centre in Toronto, said the agreement is a good start. She hopes it will open the eyes of non-native people, at the very least.

"You see a lot of my people today who may be staggering on the street, and people just call them down, but really, that person is holding a lot of pain and they don't know how to deal with it," said Shaboyer.

Package called 'deathbed conversion'

NDP native affairs critic Pat Martin calls the package a deathbed conversion on the part of the Liberals.

He says the looming federal election likely prompted the announcement, which came a day before Prime Minister Paul Martin attends a first ministers' conference on native affairs in Kelowna, B.C.

• FROM NOV. 22, 2005: Ottawa, provinces ready to commit to native issues
  

"The government is doing the honourable thing, but it does have the stink of desperation to it," the New Democrat MP said.

In May, former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci was appointed to help Ottawa develop a plan to compensate victims and avoid the costly lawsuits facing the courts.

About 12,000 survivors of residential school abuse are now suing Ottawa.

Written by CBC News Online staff

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2005/11/23/residential-package051123

Native American Proverbs

Native American Proverbs

Speak truth in humility to all people.
Only then can you be a true man. (Sioux)

With all things and in all things,
we are relatives. (Sioux)

Love one another and do not strive for
another's undoing. (Seneca)

We will be known forever by the tracks
we leave. (Dakota)

Each person is his own judge. (Pima)

Do not judge your neighbor until you walk
two moons in his moccasins. (Cheyenne)

There is no death, only a change of worlds.
(Duwamish)

The more you give, the more good things
come to you. (Crow)

Don't walk behind me;
I may not lead.
Don't walk in front of me;
I amy not follow.
Walk beside me that we may be as one.
(Ute)

Ask questions from you heart and you will
be answered from the heart. (Omaha)

No one else can represent your conscience.
(Anishinabe)

Do not speak of evil for it creates
curiosity in the hearts of the young.
(Lakota)

I have been to the end of the earth.
I have been to the end of the water.
I have been to the end of the sky.
I have been to the end of the mountains.
I have found none that are not my friends.
(Navajo)

The greatest strength is gentleness.
(Iroquois)

You must live your life from beginning to end:
Noone else can do it for you.
(Hopi)

Don't let yesterday use up too much
of today. (Cherokee)

What is past and cannot be prevented
should not be grieved for. (Pawnee)

Knowledge that is not used is abused.
(Cree)

It is easy to be brave from a distance.
(Omaha)

Seek wisdom, not knowledge.
Knowledge is of the past,
Wisdom is of the future. (Lumbee)

Don't be afraid to cry.
It will free your mind of sorrowful
thoughts. (Hopi)

Listen to the voice of nature,
For it holds treasures for you. (Huron)

When a man moves away from nature his
heart becomes hard. (Lakota)

Take only what you need and leave the
land as you found it. (Arapaho)

God gave us each a song. (Ute)

Everyone who is successful must have
dreamed of something. (Maricopa)

Life is not separate from death.
It only looks that way. (Blackfoot)

It is no longer good enought to Cry peace,
We must Act peace, Live peace and Live
In Peace. (Shenandoah)

From the web page:
Native American Proverbs

Cherokees vote to display Ten Commandments

  Cherokees vote to display Ten Commandments 'We are sovereign nation and can pretty much post anything we want'
Posted: September 24, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

If you are nostalgic for the days when the Ten Commandments were posted in public buildings, you might want to consider visiting the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians.

The tribal council is making plans to mount a copy of the Ten Commandments in the council house where government meetings are held, and possibly display them throughout other public buildings in the Cherokee Nation of western North Carolina.

The idea was introduced by Councilwoman Angela Kephart last month. She said the tribe should display the Ten Commandments out of respect and devotion to God. The motion passed unanimously.

"We aren't saying you have to abide by the Ten Commandments," Kephart said, according to the Smoky Mountain News. "We are simply displaying God's Ten Commandments. That's what He expects from each and every individual. If you break that, it is between you and God. It is not between you and the tribal council; it is between you and God."

There is no First Amendment issue involved, and even if the American Civil Liberties Union wanted to make one, it can't. The U.S. Constitution does not apply to Cherokee, nor to any other Native American tribe for that matter, according to Cherokee's Attorney General David Nash.

"We are a sovereign nation and we can pretty much post anything we want in our council chambers," said Kephart. "For once the federal government is not going to tell us what to do. We can feel good about it because we are standing up for God. The more it becomes controversial, the more we need to stand firm."

Kephart was clear about her desire to promote Christianity.

"God has blessed our tribe," she said. "We have a very rich tribe, per se. We are operating on over a $200 million budget thanks to our gaming enterprise."

Posting the Ten Commandments doesn't prevent others from practicing their religion, explained Nash.

"Anybody can practice any religion they want to practice," Nash said.

Native American Women

Wilma Mankiller former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation

Wilma Mankiller, former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, lives on the land which was allotted to her paternal grandfather, John Mankiller, just after Oklahoma became a state in 1907. Surrounded by the Cherokee Hills and the Cookson Hills, she lives in a historically rich area where a person's worth is not determined by the size of their bank account or portfolio. Her family name "Mankiller" as far as they can determine, is an old military title that was given to the person in charge of protecting the village. As the leader of the Cherokee people she represented the second largest tribe in the United States, the largest being the Dine (Navajo) Tribe. Mankiller was the first female in modern history to lead a major Native American tribe. With an enrolled population of over 140,000, and an annual budget of more than $75 million, and more than 1,200 employees spread over 7,000 square miles, her task may have been equalled to that of a chief executive officer of a major corporation.

Initially, Wilma's candidacy was opposed by those not wishing to be led by a woman. Her tires were slashed and there were death threats during her campaign. But now as Wilma shares her home with her husband, Charlie Soap, and Winterhawk, his son from a previous marriage, things are very different. She has won the respect of the Cherokee Nation, and made an impact on the culture as she has focused on her mission - to bring self-sufficiency to her people.

"Prior to my election, " says Mankiller, "young Cherokee girls would never have thought that they might grow up and become chief." Mankiller had been asked by Ross Swimmer, then President of a small bank, who assumed leadership of the Cherokee Nation in 1975. He convinced Mankiller to run as his deputy chief. They won. In 1985, Swimmer resigned as chief to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Cherokee law mandated that the deputy chief assume the duties of the former chief.

In the historic tribal elections of 1987, Mankiller won the post out-right and brought unprecedented attention to the tribe as a result. "We are a revitalized tribe," said Mankiller,"After every major upheaval, we have been able to gather together as a people and rebuild a community and a government. Individually and collectively, Cherokee people possess an extraordinary ability to face down adversity and continue moving forward. We are able to do that because our culture, though certainly diminished, has sustained us since time immemorial. This Cherokee culture is a well-kept secret."

Mankiller attibutes her understanding of her peoples history partially to her own families forced removal, as part of the government's Indian relocation policy, to California when she was a young girl . Her concern for Native American issues was ignited in 1969 when a group of university students occupied Alcatraz Island in order to attract attention to the issues affecting their tribes. Shortly afterwards, she began working in preschool and adult education programs in the Pit River Tribe of California.

In 1974, she divorced her husband after eleven years of marriage when their views of her role continued to widen. She moved back to her ancestral lands outside of Tahlequah, and immediately began helping her people by procuring grants enabling them to launch critical rural programs. In 1979 she enrolled in the nearby University of Arkansas, and upon returning home from class was almost killed in a head-on collision in which one of her best friends who had been driving the other car, was killed. After barely avoiding the amputation of her right leg, she endured another seventeen operations. Mankiller says that it was during the long process that she really began reevaluating her life and it proved to be a time of deep spiritual awakening.

Then in 1980, just a year after the accident, she was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, a chronic neuromuscular disease that causes varying degrees of weakness in the voluntary muscles of the body. She maintains that it was the realization of how precious life is that spurred her to begin projects for her people, such as the Bell project where members of the community revitalized a whole community themselves.

It was the success of the Bell project that thrust Mankiller into national recognition as an expert in community development. The election to deputy chief did not come until two years later. In 1986, Wilma married long time friend and former director of tribal development, Charlie Soap. Mankiller's love of family and community became a source of strength when again a life threatening illness struck. Recurring kidney problems forced Mankiller to have a kidney transplant, her brother Don Mankiller served as the donor. During her convalescence, she had many long talks with her family, and it was decided that she would run again for Chief in order to complete the many community projects she had begun.

She has shown in her typically exuberant way that not only can Native Americans learn a lot from the whites, but that whites can learn from native people. Understanding the interconnectedness of all things, many whites are beginning to understand the value of native wisdom, culture and spirituality. Spirituality is then key to the public and private life of Wilma Mankiller who has indeed become known not only for her community leadership but also for her spiritual presence. A woman rabbi who is the head of a large synagogue in New York commented that Mankiller was a significant spiritual force in the nation.

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