Popular Categories

Error, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 21)

NEWS FROM THE PAST

Witch hunting


This article appeared in the Lakota Times on March 20, 1985.

Has the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council taken a lesson from the Roman emperor who said, “IF you don’t like the message, kill the messenger?”

A tribal resolution (85- 51) “demands” in so many words, that the Bureau of Indian Affairs become legal censors. The resolution goes on to say that “recent incidents where confidential tribal information have been released to unauthorized individuals by Bureau of Indian Affairs employees, and WHEREAS, premature release of this confidential information to such individuals has jeopardized many tribal programs and other economic development activities….”

For the life of us, we cannot understand why it is secret information when the tribe is negotiating to spend $12 million plus for economic development. Does the tribe feel that the people have no right to know what they are doing with these dollars?

We really wish that Harvey Greenwald and company would have turned out to be legitimate business people. For the sake of the people, we wish this. But, our investigation proved, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the Tribe was getting itself into really hot water by dealing with such a disreputable character. A man more interested in ripping us off then helping us.

From the very beginning we were told by tribal officials and the BIA that no information would be released on the negotiations taking place between the tribe and Harvey Greenwald until all plans had been finalized.

It is the duty of the free press to keep the public informed. We asked ourselves a very simple question. Who was it that was being protected by this secrecy? And then we discovered that it was Harvey Greenwald himself who asked that everything be kept secret until after all negotiations have been completed. Now that got us very suspicious.

Why did Greenwald want everything under tight security? Surely he didn’t have anything to hide – – – or did he? What possible reason would the Tribe have to keep things secret? Didn’t the tribal members have a right to know what the Tribe was doing in these negotiations?

If the company trying to invest on our reservation was a reputable firm, would they be afraid to publicize what it was they were trying to do? The bottom line is we just plain do not like secrecy. When there is secrecy, there is something that is being hidden – – – Or secreted away – – from the people.

If uncovering the facts concerning all of the shady deals of Harvey Greenwald, and publishing these facts for the people of the reservation to read about kept our Tribe from doing severe monetary damage to our Tribe, and to the future hopes of our children, and jeopardized the finalization of these secret negotiations, we are darn glad we checked out the facts and reported on them.

Instead of passing resolutions demanding that the BIA and the Tribal government censor its employees, the Tribal Council should pass a resolution doing away with secrecy altogether. They should then pass another resolution demanding that they do a thorough background check on anyone wanting to bring industry to this reservation.

No, if you do not like the message, you do not kill the messenger. You find out what caused the message to be bad, and then you do something about changing it.



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.