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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 7, 1994)
EDITORIAL Give remains back to Native Americans Cultural traditions and the Native American Grave Pro tection and Reparation Act of 1990 are butting heads on Native American remains. The t Jnivorsitv has Native American remains in its pos session and Native Americans want them back. Howev er the University believes it is entitled to study the remains under the Act. The Native Amoric on Grave Protection and Reparation Ac! of 1990 required the University and all museums to notify federally recognized tribes of their holdings bv November 1993 Any skeletal remains and sacred objects must be returned by the University to the tribes by 1995 and the University intends to. The Act has one major stumbling point - the definition of sacred objects. Many objects are buried with Native American remains, objects that to the Native Americans are sacred. However to others they may simply Ire objects. Much of the conflict of interest stems from the Missouri flood last summer that unearthed remains, many of them Native Americ an remains. President ('Union provided funds for c askets to rebury the remains, but the Native Americ an remains have been kept "I hate tin1 word 'repatriation.'" Don Dumond. direr ten of the University Museum of Natural History, told the Associated Press. "That implies we know who they are and we c an give them bac k We would like to do that, to have this controversy over with. But in all honesty we have no idea where some of them belong." " The medicine men tell mo the* Ixcnes cry out. that they want to be safely put away," said Prosanna Williams, a spiritual leader who has served as an undertaker for the Warm Springs, Wasco and Paiute triboa liven if the remains one! up in tin* wrong burial ground, it’s belter than in Ixixes in the museum, she said. The issue seems to lie about the museum and its inter est in keeping the bones for classification and display, and the Native Americans wanting the remains buried. Ac cording to the law the museum has the right to keep the bones, at least until 1995. Also according to the law. the remains must lx* returned to the appropriate tribe. The University argues that it doesn't know who the appropriate tribe is for some of the remains. I ht1 pierces that are ac counted lor should be returned to their respective homelands for proper burial as soon as possible. The remains that are not accounted for or have an unsure identity need to be returned as well. The cpiestion is. where to return them to' A logical and appropriate agreement must Ice met between the tribes and the University about returning the remains to a resting place. The bones and sacred objects, objec ts that Native Americans deem sacred and agreed upon by museum officials, have resting places beyond the museum as well. Manv of the remains were unearthed by tin; Missouri flood, an ac t of nature that produced an archaeological find Uortainh in the name of science it is necessary to evaluate the' find, but the evaluation should not take the maximum time allowed by law ['he remains have a respectable plat o to rest and it's not a box in a museum. Oregon Daily »«v p.t'. I ' f *. pw*» ■.''«) .'.,1 » M My !' . ih 11 .1 1 ■; 'V> • ina' a--d 1.j«»day svnt Thu'ftday du« *'g the »umm«i by the Oregon Da » E'm^akl * ii*Co toe . at the Un*v#r*»ty o< Oe^oo. f ugtme. Oregon ■ l *r- U on » o .% a - ■■vn-i4}* it trie Aw - <i!«d The f private p* 'party The .. .i*'.; -- t,se 1 pap*'* ••■* . ’*£*# t>> a* Editor in-Chtet i*<* B©»a t ciilor Editorial Editor Graphics Editor Fraatanca Editor AiXMWfton OavxJ Thorn Pasiay >>* W;n{<w» bpon* t ditor EdUlorwH Editor Pfioto Editor Supplement* Editor S!©v«* W ■"» J*l? P**h*fdl Ka»> Solo Nigm tofiof Mrvr m ' a Associate Editors f dwa*d Kvopr©rii**— . Sruifevtf Government A**r km Rebecca Merr.-fl C<vr»mu*vf> ii«a!h©r!© Mimee H#gh©r fducatayv Adm-.ijjirarH.vt News Staff Mandy Bawcum lo* Bettmash* !• c BuCKhade* A son Chan Dave Chart»onr*n^ Amy Colombo Jen Dows. Meg Oedoipb. Amy Davenport M,t a f «*ds Martin t she* Sa*ah Mend®* son. Yin long leong Ma<>ut Me land Tr.sta No© i • sabeth Re«n*i*rr\a. Robbie Reeves, t >a Sakxoa Scort Simonson Stephan* Sisson Susanna Su*hens Thompson. Amy Van Tuy< Dane Wes! General Manager: Judy R*ed Advertising Director Ma/v Wart©* Production Manager Met**© Ross Advertising Brian Dav s Sutur Dutta N © M®r*mar* Tere&a I sab©-"* J©'* Ma jewn) Mason M» he©' MiBette Kelsey Wm© - Classified Becky Merchant. Ma'vagnr Veto* M**-, a Sim T /© Tnc* Distribution John long. Graham S*mpson Business Kathy Carbon® Supervisor judyConnoity Production: Dm McCobb. Production OootcknMof Snawna Abate. Greg Desmond. Tara Gau* ©y Brad Joss Jenn ‘a* RoUrxl Natt Tha-vjv fd. Cut,! Ye© N*w*room 346-5511 Butin*** Office 346-6512 Display Advertising 346-3712 Classified Advertising 346-4343 «Ctfi?^ES© f OKAV, I’fA (yNCO^R'NC? THE COVERUP, 7HEN VOu LET ME GO, RtGur? WOO k> DIAHLV CXPAQT I,?-, - OPINION Whitewater? Gimme a break RoKHIF RffU> W hi lew nter, whitewater What s the big deal? A bunch of Republi i ans. in Washington who have nothing else better to do hut derail legislation got together to do something really meaningful for Amerii a I'hev dug up a i on i rovers \ I won't bore you with the details l ike the overwhelming majority of Ameriums. y ou prof) ably don't i are Hut some of the elements of the mm h-vaunted Whilew ater < ontrov ersv ire dovvnright odd. I ake tin- example of the First I-idyl Hilary Kodhatn Clinton A little over ,i del ade ago. she invested some money , and, lo and behold, she made a titt of money Actually , she mode a lot of money Hut this sounds mis picious, acc ording lo Ropubli i ans, who would like to crur ify (my contribution to |esus Week) her for it Weren't Kepublu arts in favor of "get ru h quit k " kind of schemes? That's only the beginning Hill Clinton is c harged with improp erly handling finances yvith Whitewater, a property deal that lie was handling yvith a man named James Mi -something-or otlier, who is most well-known for his then really goofy looking sideburns Then there an* the accusations that Clinton misused contribu tions to his 1984 run for gover nor of Arkansas, that Hillary's then law firm had improper deal ings with the state, and a whole slew of other things Pretty soon there will be Republicans on the floor of the Mouse yvith other charges "Is it true, Mr. President, that in 1977 you actually forgot to balance vour checkbook one month' thev might start, or {Ntrhaps they might find out that Hill parked in Little Rook once without lending the parking meter Who knows' Hut more importantly, who i ares' I'll admit it right off the hat I'm partisan, and I think that Hill (Hinton is doing a pretty good job I'd probably get mad at anyone who got in his way of accom plishing what he is setting out to do There are those that claim that Clinton and the Democrats are 'fair game" because Democrats exposed the Iran-Contra si.amlai w ith Ronald Reagan, or because Kir hard Nixon i aim- pretty close to being impeached for Water gate Nonsense There is a big dif letcm e between Watergate, lran Coittra-gate. and what might he tailed Whjlowatergate Watergate and Iran (iontra both were direr t results of the at lions o! a presi dent while he was serving his term .is president The Watergate complex (which, of course. Nixon was running flu re-election in) was broken into during the 1972 presidential campaign, while the Iran-Contra affair was a direi t result of the policies of the Rea gan administration. On the other hand, the i hurges that Hill (Hinton is fat mg now all relate to things that he allegedly did (or had knowledge of) while he was governor of Arkansas Nothing that relates to Whitewa ter, the land dealing (notice that most ot the charges don’t specif ically relate to the land deal, hut that doesn’t stop ’em from com plaining in Washington) is curred during Clinton s term as Presi dent. So why do Republicans care about Whitewater7 Htx a use. often times, they can’t win on the issues Clinton has. often times, a supportive Congress in which he can pass his policies, and without something like While water to gum up (tie works, much of his stuff would (>ass Hut now that Whitewater is the controversy that it is. people The Clintons will survive this controversy just like all of the others, and in a year, Whitewater will have gone the way of Gennifer Flowers and the Arkansas state trooper fiasco. seem to forgot that Clinton is try nig to pass some important pro grams Instead, in the true Amer ican tradition, the irrelevant controversy cat< lies more atten tion than anything else Leaders in Congress are appar ently in the process of negotia tions that yvill decide how this whole thing will lie resolved It looks like it yvill mean hearings of some sort or another And yy Inle Republicans swear (vs ith out breaking into laughter) that they really aren't try ing to stop the President's programs from passing, the fact is that if hear ings are going on. Congress is going to grind to a halt. Repre sentatives can't Im- m two places at the same time What would you rather your representative lie doing? The Clintons will survive this controversy just like all of the others, and in a year. Whitewa ter will have gone the way of Gennifer Flowers and the Arkansas state trooper fiasi o it's unfortunate, however, that it will take several months to resolve the problem m Congress And by the way, rumor has it that there are still plots for sale at Whitewater, a somewhat-tol erable looking place in Arkansas. Interested? Give the President a call. He'd love to hear from you. I'm sure. Hobble Reeves is a columnist for the Lmerald
