Street Roots • June 16-22, 2017
DE-RAILING, from page 7
situation in the Gorge, where communities
are forced to accept economic projects that
put their lives and environment in jeopardy.
“Where was the manifested right for an
individual to express (such) domination and
dehumanization? What was its origin? There
are practical, real steps in time, associated
decisions, case law, legislative acts, that
have empowered and materialized the ability
to make decisions that dominate and
dehumanize people. It started with native
people. But now the residents that have
endured this derailment last year - you are
beginning to feel what it’s like to be
dehumanized.”
Goudy says the Doctrine of Discovery
remains a key legal tool that is used to
violate native rights, particularly in dispute
resolution and court proceedings.
Chuck Sams, Communications Director
for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla,
agrees that the Discovery Doctrine is still
harming tribes in court.
“It’s still inculcated into American law,”
Sams said. “And until such time as we’re
willing to recognize the racist values of
those laws, and the structures they put in
place to ensure that they are perpetuated,
we’re going to always face that in a federal
court, or even a state court for that matter.”
Some of these tensions were clearly on
display at Tuesday’s hearing in The Dalles,
with the railroad’s lawyers arguing that
tribes are not competent to determine
treaty rights violations, and that local
governments like Wasco County are
fundamentally not authorized to recognize
such violations when doing so might
obstruct a federal railroad corporation.
“It is a very conscientious choice, that we
are putting ourselves in a position to
prolong our reliance on fossil fuels,” Goudy
said. “The ability to make a choice to seek
profit rather than responsible decision
making is enabled by a judicial system and a
legislative system that currently promotes
that type of choice.”
n March, Goudy joined the Standing Rock
Sioux tribal council and thousands of
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tribal members in Washington, D .C . to call
for the dismantling of “the flawed and
unholy idea of the Doctrine of Discovery”
and an end to U .S . government actions that
continue its legacy of “domination and
dehumanization.” Last year, Goudy traveled
to the Vatican to hand deliver a request to
Pope Francis to revoke the Doctrine of
Discovery and three papal bulls supporting
it.
“He asked me to pray for him, which I
did. I asked him to pray for me,” Goudy
said.
For years, the Gorge has been an
economic battleground for out-of-state
energy companies hoping to score big by
investing in infrastructure projects that
connect domestic supply chains to the
global market.
Many of these proposals have been shot
down by tribes who retain deep ancestral
ties to specific sites, and reserved the right
to protect those sites in contractual treaty
negotiations signed back to 1855 with the
U .S . government.
In May 2016, the Army Corps of
Engineers denied a key permit for a massive
coal export terminal at Cherry Point after
finally agreeing that the project would harm
the fishing rights of the Lummi Nation. The
Lummi had formally opposed the project on
that basis for nearly three years, and had
engaged in significant legal and advocacy
work to prove what ultimately a simple
observation. The financial backer of the
terminal - Pacific Island Terminal - implied
that Lummi Nation fishermen may be
confused about where they fish and how
often they do it.
The situation mirrored an earlier one in
Boardman, Oregon, where a coal terminal
was rejected in August 2014 after a company
spokesperson told the media that a tribal
fishing site either did not exist or existed
somewhere else - despite official
documentation from the Yakama and
Umatilla tribal governments. Similar
conflicts continue today where energy
companies jockey for property rights over
existing rights-holders - including at the
Port of Tacoma in Washington and along the
Klamath River in Southern Oregon.
Page 11
Swinomish Indian Tribal Community,
asserting that B N SF Railway cannot use
federal pre-emption to override tribal rights
involving a 1991 easement agreement
between the Swinomish and BNSF. In that
case, B N SF moved significant quantities of
oil trains through the Swinomish
reservation without permission.
By settling that tribal rights in that case
are not preempted by federal railroad law,
U .S. District Judge Robert Lasnik cleared
the way for the Swinomish to seek an
or tribal leaders, these modern day legal
injunction that might remove oil trains from
battles are the continued cultural
influence of the Doctrine of Discovery and their treaty lands completely.
“A deal is a deal is a deal.” said
the related notion of terra nullius - or
Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby. “The
vacant land lacking native occupancy. The
Tribe takes the agreements that it signs
absence of native education in U .S. schools
seriously, and we expect them to be
provides support for such a doctrine.
honored.”
“Our education system, kindergarten
Ironically, Tuesday’s decision by the '
through college, does not teach American
Gorge Commission fell just a few days after
Indian history,” says Chuck Sams,
treaty day weekend - an annual celebration
spokesman for the Confederated Tribes of
where plateau tribes celebrate the signing
the Umatilla. “We’re taught as if we’re
of their treaties with the U .S . government.
already gone.”
“You can learn a lot in 162 years,” said
Sams says the lack of education on native
Asa Washines, a tribal councilor with
history is a major obstacle for effective
Yakama Nation soon after the Yakama
treaty rights enforcement, and that a tribal
Nation’s treaty day parade. “Our treaty
delegation will soon be traveling to Omaha,
rights are inherent, and they are the
Nebraska, where Union Pacific is
supreme law of the land. It’s unfortunate
headquartered, to explain tribal concerns
that they (railroad companies) feel this way,
with rail safety with the company. One
but the thing about them, all these coal and
concern Sams said he’ll raise is that slowing
oil trains that are coming down the
mechanisms for dangerous locations have
Columbia River, we defeated several of
already been installed in Washington but not
them, but we know they’ll just keep coming,
in Oregon.
and so we’ll just keep fighting.
“We recognize that it’s costly. But in my
“In the last 160 years since the signing of
knowledge, and in historical perspective,
our treaty we’ve been really cognizant of
I’ve never seen the rail company in dire
how to move forward. We will continue to be
straights for funding,” Sams said.
on the forefront of protecting our natural
In November, project supporters in
resources, and what they mean not only to
Boardman announced they had reached an
Yakama Nation but to all people,” Washines
agreement with tribes and environmental
said. “And so we will continue this fight, we
groups that will prevent further legal
will continue to educate folks, we will
disputes over coal while facilitating
continue to push forward and bring
discussion of other proposals at the site - as
awareness, to raise the consciousness of all
long as they do not harm treaty fishing
people so they understand where we are
rights.
coming from. And once they realize we are
right, history will remember it. I think
people want to be on the right side of
n Thursday, June 8, tribes scored
history as opposed to the wrong side of
another victory when a U .S . district
judge in Washington found in favor of the history.”
“You can call it what you want - improper
consultation, irresponsible decision, but I
call it genocide,” said Goudy. “It is a
genocidal act to continue to make
irresponsible decisions that will impact a
people and our nation that will shorten our
sustained existence, and that’s what the
United States is doing to native nations. Not
just Yakama Nation - all native nations.”
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