ALASKA NATIVES COMMISSION
JOINT FEDERAL-STATE COMMISSION
ON
POLICIES AND PROGRAMS AFFECTING
ALASKA NATIVES
4000 Old Seward Highway, Suite 100
Anchorage,
Alaska 99503
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Witness List | PDF
Version
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Next one on is Julia
DeMott. Do you want to have a seat? I'd just like to remind
you that
we're running fast out of time; we have a big list, so limit
to ten minutes and then questions. Thank you.
MS. DEMOTT: Good afternoon. My current concerns are with the Native villages -- village councils located in Alaska. For the past two years, we have been actively searching for ways with which to force the council into having an annual membership and an election.
The council will not participate in the -- any election process whatsoever. They have stated that they did, indeed, have membership meetings during the annual corporation meetings. We all know that the village councils and the corporations are two entities -- they're two different business entities, with totally different responsibilities to our Native brothers and sisters here in Alaska.
The current council I am speaking about was held over seven and a half years ago; however, due to resignations, and so forth, the council that was totally voted out is back on seat. We, the Native people, have every right to vote in a traditional council to represent us, just like we vote in our city councils. Through our effort, which, by the way, we have full support of our elders and many' many Native members, and we have met with name calling, blacklisted to attend conferences, ignored and lied to. Enough is enough. The time has come for the present councils to own up to their responsibilities and answer our questions. What do we do besides falling short of physically removing them from the council office?
They are also in the midst of the passing resolutions and amendments concerning membership qualifications with stipulations to be qualified and recognized to be included in the village, even though we are bona fide residents. The main reason for our concerns is the fact that the members of our current council have condoned sexual incest, child abuse within their own personal family, and have been, indeed, convicted of such horrendous crimes.
And we, the people of our community, whatsoever, do not condone these actions, and do, indeed, believe that this abuse has led to self-destruction of our children through drug and alcohol.
This is why we need our tribal courts enacted. We have not given up; and we will continue to fight for our community; and it has been a hard struggle, but our beliefs shall prevail. And the bottom line is that the pride and the dignity of being Native shows through, and proves the fact that we are strong people who have honor and integrity. And our persistence with this matter is just an extension of that feeling.
To deal with these are very serious matters, and what is the solution? We know what the solution is. If we did have tribal courts our people would deal with these terrible wrongdoings the way we had done in the past.
There's a lot of child abuse, and these people aren't serving any time. This one deal that I'm talking about happened with eight girls, starting from two years old; and the father raped all these children -- all these little girls. Now, this is one of the things that I want you people to know here.
I do -- I think you'll remember that there was an article in the paper last year where this Native man raped a child and said it was done in the Native families, which is wrong. This is what this one man from my area stated; and it was in the front page, and said that it was Native practice to sleep with your daughters. And all of you know that is not true.
We are very proud people. How can we be -- how can we have that on our records, and in front of God and everybody saying this to us? This is not true, and I want you people to know this; that my mother sat us down, and I come from a family of 14 -- 9 brothers and 5 sisters -- and she told us who we were related to; who we were; what we were about; who not to marry, that -- 'cause they're related to us; and we figured even third cousins were too close; figured it was incest.
So, what is that telling you? That it does not happen in -- within the Native people. Whether it's here or in the Lower 48. It doesn't happen here.
So, I just wonder, what do we do? These people have been tried in court by -- one guy this one guy was tried by a big judge here, and what does he do? He gives him clemency. He raped his eight daughters; he got clemency. Isn't that sad?
Now, I'd like to get back to tribal court. I was invited down to Regina, Canada. I was the first woman to ever sit on tribal court with all men, and we were -- we started out with the White man's court -- that's what they call it down -- and they call the attorneys counselors. And so the counselors said that this was going to be tried in tribal court, and which we did. We went there, and it was three days that we had tribal court.
And I was amazed, and I have never in my life have ever seen anything like that. It was just like I was sitting in a movie, and I thought it was the greatest thing that the Native people could have something like that where they can try their people. This is why I'm so for tribal courts within our areas, because of something like this.
And I can't understand why, and I never will understand why, that from day one, here we are, back to number one, day one, back to the White man, where we are asking him permission to do what we have to do; what we want to do. Here we are again. I see this happening. I see it up here in AFN. Sure, at AFN, they have all the -- they don't deal with our problems, where I believe that this is where we should be up there, dealing -- them dealing with us, and us dealing with them, with the Native people present, and we are there, take a half a day to bring our problems to them; not to attorneys, not to priests, but to our own people.
Here we are back to day one. I remember the time when I was growing up, the Natives sat on one side, the White man on the other. They were buried one side; the White men on the other side. And I still see prejudism to this day. Why did we have to go to you people to get permission to do what we want to do? And I think that's wrong.
Here I am, discussing this deal here; was tried by the White man's court; then the man gets away. He raped eight of his daughters from two years on up. How terrible. We know what the answer is. But what good is it for us to come up here, and -- when it's not going to be answered? What good is it? Here we are, we're talking. When we do, we' re rabble rousers; we try to stick up for our people, we're troublemakers; we don't know what we're talking about.
I'm 65, going on 66; and a lot of our -- just like me now -- history was never written down. It was passed from word, from generation to generation, what we should do and what we can't do.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Mrs. DeMott -- Ms. DeMott --
MS. DEMOTT: Okay, thank
--
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Okay, you've had ten minutes --
MS. DEMOTT: -- you very much.
COMMISSIONER ELLIOTT: I have a question
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: -- just -- any question?
COMMISSIONER ELLIOTT: I do have just one question. Since Minto and Sitka do have tribal courts, what is the block that in -- doesn't allow you to have one?
MS. DEMOTT: Well, what do -- we've been trying; we've been -- what happened here in this one area that I was in, that we got together, okay? This is sad, you know, because -- let me get back to that. We had a meeting -- not a meeting, but a get-together, because we can't hold meetings as shareholders, okay? Why call us shareholders? You know, we're just a, you know, a number, a share. We're not human beings; we're shareholders.
So here we are; we're getting together to form -- we say a meeting, get together. Here we are; here comes the directors; and we wanted to discuss our problems to see what we could do; if we could get our -- whatever -- back to the people -- our resources, and you name it; okay? We want to discuss everything, and have our tribal government, you name it, okay? So here they come with their attorneys, and we tried -- we -- they weren't -- we told them to get out; leave; you weren't invited. And here are the corporation directors -- okay? -- they're paying this man a big price, and here we are, representing ourselves, because we are not covered by attorneys -- the shareholders aren't. If we open our mouth; if we say anything, we're in trouble. Not me. I say what I want (laughing). I don't -- I mean, that's the way it is. That's the way I was raised; and I'm going to voice my opinion.
But, anyway, this is what I'm saying is that we tried that, okay? It's what I just said here. We were lied about; you name it. I knew of a gal -- okay? -- she has been a sobriety for three or four years -- okay? -- and she put her name on this list -- she asked me put -- her name put on the list, you know, to go to this Kenai deal. Guess what? The same bunch didn't like her, so they took her name off that list. She couldn't go. This is the things they're doing. Nepotism. Lot of nepotism. They -- their own -- there's so much incest in this one group, so help me God, their cousins, you name it, they're the ones that make the decisions for our people. Grants; you name it.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: I think --
MS. DEMOTT: Okay. You asked me a question, I --
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: -- you've answered his question.
MS. DEMOTT: -- hope I answered it.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Bart, you have a --
MR. GARBER: Julia, would it -- in some areas like that where you get a dysfunctional village or community, would it help if you had a larger support system at a regional level that helped influence some decisions and put some pressure on a Native village to go in the right direction?
MS. DEMOTT: Yes, that would be fine; but there we go again. Nepotism. Because these same people -- you know what is so sad that -- you don't -- you -- I had a mother that went to the third grade, okay? But she was smart -We have people are in the fourth grade, and they're trying to run all this stuff; and they don't even know what they're doing half the time (laughing).
So what I'm saying are those people, the same ones, sit on the -- as vice-president; they sit on the parent -- well, you know, the -- whatever -- and the same ones been doing this for years. So now what we're doing that we already got something going; and what is happening, that they're holding these -- okay, they're holding these meetings -- okay? -- illegally. I tried to warn them. I said:
"If you don't have minutes," --
I go up there, and I ask them for minutes. They don't have 'em, okay? So how are they going to help us? So we have to do this on our own, which we are doing; and they call us rabble rousers, and we're just trying to help our people.
I'm 65. I don't need this money. I have my money. I've worked hard. I fish for a living; I'm a drifter; but I'm trying to help our people; because I know, in my heart; how it is to be poor. I was there.
And I want to see education for our children. Look, it's 20 years since ANCSA, right? How many of our children, which I have asked -- I was a director from day one. I was a directoror and the parent -- in the village, both boards, and I have asked for scholarship grants; I have asked for many things for the elders and for our children. How many of 'em are educated now to take over here? The same ones -- now what's so sad is the same ones are sitting on the board like -- say, --
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Julia?
MS. DEMOTT: -- that Chugach had a bankruptcy, okay?
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Julia? I hate to be disrespectful; but, however, we have a load, and I believe you have made your point --
MS. DEMOTT: Well, he asked me a question, so --
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: -- and we've heard a lot of this; I just --
MS. DEMOTT: -- I tried to answer it for him, okay?
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Yes, but I think you answered it.
MS. DEMOTT: Why we can't have --
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: I --
MS. DEMOTT: -- the participation of the people in the whole, okay?
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: -- I want to give the rest of the people the opportunity --
MS. DEMOTT: Yes, all right.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: -- at least to say hello. I'm sorry.
MS. DEMOTT: It's too bad, because I could go on forever and tell you the problems. (Laughter.)
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: I'm sorry.
MS. DEMOTT: Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: I appreciate your time.
MS. DEMOTT: You're welcome.
MR. GARBER: I don't know that we'll -- testimony is getting short; but two examples of why tribal courts at a local level have a difficult time proceeding. Local communities can, and have, as you've heard, created their own tribal courts. Beyond the point, however, for a court to function, you need internal administrative capabilities, as well as external recognition. There are problems in both directions. VPSOs are not capa -- are not allowed to enforce tribal laws; that's a problem locally. Tribal judgments, except for certain limited things, aren't recognized by state courts externally; so, within its limits, it's effective on a local; but it has problems both locally and outside the community.
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Well then, it seems to me that one of the
issues we, as a task force, should be addressing, if there is, indeed, a strong
ground swell in returning to tribal courts as a way of dispute resolution, as
a way of keeping the public order, what we should look at is whether or not
--
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Could you speak
up a little bit?
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Yes. What we should
look at is
whether or not we should recommend enabling legislation to, number one, standardize the creation, the organization of the tribal courts; define their jurisdiction; provide for their enforcement; and provide for their recognition; because, here again, you see, these things seem to grow up like topsy.
What I said about -- a while ago about different competing entities, and government, and layers, and now you've got tribal courts, and you've got the local magistrate, and you've got the regional courts, and state system, and the federal system, and it -- and, again, it's a crazy quilt; and we -- it seems to me that a lot of the problems we keep hearing about come from this mushy kind of system that we've created in this state.
MR. GARBER: In this area, it's not so much a problem of mushy overlap; it's absence -- for the absence of state funding to go into local areas, and for the failure, by and large, of the magistrate system, which has become -- if there were -- there was a notion of the local Native magistrate; but now if you look at the 53 or 54 magistrates, the vast majority are White lawyers, even in rural locations.
MS. ANAGIK: Okay, can I --
COMMISSIONER PAGANO: Ellen, you had a comment?
MR. ANAGIK: Mr. Boyko, I just wanted to address that; and that deals with the Public Law 280 Statute that Congress passed -- when did it become effective here?
MR. GARBER: '58.
MS. ANAGIK: In 1958. It's my understanding that the 11th Circuit has stated that those states (indiscernible) Public Law 280 jurisdiction, which essentially deal with Congress granting to the states criminal jurisdiction in Indian country or in villages. I believe that the 11th Circuit has ruled that this jurisdiction is not exclusive; but that it's concurrent; that is, it can be exercised between the state and the villages. Now, this deals -- it's a facet that can be looked at with regard to the setting up of tribal courts -- what jurisdiction, if any, or power, do these tribal courts have, and, you know, what types of crimes will it have?
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Yeah.
MS. ANAGIK: Misdemeanor? Felony? Public Law 280 did not grant
to the states civil jurisdiction. That is in the realm of the IRA Councils, the
traditional councils; so I just wanted to clarify
that there is already legislation. It just has not
been and that legislation pertains to the jurisdictional
aspect.
COMMISSIONER BOYKO: Well, my question
to you then is let us assume you had a given. Native village in one of our
rural areas; and these people,
after having been exposed to the White man's system of justice in the criminal
side, say:
"This isn't working. I mean, our people get dragged
up to Fairbanks or Anchorage, and they wind up in jail; and they don't know
what's going on. We want to establish for our community and for the surrounding
communities, a system -- a functioning tribal courts that will deal with
most of these issues, short of, let's say, major crimes; where you have to
have some rather radical state intervention."
How do they go about it under the existing law? What do they do to organize it and to get it going?
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