Commission Releases Report On Indians, Civil Rights
by Staff and Wire Reports 

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has released two reports saying the government fails to provide adequate health care, law enforcement and education to American Indians, and that civil rights of American Indians are not protected. It is old news to Kevin Siva, a councilman for the impoverished Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeno Indians near Warner Springs.

The tribe is hoping to build a casino in Barstow so it can be self-sufficient.

Siva said his tribe of 250 gets $1,800 a year for education, is forced to create government agencies with little funding and has to deal with an overly bureaucratic health-care system.

The 46-year-old, who suffers from kidney failure, said he was forced off an alternative treatment for dialysis by government bureaucracy, even though the alternative treatment was cheaper and worked just as well.

American Indians are supposed to be grateful for the government services, said Siva, who did not expect much to come from the report.

"The reality is there is so much bureaucracy that it can actually be detrimental,' he said.

The commission also noted that American Indians rank near the bottom of almost every social, health and economic indicator.

They have more than twice the average poverty rate and unemployment rate and lag in high school and college graduation rates.

They also have the nation's shortest life expectancy and suffer from more diseases.

"Native Americans have suffered too long from inattention and half-hearted efforts, and the crisis in Indian country must be addressed with the urgency it demands,' the report said.

"I think it's a good and long-overdue report, disturbing in what it calls attention to,' said Russell Redenbaugh, a member of the civil rights commission, an independent, bipartisan agency that monitors federal civil rights enforcement. "We as a commission have neglected this topic for too long.'

The report recommends the immediate creation of a task force to study the problem and recommend solutions in time for next year's budget process.

It also suggests agencies that provide services to American Indians do annual assessments of unmet needs and focus efforts on building roads, water services, electrical grids and communications systems in Indian country.

"The problem is that people get used to living in the conditions they are in,' Siva said. "When you bring a development, when you bring opportunity to them, they grasp it.

"Once it has been given to them, you can't take that away from them,' he said.

In a letter to the commission, Jacqueline Johnson, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, the nation's largest Indian group, called the report the most comprehensive analysis of the needs in Indian country in a decade.

"Without adequate funding for vital programs, empowerment of tribal institutions and a genuine commitment on the part of the federal government to the policy of self-determination, tribal governments are ill-equipped to provide for their citizens, and their citizens, in turn, are denied equal access to resources most other citizens enjoy,' Johnson said.

The commission's other report analyzed the civil rights enforcement organizations at the Agriculture Department, Interior Department and Small Business Administration and found them lacking, with little progress since the commission recommended a series of changes in 1996.

At the Agriculture Department, civil rights functions remain scattered; the Interior Department lacks a budget for civil rights enforcement; and the Small Business Administration lacks adequate resources for enforcement of civil rights laws, the report said.

The Environmental Protection Agency's program was called a model for others to emulate.

The EPA has created several civil rights working groups since 1996, made several policy changes and created a task force to deal with a backlog of discrimination complaints.

Cruz Reynoso, vice chairman of the federal civil rights commission, said the Agriculture Department needs special attention, because "they have such far-flung programs' that affect millions of people.

Staff writer Ben Schnayerson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Reprinted as an historical reference document under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html