OCR Text |
Show Indian Tribes Pursue Their Own Destiny? If Indian self-determination and self-government is to succeed, lawyers and bureaucrats must stop know ing too much, a Bureau of Indian In-dian Affairs official said today. LaFOLLETTE R. Butler, assistant to the Area Director in the BIA Phoenix Area Office, Of-fice, told the Indian Law Seminar at the Hyatt Regency that Indian tribes must be allowed to pursue their own destinies. "No matter what legal tools or mechanisms are placed in Indian hands," Butler said, "tribes will never achieve self-government or self-determination until they assume as-sume they can determine and govern and the lawyers, bureaucrats and other experts ex-perts accept the same thing." BUTLER SAID attorneys and bureaucrats have a responsibility re-sponsibility to tribes and should offer the best advice available concerning something the tribes have decided to do. "But it should be something they decided, not something you decided for them," he told the Seminar. "IT IS ONE THING to negotiate a position with a tribe," he said. "It is another thing to use our approval power to bludgeon a tribe into accepting our view of the universe." He said there was a time in history when tribes were truly self-governing. "THEY MANAGED under the most primitive of conditions," condi-tions," Butler said. "No telephones, no accounting procedures, no Bureau of Indian In-dian Affairs and no lawyers. "It is not marked on any calendar of important historical his-torical events, but there must have been a cold wintry day in the late 19th or early 20th century when the last tribal leader gave up and said to the all-powerful, all-knowing, lawyer-bureaucrat expert, "all right, you know better what's good for us, you decide." HE SAID THE Indian Self-Determination Self-Determination Act passed by Congress should be regarded as a process and not as an event. "Self-determination does not come about through events such as ringing declarations from Congress," Butler said. "Self-determination is a. process which we must understand and which . we must be willing to allow to function. "MY PLEA IS FOR us not to know too much, 'but to find that thin line between carrying carry-ing out our legal responsibilities responsibili-ties and allowing the progression of the process of self-determination by letting the tribes be the deciders of their destinies." |