EDITORIAL: Chinook make another plea for justice

Sep. 8—The Chinook Indian Nation's tenacious efforts to survive as distinctive original residents of this place — and to convince bureaucrats of their legal existence — could form the basis of an intricate legal tome, a multipart television documentary or a tragic opera.

The drama was punctuated last week by a rally in front of the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building in downtown Seattle. Tribal leaders called on the U.S. Congress to act before the end of the year to restore formal federal recognition that was granted by one presidential administration but canceled by the next.

"The egregious decision to unilaterally take back federal recognition from the Chinook Nation has had a profound and unjust impact on the community. Today, many of the Chinook people of Washington and Oregon have died due to inadequate health care, been denied educational and housing opportunities, and been unable to benefit from federal and state resources. Not only have the past 20 years of federal inaction harmed everyday Chinookan folks, but the lack of federal recognition has led to the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal support for Washington," the Chinook said in a statement.

It has been soundly argued that the Chinook Indian Nation exists no matter what the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs asserts to the contrary. Having never surrendered its status as a fully independent nation — a 20th century treaty having been lost in a maze of red tape that defies easy description — today's Chinook can make an argument that U.S. and international laws provide a path toward reparations of historic proportions.

The Chinook — always good neighbors here at the mouth of the Columbia River — have chosen not to pursue this course and instead continue pushing for restoration of legal status recognized by the Clinton administration. As with other decisions hurried through in its closing days, by waiting too late, Clinton officials left Chinook status vulnerable to attack when George W. Bush took office as president. The recognition effort was left essentially orphaned. It was only a short time before the Bureau of Indian Affairs yanked recognition from under the feet of the Chinook, leaving them back in cold, unrecognized limbo.

In the abstract, it might seem straightforward to get a federal agency to admit there still is a recognizable and cohesive group of descendants of the Columbia estuary empire that greeted Lewis and Clark. The national publicity accompanying such a step toward righting a historical wrong would be enormously positive.

But justice and fairness are anemic toddlers when stacked up against entrenched political and economic interests. Some other tribes don't want finite tribal aid sliced a little smaller to provide benefits to the Chinook. Nontribal crabbers and others fear additional declines in catches already much diminished by tribal rights on the Olympic Peninsula. These are genuine and rational concerns, but ones that can be addressed without perpetuating decades of injustice against the Chinook, Clatsop and related tribes.

Not only would formal federal status begin healing a long-standing wound in Columbia River race relations, but it would also bring substantial federal resources into local communities in the form of health care and other services. It's important that tribal members will be helped, as they are our friends and neighbors, but the help they receive will raise living standards and economic prospects for all of us.

It defies belief that this profoundly significant Indian nation has long been consigned to the status of nonbeing by the manipulations and incompetence of Washington, D.C.'s oblivious corps of professional Indian managers. The glorious past of the Chinook people has brought nothing but ignoble treatment by the American bureaucracy.

In much of the nation, the end game of a recognition win might be a casino — though there is no present indication that is what motivates Chinook efforts. Many in this area believe there is much more to be gained by the Chinook — and all the rest of us — by pursuing other forms of economic development. This could include everything from sustainable certified lumber to forms of licensing and branding.

Any result ultimately must put the Chinook Indian Nation in charge of its own destiny. Stewards of this region for thousands of years before European Americans came along, it would be gratifying to see them restored to a formal position of power on the lower Columbia.