Indians Call Files From BIA 'Ransom'
Indians Call Files From BIA 'Ransom'
"It's a ransom, we know it," Indian leader Dennis Banks said of documents reported seized and removed from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Having obtained the ransom, Banks said yesterday, all "non–BIA" Indians would leave the Bureau of Indian Affairs building.
The documents the Indians say they have seized and removed reportedly consist of real estate records, FBI investigative reports, personnel files and others. The Indians say they show "scandalous if not criminal" exploitation of Indians by senators, congressmen, BIA officials and corporate interests.
The documents, it turned out, became pivotal in the Indians' decision not to mount a large-scale challenge to federal marshals seeking to enforce a court–ordered eviction last night.
Indian leaders attributed even the willingness of top White House aides to negotiate with them, after direct negotiations had been denied earlier, to their possession of the files.
"One of the reasons we're in the White House now negotiating is they know these records exist," said Russell Means, a leader of the Trail of Broken Treaties caravan. "The question is no longer whether we will be peaceably or forcibly evicted."
But Interior Department spokesman Carl Shaw denied that the documents played any role in the negotiations. Shaw said the government has no idea what records were seized but that he has no reason to believe they are "incriminating or damaging."
Tom Oxondine, a BIA spokesman and a Lumbee Indian from North Carolina, confirmed that the types of reports the demonstrators say they have seized do exist. He added, "I'm sure there are records that might be interpreted as valuable to them in carrying out further threats to the BIA under the Department of the Interior."
As for the documents themselves, Indian spokesmen said they have been removed from the East Coast, and the FBI files to Canada. The spokesmen said the documents were in the possession of four Indians and that their whereabouts was being kept secret even from some of theleaders [sic].
Banks said a "documents conference" would be held somewhere in the Southwest in three weeks. With legal assitance, he said, the Indians would sift through the documents. Means said the results would be made public when Congress convenes in January.
"We plan on returning the records once sufficient copies have been made," Means told reporters. But he predicted, "I'm sure our possession of the records will warrant some type of (legal) action" by the government against leaders of the seven–day BIA occupation.
Banks said the documents were removed in three truck loads, one each night, contrary to earlier statements by Means that they were slipped out inconspicuously in blankets, jackets and boxes.
"In my opinion," Banks said, "authorities were hoping we'd burn the BIA building down so that all of the incriminating evidence would be burned. I'm glad we didn't burn it."
"All we're leaving behind," Banks said, "is 'white' tape—routing slips, policy books, procedure books—all of the bureaucratic tape found in any organization."
In announcing Tuesday that the Indians had seized "incriminating" records, Means declared jubilantly, "We have accomplished one of the major objectives of coming to Washington, D.C.: to expose graft and corruption . . . This is a major breakthrough for us."