ALBANY, N.Y., June 18 (UPI) -- Those of us who hang out at Indian casinos a lot--there are about 500 of them in the country now--try not to ever use the word "sovereignty."

Mention the word "sovereignty" to a rich Indian and you're gonna be sitting there for a long long time. This is the issue for American Indian tribes. They want sovereignty. It's "non- negotiable." It's a matter of pride and historic reparations. They deserve it. They're gonna have it. And they'll tell you why- -over and over and over again.

At the recent New York Gaming Summit I was sitting at a table of gambling reporters from around the country, and the president of an Indian tribe got up to make a luncheon speech. We all dutifully got out our notebooks--but one of the first things he said was "I want to explain our idea of what sovereignty means." We all closed the notebooks and ordered more beer.

We've all heard the Sovereignty Speech. The interesting thing about it, though, is that each tribe describes sovereignty a little differently. What they have in common is that all the tribes now believe that they're independent nations, and that eventually they'll be recognized to be independent nations, and in the meantime don't try to tax them or regulate them or else they'll sic 12 lobbyists on you, all making the Sovereignty Speech.

For the first time in history, Indian tribes--even little tribes of 30 or so people--have vast sums of money for political donations, political action committees, lobbyists and all kinds of corporate pressure tactics, and they're using that power to push this idea that each tribe should be a little independent fiefdom that answers to no one. They don't say they actually want to be independent of the United States, but it amounts to the same thing. I think they would get farther with it if they modeled themselves after Monaco, the principality that has a give-and-take relationship with France, but they apparently have much bigger goals in mind.

Oddly enough, they get almost universal support from the public. If you put any kind of Indian referendum to a vote, the Indians always win, and by substantial margins. You could run a referendum to legalize whorehouses on Indian reservations, and they just might win it. The voter, when asked to decide, almost always thinks the Indians should get whatever they want, even if the new law creates special privileges and competitive advantages for a small minority.

But what do they really want? I've talked to quite a few tribes, both large and small, and mostly what they want are a) more land, b) economic advantages that no one else gets (like no taxes, like duty-free zones), and c) the right to pretty much bar law enforcement agents at the border and run their own systems of justice.

Let's take those one at a time.

Issue one: More land. This is the most sensitive issue for Indians. They're going back to treaties that, in some cases, were signed by England before the United States was even a country, and saying that their ancestral lands have been stolen. Some of those treaties were later reaffirmed by the George Washington administration. Others exist in a kind of legal no-man's land, like California, where treaties were signed by the president's negotiator but never approved by Congress.

There have always been Indian land claims in the courts, and I suppose there always will be. The problem the Indians have had in the past is that they didn't have the money to fight these complicated battles that sometimes turn on interpretation of 300- year-old documents. Now they do.

But it doesn't end there. If ancestral lands are given back to modern tribes, you have all kinds of issues about what it takes to be a member of the tribe. People who have never claimed Indian ancestry are now coming out of the woodwork, and new tribes are asking every day for federal recognition. Is one- eighth blood lineage enough? In some cases the tribes allow 1/32nd Indian blood, and in one notorious case--the Mashantucket Pequots, who run the huge Foxwoods casino in Connecticut--they're allowed to grant membership to anyone they like. You can become an Indian overnight simply by being voted in.

Then there's the issue of who loses land. In some cases you have farmers and even city-dwellers who have what is assumed to be clear title to land that has been surveyed and passed from generation to generation for centuries. If you take it away and give it to the Indians, you've got years of lawsuits from the dispossessed landowner, who will probably sue the government and the title company. If all these land claims are approved, you could have massive title-company bankruptcies just from the litigation.

Then there's the question of how much of the new land gets put "in trust" by the federal government. Land in trust is good for the Indians, because they can build casinos on it. Land not in trust may or may not qualify for gambling, depending on how big a pushover the state governor is.

The Indian position: We want all our historic lands guaranteed by treaties, both ratified and unratified. We want it declared part of a permanent federal trust. We want the right to build anything we want on that land. Sovereignty demands it.

Issue Two: Economic advantages.

The Indians say that, as sovereign nations, they're not subject to taxation or trade regulation by either federal or state governments. That's why a pack of cigarettes costs $6 in New York City but less than $3 if purchased from a New York Indian reservation, even if you buy them over the Internet and have them shipped to you.

In Mississippi the Choctaws were recently sued by the car dealers of that state when they put a car dealership on their property and declared themselves immune from sales tax. This gave them a 5 per cent competitive advantage which, in a low-margin business like automobiles, is fairly enormous. The Choctaws eventually compromised and agreed to pay the sales tax, but didn't give up their right in the future to reassert sovereignty.

Many Indian tribes have set up free-trade zones, so that goods destined for their reservations can be sold duty free. And, of course, all the tribes claim immunity from income tax, corporation taxes and virtually all the other taxes required of businesses and government entities. They've essentially set up little off-shore tax havens that happen to be on-shore.

Issue Three: Indian cops and courts.

Indians don't want highway patrolmen, city police or FBI agents coming onto their reservations for any reason. They want their own police forces and courts to handle any problems, sometimes using legal theories that are very foreign to the Anglo-Saxon system. So far no one has asserted this sort of control over visitors to the reservation--you won't get hauled into a kangaroo court if you screw up at a casino--but they have insisted on immunity for tribal members.

This is the area where the direction of their thinking is going. What's next? Immigration checkpoints? Indian passports similar to what Palestinians carry? All of it is possible, they say, if their claims of sovereignty are respected.

I'm exaggerating, of course. Most of them wouldn't go that far. They mostly want the ability of their tribal government to be treated as a negotiating equal with the United States or the state government. They want to be able to enter into treaties and trade agreements with all the same rights and privileges enjoyed by, say, small Latin American countries. And to some extent politicians are going along with this--especially the politicians who have received sizeable Indian campaign donations.

The irony, I think, is that the worst thing that could happen to them is to be granted total sovereignty. Do they really want to pay for every highway that crosses their land? Do they really want to be responsible for finding their own water and electricity and then paying extra duties on it if it has to be imported? Do they really want to become subject to trade sanctions or import quotas? Do they want to set up immigration checkpoints and apply for green cards for their children if they decide to live in the United States?

These may seem like fanciful questions, but the closer the tribe gets to absolute sovereignty, the more the United States is likely to say, "Your problems are not our problems."

The whole thing seems very unAmerican. And maybe that's their point. Meanwhile, there's at least one major American business segment that wants them to get everything they want--the slot-machine manufacturers.

© Copyright 2002 United Press International and Joe Bob Briggs

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