their land claims against the state. The fundamental pursuit of justice represented by the tribal claims to lands lost illegally through malfeasance by the Eastern states, particularly New York, is obvious to many learned people. These historic claims, upheld time and again by the highest federal courts, were thwarted by New York for more than 30 years - until the state's interests were finally championed by a shifting high court, now apparently intent on moving aside the difficult and truth-forcing Indian cases.

As the nations - particularly Oneida, Cayuga and Mohawk - each moved in their own ways to solidify their legal gains in the federal courts with serious land transactions and purchases, plus the development of business ventures, a large but quiet portion of the public supported or had no issue with the rights of the Indian nations to an economic recovery. However, a core of die-hard anti-Indian folks raised a hue and cry, threatening and cajoling their way into the public limelight as a dominant voice. Anti-Indian rallies, newsletters and lawsuits followed. A few years ago, unfulfilled threats to ''kill an Indian every three days'' made headlines.

That the U.S. Supreme Court has moved to limit American Indian tribal rights was once again obvious in its decision earlier this year in City of Sherrill v. Oneida Nation of New York, which negated the possibility of an Indian nation's right to buy its own land back into its own jurisdiction. The court invoked its weapon of last resort against the Indian nation - the doctrine called ''laches'' - to assert that the Indians had waited too long to bring the suit. However, the court guided itself, in large measure by the cacophony of voices that raised the anti-Indian volume, in newspapers and state discourse.

It decided nearly unanimously that the remedy that could give justice to the Indian nation, its wish to buy back its own lands according to its capacity, was too ''injurious'' to the non-Native jurisdictions surrounding the recovered tribal lands. The decision not only pummeled the hopes of the Oneida Nation to sustain full jurisdiction over its rightful homeland: it set a sought-after precedent to kick the teeth out of Indian justice required on land claim cases.

Shortly after the Sherrill decision, the Cayuga Indian Nation of New York claim fell to another painful court decision that gutted its right to any meaningful remedy. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the previously decided $248 million award to the Cayuga. The reasoning in this opinion cited Sherrill. For the Cayuga, the only Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) nation without a recognized land base in its ancestral territories, it was a near-genocidal blow.

Across the state, the Pataki political apparatus continues to help the anti-Indian sentiment along. Another lawsuit, decided against the Oneida only last week, was designed by the regional anti-Indian group, Upstate Citizens for Equality, to damage the long-standing Oneida Nation gaming compact with the state. There are two sides to this story, of course, but you would hardly know it by reading the official New York state Legislative Gazette. In its reporting on the case, the Gazette reporter lets the lawyer for the UCE dominate his story.

Of interest, too, while the two contending parties in the Sherrill case have been working out their tax and fees issues, UCE leaders continue to attack any and all efforts toward reasonable dialogue, insisting that the issue involves racial preferences and denying the property rights and treaty issues involved. Even Ira Sacks, lawyer for the city of Sherrill, who vigorously fought the Oneida at the Supreme Court, blew up in exasperation at the continuing UCE attacks. Sacks called UCE to ''examine whatever hidden agenda it has with respect to these issues.''

While some politicians, such as U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, join the attacks on the Indian causes (he commits to fighting even the high court's suggestion to place the Indians land in question into federal trust), happily championing the concerns of the so-called ''local populations,'' others, such as California Rep. Richard Pombo, are calling for hearings to more justly settle land claim matters at the federal level. Pombo, a Republican who chairs the House Resources Committee, accuses New York officials of neglecting to settle the Indian land claims and is drafting a bill to impose a settlement on all parties. ''These land claims have gone on too long,'' said the congressman. Indian tribes have ''no just resolution,'' while property owners' titles go cloudy.

We are glad to see the ''hidden'' and not-so-hidden agenda pursued by the UCE (and many other anti-Indian groups) pointed out even by antagonists of the Indian cause. We hope the hearings suggested by Pombo will bring some just and equitable resolution to the Eastern tribes' historical quest.

" We must confront the privileged elite who have destroyed a large part of the world." Hugo Chavez

"If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected - those, precisely, who need the laws' protection most - and listens to their testimony." --

James Baldwin (1924-1987)

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