Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 8, 1980, Winnipeg, Manitoba Olfie focus Black Hills not for Sale by Harvey Wasserman at Northern pm of the Slack 35 Miles from rapid Graceful sloping Peak rises out of the Plains like a midwestern mount called Bear Butte by White it is known As Mato Paha to the native Lakota who continue to go there on fou Day fasts vision quests that make up much of the heart of their earlier this the supreme court ruled that title to Mato Paha and the rest of the Black Hills had been wrongfully taken from the Sioux More than a Century in so the court thrust the Hills into Centre stage of a rapidly escalating struggle Over native american atomic Power perhaps most important of the water Supply of the the court ruled by unilaterally transferring the Black Hills to Federal control in Congress had violated a treaty signed nine years earlier at fort arid that the Lakota Sim Ait turn entitled to payment million for the land an estimate of its value at 1877 prices and million More in the offer has drawn mixed reactions from the Matty live in desperate poverty and could use the Cash estimated at to depend ing on who finally might be judged but even those of the Sioux inclined to sell seem to be taking a dim View of the size of the current and the Rea sons Are the Black Hills Are a Cornucopia of Mineral the to mistake mine at Lead accounts for Hall the nations annual Gold arsenic and other key ores Are also in Abu huge veins of Coal have led to plans for up to a score of massive generators to be built near proposed mine and giant slurry pipe lines Are being designed to use millions of Gallons of water to carry crushed Coal to Urban major new finds of Urani Captain Blue in to debut Winnipeg sportswriters say the Only newsworthy thing Rob Harvey Ever did in Hist role As Captain Blue at the Blue bomber games was to run into a parked car with his fibreglass that the sportswriters did not rate to Captain Blue did become news worthy of television last when he along with Many other definitely soft news several minutes of to time that he used to pitch his wish to be paid for his entertainment its called soft every news newspapers have their soft news when there is not much happen ing and when editors can be forgiven for wishing at least one Good fire or other such space filling but nowhere is a soft news Day so even to the general As on the television television is such a visual and it suffers the Lack of visual events quite but it also suffers from something Al most everything can be turned into acceptable to visuals of that anything can be and there is the television news suffers most on those Days when the newspapers do not before anyone suggests since this comment is being published in a it contains a Large serving of sour it should be pointed out that there Are Many people who have worked both in print and in the elec tronic wonderland of and whose own experience adds it is easy to spot the Days when to news is having a Tough time finding things to not hard to spot when the announcer Speaks with considerably More deliberation than or when the Weatherman takes the time to repeat the entire As a convenience to those who have not caught the temperature in the viewer can make a mental note that the news which Are primarily filled by the daily Are As empty As the feature file the reporters Are sup posed to keep filled with interesting but timeless there can be some sympathy for the unfortunate soul who has drawn the assignment of filling the newscasts on Long particularly on the mondays when the usual source of news is not delivered because the papers Are Fred Cleversey not he has clipped the papers carefully on using what he has to on the throwaway saturday local and hoarding carefully the items he will have to spin out Over sunday and or perhaps he will be Lucky and not have to work All three he can blow All the clippings on saturday and and leave mondays problems to the even less fortunate soul who will have the responsibility of filling the unforgiving minutes each with 150 words of written copy without the Bene fit of the flow of information provided by a fresh this individual will probably look in vain for the Holiday features that were supposed to be but Seldom by the staffers who collect their full Days overtime for the but who will More than Likely do a few Telephone checks and that nothings tvs difficulty a few years ago the Csc made it a practice always to require a full news staff Damn the overtime on any holi something not evident to the viewers who happened to be looking hard for evidence of unlike the which can always fill space with a full Page and for them selves if they have nothing television news cannot fill the time promoting and in spite of All the protestations to the television news has not yet achieved the maturity in the news business to fill the time with inter Esting no news it grasps for someone proves As Csc did a few years even a sailing regatta can be so Long As the taxpayers Are willing to finance a half hour film of that is Why Captain Blue became news last his act was not but it was available to be photo there was no news in the fact that he wanted to be paid for the because anyone could suggest the Al that he he was news that Day Only for one reason were no newspapers to urn have inextricably tinted the Black Hills to the Fate of nuclear current estimates of the radioactive Ore that can be mined from the Hills run into the thousands of with a Market value in tote hundreds of Mil Lions of dollars by conservative Esti plans Are also afoot to build tip to a dozen nuclear Power reactors near the with that kind of capital poised to pour into the its Little wonder that even the Lakota Sioux who Are willing to Trade the Hills for Cash Arent leaping at the Chance to get Only million for sacred to Sioux the Core of the indians comes from those who insist that the Hills Are not for Sale at any we were created in the Paha said Bill Means of the american Indian we did not come Here Over any land Bridge from As the anthropologists we were made right Here in the they Are sacred to and we will never sell would the moslem or the jews sell Jerusalem would the Pope sell the Vatican uranium finds in austra Namibia and in the american Southwest also have been situated in spots held sacred by indigenous but few Are sacred for such obvious reasons As the Black the Sioux worship and consider themselves inseparable from the natural ecology of the if Ever there was a spot vital to that it is the Black a unique 100squaremile Oasis in the midst of the great american a remark ably Lush and Fertile watering Hole that is vital to the entire water system of the beneath the Black Hills lies the vast Madison a huge underground Lake that supplies the ranches and towns of a Large chunk of the West with their Only reliable in recent the aquifer has been growing ominously massive industrialization of the Black Hills and particularly the mining of Coal or uranium or the construction of nuclear Power plants or Coal slurry pipelines that consume enormous quantities of water could deprive that aquifer and others connected to it of a major recharge and help Send much of the West toward a agonizing death by Al residues from uranium mining at in the Southern have led to dangerous increases in radiation found in local water sup fear for water new attempts at exploratory drilling have led to fears that the entire under ground Lake system could become hopelessly Over the last few Union car bide the Tennessee Valley a and other major Energy Cor have clashed with nuclear opponents Over a new wave of uranium mining and milling that could permanently commit the Black Hills to an industrialized with All the environmental last about nuclear Power opponents joined with Indian activists on the Northern outskirts of the Black Hills to oppose that guaranteeing that the fight Over the future of the Hills will be a controversy of National the Lakota now struggling Over the ultimate disposition of their land enter the season of the an ancient ritual meant among other things to emphasize the dependence of All life on that dependence should write the Bot Tom line As the Battle Over the Black Hills approaches critical Harvey Wasserman is the author of Sei vral books War reports from the front Jimmy keeps on hearing muffled sound of Mutiny by Mark Shields Washington there it was on the front pages of the sunday papers of the for any Jimmy Carter Strate it was the Lucky break that Campaign managers forever dream it began with a Campaign photo of sometime on a hot California Ronald 69yearold presidential nominee and Amateur Bot Anist was pruning some Bushes on his who looks like a pre inflation million in his work shirts and chose in the presence of working photographers to remove his work without he looks like a lot less than a he looks like but by monday it had passed there were stories about the presidents brother and the first family involve ment in the nations foreign with three months to go until election Jimmy Carter is squarely on the in trouble and facet face with an immutable political truth everything in a Campaign is a Carter is hearing from the men and women who earn their living from politics and that he is a a these two weeks before the opening of the new York convention were sup posed to be the beginning of the Carter Junior democrats in Congress Are urging a Cabinet member and the Vic president to run for presi the administration and the Campaign Are rocked daily by disclosures about Billy Carters Access and Active and the president himself is especially Hurt by a Story that he forgot a meeting with the attorney general of the United anybody who has Ever held a Politi Cal office above that of Library trustee knows that you do not forget meeting with the especially when the a is discussing whether or not your brother is about to be Jimmy Carter is hearing the muffled sounds of Mutiny from the delegations of new Ohio and Penn when the democratic convention does Only 11 weeks will remain in which to engage to change his status from that of critic alternative to the hand on the it is hard to imagine that Ronald who has Given the distinct impression that he genuinely believes there is More Oil under second base at Yankee stadium than the nato coun tries have used since Vij will not be thoroughly challenged during this but because of Deposit slips and cables and Jimmy Carter could fast be approaching that most uncomfortable of political positions where All you can do is try to provoke your Opo Neni into the giant the washv4qtom Post the Black Hills Are a Cornucopia of Saga of Rita guerrilla to Oas ambassador by Carla Hall Washington the first change in her life came with her Brothers it was and her 21yearold brother had been killed while fighting As a sandinista guerrilla in the mountains of she decided she had to join their it would not be easy her parents didst want her and at the guerrillas didst want her few were she went to a Cousin involved in the sandinista Effort to overthrow the Long standing regime of Ana Tan Somo she told him she wanted n n a thirteen years Rita Delia Casc Montenegro raises her thin Eye brows a preface to the Story of How her life was twice transformed in 32 years How the privately Edu carefully sheltered daughter of a nicaraguan coffe grower became a globetrotting buying smuggling Money for her cause and living and with the War How the guerrilla a former american University graduate was transplanted to the glitter of embassy Row As an ambassador to the Organiza Tion of american a year she and her sandinista compatriots could barely get into the Oas discussions on the crisis in Nicara a few months she was Back As an official six months after she was chairing the Perma nent Council of the a position that rotates alphabetically every three last it was Nicaragua her Post was once held by the former Dean of the diplomatic Guillermo brother inlaw to the ousted borrowed dresses when she travelled As a she i lived on borrow ing a dress when she had to make a fundraising now she dresses in trim jackets and High after the i wanted to work in the agrarian Reform she that what 1 asked but they you have so much experience Travell ing abroad and talking with Why dont you do this 1 said As Long As its not she stretches out and grabs the arms of the chair smiling sheepishly As she tells her d d d she was 11 when she left Home for a Catholic girls boarding school in a the students wore uniforms at Colegio san Rose every morning for 6 Oclock and were not Al Lowed to leave the school it was a Little like a she except that i dont remember it like sunday the students went out to the Barrios to teach the people she taught made do with very and religion meant everything to what she she was social unlike her Brothers Rita guerrilla agent and Sisters who shunned boarding she stayed for the one thing i Learned was she and i became More ind Epen it was easier to leave leave the leave my a n a but by 1967 she was 19 and things were after telling her Cousin that she wanted to join the word trav Elled and she eventually got her first Job carrying a message from one member of the organization to an at first she worked Only sporadically for the sandinista liberation Between College and last july when the Somoza government was overthrown she says she delivered hundreds of she also recalls raising several million speak ing to groups All Over the buying weapons in various places and hopping from one continent to the other with Over half a million dollars in Cash for the Purchase of medical weapons and when Casc Montenegro talks of those her face lights her laughs Are Quick and her tales pungent and intense a woman Warrior Savouring her revolutionary War Odd she never bought weapons in any place where she could be identified for in she never told her parents what she was in the last two years of the sandinista she was never in one place for More than 30 she travelled in and out of latin America living at different times in Honda Costa Rica and she left an american husband behind part of that time in Washington and her now was shuttled Between her her friends and Shes gone through a says in handbag for most of that she was parted from her american whom she met at College and who lives in the area the couple is in the process of getting a she says she once transported 000 in her handbag from through the Venezuela through customs without being stopped then around Venezuela for two Days and out of the country i would just talk to the customs smile and be she with a Home in and her daughter in Montessori she misses the sandinista she worked and she sounds As if she misses the excitement As in her off time in comparatively tranquil Washington she jogs and collects nicaraguan the parents she left Long ago she among the Large growers of Coffee in living in the mountainous Jino Tega she says they have not suffered monetarily from the Revo you have to she Many people Are Mill Mak ing a lot of Odd when asked if the move ment is she intones Standard sandinista reply that pan of the struggle to show we Are not we Are we Are the Post ;