FLASHBACK: 2002 - She called it “DOMESTIC TERRORISM"- 70 year old Shoshone Tribal Elder describes Harry Reid and the BLM's 30 year-long GRAB for her family's ancestral lands.

In the early nineties, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the US Government set it sights on another tract of land in Nevada…

The target this time was the ANCESTRAL tribal land of two elderly, Native American sisters from the Dann band of Western Shoshones, Mary and Carrie Dann.

In a case that sounds familiar to the Bundy family’s plight, the BLM charged that the Dann sisters' livestock was trespassing on federal land. The BLM first planned to round up the Dann's cattle in October 1991, but bowed out... "in order to avoid a major confrontation with the Dann sisters and their supporters (including Citizen Alert, a powerful local environmental watchdog group), the BLM negotiated a settlement..."

What transpired were years of wrangling between the U.S. Government and these two elderly sisters over the rights to their Shoshone ancestral land. 

The treatment of these two women was SO SEVERE that, in 2002, the Inter-american Commission on Human Rights, slammed the US Government for violating the rights of the Dann sisters. 

It was the first time EVER that an International organization has formally recognized that the U.S. Government violated the rights of Native Americans.

Later in 2006, an anti-racism committee from the United Nations ALSO blasted the U.S. Government for its mistreatment of the Dann sisters. Among other things, the UN committee was concerned... "about reported intimidation of the Western Shoshone people by U.S. authorities, through the imposition of grazing fees, trespassing and collection notices, the impounding horses and livestock, restrictions on fishing and hunting as well as arrests."

Describing their 30 year long battle with the BLM, Shoshone tribe member, Carrie Dunn said that the... "federal government has "terrorized" them for years, causing daily mental stress and even physical assaults as the sisters tried to block Bureau of Land Management agents from taking 269 horses in one particularly traumatic round-up."

Who is it in the US Government that helped terrorize the Danns and Western Shoshone? 

Helping the US Govt bully two elderly, Native American sisters? Spearheading the plan to take the Danns' and other Shoshone lands? 

Who was it that sponsored a bill offering the Shoshone an insulting, pathetic, and paltry 15 CENTS PER ACRE for their ancestral land?

Why, none other than the U.S. Senator from Nevada...

Harry Reid. 

Photo:senate.gov

In 2002, 70 year-old Shoshone rancher and activist, Carrie Dann didn't mince words about Senator Harry Reid:

"It's domestic terrorism," said Carrie Dann of the ongoing federal raids. 

"The mightiest nation in the world sent its paramilitary to steal our livestock and force us off our land. How can a country that professes to value democracy and human rights act like this? It’s morally and ethically wrong." 

"Senator Harry Reid has legislation in Congress to pay off the Indians for 15 cents an acre and destroy our claim to the land...But this is our land and we are going to fight for it."

"I think you people out there ought to write to Harry Reid and tell him 'we cannot do this to the people. That is totally wrong.' And each and every one of you is responsible as a citizen of the United States of America to recognize a wrong that has been committed against your brothers and sisters who have different color of skin." 

"If American people are going to live in freedom, you've got to protect that. Not only for yourselves, but for us as well."

"American people's going to wake up some day when it is totally late, when they are completely controlled by some organization or department of government."

~Carrie Dann, Shoshone Tribe Elder, 2002