Their unexplained deaths marked the sixth time in about five years that dead Indian men surfaced near the border. In protest, American Indian Movement members organized a rally June 26, marching into Whiteclay with 1,500 supporters. After protesting each Saturday since, they timed this weekend's four-day rally to coincide with the reservation's largest annual powwow. Native people have asked Nebraska officials to step in and shut down the white-owned businesses. For decades, those businesses have served as a beer pipeline into a reservation where alcohol is illegal.
Tribal law appears irrelevant next to the law in Nebraska, where it is legal to sell beer.
Legal to profit from the misery of some of the nation's most impoverished people. Gov. Mike Johanns said Thursday that short of imposing martial law, the state is powerless to interfere with the legal rights of Whiteclay business owners. Yet these same state officials also maintain they are powerless to help the Santee break their dismal cycle of poverty. In March 1993 the tribe and the state began talking about building a casino on Santee land. The talks led nowhere.