Saturday July 3 10:23 PM ET

Unsolved Murders Spark Indian Protest In Nebraska

By Candy Hamilton

WHITECLAY, Neb. (Reuters) - About 600 American Indians, mostly Oglala Lakota Sioux from the Pine Ridge Reservation, led a tense but peaceful march from South Dakota into Nebraska Saturday to protest alcohol sales, alleged treaty violations and the unsolved murders of two reservation men.

The Lakota, accompanied by activists from the American Indian Movement, faced off against nearly 100 Nebraska law enforcement officers, some in riot gear, who assembled after a store in the tiny town of Whiteclay, Nebraska, was vandalized during a protest march last week.

After singing traditional Lakota songs and heeding calls for calm in the 95-degree heat, the protesters turned back and continued their rally in Pine Ridge Village on the South Dakota reservation.

Four protesters walked through police lines and were arrested. Activist Russell Means, former tribal president John Steele, and brothers Tom and Webster Poor Bear, relatives of one of the slain men, said they crossed the barricades to draw attention to the Indians' treaty concerns.

They contend the town of Whiteclay is on reservation land according to the Fort Laramie treaty of 1868 and the subsequent U.S. Homestead Act.

The treaty issues, lack of arrests in the murders, tensions between Indians and some Whiteclay store owners and anger over alcohol sales brought out demonstrators for the second Saturday in a row.

``We found that in three years, the total cost to the Indian Health Service to treat health problems related to alcohol was $19 million,'' said Owen Patton, a former Nebraska Indian Commission member. He said liquor stores in Whiteclay, a town of just 22 residents that covers about one long city block, sell $4 million worth of beer and wine annually.

Nebraska Governor Mike Johanns declined to meet with tribal leaders on the reservation after last week's demonstration, asking them to meet in nearby Scottsbluff instead. Indian leaders refused, saying the problem is at Pine Ridge.

Law enforcement officials said a lack of witnesses has hampered the investigation into the deaths of Ron Hard Heart and Wilson Black Elk, who were found beaten to death about a month ago.

Indian activist Dennis Banks said police seem more concerned about damage to property after a few marchers ransacked a small grocery store during last week's rally.

That action cast doubt on whether President Clinton would proceed with plans to visit the reservation on July 7.

But after much discussion between tribal officials and the White House, Clinton will make the trip, Harold Salway, president of the Oglala Sioux tribe, said Saturday.

Clinton is leading a group of business people on a tour of economically depressed areas of the United States in conjunction with the granting of federal funds for economic development.

Shannon County, which covers most of the 2-million-acre reservation, is the poorest county in the United States. The Pine Ridge Reservation is the first U.S. Indian reservation to be designated as a federal economic empowerment zone.