New York Tax Scheme Can Be Defeated

On December 15 New York Governor David Paterson caved into a combination of convenience store owners and anti-Native sovereignty groups when he signed into law a bill which will compel the collection of state taxes on tobacco products delivered to Iroquois communities.

The bill is also part of an attempt by the governor to respond to a massive state deficit estimated to be around $15,000,000,000. The supporters of the bill claim hundreds of millions of dollars of potential revenue are being lost because businesses on Indian territory do not collect sales taxes on purchases made by non-Natives. The governor has responded to the state’s fiscal crisis by ordering layoffs in all departments while increasing sales and service taxes which will no doubt effect every Native community.  We have grown overly dependent on state aid and are now about to pay a heavy price for our refusal to develop our own internal economies.

While there are those who will now hide behind Canandaigua, the one valid treaty between the Haudenosaunee and the US, they must not be permitted to use this as a shield when those same individuals have done nothing to support a strong central Mohawk Nation and, the harsh truth be told, have worked hard to prevent a stable national government at Akwesasne and elsewhere among the Iroquois.

Many now say they will defend Canandaigua and our “treaty rights’ but how will they do so?  By waving the blood red banners or by seeking the assistance of colonial agencies like the St. Regis Tribal Council? Or will they throw energy to dictatorial regimes like the Oneida Nation of New York which brought about this mess when it lost a vital US Supreme Court case three years ago? Will they hire more lawyers who will drag this conflict into the US courts where they are certain to lose and further erode what little independence we have left?

When these same people yell “treaties” to what do they refer? If they point to the Seven Nations of Canada or other land cession agreements (all illegal under Haudenosaunee law) they fall into a trap set by the US in which we, by our actions, acknowledge the validity of those controversial contracts and undermine the strongest argument we have: Canandaigua. If we seek to the Tribal Council for leadership we admit Canandaigua does not apply since the only entity which can use that treaty is the Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs, not with a state agency.

And what have we done to give the Nation Council the authority to speak on our behalf?  For most of us: Nothing.

There are ways out of this mess but the retailers must come to grips with some hard realities.  The first is obvious: pay the taxes and destroy Mohawk sovereignty. The second is to defy the imposition of the taxes but the problem would be how to secure tobacco products other than to place even more of our people at high risk by having them smuggle that product from outside of New York.

The third has been proposed a number of times but shot down at every instance but it may be the only way left open to those who want to remain in business. That is compliance with the tobacco laws of the Mohawk Nation Council enacted in 1986 which provides for the nationalization of this trade and the redistribution of the majority of the profits towards legitimate communal needs with the first priority being the creation of a diverse economy rooted in Mohawk culture.

How can this be done? Not by roadblocks or by entering a very hostile US court. It can be done by bringing forward the 1997 Trade and Commerce Compact endorsed by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy but undermined by certain Iroquois entrepreneurs who were afraid a strong Confederacy would effect their personal get rich schemes and expose the corruption which has come to cripple all of us.

It can be done by exercising our traditional values of using Kanikenriio “The Good Mind” and refusing to take the state’s bait by engaging in acts of confrontation. Why should we place the younger ones at risk of imprisonment, or worse, so some singular retailer can get their load of tobacco? We must think this thing through by having a series of public meetings in which the Mohawk people can express their concerns to the Council. We know the state will not stop at collecting tobacco taxes just as it was not content to tax fuel.  Other assessments will follow with the result that we will be no different than Massena or Malone and our lands will be forfeit.

So we ask the Nation to seek a Native Free Trade compact.  We must extend our trade to other Native nations. We had this chance three years ago when the Seneca-Cayugas of Oklahoma came to the Confederacy and offered to supply our nations with tobacco products.  They were literally thrown out of Onondaga and when they came to Akwesasne their offer was put to the side.  Now it may be the one avenue we have open since New York State does not have the authority to interfere with Nation-to-Nation trade. We can’t wait any longer for the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne or the Tribal Council to agree, swift action is called for before the barricades come up and fringe groups once again define this issue.

But New York will try to exploit our factionalism. So we offer a plan: if the state will back off on its efforts to impose taxes on the Haudenosaunee we will guarantee that the majority of the profits from the tobacco trade will be used to pay for our own schools, housing programs, health care facilities and other community needs so that within a year we will be free of all Albany tainted money thereby relieving the state taxpayers of tens of millions of dollars they now spend on us. We will go further: that once the tobacco trade is proven to be regulated by the Mohawk Nation we will begin formal negotiations with Canada to secure an agreement which will create a system whereby tobacco may be transported to other Mohawk communities under our strict supervision. All else would be contraband.

We must also be ready to define this issue with the outside media. 

They will be seeking people, it does not matter who, to make inflammatory statements which will in turn cause the state, and federal government, to use their police forces to restore “land and order”. And once in place some of us will respond in kind.  The end result will be the occupation of Akwesasne and the end of the Mohawk Nation. The Nation must have a media strategy in place and take the lead or risk being overwhelmed and on the defensive. It will be the media, which determines how the external agencies react to this problem.

We have been here before. Our experience should provide us with the solutions we need. But do we have the common sense and the popular will to act on what we know to be right?