When two Ute tribal dissidents were swept into office in April on the Uintah-Ouray Indian Reservation, newly elected tribal leader Curtis Cespooch likened the event to an earthquake that would be felt statewide.
The epicenter, Cespooch warned, would lie here under tribal headquarters in the middle of the economically parched Uintah Basin - a region Indian and non-Indian leaders alike believe has been ignored by state leaders.Was Cespooch's forecast only political rhetoric uttered in the euphoria of election night on the 3,000-member reservation? Or did he really mean that new tribal leaders would shake things up for the 18,000 non-Indians in Indian Country?
According to tribal, city and county officials on the sprawling, 4 million-acre reservation that engulfs the better part of two counties, Curtis Cespooch meant it.
Since the election of Cespooch and Luke Duncan to the Ute tribe's ruling Business Committee, relations between the sovereign tribal government and the surrounding non-Indian institutions have grown visibly tense.
Tehran, Duchesne County
"It's just like going to Iran," said Craig Ashby, publisher of the Uintah Basin Standard, a Roosevelt paper being sued in tribal court by a Ute attorney alleging he was libeled in a letter to the editor.
"This is a foreign country. They select their own judges, they select their own jury, whatever the say - is it," he added.
At the root of tension in Uintah Basin is the tribe's hold on sovereign immunity, which gives the tribe power to enforce its own laws. Like all U.S. Indian reservations, the U.S. Constitution rarely applies in Indian country.
Compounding relations is a 1986 federal court ruling quadrupling the reservation's size. The ruling gives the tribe the right to flex the muscles of its independent constitution and tribal law-and-order code over 90 percent of Duchesne County and 60 percent of Uintah County.
Flexing its muscles is just what the tribe has done of late.
Recently, the tribe proposed to Roosevelt City the possibility of imposing a reservation tax levied even against non-Indians. In October, tribal attorney Gary Montana lodged his suit against Ashby in tribal court.
Earlier, the Business Committee scuttled a cross-deputizing agreement with other law enforcement agencies. And in September the tribe dissolved a 1965 agreement permitting 65,000 acre feet of water to flow into the Central Utah Project.
Tribal militancy
Non-Indian officials in the area say the incidents are a result of the "militant attitude" of new tribal leaders.
Duncan, elected chairman of the tribe's six-member Business Committee, calls the incidents simply doing what he was elected to do.
"I'm just doing my job, and my job is to protect the rights of my people," he said.
And if non-Indians in the area are frightened now, according to Duncan, they haven't seen anything yet. "We really haven't practiced what we can do with our jurisdictional powers," he said.
Duncan broached the idea of a reservation tax to Roosevelt City Administrator Brad Hancock this fall. The two were once close friends and still consider themselves so, although they now say they are increasingly at odds.
"He lived with me for a year in high school," Hancock said of Duncan. "We shared a bedroom. But his attitude right now, I don't know. I think he wants to take what he can get."
Duncan said the Business Committee has yet to fully define the tax, but other city officials are sure it would bring ruin to the area's economy which is still suffering from the 1985 plunge of a price of a barrel of oil to less than $10.
Roosevelt Councilman Leanard Ferguson, elected mayor this year, believes specific motives lie behind the Utes' plans for the tax. "(It's) so they won't have to work," he said.
Such remarks anger Duncan and illustrate much of the problem in Indian-non-Indian relations.
"I think that's a prejudicial remark by the mayor and I despise that kind of remark . . . I feel Mr. Ferguson, as mayor, ought to be more aware of the people next door," Duncan fumed.
Duncan said the tax is a means of raising revenue on the reservation but denies the move would devastate the economy. "We're not here to put anybody out of business," he said.
Nobody's business
Publisher Ashby is unconvinced. He's concerned that Montana, who is seeking more than $1 million in damages from the Standard in his defamation suit, could signal the end of his business.
"It's a good cause; it's worth fighting, but it's going to cost us money, and it could mean moving my business," he said.
Montana refused to be interviewed for this story but Duncan, who is not involved in the case, said he supported Montana in the suit.
One paragraph of the letter to the editor, published in the Oct. 11 Uintah Basin Standard, refers to a tribal attorney.
"Why does the Ute Tribe employ a lawyer who cannot conduct himself in a professional manner on or off the job," reads the letter, according to court records. The letter is signed by Purple Rain, who Ashby will not identify.
Duncan considers the letter an intrusion into tribal affairs. "It's . . . none of his business to putting that stuff in his newspaper," he said.
Water fight
In another incident that has shocked non-Indians in the state, the Ute Tribe voted in October to withhold 65,000 acre feet of water normally flowing into the CUP project annually, contending water officials broke pledges made to the tribe.
In exchange for the water, the tribe now wants a $100 million federal Ute Tribe Economic Development Fund, the right to lease water at fair market, $5 million from the state of Utah and other conditions.
While Utah congressional delegates have reached agreement on a $2 billion CUP funding project, none of the Ute demands have been addressed in the package. Duncan says he will fight the plan.
"There are a lot of people in Congress who don't want to see CUP funding go through," Duncan said. The tribal leader will be lobbying CUP opponents unless tribal needs are discussed.
No compromises
Indian and non-Indian officials in the Uintah Basin admit their opposing views could someday escalate into conflict. Compromise through other alternatives, such as congressional action futher defining Indian jurisdiction, is unlikely.
"My feeling is that it could well lead to something, you never know what," said Ferguson.
"That's not what I'm looking for," said Duncan, "but at the same time I'm not going to sit idle here."
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Tribal sovereignty
The Ute Tribe, like all federally recognized tribes in the United States, has limited sovereign immunity, giving it powers to forge its own laws, establish its own legal system and exercise nearly complete authority over reservation affairs.
Constitutional protections enjoyed by U.S. citizens don't exist on Indian reservations, except for those found within the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, in effect a tribal constitution.
Under a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, tribal governments have sole authority over enforcing the civil rights act. U.S. courts can't interfere in most civil matters considered in a tribal court.