Editor, Daily Press:

Once again, it appears that George Wickliffe and his attorneys at the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma need a refresher course in how government works.

Federal laws are made by Congress and interpreted by federal courts. Bureaucrats do not make the law, and no single person sitting in an office in Washington, D.C., signing a piece of paper can change what a law says, not even Barak Obama. And the law today, as defined by Congress and the federal courts, says what it has always said, which is the Cherokee Nation today is the same historic Cherokee Nation that has existed since Europeans came to our shores, and that the Cherokee Nation has treaty rights and a territorial area, and the UKBCIO still does not.

The Cherokee Nation spends it’s time and money creating jobs and helping our citizens. The UKBCIO leadership spends it’s time and money claiming to be the Cherokee Nation, which shouldn’t be a surprise, since George Wickliffe and other UKBCIO leaders were rejected several times in their efforts to be elected as leaders of the Cherokee Nation before sulking off to the UKBCIO.

When the UKBCIO continues to attack the Cherokee Nation and attempts identity theft on a national level, it only diverts resources and attention from the Cherokee people they should be helping.

In fact, the attorneys advising the federal bureaucrats who issued this critically flawed letter agree with the Cherokee Nation. Attorneys representing the Department of Interior have filed documents saying that “the Secretary of the Interior, or his designee, has determined that the subject lands of the old Cherokee Nation are under the jurisdiction of… the Cherokee Nation, not the UKB,” and that they have “recognized the Cherokee Nation’s exclusive sovereign authority over lands within the historic former reservation of the Cherokee Nation…”

With that in mind, the UKBCIO’s reaction to this administrative letter is a little bit comical. It’s like a boxer who loses a fight, and then, with two black eyes, goes and finds a guy who wasn’t even at the fight to sign a sheet of paper saying he won. Everyone knows the UKBCIO hasn’t won where it matters; the law hasn’t changed and they still do not have territory, jurisdiction, or any treaty rights. They are still an organization created a few decades ago by a one-sentence act of Congress, rather than an Indian Nation with treaty rights that has existed since time immemorial like the Cherokee Nation.

As principal chief, I took the oath of office to protect those treaty rights, as did our Deputy Chief Joe Grayson and all 17 of our council members. Defending the rights of the Cherokee people and their historic government is our duty and our honor, and we will do so vigorously. Even if it means we have to give George Wickliffe and the BIA another civics lesson.

Chad Smith, principal chief

Cherokee Nation

Editor’s note: This letter was written in reference to an ad for the UKBCIO which ran in the Tuesday, June 30, edition of the Daily Press.