Judge dismisses Apache suit against Skull and Bones

[sabra]

Source: yale daily news

It looks like the public will not be learning any times soon whether the secret society Skull and Bones keeps an Apache warrior's skull in its tomb.

A District of Columbia judge on July 27 dismissed a case that had been brought against the mysterious society, as well as the University and senior members of the U.S. government, in February 2009. The plaintiffs are 20 descendants of the legendary Native American chieftain Geronimo hoping to reclaim their ancestor's remains. But their lawyer, Ramsey Clark — who has represented controversial figures such as Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic — said Monday that he is not giving up.

"We're obviously disappointed," Clark said in a phone interview. "We believe that (this case) is awfully important, not only to the wishes of Geronimo himself, but to the spirit of the Indian people and their relationships to the government of the United States."

The objective of the original suit is to gather Geronimo's remains and reinter them near his birthplace at the head of the Gila River in New Mexico, thereby fulfilling what plaintiff Harlyn Geronimo says were his great-grandfather's wishes. Geronimo is reportedly buried in a prisoner of war cemetery in Fort Sill, Okla., but according to an old legend, Prescott Bush — Yale graduate, Bonesman, father of former President George H.W. Bush '48 and grandfather of former President George W. Bush '68 — looted that grave in 1918 or 1919 and took the chief's skull, along with some of his other bones and artifacts buried with him, back to the Skull and Bones tomb on High Street in New Haven.

Because Geronimo's official burial place is on a military base, which is government property, Clark first planned to pursue a suit against President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of the Army Pete Geren. If he had won his case, he and his clients would have dug up the grave at Fort Sill, and if, as the story about Prescott Bush suggests, some of the remains had been missing, they would have turned to Yale and Skull and Bones.

Read more: http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2010/08/09/judge-dismisses-apache-suit-against-skull-and-bone/

[Dogtown]

1. K&R n/t

[Doc_Technical]

2. Ramsey Clark is one of the few well known attorneys

who is actually a credit to his profession.

[No Elephants]

16. I understand why the right has been bashing lawyers (while it uses them). I don't understand why

DUers do. Good judges, organizations like ACLU, human rights attorneys, environmental lawyers, etc. have stood between us and the bad guys since colonial times and still do, and often called on to do so on a volunteer basis.

[Tunkamerica]

3. typo in the first line

yale is such a great school.

[KamaAina]

8. That's only because I turned the "Yalie Daily" down

I had been interested in working there junior year. Then they called me back. At 11:45 PM. "Oh shit," I thought, "they actually expect me to be up at this hour answering the phone?" And that was the end of that.

-K-A, Y'85, cum laude

[yurbud]

4. the symbolism here is tragic: the rich can rob our graves and use our corpses as props

for their masturbatory initiation rituals, and do so without fear of any consequences whatsoever.

You would think the courts would understand that the rest of us need a victory on issues like this to preserve the illusion that we are all equal before the law, even though we clearly are not.

I hope some trust fund baby frat boy decides to use that judge's skull for a spooge bucket after he dies, his family buries him, and the frat boy robs his grave.

[Karenina]

7. THAT is the overall message... WORLDWIDE. n/t

[sofa king]

9. Hmm. Where, exactly, is Prescott Bush buried?

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=5988

Burial:
Putnam Cemetery
Greenwich
Fairfield County
Connecticut, USA

Just, you know, in case anyone is interested to, like, um, know about where it is... and shit.

[denbot]

12. Hmmm..

I am of Chiricahua Apache stock, and also of the same clan as Goyathlay (Geronimo).. The shitty part of this is that to walk the red road requires we be respectful of others and their traditions.. Sigh..

[sofa king]

13. Well, we're talking about a tradition created by this guy....

...And certainly Prescott, being a good Christian with Republican family values, wanted others to treat him the same way he treated them--or if he didn't want that, as most conservatives don't, he would want people to believe such a thing after he was dead.

So doesn't that mean that Prescott would have wanted someone to unearth his remains and mock them for the best part of a century, and lie about their whereabouts, and use them in adolescent rituals? Wouldn't that be treating him with the very same respect the tradition he created demands, within the value set by which he led his life and taught his children?

[sofa king]

14. Seriously, though....

Despite my weasely post above, thank you for sticking to your traditions and keeping them alive.

Other readers may not know that the Chiricahua Apache were kept as prisoners of war for, what, twenty-six years I think it was?

That's why Geronimo was buried at Fort Sill, because he was a prisoner of war, as were the children and grandchildren born into the tribe between the 1880s and 1912.

Geronimo's remains were a silent testament to that injustice, one that lasted longer than any other mass-imprisonment perpetrated by the United States. That's why it's important to return those remains, that we may remember the rest of the story.

[Downwinder]

17. I notice on Wikipedia that Dasoda-hae's skull is also missing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangas_Coloradas

We are such respectful people.

[yurbud]

15. what do you think my dog's been eating out of for the last ten years?

[Mendocino]

5. Even John Kerry wouldn't drop the dime on these idiots.

What went on that someone's 40 year old allegiance to a bunch of drunken frat boys would take precedence over the future of this country?

[cstanleytech]

6. Wait, why did you not contact

the court? After all having a witness like yourself able to testify that this is not an urban myth would have done alot to help them win the case.

[Mendocino]

10. Did I mention a trial?

Or an urban myth?

[cstanleytech]

11. You mentioned that Kerry wouldnt drop the dime on them so

I just took it to mean you had witnessed it first hand or had some sort of other evidence proving that Kerry knew, my apologies if I misunderstood you.