[SISIS note: The following mainstream news article is provided for reference only. It may contain biased and distorted information and may be missing pertinent facts and/or context.]

NEW YORK TIMES -- Until six months ago, Michael Schindler was an ironworkerwho could balance on a rail in the sky.

That is far less risky than what he is doing now, people in Senecaterritory in western New York said. Since he was elected president of theSeneca Nation of Indians in November, he has been trying to hold hisfractured tribe together while it is in a bitter confrontation with Gov.George Pataki over sales taxes.

Last month, Pataki announced interim agreements with six of the nine Indiannations in New York that could resolve the state's long effort to imposetaxes on Indian cigarette and gasoline sales. No state taxes would becollected under the deal, but five of the tribes agreed not to sellgasoline at all. All six said they would raise cigarette prices to reducethe advantage they have over non-Indian businesses.

Since the agreement, there has been a war of nerves between the holdoutsand the governor, with the state imposing a virtual blockade of gasolineshipments to the reservations and tribe members staging protests.

On Sunday, about 1,000 Indians and their supporters blocked traffic on a30-mile stretch of the New York State Thruway south of Buffalo, and thestate police shut down that section overnight. A dozen state troopers and anumber of Indians were hurt in the clash. Thirteen people were arrested onMonday on disorderly conduct charges stemming from the continuing dispute.

The Senecas have not signed the accord with the governor, and Schindler hasbecome the most visible leader of the holdout tribes.

Speaking softly as he always does, Schindler, 43, said it was unthinkableto enter an agreement with the state or provide New York with the detailedinformation about Indian commerce the governor demanded. "We are asovereign nation," he said during a conversation in his office at theCattaraugus Indian Reservation, near Buffalo. "We have the right to governourselves. We were here before the white people got here."

Some Senecas and outside experts say Schindler's battle with the governorgoes beyond the tax controversy and amounts to a test of a new type oftraditionalist Indian leader. Traditionalists like Schindler argue thatIndians must reassert their rights to self-determination and must rejectsuch lures offered by white society as casino gambling.

"This is a turning point," said Laurence Hauptman, a professor of NativeAmerican Affairs at the State University of New York at New Paltz. "TheSeneca have emerged as the most tradition- and sovereignty-minded of theIndian nations in New York."

In addition to the Seneca Nation, with 6,700 people, the other two nationsthat have refused to sign a sales-tax accord are the Poospatucks of LongIsland and the large but politically divided Akwesasne Mohawks near theCanadian border in eastern New York.

Gas-station tanks are empty on the reservation these days. Indianbusinesses are laying off scores of employees. Fury against the state isgrowing and Schindler is under increasing pressure to find some way out ofthe morass.

That task is made harder because the Senecas are deeply divided. On oneside are Schindler's traditionalists, who trace their political birth to astrong anti-casino movement and who propose what amounts to their own taxon Seneca-owned gas stations and convenience stores.

On the other side is a group that people here call "the businessmen." Theyare Seneca entrepreneurs who have used the tax-exempt status to build gasstations and convenience stores. The businessmen and followers of theirSeneca political party favored construction of a casino and dominatedtribal politics for years.

Schindler said that, like many Indians who grew up on the reservation, hewas unsure of the importance of Indian tradition as a young man. His pathback to what he called Indianness explained the positions he takes on theissues dividing the nation now, he said.

The son of a Seneca ironworker, Schindler, like many Indians, attended anEpiscopal church and graduated from public high school in nearby Gowanda,where the Senecas' white neighbors sent their children.

Around him, was the poverty and the social disintegration that he said wasfostered by U.S. government policies. For a long time, he said, hisattitudes were shaped by those pressures. He drank too much as a young man,he said. He fathered two children out of wedlock and drifted away from thereservation to live among whites in Dallas for nine years.

But during the years he was away, he said, he began to straighten himselfout and to feel the tug of Indian tradition. He read about Indian historyand, working with a traditional medicine man, he said he learned about thespiritual connection of Indian people to each other and their land.

When he moved back in 1987, some people there said he seemed to have foundhimself. He became involved in the Senecas' traditional religion and incommunity organizations. And he grew skeptical of the powerful Senecabusinessmen.

When the businessmen began pressing for a casino, their opponents,including Schindler, rallied around the anti-casino cause. "It is a vice,"Schindler said. "It can create a lot of social problems and I think we haveenough of that around here."

In 1994, a tribal referendum put the Senecas on record as opposed toopening a casino. That same year the businessmen lost the presidency to ananti-casino candidate, Dennis Bowen.

But Bowen won by only three votes of 933 cast and the businessmen's SenecaParty retained control of the tribal council. The two sides locked inbattle that left the nation's government paralyzed, with each side tryingto take control.

In 1996, there was another Seneca election. In a meeting of the anti-casinogroup, someone suggested Schindler as a candidate for president. Part ofhis appeal, several people said, was that he had not held office before.

He won by a decisive vote of 1,037 to 850 and his allies unseated everySeneca Party tribal councilor who was up for election.

Schindler said he had never had any political ambitions but felt a duty totry to help his people through a time of crisis. The confrontation withPataki, he said, had become symbolic of hundreds of years of aggressionfrom the American leaders.

"The state," he said, "is trying to destroy us as a nation." Indians, hesaid, had learned from hard experience that agreements and treaties usuallyled to loss of Indian territory or independence.

Though the Seneca businessmen endorse those views, they say they worryabout his leadership. They say that Schindler's anti-business stance woulddeprive the nation of the only realistic path to self-reliance.

Schindler says the businessmen have used the Indians' tax-free status fortheir own benefit, building high-volume businesses because of their low gasand cigarette prices. He said that he would fight the governor to preservethe Senecas' sovereignty but that it was time for all the Seneca people tobenefit from the success of all the Seneca businesses. "I am very concernedfor our nation," Schindler said, "because there are people who would sellthe nation out for a dollar."

I was grateful that this article was written and I thought it was done quiteintelligently. However, I think it would be nice if it was followed up withsome background about why sovereignty is so crucial and how destructive isthe tax and any state power over reservations. I liken sovereignty as equalin importance to the civil rights struggle because it, too, is fundamentallya human rights issue. As Michael Schindler, the President of the SenecaNation said in the article, "The state is trying to destroy us as a nation."

If anyone might be interested to write to the reporter of this article,William Glaberson, his e-mail address is: glabe@nytimes.com.

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