------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Jan. 30, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
INDIAN TRUST FUND LAWSUIT: TIP OF THE ICEBERG By Stephanie Hedgecoke On Jan. 6, lawyers acting on behalf of over 300,000 Native Americans made a federal court filing of voluminous documentation showing that the U.S. government has stolen some $137.2 billion of Indian Trust Fund monies since 1887. Backed by massive proof, this is the single biggest lawsuit ever filed against the U.S. government for fiscal wrongdoing. Elouise Cobell, a Blackfoot woman from Montana, filed the initial class action lawsuit in 1996. The United States thought the case would fail due to insufficient documentation. Since 1996, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of the Interior, which oversees the BIA, have systematically destroyed countless records of evidence. Hundreds more boxes of files were destroyed even after presiding Judge Royce Lamberth ordered them preserved. Lamberth has sharply criticized the interior department's actions, but his criticisms have not had teeth. Washington is actively obstructing justice in this lawsuit. Lamberth has held three Cabinet officers, under both Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, in contempt--but no one has actually been fined or jailed. The Jan. 7 New York Times reported, "For generations Indians have complained of the theft of millions of dollars earned on tribal lands." The government has failed for decades "to offer detailed accounts of now much money has been raised from oil and mineral, timber and grazing leases." The Dept. of the Interior still refuses to give a full accounting of the Indian Trust Fund. Enron's accounting shred-fests are small potatoes by comparison. Native American Rights Fund attorney Keith Harper has said that the only possibility of fixing the trust is to strip oversight from the department of the interior and put it into outside receivership. This is one of the demands of the lawsuit. ALLOTMENT, ASSIMILATION AND GENOCIDE The trust fund was created in the 1887 Dawes Act, which ripped off almost 100 million acres of land--some two-thirds of the remaining Indian reservation system holdings. Sen. Henry Dawes and other so-called "friends of the Indians" planned to forcibly assimilate Native people with the idea that private property ownership would "civilize" them. What Dawes said in 1885 is enlightening in this regard: "The head chief told us that there was not a family in the whole Nation [Cherokee] that had not a home of its own. There was not a pauper in that Nation and the Nation did not owe a dollar. It built its own capital and it built its own schools and its hospitals. Yet the defect of the system was apparent . . . they own their land in common." Dawes continued: "There is no selfishness, which is at the bottom of civilization. Till this people will consent to give up their lands, and divide them among their citizens so that each can own the land he cultivates, they will not make much more progress." (Phoenix: The Decline and Rebirth of the Indian People, William Coffer (aka Koi Hosh)) Allotment of Indian land dissolved many Indigenous-held land bases. Individual allotments were made so small that there would be substantial land left over to give to white settlers. This land theft was even glorified on Broadway in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Oklahoma!" Native families' homes and lands were confiscated by white swindlers in transactions based on Native people's lack of understanding of capitalist private property ownership. Trust fund money slated for education paid for building the infamous boarding schools, given over to churches to run--and Native children were kidnapped en masse to distant locations where their languages and cultures were systematically repressed. Forced assimilation was a new wave of genocide. By 1900, the Native population living on reservations within the United Statets had shrunk to 237,000. THEFT OF INDIAN LAND STILL GOES ON Some non-Native commentators and government officials have complained that they do not want their taxpayer dollars spent to settle this lawsuit. But as President Tex Hall of the National Congress of American Indians says: "This isn't taxpayer money. This is our money that the government took, and they have to give it back." As large a sum as is documented in this lawsuit, it is only the tip of the iceberg of what is owed to Native nations by the U.S. government-- for past and ongoing theft of lands and resources, the continued poverty of Native people, and the devastation of Native nations. Ultimately, Native nations need to be able to control their own lands and resources. Until then, government corruption will be inevitable. n - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
