Money awaits American Indians

[Waya]

WASHINGTON — Federal officials want to distribute millions of dollars they owe to thousands of American Indians — if only they can find them.

More than $100,000 awaits some people. It is money owed from land the federal government has held in trust for individual Indians. In all, the government has $63.3 million to distribute to about 54,000 people.........



http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770301134

[CountAllVotes]

1. very interesting

thanks for posting this Waya. I think I know someone on this list believe it or not.

[Broken_Hero]

2. interesting, any new news from the trust fund case

against the Fed Govt, aka the Gale Norton case?

[Waya]

3. Elouise Cobell: NO THANKS, WE’LL TAKE THE ACCOUNTING, INDIAN PLAINTIFFS SAY

BROWNING, Mont., March 8 – Elouise Cobell, the lead plaintiff in the Cobell vs. Kempthorne lawsuit over the government’s mismanagement of the Indian Trust, issued the follow statement today:



On March 1, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales sent a letter to Senator Byron Dorgan proposing that Congress spend $7 billion over 10 years on various Indian programs.

Whatever this letter purports to be; it is not a proposal to settle the Cobell case.

The letter, in its plain terms, seeks to terminate the individual Indian Trust and eliminate the rights of Indian beneficiaries to an adequate accounting and monetary relief.

Far from settling the long-running, acrimonious Cobell case, the government proposes that Indian beneficiaries further litigate the Cobell case. At the same time, the government’s letter is an open invitation to more litigation.

Just consider that Interior’s own experts have estimated that the government’s liability in the Cobell case (excluding all other claims) to be at least $10 billion, and that it could exceed $40 billion. Now consider that the Kempthorne-Gonzales letter proposes a $7 billion cap that eliminates “all existing and potential individual and tribal claims for trust accounting, cash and land mismanagement, and other related claims, along with the resolution of other related matters . . . that permit recurrence of . . . litigation.”.........



http://www.indiantrust.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.ViewDetail&PressRelease_id=174&Month=3&Year=2007