Daschle: Provide justice to Indian trust account holders

[govegan]

The United States government made a commitment, through solemn treaty obligations, when it divided Indian lands in 1887, to hold those lands in trust, to manage them wisely and to give any income from the sale or lease of the land to its Indian owners. Our government has never fulfilled that promise.

The Indian trust has been so badly mismanaged, for so long, by administrations of both political parties, that no one today has any idea how much money should even be in the trust - let alone, how much is owed to individual account holders, and for what. That’s not just wrong, it’s negligent.

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Last September, the judge in the Cobell case ordered the Interior Department to make a full and accurate historical accounting of all individual Indian trust accounts. Weeks later - behind closed doors - House Republican leaders, working with the Bush Administration, used legislative sleight-of-hand to derail the judge’s order for a year.

For years, Congress has left it to the Executive branch to resolve the Indian trust dispute, yet the problems are no closer to being solved now than they were a decade ago. It is time for Congress to step up and accept its share of the responsibility for finding a timely and fair solution to the trust management problem.

Link: http://www.indiancountry.com/?1080319728

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Oooohhh! Brace yourselves. The head's of Angry White Men are

about to blooooowww.

Freeper-types are thoroughly convinced that American Indians have had it too good. It's going to take some education to get them on the same page with Daschle. But it's the right thing to do.

[kenth]

2. The Indian trust accounts are working

exactly as planned. The lands held in 'trust' more or less remove all decision making ability by the Indians who are beneath understanding what land and finance management is all about. The money that is taken in can be bandied about as needed. What's to worry about, it's just some Indians. Heck, we can still refer to them as redskins and tell them we're honoring them.

My mother has land held in trust which the BIA goes out of its way to prevent her from being able to utilize to her benefit. Don't even think of trying to take such lands out of trust. The BIA officials really work to prevent that. They then will negotiate, and I use the term loosely, for what appears to be the lowest bidder on rental agreements. Then, they allow rent to lapse and notify her months later.

I would say that the BIA is working exactly as intended which is to keep the Indians in their place, either on a reservation away from the rest of civilization or working to keep them from realizing their potential by having them come to believe their own money, which could be much larger, comes from the government.