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| Wednesday June 18, 2008 |
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| Elouise Cobell and the debt due the Indians |
Letter from the United States
by Corine Lesnes
Columnist
Le Monde, Paris
In the courtroom, wearing a yellow silk jacket among the somberly-attired lawyers, Elouise Cobell has a combative attitude.
On behalf of the nation, the Montana Blackfeet filed a complaint in 1996 against the government of the USA for theft.
"Never would money from another race have been treated like this, " she laments.
After 12 years of proceedings, a final trial has just begun in the federal court in Washington.
400 000 plaintiffs, representing 300 tribes, want to know what became of billions dollars in royalties that the government failed to pay them.
The investigation reveals a disaster accounting, a kind of bureaucratic Katrina.
The Indians are demanding $58 billion. The administration disputes this figure.
Without Elouise Cobell, the trial would probably never have occurred. As a little girl, she remembers having hearing Indians question the Trust Fund, established in the nineteenth century to manage tribal lands. At that time, Congress had been determined to transform Indians into farmers. In 1887, a law
cut reservations into parcels of 160 acres.
As Indians were regarded as "incapable" to manage their property themselves, the task was entrusted to government.
Today, the Indian lands have been fragmented by legacies, but the system continues. The Department of Treasury receives their income. The Department of the Interior redistributes money.
As long a she can remember, the contradiction has intrigued Elouise Cobell.
Why could a family be so poor, when that the lands of the tribe were being exploited by ranchers, oil companies or foresters?
She went to the University of Montana and studied accounting. On her return, she was appointed treasurer of his tribe. One day, she had to ask for trust
accounts information from the Bureau Indian Affairs.
"My dream was to buy a new dress for my mother, "she said. The trust officer responded as if nothing ever changed. "You should
learn to read the accounts," he said.
Troubled, Elouise Cobell began to investigate. The funds families were receiving never recorded. Some years, they received a check, others not, without
any reason.
The Cobell lawsuit has helped uncover all kinds of anomalies.
When a Navajo earned $ 9 for the passage of a pipeline, Non-Indian received $ 140. The federal government took advantage of the Indian money it redistributed. It helped help New York City out of the financial crisis in the 1970s and it helped reduce the national debt.
The first judge in charge of the Cobell case, Royce Lamberth, a judge appointed by Ronald Reagan, gradually lost patience. He ordered Interior to do an accounting, telling officials to pursue vigorously the trust documents. Afterward it became clear that 162 cartons of records were passed to a shredder at a Treasury Department warehouse.
The judge has sentenced two cabinet secretaries for contempt of court and imposed a fine of $ 625,000 (which has been paid by the taxpayers). The judge cut off for several years the Bureau of Indian Affairs' access to the Internet.
In 2005, he called the Department of Interior a "byproduct of a racist and imperialist government which should have be buried there a century ago."
Then the government asked for - and received - a new judge for "lack of objectivity."
The new judge, James Robertson, indicated that he intended to put an end to this judicial saga. In his first decision, he drew a Charles Dickens
reference to Bleak House and its travails, a book which recounts the chronicle of an interminable trial.
Robertson determined that the government was incapable of conducting its promised accounting, except to spend a few billion more. He decided it was better to go to the next step: the amount of compensation.
Now that it is no longer possible to rely on the trust statements, the trial is entered into the symbolic phase. How to quantify the debt owed to the Indians?
Elouise Cobell has not dwelt on Dickens. She became banker. She founded the Native American Bank, which distributes loans in twenty-three tribes,
and "mini-banks," so children learn very young to count.
The Blackfeet Nation has awarded a rare honor for a woman:as a "warrior". She also received the "genius" award from the prestigious
MacArthur Foundation.
Elouise Cobell said she found her inspiration near Browning, along the Rte. 89, on a hill called Ghost Ridge. This is where 100 victims
of the Great Famine of winter 1883-1884 are buried. Government agents had brought the Indians there and promised to bring them rations. The Blackfeet patiently awaited the arrival of food. Those who trusted the government died of hunger.
Elouise Cobell think it the time for justice has long passed.
As for the yellow which she dresses often, a friend recalls her Indian name, simply
: Yellow Bird, back-arrièrepetite daughter of Chief Mountain.
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