Where Gover is Wrong
Indian Country Today
Editorial
September 27, 2000
The federal government’s position before a court of appeals on the case of the loss by the Interior Department of millions of dollars from individual Indian accounts (and billions in tribal assets), arguing that the government should not be required to account for the assets of American Indians prior to 1994 is ludicrous on its face.
The federal government, via Interior Department and its BIA has been trustee of Indian assets for more than a hundred years. It is responsible for the protection of those Indian assets in its care.
The judicial oversight ruled necessary by U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth is most definitively so. Maintain the judicial oversight. It is the only way to guarantee that the government keeps moving on this most sensitive and important issue.
Many tribal assets, as well as the individual accounts of the current case, have been lost or squandered. Again, it was the federal government’s responsibility to safeguard it.
As Native plaintiffs and attorneys have pressed the government to account and to be more open with its information, Interior and BIA leaders have adamantly retrenched into their carapaces.
Occasionally, the siege mentality surfaces. It clearly happens to Kevin Gover, whose recent stint as BIA director is otherwise commendable. Understandably, the position he holds calls upon him to defend his bureau and department. But he might consider that the Native plaintiffs on the case do only the right thing to torment him and other present-day officials who have chosen such unpleasant duties as to have to face down the sordid, inefficient and paternalistic history of American Indian policy and practice in the 20th century.
Gover might consider accepting the obvious consequences of taking the hot seat. He should temper his recent acerbic commentaries on the Indian citizens and advocates who have sued and established a class action in the case. These five individuals, as John E. Echohawk wrote in these pages two weeks ago, are all notable Indian leaders of long-standing. They represent 500,000 Indian trust beneficiaries, none of whom have ever received proper accounting on the money the government collected and invested on their behalf for more than a hundred years.
At its core, the basis of their legal action is sound and intended to benefit American Indians who deserve nothing less than a full and accurate disclosure of their assets. It is not becoming to Gover’s position, which is institutional after all, to use his bully pulpit to attack Indian people for doing what they must. It misses the point of their crucially important lawsuit and it does his legacy a disservice.
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