Time to end government mishandling
by Elouise Cobell
OP-ED
The Denver Post
When I was a girl, the grownups on our reservation,
the Blackfeet Indian Nation in Montana, complained about their troubles with
the individual Indian trust. It was a mess.
Royalties for allowing oil and gas, grazing and logging on Indian-owned
lands were collected by the Interior Department. The funds were held by the
Treasury Department, and then they were supposed to be paid to the
individual Indian trust beneficiaries, including my parents. It had been
that way since the 1880s.
But the payments were erratic – $1 one time, $150 the next or sometimes
nothing – and no one knew what the amounts were based on. The Bureau of
Indian Affairs agent had no explanation. Money was scarce on the
reservation, but you were more likely to find a $100 bill on the street than
get a straight answer about the trust.
In 1996, I and other Indian co-plaintiffs sued the secretaries of Interior
and Treasury to account for the money. I had left the reservation, attended
college, returned home, become treasurer for the Blackfeet Nation and helped
start the Blackfeet National Bank in Browning, Mont. I had an accounting
background, and I kept chasing after answers about the mysteries of the
trust, working my way up the chain of command.
What I got from the BIA, Interior, Treasury and the Justice Department were
patronizing pats on the head.
Now, in a fourth-floor courtroom in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.,
the latest chapter in our class-action lawsuit is playing out. This is a
contempt trial for Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Assistant Secretary
for Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb. Norton has not joined us in the courtroom
yet, but we meet daily with Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles, a newcomer to
Indian trust issues. Griles has been getting an earful, an on-the-spot
education in government malfeasance.
Our 51/2-year legal battle has dug up a mountain of information about what’s
gone wrong for 120 years with the Individual Indian Monies trust. Interior
and Treasury have admitted in court that they do not know and have no way of
knowing the correct account balances for 500,000 beneficiaries. Records for
the trust, which takes in $500 million a year in revenues from Indian lands
west of the Mississippi, have largely been lost or destroyed.
December 1999 in the first phase of the case, U.S. District Judge Royce C.
Lamberth ordered Interior and Treasury to institute reforms and provide the
trust beneficiaries with a historical accounting of “all funds.” Court
testimony this December showed that Interior has responded with turf
battles, bureaucratic feuding, indifference, sheer incompetence and with a
shameful record of lying to the court about any progress in fixing the
problem.
On the witness stand came Thomas M. Thompson, a senior trust official who,
to his credit, has remained credible with the court. Hour after hour,
Thompson confirmed the accuracy of the findings of a court-appointed
investigator assigned to assess Interior’s performance.
His testimony showed that for the last 14 months, Interior dragged its feet,
hoping Judge Lamberth’s decision would be reversed on appeal. It was upheld.
Interior planned to spend at least $17 million on a statistical sampling
scheme that would be cheaper and easier than a real accounting, but which
they knew did not comply with the judge’s order. Interior has spent more
than $30 million on a new trust accounting computer system that does not
work. Quarterly reports required by the judge, including those submitted by
Norton, are riddled with falsehoods. Computer security for Indian Individual
Monies trust accounting data is nonexistent; we now know hackers can get in
with ease.
Neither Norton nor her predecessor did anything about it. In fact, both
failed to inform the court of the problem. Norton and her aides have been
abetted in the foot-dragging and lying by attorneys from the Justice
Department and the Solicitor’s Office at Interior.
As his testimony wound up, Thompson noted that he and his boss, Special
Trustee Thomas Slonaker, had finally stopped verifying the truthfulness of
Norton’s quarterly reports to Judge Lamberth. “I learned that “verify’ had
legal significance, representing that certain actions had been taken,” he
said. “Mr. Slonaker and I knew that was not the case.”
We, the plaintiffs, have asked the court to appoint an independent receiver
who will take charge of the trust. That is the only way true reform will
occur. If Norton is held in contempt, as we expect, it will free the judge’s
hands to order just that. Receivership would set the stage for a just
financial settlement approved by the court. The trust could then move
forward, with professional accounting and accurate balances.
And I will feel that I have won two things in honor of my parents and all
Native peoples: justice – and some answers.
Elouise Cobell wrote this for Writers on the Range, a service of High
Country News in Paonia.
Eloise Cobell is a banker for the Blackfeet Indian Nation in Browning,
Mont., and lead plaintiff in Cobell vs. Norton, class-action litigation to
reform the Individual Indian Monies trust.
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