September 2002 Newsletter - Part 2 Phil Konstantin Sep 18, 2002 10:00 PDT ======================= START OF THE NEWSLETTER ======================= Hi, I thought I would pass along a couple of things. One is about the BIA. There is also a review on my book. ----------------------- Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2002 Interior Secretary Held in Contempt WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge Tuesday held Interior Secretary Gale Norton in contempt for failing to heed his order to fix oversight problems with a trust handling hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties from Indian land. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth called the department's handling of the Indian money and the action of government attorneys in the case disgraceful, and found four specific instances where the department committed fraud on the court. Norton said the ruling applies more to events that took place prior to the Bush administration, and that she has devoted more energy to fixing the management of Indian money than any other project. Speaking in Phoenix at an Indian economic development event, she said she is considering appealing the ruling. Norton is the third Cabinet officer that Lamberth has held in contempt over the trust fund. Former President Clinton's Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin were held in contempt in the case in 1999. The government has acknowledged major problems with the trust fund. The Interior Department has spent more than $600 million since 1996 to comply with instructions from both Congress and Lamberth, but accounting problems persist. In December the judge shut down most of the Interior Department's Internet connections because he said the agency could not ensure hackers wouldn't break in and steal money. During a 29-day trial that ended in late February, Norton asked Lamberth for more time to make fixes. Lamberth was unmoved. On several occasions during the trial and since it concluded, he scolded Interior officials for foot-dragging and failure to comply with his orders. In a 267-page opinion, the judge said the Interior Department not only failed to comply with his order to account for the money in the Indian accounts, but lied to the court about its efforts to repair the trust and protect Indian money. ``The agency has indisputably proven to the court, Congress, and the individual Indian beneficiaries that it is either unwilling or unable to administer competently the (Indian) trust,'' Lamberth wrote. ``Worse yet, the department has now undeniably shown that it can no longer be trusted to state accurately the status of its trust reform efforts. In short, there is no longer any doubt that the secretary of Interior has been and continues to be an unfit trustee-delegate for the United States.'' The contempt ruling also applies to Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb. The Interior Department did not immediately respond to the judge's ruling. The trust, which now handles funds for about 300,000 American Indians, began in 1887 when Congress took 90 million acres from Indian tribes and gave the land to white homesteaders. The Indians were left with allotments ranging from 40 acres to 320 acres, with the Interior Department assigned to manage grazing, timber and oil and gas drilling on the land, and ensure Indians received royalties for those activities. For more than a century, an untold amount of money meant for some of the nation's poorest residents was lost, stolen or never collected. Indians sued in 1996, claiming the mismanagement cost them between $10 billion and $40 billion. Lamberth ordered the department in 1999 to fix the system and piece together what the Indians are owed. He also found Babbitt and Rubin in contempt and ordered the government to pay $600,000 of the plaintiffs' attorneys fees for failing to turn over documents in the case. `I prayed every day that this opinion would serve justice to the individual Indian beneficiaries - the ones who have been hurting for so long,'' said Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Nation who initiated the lawsuit against the government. ``We are on the road to justice, and I'm happy for this opinion.'' Rep. James Hansen, R-Utah, whose committee has oversight of the Interior Department and Indian issues, said the ruling ``flies in the face of the facts'' and neglects progress that has been made under Norton's tenure. ``She inherited a trust management problem that has plagued the federal government for decades,'' Hansen said in a statement. ``I personally believe this slap from the judge is patently unfair and deliberately disregards her excellent work.'' In the latest ruling, Lamberth ordered the Interior Department to pay the attorneys' fees for the group of Indians who sued the department in 1996. Dennis Gingold, the plaintiff's attorney, said those fees would be in the millions of dollars. `The court confirmed what we've been saying all along. The secretary of Interior and Justice Department lawyers have been lying to the court and she continues to lie to the court,'' Gingold said. Lamberth also said that he has the authority to strip the department of its oversight of the Indian royalties and appoint a trust expert outside the department to mange the money. The judge asked the plaintiffs to propose a new management structure. Norton's own efforts to overahaul the management of the trust funds stalled last week when a task force of tribal leaders refused to back down on a demand that a panel outside the Interior Department, and including Indian members, supervise the department's management of the money. Interior Department: http://www.doi.gov/indiantrust/ Indian plaintiffs: http://www.indiantrust.com ---------------------- I have received the first review for my book. If any of you see any others, please let me know about them. The review below is from Publishers Weekly. This is a magazine for the booksellers, libraries and pulishers which discusses the publishing business, market trends, authors and new books. Here it is: From Publishers Weekly By now the myth of the "discovery" and peopling of North America has passed into the historical record, with the idea of an empty land being tamed by toil and westward expansion giving way to a more accurate picture of steady trade, virtually nonstop wars and moments of cooperation between the native Americans and the European immigrants. Freelancer Konstantin shows readers just how many treaties, battles, settlements and resettlements, government acts, executive orders and surprise attacks comprise this troubled history. Covering territory from "Panama to the North Pole" and dates from the 16th century to the present, this exhaustive look at the plight of North America's indigenous people is both instructive and downright depressing. With its neutral tone and format, literally marking events over 365 days of the calendar year, it should be an important resource for furthering the cause of corrective history. -------------------- The book should be available the first week in October. If you would like to order a copy through Amazon,com or Buy.com, please visit my special website for newsletter subscribers: http://americanindian.net/newsletterbook.html -------------------- That's it for now, Phil ===================== END OF THE NEWSLETTER =====================
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