The late Elouise Cobell meets President Barack Obama at the White House. December 8, 2010. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
Elouise Cobell is probably spinning in her grave
By Tim Giago
Native Sun News Editor/Publisher The process of settling the so-called Cobell settlement has turned into a joke, except it is not one of those “ha –ha” jokes, but one of those jokes that can bring tears to one’s eyes. The Cobell settlement is a result of the government’s total mismanagement of Indian lands, mineral rights, grazing rights, natural resources and money and was so badly accounted for that for more than 200 years the Indians lost untold billions by hook and crook. The Cobell settlement was a pittance in remuneration because the accountability of the agencies holding Indian properties, etc., in trust was so jumbled with distortions and cover-ups that true accounting was indeterminable. The pittance individual Indians received in Cobell cash payments prior to Christmas of 2013 should be a mark of shame on the history of America itself. Where was the national media in uncovering this mess? They were probably busy filming and writing about the “drunken Indians” at Whiteclay, Nebraska’s firewater holes. What makes the settlement even more unbelievable is that more than $1 billion was given back to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to clear up the fractionated land (buy-back) programs abundant on nearly all Indian reservations, a problem created by the BIA itself. Yeah, let’s take a billion dollars from the poor individual Indians and give it back to the nincompoops who caused the problem to remedy their incompetency. What a travesty! Well, the Interior Department turned over the accounting and payment system for the Cobell settlement to the Garden City Group, whatever that is, and it has raised the hackles of every Indian that was ever owed money by the government. The second payment of the settlement has dragged on now for nearly one year after the first payments were made and the promises at that time were that the next payments would come in the early spring of 2014. Well, that date has come and gone we are still waiting and wondering. We do not all have wildly successful casinos or we could have turned down the initial legal settlement and called for the settlement that was originally planned by Elouise Cobell. She determined that the theft of Indian monies totaled 10 times what the government finally agreed to pay. She was overruled by a bank of lawyers who all got paid first and could have cared less that their clients, the American Indians, the neediest, would be left holding the bag. The sad thing is that Native Americans will never be able to go back and say, “Hey, you cheated us out of billions again,” because once they accepted a single penny of the settlement, the legal door was closed. Leaders like the late Charlie Colombe, former President of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, brought a counter suit against the Cobell lawyers questioning the way the payments were determined and why such a tiny, tiny amount was awarded. Some Indians really got angry at Charlie for “holding up our money” when they should have been supporting his lawsuit and praising him for trying to get them some real money. Let’s face it; the federal government dodged another Indian arrow. They figured an impoverished people would not have the patience or the time to wait. You cannot hold a sandwich in the face of a starving person and not expect they are going to reach for it. And so the beat goes on. While the Garden City Group dawdles in a poor imitation of the Interior Department, the real victims of this farce wait on the sidelines; and Elouise Cobell is probably spinning in her grave. What started out for her as one of the noblest gestures to honor Native Americans by paying them for all of the land, minerals and resources stolen for them for more than 200 years has gone up in smoke because of greedy lawyers and a recalcitrant federal government. Doesn’t that sound a lot like history repeating itself? What Native Americans ended up with was “We can’t pay them what they are asking so let’s just give them enough to shut them up.” This has been the lot of Native Americans since the first settlers set foot upon this continent. We were cheated out of what was rightfully ours then and we were just cheated out of what was rightfully ours now. Most Indians got just enough to buy a beat up used car when they should have got enough to buy a new house. God bless America! (Tim Giago can be reached at editor@nsweekly.com) Copyright permission Native Sun News
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