President Obama met with representatives of 386 nations on Thursday, fulfilling a campaign promise to discuss Native issues. Accompanied by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and several Cabinet members, the President acknowledged government misdeeds marked by violence broken promises, and treaty violations. He also said that the government failed to properly consult native American leaders and communities leading to current conditions of unemployment up to 80% on reservations, 25% living in poverty, and 10% of homes without electricity or running water. "You were told your lands, your religion, your cultures, and your languages were not yours to keep," said Obama.
These are the same issues surfaced by Russell Means, Dennis Banks, and Clyde Bellacourt over thirty years ago. For over 400 years, no government official has publicly stated the obvious and apologized for it.
The President also took questions and comments from the elders gathered and directed federal agencies to develop recommendations within 90 days on how best to improve tribal participation in key government policy decisions.
On Monday, the Justice Department announced a settlement offer of a lawsuit filed by Native Americans in 1996. Thousands of Native Americans would receive at least $1,000 each, or $1.4 Billion to settle the suit over mismanagement of Native American revenue.
The lawsuit had accused the government of failing to account for money held in Individual Indian Money Accounts, which are supposed to represent the value of property individual Native Americans, held and managed by government trustee.
The government would also agree to establish a $2 billion program to buy small fractions of land to help sellers obtain value from ancestral property, which would then be held by tribal governments.
While this proposal does not cover the decades of genocide and treaty violations, it is at least a start. The government made billions of dollars over the years leasing out Native American land to ranchers, miners, oil barons, and the military. No Native American was ever paid a nickle for the use of land that was owned communally. The government can't figure out who owns the land because the concept of land ownership was foreign to Native people. They did not own the land, the land owned them!
Elouise Cobell (Blackfeet) said that "the settlement was not fair, but, in the future we may be treated more fairly." She said that the defendants were just worn down from thirteen years of legal battles.
It is ironic that the same things that the American Indian Movement demanded thirty years ago at Wounded Knee, , honoring treaty rights, a full accounting of Native American funds, are now being won through the courts. True Freedom Fighters like Russell Means, Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellacourt, Ward Churchill, and many others will never get the recognition they deserve for laying their lives on the line time and time again.
Sure, $1,000 per Native American is nothing in the grand scheme of things,but, it is more than has ever been offered before. After Obama, the door will close on Native American relations for another hundred years. Now is the time to make your voices heard if the Black Hills are ever to be returned, the BIA abolished, and sovereignty restored to Native people.
No comments:
Post a Comment