A federal judge ruled yesterday on a
long-standing lawsuit filed by Indian landowners against the Interior
Department. The lawsuit alleged the Department mismanaged Indian
trust funds – to the tune of 100-billion dollars. The federal judge
ruled the Interior Department "unreasonably delayed" its
accounting for the money. The judge partly blamed Congress for not
appropriating sufficient funds to figure out where the missing money
went. A hearing will be scheduled in the next month to discuss ways
to solve the accounting shortcomings. In an interesting historical
side note, the original judge assigned to the case, Judge Royce
Lamberth, was removed by US Court of Appeals. The Court claimed he
lost objectivity after he issued a ruling saying the Interior
Department – quote – "is a dinosaur — the morally and
culturally oblivious hand-me-down of a disgracefully racist and
imperialist government that should have been buried a century ago."
In related news, 4 days after President Bush gave his state of the
union address, the National Congress of American Indians gave its 6th
annual state of the Indian Nations address in Washington DC. FSRN's
Karen Miller was there and files this report.