Fw: Indian Families Due Billions; Repayment Possible With Your Action - FCNL

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kathy Guthrie" <kathyguthrie@fcnl.org>
To: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2005 4:12 PM
Subject: Indian Families Due Billions; Repayment Possible With Your Action -
FCNL

President Bush repeatedly says, "We ought to trust people with their
own money." We encourage him to expand his thinking to include
Native Americans whose land profits are held (and withheld) by the
federal government. American Indians were not trusted to manage their
own money. Instead, the federal government took charge in 1887 but
has made such a horrendous mess of the Indian land trust accounts that
the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs found it to be one of the
two worst government management scandals in U. S. history.

Senators McCain (AZ) and Dorgan (ND) have introduced the Indian Trust
Reform Act of 2005 (S. 1439) to repay as many as 500,000 American
Indians whose money "disappeared" while in government accounts. It
is morally imperative that this bill be taken seriously by
congressional leadership and the White House.

ACT NOW: Urge your senators to cosponsor S. 1439 and this one-time
opportunity to remedy a stark and long-standing financial injustice.
If you senators are already cosponsors, thank them and ask them to talk
to their colleagues about this bill.

See FCNL's web site for a sample letter,
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/HMCREZDNJP/IPTYEZDOYA/ Please take the
time to personalize the sample letter and tell your senators who you
are and why you care about this issue.

BACKGROUND: Native families have been deprived of land and lease
revenues for over a century, keeping many in stark poverty generation
after generation. Financial audits, congressional and Government
Accountability Office reports, and media investigations document that
billions of dollars have been mismanaged and misappropriated. The
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Court of
Appeals both have ruled in favor of the Individual Indian Money (IIM)
account holders during the past decade. The district court judge has
held three cabinet officers in contempt of court. At last, Congress is
considering paying the debt. FCNL will vigorously support those
efforts if the settlements are just. Your help will be crucial if
justice is to occur.

Even knowing what we know of the U.S. dismal legacy in Indian affairs,
the details of this scandal are still shocking, especially as we learn
that abuses continue into the present. Congressional audits as early as
1915 showed mismanaged, lost, and pilfered Indian trust funds.
Government agencies such as Interior and Treasury departments also put
the money of Indian families into the general funds of the U.S.
Frequently, Interior did not bother to collect the land-use money owed
to Indian families from corporations or non-natives. Indian land was
sold without permission. Even now, hackers can get into
Interior computers and the IIM accounts. Since the start of a class
action case brought nine years ago by Elouise Cobell to rectify the
situation, hundreds of Interior's boxes of trust records have been
lost or destroyed.

Interior officials continue to resist liability and repayment, but many
in Congress are practical about "clearing the books" and others are
concerned about ethical and legal responsibilities. All agree that
reform is needed and some amount of repayment is required. S. 1439
proposes to take the billions owed from the off-budget Claims Judgment
Fund which is used when the federal government makes mistakes and loses
cases.

For more information, see FCNL's web site,
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/HMCREZDNJP/OCWXEZDOYB/

---------
NOTICE: the FCNL office will be closed for vacation from August 29
until September 6

Congress returns from the August recess September 6 to face an agenda
packed with issues of concern to FCNL: The Senate is expected to vote
on the permanent repeal of the estate tax and may act on the USA
PATRIOT Act in early September. Military authorization and
appropriations bills still pending in the Senate may include provisions
concerning the war in Iraq, new nuclear weapons, and torture. The
Senate may also consider legislation that could cut U.S. dues to the
U.N. There may be legislation in the House to block opening up the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration and budget
reconciliation bills due in mid-September that could cut programs that
serve poor and low-income households. Check the FCNL web site for
updates, www.fcnl.org.

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We seek a world free of war and the threat of war
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