Nov. 29, 2002 - 21:36 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Disturbing Things

An article in the Sunday Nov.24,2002 Denver Post (our other paper) by Bill McAllister -- titled Many Eyes On Court For Two Indian Cases. It is an interesting article and brings up the possibility of once again messing over the Indians. Possibility -- a shivery word used by a man pretty well knowledgeable in things governmental.

Both cases deal with the nature of the government's trust responsibility to Indians.

Our Gail Norton from Colorado now US Interior Secretary has been taking heat over this very thing and seems to me she is part of the foot dragging going on.

Mr. McAllister says, "Indeed, some lawyers involved in the massive lawsuit over Interior's handling of the 6 year old lawsuit about the balances in more than 300,000 Indian trust accounts say a principal reason the dispute has not been settled is the Justice Departments hopes that the high court will use the two cases to redefine the government's responsibility."

Mr. McAllister quotes David Getches, a University of Colorado law professor who has studied the high court's handling of Indian cases, takes this view. Getches says the two cases could offer the justices a chance to address the government's trust responsibility in a big way, something the high court has not done for decades. "There is no question that an earlier Supreme Court would have said this would be a highly enforceable trust responsibility," he said. "In recent years," Getches said , the justices have begun 'chiseling away' at the cornerstones of Indian law." "The idea that the federal government is bound by old treaties to help Indians and serve as their trustee may be one of those pillars of Indian law," he said.

"If the justices want to say that the trust responsibility is an 'anachronism,' these cases could be the vehicles for such a ruling," he says." "In the second case, the Navajo Nation is arguing that the government failed to protect its intrests in negotiationg coal leases in the 1980's. This $600 million dispute evolves arount the role former Interior Secretary Donald Hodel, now a Colorado resident, and a lobbyist friend allegedly played in approving a renegotiation of the tribe's lease with Peabody Coal Co."

"The Navajo contend that Hodel's approval of the lease violated the government's trust duties. They have asked for damages."

In both cases the federal Court Of Appeals ruled in favor of the Indians.

Now it will be up to the Supreme Court. I do wonder why our government didn't obey the ruling of the federal Court of Appeals ? Makes too much sense I guess. So they will continue to flail around trying to avoid the responsibility of our governments sworn duty. Who is it in front of the Supreme Court, arguing for the Government ? Why, government lawyers of course. So basically a portion of our government is trying to say that treaties be damned and it looks like that it might just go the way stated in Mr. McAlister's article, the possibility that the Supreme Court might rule that the trust responsibility is an 'anachronism' therefore the government "don't gotta do what they are supposed to do."

I can just see all the justification and aplogies put forth, all the damn euphemisms laid on the action of once again stickin' it to the Indians.

Going by our past actions in regard to the Indians, my opinion is that the fancy lawyers and the High Court will see a way to avoid and evade doing the honorable things that should be done. To me these are Disturbing Things . . . . . . . . .

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