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In the NewsMcCain seeks closure to trust issue, cites other needsWASHINGTON—The chairman of the Senate committee on Indian Affairs said this week that the government’s mishandling of the Indian trust accounts “reads like a bad novel,” an issue that has the potential of costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. In a one-hour Capitol Hill session on Monday with a group of 20 reporters on a traveling seminar of Indian country, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., discussed a wide range of issues facing Native Americans and said he wants to help bring closure to the trust matter that has cast a shadow over everything in Indian affairs. McCain laid out his road map for resolution of trust issues, saying there has to be a settlement that’s viewed as fair by all parties, and the amount cannot be “too high.” McCain did not give an exact figure, saying the process hasn’t gotten far enough to determine an amount. Some community leaders describe the lawsuit that has thrust the trust matter into the spotlight—Cobell v. Norton—as one of the top three issues facing Native America. “I guess it shouldn’t surprise us that a lot of Indian accounts that were revenues from mineral, oil and other leasing were badly mismanaged by the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) which was supposed to take care of these revenues as trustees for both individuals and tribes,” he said. Accounts—many of which cannot be found—date back more than 100 years. “The fix has to be that everyone is confident that we will not revisit this issue and we made the correct remedies to this deplorable and despicable situation,” McCain said. A member of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana, Elouise Cobell is the lead plaintiff in Cobell v. Norton, which has challenged the government’s mishandling of individual Indian trust lands and accounts. The complex class-action lawsuit was filed in 1996 by Cobell, a banker, on behalf of nearly a half-million Indians who contend that during more than a century, the government has cheated them of about $137 billion in royalties from the leases. The government pays beneficiaries a total of more than $500 million each year from the fund, which exceeds $3 billion dollars, according to the New York Times. “It’s been an incredible and bizarre story,” McCain said, adding that Native Americans have suffered because of a lack of full accounting for an orderly management of funds.
But McCain said a full accounting could cost billions of dollars and “frankly the Congress of the United States will never appropriate
“I am going to try one more time to see if we can’t get some kind of overall settlement because if we don’t get a settlement, it could be decades before we have a final resolution of this issue and it would have to go to the Supreme Court of the United States,” he said. When asked why the government was non-responsive and how the case could have mushroomed from Cobell to encompass so many plaintiffs with billions of dollars at stake, McCain said that the Department of Interior, in hindsight, did not give the trust issue the attention it deserved initially. Anecdotally, the senator continued, he’s been told that the case had some lower level attorneys assigned to it early on. “I don’t think anybody envisioned that we’d have secretaries of the interior held in contempt of court and a secretary of the treasury, the (BIA website) shut down,” he said. On another front, McCain said many people view flourishing Indian casino tribes as representative of all of Native America. “One of the problems that we have is ... a lot of people (in the Northeastern part of the United States) say, ‘Gee, here are all these rich Mohicans, and here are all these rich Pequots, they’ve got billions, the largest single casino in the world is the Foxwoods Casino.’ So, we have to fight the impression on the part of many that all Native Americans now are rich,” McCain said. “In reality, that’s simply not the case.” Of the 562 federally recognized tribes, 224 have gaming operations, he said, but some of the largest tribes do not have gambling. Indian gambling has exploded from a $200 million industry in 1988 to $18 billion today, he said. In calling for more transparency in casino operations, McCain asserted. That wherever huge sums of money is exchanged, there’s a risk of corruption. One of things he said he wants to do is examine closely the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988. A commission of some 40 members oversees Indian gaming, while a roughly 500-member commission oversees the gambling enterprises in Nevada, McCain said. Gaming “has expanded beyond our wildest imagination,” McCain said. More than 200 entities are seeking tribal recognition from the federal government, a number he said has grown since the passage of the Indian gaming act. “Strangely enough prior to the influx of Indian gaming activity, there was very little of that kind of activity,” he said, a statement that was refuted later in the day by a BIA representative who also spoke with reporters who are part of the cross-country traveling seminar with the University of Southern California’s Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism. Lee Flemming, the director of the Office of Federal Acknowledgment, said there had been no demonstrable increase in tribes seeking federal recognition in recent years. The complex recognition process can take more than a decade. McCain said sufficient oversight and regulations are a must to prevent any scandals in Indian gambling, but added that he is not putting the industry on notice.
“I am saying that we will continue to exercise our oversight responsibilities under the legislation that we passed in 1988,” he
Speaking to education levels and poverty problems on Indian reservations, McCain said, there’s no magic fix because the tribes are so different. Studies have shown that self-governance has been very effective for Indian tribes, McCain said, with those that exercise it showing educational improvements and a decline in poverty. For Indian country economies to flourish, McCain suggested that tribes need to be more accommodating of business. “In many ways today, tribal governments are socialist in nature and they micromanage the reservation and they serve as an impediment to economic development, unintentionally,” he said. --Vik Jolly, The Orange County Register Posted on 03.10.05 at 2:45 AM by Victor Merina Tips for JournalistsHip Hop, Sacred Sites, Drydocks and Other Untold Stories from Indian Country
Breaking away from the standards is tough, particularly if the reporter is sympathetic towards sharing these hardships with the public. However, the audience is often left with the notion that these issues are ones that solely define contemporary Indian existence, which is not the case. Today I got to sit among very esteemed company: Denny McAuliffe, Suzanne Shown Harjo and Bill McAllister, who all made the case for untold stories they’d like to share. Among those listed were the preservation of Indian sacred sites, the prominence of hip-hop among Native youth, an ill-fated dry dock venture for an impoverished Alaskan tribe, and the “fractionated heirship” which involves the Cobell trust case. All of these stories, besides being enterprise, are complex and deserving of further attention. Yet these can often be the hardest to sell, both to an audience and editorial manager. I find that even if an assignments editor or news director is enthusiastic about Indian stories, they can still fall prey to the standard “doom and gloom” expectations of tribal communities, and this demands a re-education of sorts; that while it’s important to highlight the tragedies and shortcomings of Indian life, there’s also room for celebration and optimism. I’ve filed stories for National Public Radio that have carried both aspects, because I’m fortunate to work with a bureau chief whose expectations are wide-open. But if that’s one hurdle passed, then another one presents itself: accessing tribal communities that can bring those untold stories to light. I count myself lucky in that being part Indian (Nez Perce), my general appearance and familiarity with tribal communities have gotten me further into “the Rez” than my non-Indian colleagues often have. But even I hit a firewall now and then, particularly when approaching stories packed with spiritual or ceremonial observance. My suggestion for any reporter wanting to cover “Indian Country” is this: be proactive. Don’t wait for a story to erupt, then try to schmooze and woo the tribal community. Make a few cold calls, drop in and visit, hand out business cards but leave the camera, tape recorder, or notepad in the car. Visit everyone, whether it’s a tribal chairperson or a teen skateboarding down the sidewalk. Ask what’s news, how things are going, if there’s any new projects happening - without passing judgment or trying to nail down an immediate source. Get a feel for the local politics, and immediate relations outside the reservation borders. Often they can be strained. Take note of new buildings, ones in disrepair, which people are in charge, and why. Come again, and repeat. If and when a story breaks, ask what is appropriate when it comes to recording sound or video. If you’re asked to shut off a recording device, do it. Don’t secretly record the event either, no matter how intriguing it is. One burnt bridge can take ages to rebuild, and you may well endanger the relationship between the tribe and other journalists as well. Observe and respect the cultural mores of an Indian community, and you may well find yourself being privy to more breaking news and enterprise opportunities than the average reporter. And while Native American stories can be very time-consuming and complex, your reward will be in covering a much under-reported people, and exposing your audience to their accomplishments and prospects as well as their hardships. --Brian Bull, Wisconsin Public Radio Posted on 03.09.05 at 1:50 AM by Victor Merina Personal StoriesComplexity and ChaosTrying to understand the relationship between the United States government and American Indian tribes is simply mind numbing. I’ve never covered international affairs, but I’m left pondering how tribal/federal relations compare in complexity to the U-S relationship with other sovereign nations.
The examples of complexity and chaos seem endless. Perhaps the most prominent is the trust issue. Just when the historical or contemporary process of trust responsibility begins to make sense, there’s another caveat or disclaimer which sets off cognitive dissonance. It seems the same with issue after issue. It appears decades of congressional tinkering and agency rulemaking have built a system that is amazing in it’s sheer complexity.
Can I succinctly and accurately explain to listeners issues that I’m
--Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio Posted on 03.09.05 at 1:47 AM by Victor Merina In the NewsMcCain Weighs in on Indian Gambling, Trust Mess
While Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., denied Monday that he was putting Indian gambling on notice, it certainly appeared that way in a meeting with reporters participating in a fellowship through the Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism. The chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee suggested that Indian gambling is ripe for scandal and also weighed in on the contentious trust reform issue embodied in the Cobell vs. Norton case. Following are a few comments from McCain on each issue.
On Indian gambling:
“Wherever money is the item that’s exchanged, there’s going to be the risk of corruption,” McCain said. He cited Nevada’s early battles with corruption and subsequent strong regulation and referred to the state as the experts in requiring “transparency” in keeping the industry clean. McCain cited the need for “transparency, transparency, transparency” in Indian gambling. Asked how that squares with tribal sovereignty, McCain responded that “this is always the rub” determining where tribal sovereignty ends and federal sovereignty begins. While some gambling experts consider McCain’s home state a model for Indian gambling regulation, he said regulation varies among states and suggested the issue needs clarification. Hearings to determine things like tribal land acquisition for gambling are following IGRA guidelines and to identify the nature and size of Indian gambling problems are important, he said.
“We will continue to exercise oversight responsibilities,” he said.
“We have to fight the impression on the part of many that all Native Americans are rich,” he said, reiterating his call to ensure the industry is run as well as possible to avoid any corruption that could, in his terms, kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
On Cobell vs. Norton:
Claims for more than $100 billion for full accounting of alleged trust mismanagement could never be paid, he said. “The Congress of the United States will never appropriate that kind of money,” McCain said calling for a settlement that would be viewed as bringing “closure” and seen as fair to all parties. Asked how much he thinks could settle the issue, he said it “can’t be too high,” but added that he doesn’t know the amount. There must be a fix, though, to what McCain called a “deplorable and despicable situation” on the trust issue. While McCain said the Bureau of Indian Affairs has had many failings, he said he’d rather fix BIA than abolish it. If it weren’t around, who would administer Native American programs? he asked. -- John Stearns, Arizona Republic Posted on 03.09.05 at 1:41 AM by Victor Merina The People, The CultureUnderstanding Cultures, Hearing Their StoriesThe National Museum of the American Indian, which opened last September, spent more than five years working with community members to ensure that the exhibits were told from their point of view. For too long, others had determined what was their history and this was their chance to tell their story. In the “Our Universe” exhibits, staff checked in with selected communities throughout the process, visiting them in their homelands, and flying them to the museum. It was up to each group to decide what items would be displayed. But does respecting these perspectives sometimes lead to meaning lost on museum visitors? For example, in the “Our Universe” gallery, which highlights Native American philosophies, there are four lines in the floor. What do the lines mean, we asked our cultural interpreter. The four seasons, he replied. The exhibit in-between each line represented a time of year, such as the Denver pow-wow in the spring. Given the importance of the seasons in many native cultures, that seemed an important point to make yet that connotation could be lost on many visitors. Our guide then said that in Indian culture, answers aren’t always immediately apparent. You have to ask. And in the museum’s soaring atrium, prisms cast a rainbow up the wall and to the top of the dome on the solstice, underscoring how important those dates are to many native cultures. Again, there was no written explanation. Over dinner, our group talked about this philosophy as an organizing principal for a museum. It was pointed out that iconography is not entirely explained in places like the Vatican. And in poetry, spelling out the meaning is not artful. The paraphrased prose is flat compared to the poetry. But museums are meant to inform the public and does being subtle or coy in delivery, serve that purpose? As journalists, perhaps we’re more curious about the “why.” Visitors may be still enriched at the museum, though they may not understand all the significance. Understanding another culture is never easy, no matter how much you know. --Vanessa Hua, San Francisco Chronicle Posted on 03.09.05 at 1:36 AM by Victor Merina |
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It’s a tendency for even many Indian journalists to gravitate towards the tried, if not true, stories from Native America: poverty, alcoholism, suicide, racism and failing schools.
