Presently, there is no more important book concerning the Bureau of Indian Affairs available than "Stealing From Indians - Inside the Bureau of Indian Affairs...an Expose of Corruption, Massive Fraud and Justice Denied" by David Henry, a BIA accountant who was fired for exposing a massive
|
The electronic book costs $10.00 and will be delivered to your desktop - it works out to be about 660 k of ascii text. My copy printed out to 190 pages of 9 point text. I urge all who are concerned with righting the wrongs perpetrated on the First Nations by Wasichu to purchase this book and sign the petition supporting David Henry and condemning the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
David continues to attempt to hold the BIA accountable for it's past and present thief of First Nations monies and an email campaign has been initiated at http://www.dickshovel.com/henry.html to address these issues.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs can't account for $2.4 billion, or one of every seven dollars that flowed through tribal trust funds in the last 20 years, auditors say.
The money isn't necessarily missing, but documents cannot be found to show where it came from or where it was paid, officials say. Tribes are likely to ask Congress to restore some of it.
|
Congress ordered the audit to figure out how much money should be in the 2,000 tribal accounts, set up over the years to handle receipts of tribal income from timber, minerals, water and land claims.
"What we've got is a mess. As far as I can tell it's an unprecedented mess." said Dan Press, attorney for an intertribal group that monitors the funds.
The funds total about $2 billion. The largest single account, valued at $400 million comprises a court's award to the Sioux nation for its loss of South Dakota's Black Hills to the United States.
Accountants studied $17.7 billion in transactions between 1973 and 1992 and found documentation for $15.3 billion, a bureau summary of the findings says.
The problem is akin to a bank being unable to provide canceled checks or deposit receipts to back up its account statements. The funds have been put under a special trustee independent of the Indian bureau.
Over the years, dozens of audits by the General Accounting Office and the Interior Department's inspector general have criticized the bureau's management of the funds. Problems cited include unreliable accounting systems and lack of security controls and competent personnel.
"They can't confirm that all the money that should have been collected was actually collected." Press said. "They can't prove that money that was collected was deposited. They can't prove that the money that was deposited was invested properly."
"If this were a private bank trustee . . . they'd be in jail right now."
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has until May 31 to make recommendations to Congress for handling claims by tribes whose accounts can't be reconciled.
"That's going to be something Congress is going to have to come to grips with," said Joe Christie, the official in charge of the bureau's attempt to reconcile the accounts.
Congress set aside $3 million to reimburse tribes that are missing money. The independent special trustee, Paul Homen, said he expects the claims to exceed that.
"All of the tribes are going to be putting in claims," said Elouise Cobell, comptroller for the Blackfeet tribe in Montana. The bureau values the Blackfeet accounts at $8 million; the tribe says that's too low.
Many tribes probably will withdraw their funds from government control under a 1994 law that allows them to do so, Cobell said.
There are also 300,000 accounts, totaling $400 million, belonging to individual Indians. No attempt was made to reconcile them, because the cost of doing the work is estimated at up to $250 million.
Please join us in this fight by signing the petition at http://www.dickshovel.com/henry.html and by ordering David's book from http://www.alpinet.net/bookstore/thundr78.html Many thanks...
Bureau of Indian Affairs Site
First Nations Cumulative Index