November 22 – 28, 2012: Five Key Indigenous Peoples Issues – United States, Ecuador, Australia, Zimbabwe, Philippines
After 17 years in litigation, the U.S. government has announced that hundreds of thousands of Native Americans will soon be receiving payments from what has been described as the United States’ largest class-action lawsuit, which accused the government of massive mismanagement of trusts covering indigenous peoples’ monies and lands.
In total, the settlement will amount to some 3.4 billion dollars, about half of which will now go to 350,000 individuals across the country. According to the plaintiff’s lawyers, initial checks of 1,000 dollars each should be in the mail before Christmas.
“The settlement is finally final – even Monday morning there was still speculation that there may be another kink in the works,” Sherry Salway Black, director of the Partnership for Tribal Governance, part of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), said during a teleconference Tuesday. “But I’m very happy to note that it is settled.”
Additional funds will be paid out to Native American (also known as American Indian) landowners whose land assets were similarly mis-valued, in a process that will take place over the next six months. Another 60 million dollars will be put towards Native American higher education. Read more about
the Cobell litigation and the U.S. government’s settlement here….
