In a scathing rebuke of the federal government's treatment of Native Americans, a federal judge yesterday ordered the Interior Department to include notices in its correspondence with Indians whose land the government holds in trust, warning them that the government's information may not be credible.
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who has presided for nearly 10 years over a class-action suit on behalf of 500,000 Indians whose land the government has leased to mining, ranching and timber interests, issued one of his most strongly worded opinions on the case.
Lamberth ruled that the government essentially has to tell trust-account holders the information it sends them is not reliable. He also described in his 34-page opinion the history of the lawsuit as proof that the government continues to treat Indians "as if they were somehow less than deserving of the respect that should be afforded to everyone in a society where all people are supposed to be equal."
Lamberth wrote: "For those harboring hope that the stories of murder, dispossession, forced marches, assimilationist policy programs, and other incidents of cultural genocide against the Indians are merely the echoes of a horrible, bigoted government-past that has been sanitized by the good deeds of more recent history, this case serves as an appalling reminder of the evils that result when large numbers of the politically powerless are placed at the mercy of institutions engendered and controlled by a politically powerful few."
Details here from The Washington Post. Judge Lamberth's opinion is here.