Land crisis hits Rwanda, 10 years after genocide

Friday, April 02, 2004


KIGALI: As the world prepares to focus on the tenth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, another threat to the future of this martyred central African country is beginning to take shape: the fight for land. Rwanda, already one of the most densely populated countries on the continent, is facing a population explosion that could result in precious agricultural land — still the basis of the economy and society — running out. Over 90 percent of the country’s eight million people are farmers and stock breeders. But the amount of land available is finite and sooner or later some people are going to be left without a plot of land, and therefore without a living.

“It’s a time bomb,” said a Rwandan observer, who did not wish to be named. The scarcity of land was both a source of tension which led to the 1994 genocide and a pretext to convince people to take part in the massacres. In the space of three months in 1994, up to one million people, mostly Tutsis but also moderate Hutus who were opposed to the slaughter, were killed, according to the Rwandan authorities. “Family planning should be the top priority but nothing is done to put a brake on demographic growth,” said the observer.

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http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/world/w102042004.html


and Americans alow this to happen in their name

Stolen Trust
Gale Norton, Native Americans and the Case of the Missing $10 Billion

by Jeffrey St. Clair

Dissident Voice
September 6, 2002

Elouise Cobell comes right to the point. "Gale Norton should be thrown in jail." Cobell is a leader of the Blackfeet tribe, and lives along the Rocky Mountain Front in northwestern Montana. Norton, of course, is secretary of the interior and, as such, oversees the US government's relationship with Indian tribes.



Norton also controls the purse strings on federal trust funds holding more than $40 billion dollars owed to Indians across the nation. For her role in the mismanagement of the trust fund, Norton is facing a contempt court citation from federal judge Royce Lamberth. If she gets slapped, she'll be in bi-partisan company. In 2000, Lamberth hit Bruce Babbitt and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin with contempt citations for failing to halt the destruction of Indian trust account documents.



The case begin in 1996 when Cobell, who has been called the Rosa Parks of Indian Country, filed a federal class action suit against the Interior Department, seeking both money that's been owed to Indian people and a radical change in how the trust fund is managed. Six years later, the case now stands as the largest class action suit in history, with more than 500,000 claimants. And, as it wound its way through the courts, it has tarnished two administrations and exposed the continuing war on Indian people by the federal government.



"We're not after money from the government," Cobell says. "The government has taken money that belongs to us."



Of course, stealing from Indians goes back to the origins of the republic. Mismanagement of Indian trust accounts was first noted by congress in 1823. But the Cobell suit is targeted at the notorious Dawes Act of 1887, which was a attempt to shatter Indian solidarity and culture by privatizing the reservations into 140 acre allotments put in the names of individual Indians. It was a set up, naturally. Indians were soon swindled out of more than two-thirds of their land, about 135,000 square miles in all. The remaining 57 million acres was put into a trust held by the Department of Interior. This too was a scam. With little or no input from the tribes, the land was leased out to white ranchers, oil companies, mining firms and timber companies. The land was stripped of its resources, often left in a ravaged condition.



The revenues from these leases (often sold at bargain-basement rates) goes into a trust fund administered by the Department of Interior. These days the fund receives about $500 million a year. Since 1887, more than $100 billion has gone into the accounts. Although the ranchers and oil companies have made a killing, little of that money has ever reached the tribes, where the per capita income hovers at less than $10,000 a year and unemployment rates hover near 70 percent. A new study shows that more than 90 percent of elderly Indians across the country are without access to long-term health care.

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http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/StClair_StolenTrust.htm