100 Years Page #3

You are taking on

the United States government."

I ran back to my hotel room,

I picked up the phone,

and I called a friend,

and I told my friend,

"I can't do this.

I'm so frightened."

And, um, my friend said,

"Well, Elouise,

if you don't do it, who will?"

This was not an Indian issue.

This was mismanagement

of money owned by people.

And I am a banker.

I understand how other

people's money is managed,

and this was criminal.

I had never filed a lawsuit

in my entire life, so, finally,

on June 10, 1996,

I filed the largest

class action lawsuit

in the history

of the United States.

No matter who it was,

if you were

at the agency level,

or you were...

they would say, "Just sue us."

And the reason

that they would say that is,

they knew individual Indians

didn't have any money to sue.

And so, that was a real cop-out

for them to use.

And I think that they've told

many people that

through the years,

"just sue us," you know.

So, we just sued them.

[John] When the

litigation was filed

to correct

this broken trust fund system,

it was because we realized

that we did not have

to live like that anymore.

We didn't have to live

on our knees.

You know that mountain

over there?

That mountain over there

is one of the sacred mountains

of the Navajo nation.

Dzil Na'oodilii.

[dog barks]

[speaking Navajo]

[speaking Navajo]

She had to go clear

to Gallup for that,

to ask those questions,

to research that one.

To Gallup,

we're talking over...

well over 100 miles

in one direction.

[speaking Navajo]

[Erwin]

The only way they can tell,

basically, is...

what company is drilling

on their land, is...

And, basically, that's how

the allottees get

all this information

and go into the B.I.A. office

to find out

who's doing

what on their property.

This is, uh,

my grandma's house.

They had their corrals

over there.

-Nice, huh?

-Oh, those guys over there.

Where the roads are.

Those are survey teams.

This is going on now

all over in this valley.

[speaking Navajo]

[Ervin] Livestock gets

into a lot of these locations.

Livestock drink oil and gas,

or poisoned water.

And they lose their livestock.

[Mary speaking Navajo]

And then, um, I remember

when I was a little girl,

it was never like this.

And this...

We can't drink this water

because

it's contaminated water.

They literally came in here,

destroyed something

that came out of the earth

on my mom's property.

This area was their farm area,

where they used to grow corns

and watermelons and squash,

but since they moved in

and the water wasn't

no good anymore,

they had to let go

of the farm area.

My mom, she should be

pretty well off with four wells

on her allotted land,

and then all the

surface damages

that she's entitled to

and the right-of-way payments

and all these things,

and yet here, she's 83 years,

and she still doesn't have

no running water.

You don't see Texas oil

millionaires live like this.

[Ervin] Look at some

of these roadways.

Look how wide the vegetation

has been disturbed.

Once it's disturbed,

it doesn't grow back.

And that's where

the Bureau of Indian Affairs

was supposed to come back--

and-and come back

and reinforce-- reinforce

those kinds of policies.

But it hasn't happened.

It's not that we're opposed

to this kind of developments.

It's more of...

doing things right.

And it's not right.

On Wall Street,

they're reporting

billions and billions

in profits.

But yet, the people

that are paying the price,

they're out here with nothing.

That's really

the frustrating part of it.

You're out there fighting

this whole system

without a face.

And you wish you could

just find that person,

the government, "Washingdon,"

as Navajo people says that.

Indian people say that,

"Washingdon, Washingdon."

[Elouise]

When I filed the lawsuit

in 1996, with other--

four other plaintiffs,

I was the talk of the town

in Bureau

of Indian Affairs offices,

and Department

of Interior offices is like,

"What is she doing this for?

What does she know?"

You know?

Um, "She's stupid.

I mean, how could she sue

the United States government?"

I came in from Washington,

and I was really exhausted

and they had lost my luggage,

and so I had to stay overnight

in Great Falls.

And I didn't have a toothbrush,

nothing, you know.

And the next morning,

I was like,

"Oh, I got to wait

until my luggage comes in,"

and the phone rang,

and this woman said, you know,

"I'm from

the MacArthur Foundation,

and I just want to tell

you that you have

won the Genius Award."

And so, I'm really faking it,

I'm going like,

"Yeah, okay, well, thank you

very much," you know.

Finally, she said, "You

don't have a clue what

I'm talking about, do you?"

And I said, "No, not really."

[laughs] I love

the name "genius"

because then, immediately,

it sprinkled holy water on me,

because the

government laid off.

They said,

"Oh, my God, she's a genius.

She's not stupid." [chuckles]

Anyway, so, um, the majority

of the money that I won

went back to the lawsuit,

which was very unique

because a lot of the people

that receive these awards,

they go lay--

they're the smart people.

They go lay out on the beach.

[chuckles]

When Judge Royce Lamberth

was chosen to be the judge

and when I read

all his background,

I was, like, a little nervous

because he was appointed

by Ronald Reagan.

He was a Republican,

and he was conservative.

And so, um, it worried me

a little bit about him.

I'd never been in the courtroom

to really think this out,

and so everything was

so new to me.

Sometimes, you look at judges,

and it looks like

they're sleeping

or not paying attention,

but he turned out

to be, probably,

one of the most

intelligent persons

that I have

ever, ever encountered.

[Keith] We asked

for information for

a handful of beneficiaries,

and we said, "Give us the trust

records for these individuals."

And they said it would take,

literally,

millions of man-hours

just for these few individuals,

and just

for a limited period of time.

[Elouise] Arthur

Andersen was hired

by the Department of Interior

to do this reconciliation audit

and certification.

They came back and said,

"There's no way we can audit.

There's nothing to audit.

Records are lost.

Everything is in just shambles

and a chaotic mess."

The individual tribal accounts

were audited

by Arthur Andersen.

And the government,

in that case, couldn't find

some 30,000 documents,

or $2.4 billion in checks

and deposits

that came out

of these accounts.

And the judge just, basically,

had enough and said,

"Well, I'm going to appoint

a special master to oversee

the production of records,"

and so, um, he appointed

Alan Balaran.

I'm sort of what you

don't want to see.

You know, I'm the guy

that's hired in many situations

when there's been a breach

of a court order,

and the court wants

to make sure that its orders

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