Finally - too little - too late

From The United States Department of the Interior:

Salazar Announces Final Steps on Cobell Litigation and Implementation of Settlement
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today lauded the final approval of the Cobell settlement and outlined steps that Interior will take to help implement the historic $3.4 billion settlement. The settlement resolves a long-running class action lawsuit regarding the U.S. government's trust management and historical accounting of individual American Indian trust accounts. It became final on November 24, 2012, following action by the Supreme Court and expiration of the appeal period.

�With the settlement now final, we can put years of discord behind us and start a new chapter in our nation-to-nation relationship,� said Salazar. �Today marks another historic step forward in President Obama�s agenda of reconciliation and empowerment for Indian Country and begins a new era of trust administration.�

The settlement includes a $1.5 billion fund to be distributed to class members for accounting and potential trust fund and asset mismanagement claims. The settlement also includes a $1.9 billion fund for a land consolidation program that allows for the voluntary sale of individual land interests that have �fractionated,� or split among owners, over successive generations. Fractionated land can have many owners � sometimes hundreds or more � diminishing the land�s value and making it difficult for individuals to use the land for agriculture, business development, or housing from which tribes can benefit. Up to $60 million of the $1.9 billion fund may be set aside to provide scholarships for American Indians and Alaska Natives to attend college or vocational school.

�This marks the historic conclusion of a contentious and long running period of litigation,� said Hilary Tompkins, Solicitor for the Department of the Interior. �Through the hard work and good will of plaintiffs, Interior and Treasury officials and Department of Justice counsel, we are turning a new page and look forward to collaboratively working with Indian country to manage these important funds and assets.�

And of course the banksters get involved:

The Department of the Treasury will transfer the $1.5 billion to an account at JP Morgan Chase, a bank approved by the court.

JP Morgan Chase is also the entity that processes all SNAP (Food Stamp) transactions. Must be nice to have the monopoly to skim a couple percent of the governments money. There is a lot more about this at the WikiPedia page. A very terrible part of our history as a Nation.