The Tribal Economic System is broken.

The tribal economic system is broken and limits distribution of wealth to tribal members so that poverty is our main problem to be solved after 85 years of tribal council greed and corruption. Unequal distribution of wealth and non-existent jobs are the result of nine elected tribal council dictators who hold absolute power over the people, and who possess a “negative incentive” to end tribal poverty since the federal poverty grants support their lifestyles of millions of dollars for each four year term of office. If we, the people, got rich, the bums on the tribal council would have to apply for welfare since they possess no marketable skills except lying to the voters. I support constitutional reforms that break up the council dictatorship and separate powers of tribal government among community councils, president and the judiciary and law enforcement. As it is today, the tribal council overturns tribal court decisions even when wife beaters are turned loose to go back home and beat the wife and children with no threat of prosecution. That is why we have an incestuous chief, who could prosecute him? The Blackfeet constitution was adopted under the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act with the promise of “cutting out the white man” from our tribal grazing lands and tribal businesses. Corrupt tribal council members joined with oil corporations to defraud the tribe out of a billion dollars of oil revenues and brought the white cattle ranchers onto reserved tribal grazing lands for pay offs for tribal leases. I support the formation of community cooperatives to practice “group capitalism” whereby all community members share in the bounty of the profits. Cooperatives are self-help and interdependence among community members which fits well with the constitutional reforms of community councils. It is called “people’s capitalism” but really it is nothing more than the old tribal societies forming an unbreakable bond of self-help and sharing of resources. Cooperative members elect their own board of directors who hire management and business managers who operate coop businesses for the profits and economic benefit of all. “One member, one vote” is the rule that keeps political families from taking over coop businesses and profits. For instance, a coop could grow beef cattle, own its own processing plant, operate deep freeze lockers and store the meat for the needs of coop members and sell the surplus to the government or retail businesses. Under the tribal council and BIA lease practices the white ranchers and third-party Blackfeet leasers rob the profits of landowners. Self-help is the tribal community council and cooperative where all pitch in to help each other survive and prosper. Credit unions are another coop enterprise, as well as technical assistance to coop members to start up their own businesses, with credit, loans and help in business plan development. I fear turning tribal politicians loose with $470,000,000 with no oversight or accountability to anyone except the tribal council. It will be a disaster for us if we lose our last economic opportunity to get back on our feet after 85 years of tribal poverty under management of nine council members. Let us get on our feet economically and break the 85 year dictatorship of the tribal council. The Indian Reorganization Act authorized district cooperatives but were usurped by tribal council greed. Sayeh Corporation makes the directors and management rich by manipulating low wage tribal labor; that is their business plan, to exploit tribal members labor. Sayeh director is so rich he moved to Cut Bank!

Bob Juneau Sr.

BLACKFEET LANDOWNERS SURROUNDED BY BORDER-WHITES

A Bureau of Indian Affairs Report in 1934 documented the existence of an "exclusive white territory" of void patent-in-fee white landowners who generated three and one/half times the revenues of other counties due to leasing of Blackfeet allotted lands, and the fact that the white men grabbed the water holes and water courses leaving "dry" Blackfeet allotments "unusable" for Blackfeet ranchers. By 1934 border-whites robbed 312,250 acres of productive Blackfeet allotments through forgeries of Blackfeet trust allottees land titles in county courts in complicity [partners-in-crime] with the BIA. All of these Blackfeet allotted land claims were "extinguished, forever" by the approval of the water compact. Where do we go from here? First, we have to correct the criminal conspiracy to devalue allotted and tribal grazing lands conducted by the tribal council and BIA to generate profits for third-party Blackfeet leasers who sub-lease to white ranchers while Blackfeet landowners get nothing but $5 per acre lease payments. White ranchers & farmers generate $142,000,000 annually in sales of cows and crops in Glacier and Pondera counties, much of the money comes from fattening cattle on allotted and tribal lands. There is nothing in the water compact to help Blackfeet ranchers & trust landowners. I am exploring the possibility of a class-action lawsuit to compensate the Blackfeet landowners for loss of revenues since the BIA lease policy was established allowing white ranchers to graze cattle on the reservation, thereby violating the 1896 Agreement/Article Five which reserves the entire reservation for the "exclusive use and occupancy" of Blackfeet ranchers. I have also sent an E-Mail to Secretary of the Interior Zinke requesting a federal investigation of the BIA and tribal council fraudulent lease policy cheating the Blackfeet trust landowners of millions of dollars each year when the white ranchers cattle trucks bring white cattle to fatten their beef on our grass for a paltry lease payment to the landowners and profits to third-party Blackfeet fronts who sub-lease to white ranchers and pocket the profits generated from our grass and grazing lands in a criminal enterprise operated by the Blackfeet Agency and Blackfeet Tribal Business Council to defraud us.
Bob Juneau Sr. Blackfeet trust landowner.

TRIBAL COUNCIL "KILLS" FORCED PATENTS CLAIMS

The white man got his water rights, the state of Montana got the entire flow of St. Mary and Milk rivers, corporations got to keep the 325,000 acres robbed from individual Blackfeet landowners, and the Interior Department is off the hook for complicity in the robbing of the Blackfeet allottees; but the current trust landowners got nothing! It is as chairman Old Person planned it from 1982 when he and his Bureau of Indian Affairs "handlers" rejected our allotted land claims and fought all these years to dispossess the heirs of original allottees by agreeing to "extinguish, forever" all past, present and future land claims of the allotted landowners and the tribe. Tribal attorney Whiting yelled at us in the only water compact hearing held with state, federal and tribal officials present, "You people don't own any water rights!" I guess we don't own any water rights now after the "people" voted blind to accept the water compact.  That is the reality we face in the immediate future. The white people will drill water wells on their "fee" property next to Blackfeet trust lands and drain our underground aquifers while we can do nothing about it. The tribal attorney exposed all of the allotted landowners to exploitation of our water by severing our allotted water rights and removing treaty protections for the passage of the water compact which extinguished all of our land claims, forever. In other words, we do not have the money to drill our own water wells to protect our property from the white neighbors who do have the financial resources to leave us in the dust. We own 987,000 acres and not one acre foot has been dedicated to allotted landowners by the tribal council making our property worthless without water. Prior to the water compact many law cases and Congressional acts upheld our treaty rights to one acre foot for grazing lands and two acre feet for farming operations but some how we got robbed of those laws, treaties, and the word of Congress to protect our treaty lands. In addition to the theft of our allotted water rights, the BIA and tribal council have used the Cobell Case to purchase fragments of allotted lands and then take control of those lands to "devalue" the lease payments flowing to the landowners cut off by the tribal council and third-party Blackfeet leasers who sub-lease to white men thereby profiting from our family lands instead of us getting those lease payments. That is why you have pennies in your IIM account, the money is stolen by the tribal council and BIA officials who profit along with the white men in leasing allotted lands. The Dept. of Agriculture also pays the white leasers "subsidies" amounting to $7,000,000  collected from leased allotted lands. Where do we go from here? There is a lawsuit by a group of Indian landowners who accused the government of cheating them out of $450 million in potential income over the past thirty years due to their discriminatory treatment by the Department of Agriculture in refusing to grant loans and grants to the Indian landowners. Another lawsuit alleges that Indian ranchers were not allowed to access the Agriculture Dept. and are seeking monetary damages as well as changes in how the Agriculture Dept. administers its Indian farm credit and loan programs. The water compact has no money for individual Blackfeet landowners-no cattle purchase program-no credit program or loans or any positive changes in helping Blackfeet ranchers and farmers to improve their property. Allottees do not participate in the water compact or in obtaining loans and grants from the Agriculture Dept. because the tribal council did not include trust landowners in their negotiations or care about the consequences of extinguishing all of our claims, including future claims. The reservation can graze 55,000 cattle, but nearly all of the tribal grazing lands go to white ranchers due to devaluing allotted lands and collusion with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to steal our lease money "on the sly." I would like to meet with interested Blackfeet landowners to explore the idea of filing a lawsuit against the Interior Department and Agriculture Department for discrimination against Blackfeet ranchers and farmers in obtaining federal subsidies, loans, grants, and technical assistance in locating markets for products and crops grown by Blackfeet landowners or leased for a huge lease payment or crop shares or any other arrangement whereby we can get an income from our allotted lands. We have been left to die by the tribal council, so I recommend we get political and elect our own council members to watch out for our interests. Please let me know of any interest in suing Glacier and Pondera counties, and the federal government for mismanagement of our trust lands and water rights. How could we be left out when trust landowners own 987,000 acres and are entitled to 987,000 acre feet of tribal water reserves. Let us organize trust landowners and collect our "lost revenues" lease money and federal subsidies allocated to white men leasing allotted lands. I have the evidence for a lawsuit, so we need to organize and get water attorneys to represent us. There will be a criminal investigation prior to the lawsuit to uncover the "culprits" and jail them. I have requested a federal investigation on illegal acts of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council "collusion" to defraud us.
Bob Juneau Sr. Phone # (406) 493-0894, to meet me in Missoula or Browning for discussions.

BLACKFEET WATER IS THE NEW "CASH CROP'

Nevada district water bosses used the drought to cash in on floods of new money available from corporations in what was described in HIGH COUNTRY NEWS as "One of the biggest attempted water swindles in the West." An article entitled "WATER HUSTLE" reporter Matt Jenkins detailed how state prosecutors allege the Southern Nevada Water Board Authority Officials received "kickbacks" for designating water rights of their co-conspirators-some rich landowners-over that of other Nevada water rights owners by manipulating the "priority dates" which values senior water rights dates over junior water rights dates in times of drought-making the junior water rights less valuable on the global water markets. Prior to the Blackfeet water compact approval Blackfeet water rights dated back to "time immemorial"  before the arrival of the white man in Blackfoot Country and it is upheld in subsequent treaties and legal precedent. The water compact also restricts the Blackfeet landowners water marketing opportunity; unable to market their water rights for 25 years by which time the water will be quantified and used for commercial purposes such as water leasing and taken by the tribal council water "projects" which are merely fronts for criminal schemes both in the tribe and BIA. We do not know the extent yet of the tribal council tampering with allotted water rights to give the tribal council a head start on marketing tribal water and handing white landowners a golden opportunity to leave us Blackfeet landowners in the dust. In 1982 I brought a water attorney to the tribal council who brought a Wall Street Firm to make an offer to develop tribal and allotted water resources which the tribal council voted no! I later found out tribal council members had crooked deals with white ranchers to lease the reservation for a small lease payment and collect "kickbacks" from the white rancher for devaluing tribal and allotted lands. I was even criticized for jeopardizing the tribal council welfare grants because if we got rich what would they do for a living? They are cannibals who live off the suffering flesh of fellow humans whose poverty brings them money to steal from the tribal poor. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is the federal trustee of trust lands owned by individual Blackfeet landowners and I found the BIA was leasing allotted lands under the same criminal schemes to devalue allottee lands @$5 per acre while third-party Blackfeet lease holders sub-lease to white ranchers and they got the kickback from defrauding Blackfeet landowners. The white ranchers and farmers get a revenue stream of over $67,000,000 in Glacier County largely from leasing Blackfeet lands under this system of government corruption.  Do we want to continue to "trust" the tribal council and BIA to change their criminal ways under the water compact? The 1934 Indian Reorganization Act is the federal law under which tribal government was authorized in 1936, but it has never stopped the tribal council and BIA from robbing the Blackfeet landowners. The IRA also authorized the organization of district cooperatives "to cut out the [white] middleman" from the business of the tribe and trust landowners and to provide loans and credit to landowners for the improvements of land and to purchase cattle and equipment to maintain a cattle ranch or some type of agricultural cooperative or a cooperative to market Blackfeet arts & crafts to Glacier Park tourists. In fact, the Blackfeet Arts & Crafts Cooperative is the most successful coop on the reservation until the tribal council was invented to allow nine politicians to control 16,000 tribal members, and you know the history of the tribal council, and not one council member has ever gone to federal prison, a record unknown to mankind of perfect human beings! We can either cower in tribal housing slums and let the crooks rob our water or we can use our civil rights and treaty rights to form water cooperatives to develop and to protect our last remaining resource-water! I know the Wall Street Firm is still out there awaiting the day when the Blackfeet Indians overcome crooks in the council and BIA to proudly bid out our water resources to the highest bidder on our terms whatever they may be decided by the water cooperatives on every creek, river, and lake the tribal council did not give away in the water compact, which is our allotted land water rights. Let us meet in the landowner's council to decide this most important issue facing us since the water compact was approved by the people. I am ready to provide research to substantiate our claims for self-development the Indian Reorganization Act gave us and also which created the constitution that torments us today. Vote it out and give us back the power we had prior to the nine man crooks called the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council.
Let me know of any interest in developing landowners water cooperatives which will give us bargaining power when the bids for our water go out instead of allowing the tribal council to negotiate for us or the BIA either! They will "lease" our water for $50 per acre foot and sub-lease for millions of dollars and laugh all the way to the bank. We need to manage our own water resources.
Bob Juneau Sr. trust landowner