Indian farmers hope to settle loan lawsuit

March 05, 2009|Associated Press

WASHINGTON - American Indian farmers lost some $500 million as a result of loan discrimination at the Agriculture Department over the past three decades, plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit said yesterday.

They said they are ready to go to trial to prove it but hope that President Barack Obama's administration will look favorably on a settlement after strong resistance from the Bush White House.

"We've listened to rhetoric for 10 years now," said Claryca Mandan of North Dakota, who, with her husband, is a lead plaintiff in the 1999 lawsuit. "We would like to see those words translate into action."

She and other plaintiffs point to a 1999 settlement that USDA reached with black farmers under President Bill Clinton, just two years after the lawsuit was filed. The government has paid damages of $980 million in that case even as it has fought the Indian lawsuit in court.

Indian farmers and ranchers say local USDA officials tried to squeeze them out of business by denying them loans that instead went to their white neighbors and by refusing to restructure loans in bad years as was done for whites.

Their estimate of damages was developed by an economist hired as an expert witness who used government loan and population data.

The USDA did not respond to a request for comment.