By Washington Correspondent
Richard Lister
The United States Government
has promised to return more than 3,000 sq km of desert land to a
Native American tribe in what will be the largest transfer of its kind
in more than 100 years.
The land, in the Western state
of Utah, was requisitioned during World War I for its potentially valuable
oil deposits - although it was never used.
The government had promised
in 1882 that native people in Utah would own the area for all time.
The current deal, under which
the Department of Energy has agreed to return the land to the Ute tribe,
has yet to be approved by Congress. It is a complex agreement and requires
the Utes to give up some of the sovereignty that an indian tribe would
normally have over reservation territory.
Some of the land will be designated
as a wilderness area which cannot be developed.
In addition, if the tribe
does choose to exploit the oil resources, it will have to turn over part
of the profits to the government to help pay for the cleanup of an abandoned
uranium mine, about 130km from their reservation.
Most of the $300m-cost of
that project, though, is expected to be born by the government.
The Ute tribe has welcomed
the return of the land. Indian leaders say it represents an important step
in the right direction in the long and often shameful history of the US
Government's treatment of Native American peoples.
