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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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 Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 6:29 am Post subject: Lakota Indians secede from the United States? |
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WASHINGTON (AFP) � The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday.
"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference.
A delegation of Lakota leaders delivered a message to the State Department on Monday, announcing they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the United States, some of them more than 150 years old.
They also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and will continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months, they told the news conference.
Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.
The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free -- provided residents renounce their US citizenship, Means said.
The treaties signed with the United States are merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists say on their website.
The treaties have been "repeatedly violated in order to steal our culture, our land and our ability to maintain our way of life," the reborn freedom movement says.
Withdrawing from the treaties was entirely legal, Means said.
"This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically article six of the constitution," which states that treaties are the supreme law of the land, he said.
"It is also within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by the US and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are legally within our rights to be free and independent," said Means.
The Lakota relaunched their journey to freedom in 1974, when they drafted a declaration of continuing independence -- an overt play on the title of the United States' Declaration of Independence from England.
Thirty-three years have elapsed since then because "it takes critical mass to combat colonialism and we wanted to make sure that all our ducks were in a row," Means said.
One duck moved into place in September, when the United Nations adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples -- despite opposition from the United States, which said it clashed with its own laws.
"We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children," Phyllis Young, who helped organize the first international conference on indigenous rights in Geneva in 1977, told the news conference.
The US "annexation" of native American land has resulted in once proud tribes such as the Lakota becoming mere "facsimiles of white people," said Means.
Oppression at the hands of the US government has taken its toll on the Lakota, whose men have one of the shortest life expectancies -- less than 44 years -- in the world.
Lakota teen suicides are 150 percent above the norm for the United States; infant mortality is five times higher than the US average; and unemployment is rife, according to the Lakota freedom movement's website.
"Our people want to live, not just survive or crawl and be mascots," said Young.
"We are not trying to embarrass the United States. We are here to continue the struggle for our children and grandchildren," she said, predicting that the battle would not be won in her lifetime. |
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iVC1KMTOgwiSoMQyT2LwZc9HyAgA |
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Tiger Beer
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 6:47 am Post subject: |
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| I think it's a great idea. I'd support that. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 6:49 am Post subject: |
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| No way. Once you get that ball rolling it won't stop. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 6:58 am Post subject: |
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Could this be the beginning of the revolution?
We just had a thread about that. |
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riverboy
Joined: 03 Jun 2003
Location: Incheon
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 6:58 am Post subject: |
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The ball will stop eventually. But, the native issue has never really been properly addressed when it comes to many treaties in North America. Natives have made a lot of ground, but have yet to achieve a proper standard of living yet.
Is this the way to do it? I'm not so sure, but it is a step in giving natives a better chance at autonomy |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:03 am Post subject: |
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Haha  Good for them!
The white settlers should stop meddling in the affairs of native people. I hope they get their land back- polluted and damaged though it now is.
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djsmnc
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Dave's ESL Cafe
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:17 am Post subject: |
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I think it's pretty lame. Actually, it is ironic considering that they are saying "We hereby cut ourselves off from any government support, and would like to isolate ourselves from external resources.
I predict another Wounded Knee will settle them down for awhile. |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:20 am Post subject: |
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Its their land.
I suggest the international community put sanctions on the US until they hand back what they stole from them. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:31 am Post subject: |
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| Julius wrote: |
Its their land.
I suggest the international community put sanctions on the US until they hand back what they stole from them. |
That is nonsense. "God" didn't give them the land, nor did they (this tribe) never use violence to defend their land or expand their land before whites arrived. Indians were busy killing eachother over land long before whites arrived. To say it is theirs is picking an arbitrary point of time as an "authentic" ownership period. Be very careful that you don't absorb the "noble savage" assumptions.
The "international community", by the by, is largely composed of nations that have done and are doing the exact same thing. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:41 am Post subject: |
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| Julius wrote: |
Its their land.
I suggest the international community put sanctions on the US until they hand back what they stole from them. |
Hahahahahaha. *wipes tear from eye* Ah, that's a good one.
I think the government should grant most of their requests. Why not give them autonomy? Also cut off all government services. They'll need to tax eventually.
I have no problem with this: Federalism can accomodate autonomous Territories. Self-reliance could be the answer to Native problems. |
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mistermasan
Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Location: 10+ yrs on Dave's ESL cafe
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:45 am Post subject: |
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| "off shore" banking alone will get them some nice bucks. they could bring chinese over to work factories (just off the superhighway) and pay them chinese wages amid the US. the indians would be rolling in it. other states would want their reseervations to be actually sovereign as well because such= a "no wage" nation right next door. |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:55 am Post subject: |
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| thepeel wrote: |
| nor did they (this tribe) never use violence to defend their land |
You're judging them for trying to keep hold of whats theirs?
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| Indians were busy killing eachother over land long before whites arrived. |
Does that remove their right to their country?
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| Be very careful that you don't absorb the "noble savage" assumptions. |
The whites that ousted them killed eachother in the civil war. Or the war of independence. America has bombed more countries in the past century than any other nation. Is that "noble"?
"Indians" have been, and are, made to be second class citizens in their own country. |
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mistermasan
Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Location: 10+ yrs on Dave's ESL cafe
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:58 am Post subject: |
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| one of those reservations is run by a harvard whiz kid financial genius. he has pumped up the coffers and they aren't looking back. |
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Czarjorge
Joined: 01 May 2007
Location: I now have the same moustache, and it is glorious.
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:29 am Post subject: |
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Notice they say "all" people who live in their area are free to join them. Not just those with a significant amount of native blood. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Given their centralized location in the country they could do a number of things, banking the least of them. Why not have an Amsterdam-like city to provide all the vice the surrounding "Americans" can't get at home?
It will be interesting to see if the government tries to sue them for the infrastructure. Then again the Lakota could countersue for all the things not provided by the treaties they've previously signed. If they actually got their day in court over those issues that would open up all kinds of litigation, not the least of which the "forty acres and a mule" issue of reparations to the descendents of former slaves.
And if it actually happens, and it's not just a ploy for increased government funding, I doubt the US would completely cut off funding. The amount of money they receive could actually go up if the federal government wants to convince them not to do some of the things they might do. I can't wait to see how this plays out, I hope no blood is shed. |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 9:01 am Post subject: |
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Lakota flag...
Yellow: Reserved by the 1868 Treaty for the unreserved use of the Lakota people
Orange; 1876: Lakota reservation after the US stole the Black Hills
Red: Lakota reservations after 100 years of court actions |
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