Lakota Activists Declare Independence from US

by Jarrett Martineau | December 20, 2007 at 10:09 am

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A group of Lakota activists have declared independence from the United States. They intend to withdraw from existing treaty agreements and establish a Lakota country that would issue its own passports and drivers' licenses.

Citing total frustration with a "colonial apartheid system imposed on the Lakota Sioux" that has produced incomprehensibly high levels of infant mortality, Tuberculosis, poverty, unemployment, and teenage suicide amongst the Lakota people, the proposed new country would exist independent of the United States and require its citizens to renounce their American citizenship.

This provocative declaration will likely have significant implications for Aboriginal people throughout North America, many of whom have been mired in slow-moving treaty negotiations and become increasingly frustrated with a perceived lack of progress or substantive improvement in their communities.

To what lengths will other groups go to assert their own sovereignty?

THE Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the US.

"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 said.

A delegation of Lakota leaders has delivered a message to the State Department, and said they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the US, some of them more than 150 years old.

The group also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and would continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months.

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, Mr Means said.

The treaties signed with the US were merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists said.

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.

In stating why the Lakota are declaring independence from the United States, they are unsparing and candid about the “colonial apartheid system imposed on the Lakota Sioux.”

The devastation this has wrought is clear:

• Lakota men have a life expectancy of less than 44 years, lowest of any country in the World (excluding AIDS) including Haiti.
• The Lakota infant mortality rate is 5x the U.S. Average.
• The Tuberculosis rate on Lakota reservations is approx 800% higher than the U.S national average.
• 97% of our Lakota people live below the poverty line.
• Unemployment rates on our reservations are approximately 85%.
• Teenage suicide rate is 150% higher than the U.S national average for this group.
• Our Lakota language is an Endangered Language, on the verge of extinction.

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Jordan Yerman

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 11:36 on December 20th, 2007

Provocative indeed, but I can see where they're coming from. Enforcement will be an issue, if not for the Lakota, then for the US government, who may not be so keen to lose that tax input or have to deal with a suddenly-concrete native American political entity that can engage them as a state.

PEP

at 12:27 on December 20th, 2007

OK, some background here. The Lakota nations/tribes (AKA Sioux Tribe) have *not* officially done this. LakotaFreedom is a private activist group. Russell Means, an old AIMster, and other organizers are not members of Lakota, Nakota, or Dakota tribal councils. They do not speak for the tribes.

They only speak for themselves and their group.

The treaties are still in place, along with relationships with the U.S. government via the BIA.

As far as treaties go, treaties are already negotiated. The relationships with the U.S. government are based on those treaties, current laws, and special issue agreements.

Please understand that this PR for the group, or their announcements, changes nothing and does not reflect the actions of the tribal governments in any way. Russ is very media-saavy, and this "announcement," which in essence is a PR release from an activist group, is masquerading as news from the tribes, which it is not.

Here's some more information on this from the Argus Leader:

"I want to emphasize, we do not represent the collaborators, the
Vichy Indians and those tribal governments set up by the United States
of America to ensure our poverty, to ensure the theft of our land and
resources," Means said, comparing elected tribal governments to Nazi
collaborators in France during World War II.

Rodney Bordeaux,
chairman of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, said his community has no desire
to join the breakaway nation. Means and his group, which call
themselves the Lakota Freedom Delegation, have never officially pitched
their views to the Rosebud community, Bordeaux said.

"Our
position on that is we need to uphold the treaties, and we're
constantly reminding Congress of that message," Bordeaux said. "We're
pushing to maintain and to keep the treaties there because they're the
basis of our relationship with the federal government."

Note: Russ & the group have a few problems to overcome. They have no land base--lands are under control of the tribal government. They have no relationship with the government, which means no services of any kind per treaty obligations and legal agreements.

This is just another whiz-bang protest movement that's getting a lot of media play.

Jarrett Martineau

at 12:27 on December 20th, 2007

Thanks for the clarification, PEP. Looking at news coverage of this announcement, it's certainly been a effective media provocation.

Jordan Yerman

at 12:31 on December 20th, 2007

Thanks for clarifying this!

PEP

at 12:36 on December 20th, 2007

Russ Means always provides effective media provocations! He's got a "name," and knows how to do this. A lot of media outlets apparently bit on this one.

Russ is very skilled at this kind of thing. People who aren't inside Indian Country, or don't know the cultural and historical background of these kinds of things, can easily be misled. There's a reason why one faction of AIM calls its PR outreach the "Ministry of Propaganda," heh heh.

This is old AIM style media action.

Jarrett Martineau

at 12:39 on December 20th, 2007

Indeed...."old AIM style media action" dynamically delivered by digital means.

PEP

at 12:42 on December 20th, 2007

Yep! :) NDN activists have effectively been using the internet for well more than a decade now. Actually longer, as best I can recall.

tesoro7

at 14:18 on December 20th, 2007

Excellent story!!! Perfect timing!!! Now when the USA are giving away 15% of SERBIA to DRUGGED ALBANIAN CRIMINALS, it is time to SHOW the USA government that LAWS must be obeyed - first st home, and second - abroad. After centuries of abuse of native tribes home, now the USA is exporting this behavior to Europe. Kosovo is NATIVE LAND of Serbs, not Albanians. Go LAKOTA, GO!!!!

tixx

at 15:01 on December 20th, 2007

Dear Lakota, and, I hear, the Sioux, who have joined as well! You have my strongest support! I am so happy to see this happening! It's about time everybody gave their support together with the countries of South America!

00010149

at 17:43 on December 20th, 2007

supports from istanbul, turkey! i hope all the native americans gain their land back from usa. spain, england, and finally usa killed so many of the native americans that it is the biggest genocide ever made on earth. sick minded priests burned all the cultural history, calling them the culture of satan.

i hope they can get back all, what was theirs.

BigT

at 23:15 on December 20th, 2007

All the knee-jerk support of Indian groups is a little odd. Yes, the United States took their land but what country hasn't taken land? Which country has only been ruled by one tribe since the beginning? We live in a world ruled by the aggressive use of force; I would bet that the land the Sioux live on now has changed ownership a few times. Should the Sioux give the land they live on now to the previous tribe that ruled that land?

It may be sad to some but this is the world we live in.

tixx

at 07:29 on December 21st, 2007

Such obnoxious pragmatism and no critical thinking whatsoever. Many countries haven't, at least from century 7 onwards. The great migration of peoples ended some 12 centuries AGO. Only the nations of the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and some others went outside their borders and took land. And resources. And people. Or just killed. And all that under the guise of progress, civilising and bringing Christianity to the poor indigenous. Give me a break!