Thursday, December 20, 2007

A New Country (or not-see update)

I found this news interesting. While other Native American tribes are considered autonomous under certain treaties, the Lakota tribe seceded from the United States today:
The Lakota Indians, the tribe of legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have declared their independence from the United States Wednesday.
http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=31054&cat=0

The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday.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.

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.

http://www.theunapologeticmexican.org/elgrito/2007/12/lakota_secede_from_united_states_of_america.html#more



I wonder if they will be recognized by the UN (or the American Media), but I'm willing to bet Hugo Chavez will recognize them. Any other predictions?
(bolds mine)


Update: Means does not appear to have the authority within the Lakota tribe to make such a declaration official, so he may just be blowing smoke for publicity.

1 comment:

Mauigirl said...

Too bad it may not be official. I think it was a great idea.