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Descendants of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse break away from US

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NMRANCHER

Well-known member
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Descendants_of_Sitting_Bull_Crazy_Horse_1220.html

Descendants of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse break away from US
12/20/2007 @ 10:26 am
Filed by Agence France-Presse


The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday.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.
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Just waiting for the other shoe to drop. :cboy:
 

kolanuraven

Well-known member
Well....at least if Bush decides to invade the troops won't have far to go.



But, Bush might get a taste of what Custer got....come to think of it...they are a lot alike!!!
 

Steve

Well-known member
Give them have every acre they own today and cut off all funding to those who support thier agenda...

all the land the fed has set aside for them (in trust) would be auctioned, and they would all be given one check...

one year later give them a window to join our nation...

The nation with-in a nation has failed miserably... and not because of a lack of hand-outs,,but because of hand-outs...
 

CattleArmy

Well-known member
I don't see how many of them can survive without the government funding that they get. It would appear to me if they do this then all welfare programs and commodities would no longer be the responsibility of the government. It would be quite an adjustment to go from getting the help to not. Plus wouldn't that mean the federal government would no longer be responsible for the Indian Health Care Services at Pine Ridge and other places on the reservation? Many, even those, with but only 1/4 native blood line travel there for free medical services. Possibly this will lead to them also having to deal with rising health insurance costs. Maybe if they try not being part of the United States losing the funding they won't think it's such a bad deal.


In my opinion the thinking that the violated treaties being the reason for the loss of cultural is not taking a look at the reality of the horrible addiction to booze to the population.
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
Just a bunch of hooey. If they want to be soverign, fine, lets do it. Take away all federal funding for their schools, roads, law enforcement, social security payments, commodities, etc... after all they're their own nation now. We'll see how far this thing lasts.
 

Mrs.Greg

Well-known member
Sandhusker said:
Just a bunch of hooey. If they want to be soverign, fine, lets do it. Take away all federal funding for their schools, roads, law enforcement, social security payments, commodities, etc... after all they're their own nation now. We'll see how far this thing lasts.
If that were the rules with it...good on you.Thats NOT how it works with Quebec thats a soverign nation,still reap all the benefits from being part of Canada yet your to speak and read french in thier province :?
 

CattleArmy

Well-known member
Mrs.Greg said:
Sandhusker said:
Just a bunch of hooey. If they want to be soverign, fine, lets do it. Take away all federal funding for their schools, roads, law enforcement, social security payments, commodities, etc... after all they're their own nation now. We'll see how far this thing lasts.
If that were the rules with it...good on you.Thats NOT how it works with Quebec thats a soverign nation,still reap all the benefits from being part of Canada yet your to speak and read french in thier province :?


I'd never be able to travel in parts of South Dakota again. Lakota is a hard language. (Not saying french isn't but seems one is exposed to french some and I was never exposed to Lakota language until the last couple years and it has tons of W's in it and talking like you are gonna hack something up.)
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Sandhusker said:
Just a bunch of hooey. If they want to be soverign, fine, lets do it. Take away all federal funding for their schools, roads, law enforcement, social security payments, commodities, etc... after all they're their own nation now. We'll see how far this thing lasts.

Yep-- and if you closed all the McDonalds, KFC's, and Quickstops they'd starve to death....Shut off the Budweiser trucks- and there wouldn't be anyone left in the new country after a week..... :wink: :lol: :(

This would be an easy war to fight... :wink: :lol:
 

kolanuraven

Well-known member
Russell Means - for his mid-December announcement in D.C. that he is unilaterally withdrawing the Lakota Sioux from treaties with the United States. News flash to Means: treaties are made between nations; you are a person and not a nation; you are not empowered to speak for the Great Sioux Nation; as an individual, you can only withdraw yourself from coverage of your nation's treaties. (Means is the same Oglala Sioux actor who tried to beat domestic violence charges by challenging the sovereign authority of the Navajo Nation to prosecute him - he took it all the way to the Supreme Court and lost.)


The above clip was on the local tribal web site under the heaading " Mantle of Shame"


Apprently they ( the EBCI) are not breaking away anytime soon!! :lol: :lol:
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
I can remember back in the 70's when a bunch of the AIM folks showed up protesting and trying to rabble rouse and stir up things like they were doing in SD--several of us were put on standby to assist the tribal police in case things got too bad..

They started burning US flags on the main street--Some of the local tribal elders and VFW folk got to them first- kicked the crap out of them and then pretty much ran them and Means off the rez...End of problem.... :wink: :D
 

andybob

Well-known member
My experience tells me that even if they had an existing efficient government structure, and a thriving economy, they would never be allowed to make a unilateral declaration of independence!
 
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