Tuesday, January 29

The Palestinian Struggle and the Lakota Nation's secession from the USA

Dr John C K Daly / Andrew Winkler

On the Lakota Nation's secession
from the USA
: In today's email I received
a fascinating article from La Voz de Aztlan on
the recent declaration of secession from
the USA by the Lakota Nation.

The Native American Lakota Sioux tribe has
declared independence from the US unilaterally,
citing a string of broken treaties dating
back to the 19th century.

In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration declared
a dual global campaign, a war against terror and a
US-led effort to promote democracy around the world.
To use the CIA's term "blowback" for unintended
consequences, the latter campaign has resonated
within the US, with secessionist movements agitating
for the values that Washington proclaims abroad:
from American Indians through secessionist movements
in the two most recent states added to the Union,
Alaska and Hawaii, all the way to one of the
original 13 Colonies, Vermont.

While the efforts have been largely ignored or ridiculed
by the mainstream press, because of the Internet
and the evolving global communications network,
their causes have attracted immense interest abroad.

On 17 December, the Sioux "Lakota Freedom
Delegation" delivered a seven-page document of
"unilateral withdrawal" from the US to the State
Department in Washington. The withdrawal notice
was hand-delivered to Daniel Turner, deputy
director of Public Liaison at the State Department.

The document, entitled "Lakotah Unilateral
Withdrawal from All Agreements and Treaties
with the United States of America," states:
"Lakotah, formally and unilaterally withdraws
from all agreements and treaties imposed by the
United States government on the Lakota People."

Means, a long-time Sioux Indian activist,
politician and actor, led the group, which
also visited the embassies of Bolivia, Venezuela,
Chile and South Africa to share the declaration.

According to Means, both Ireland and East Timor
have expressed that they are "very interested" in the
declaration; Iceland and Finland have also shown interest.
Means said that the document would also be delivered
to the UN and to state and county governments covered
by treaties.

Bolivian Ambassador Gustavo Guzman, who attended
the press conference at Washington's Plymouth
Congregational Church out of solidarity, took
the Lakotas' declaration of independence
very seriously.

"We are here because the demands of indigenous
people of America are our demands. We have
sent all the documents they presented to the
embassy to our Ministry of Foreign Affairs in
Bolivia and they'll analyze everything," he
commented to those present.

Means' group, based in Porcupine on the Pine
Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, is
not an agency or branch of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
Means joined the American Indian Movement
(AIM) in 1968 and became its first national
director two years later. He has remained at
the forefront of Indian activism, leading in 1972
AIM's takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs
office in Washington, DC, and in 1973 the
group's occupation of Wounded Knee.

The Republic of Lakota, based on the 1851
treaty, includes parts of Nebraska, South
Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.

Age of communication,
age of recognition

While the US media largely either ridiculed or
ignored the declaration, it attracted intense
interest abroad. In fact, The Republic of Lakota's
website crashed after receiving more than
500,000 hits in the week following the declaration.

The Lakota initiative builds on more than 30 years
of activism, beginning in 1974 with the first
International Indian Council conference held
at the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, which lies
on the border of North and South Dakota.
Five thousand people from 98 indigenous
nations attended and issued "A Declaration of
Continuing Independence," which sought to
address grievances and treaty violations
dating back to the beginning of the US.

At the time of the drafting of the US
Constitution in 1787 there were over 60
distinct tribes of Indians in North America.
During the first century of its existence the
US government and Indian tribes concluded
more than 800 treaties between 1778 and 1871,
but the Senate only ratified 372.

The first agreement concluded by the US
with an Indian tribe was the Treaty with the
Delawares of 17 September 1778, which even
envisioned that the Delaware and other tribes
would ally with the US, form a state and send a
delegate to Congress. Treaties were concluded
with the Sioux nation in 1851 and 1868. In 1871,
the Congress put a stop to the practice of
concluding treaties with the Indians altogether
without, however, invalidating the treaties
concluded before that time.

The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty established the
Great Sioux Reservation, setting aside nearly
93,000 square miles for the Sioux in present
day South Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming.
The Lakota Declaration is based on Washington's
violations of these two treaties under Article
6 of the US Constitution.

Two years after the Fort Laramie Treaty was
concluded the Black Hills Gold Rush began in the
Lakota's Dakota Territory, peaking in 1876.
George Armstrong Custer led the first 1,000
prospectors into land owned by the Sioux,
who fiercely resisted the onslaught.

In 1876, Washington violated the 1868 For
t Laramie Treaty by opening up 12,000 square
miles in the Black Hills to white homesteaders
and commercial interests in violation of
Article 12 of the 1868 agreement.

The white incursion culminated in the two-day
Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876. Sioux
Indians led by renowned warriors Tasunka Witko
(Crazy Horse) and Tatanka Iyotanke (Sitting Bull)
wiped out Custer and 262 US 7th Cavalry
Regiment soldiers in one of the US Army's
greatest defeats of the Indian wars. Sioux Chief
Tasunka Duta (Red Horse) later told Colonel WH
Wood that the Indians suffered 136 dead and 160
wounded during the battle.

"They made us many promises, more than I can
remember. But they kept but one - They promised
to take our land [...] and they took it," Oglala
Sioux Chief Makhpiya Luta (Red Cloud),
was quoted as saying in 1900.

Cause for grievance

The Sioux have never reconciled to the loss of
territory promised to them by federal treaty, and
on 30 June 1980, won a legal victory in the United
States vs. Sioux Nation of Indians case when the
US States Supreme Court upheld an award of
US$17.5 million for the market value of the land in
1877, along with 103 years worth of interest at 5
percent, for an additional US$105 million. However,
the Sioux nation declined the compensation, as it
would have legally terminated their demands for
the land's return. In early 2008, the settlement
with attendant interest rose to over US$1 billion.

By any reasonable measure the American Indian
population has legitimate grievances against
Washington. According to the US Census Bureau's
The American Indian and Alaska Native Population:
2000, Census 2000 Brief, of the 4,119,301 US
citizens defined as "American Indian and Alaska
Native tribe," 153,360 are Sioux.

While today 50 percent of all Sioux (defined as 25
percent Sioux lineage) reside outside the
reservation system, there still exists an extensive
network of reservations scattered across America's
northern Great Plains states of Montana, North
and South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin
and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba
and Saskatchewan.

The census found that 25.7 percent of all Indian
households lived in poverty, defined as income of
US$13,738 for a family of three, the highest
percentage of all groups surveyed, with 34.5 percent
of all Indian children under five living in poverty
along with 26.3 percent of all Indians aged 75 or older.
According to the census, 27.2 percent of all Indian
women live in poverty.

The situation at South Dakota's Pine Ridge
Reservation is typical. Pine Ridge is the eighth
largest reservation in the US, and also the poorest,
with an unemployment rate of around 35 percent and
61 percent of its residents living below the federal
poverty line. Teenage suicide is four times the national
average, while life expectancy is one of the lowest in
the Western Hemisphere, approximately 47 years for
men and in the low 50s for women. Pine Ridge's
infant mortality rate is five times the US
national average.

Higher education is largely beyond the grasp of
most American Indians. A 2002 National Science
Foundation survey found that of the 39,665
doctorates awarded that year, American Indians
received only 0.5 percent of the Ph.Ds, the lowest
percentage among the white, African American,
Asian/Pacific and Hispanic categories surveyed.
Of associate collegiate degrees, Indians earned 1.1
percent, bachelor's 0.7 percent and master's 0.5 percent.

Whatever form the Republic of Lakota might take,
it could hardly have a more dismal track record than
governmental oversight of Indian affairs up to now.

Means means business

The Sioux activists are not limiting their legal claims
to US precedents, however, also citing Articles 49 and
60 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of
Treaties and the non-binding September 2007
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples.

Lakota representatives say if Washington does not
enter into immediate diplomatic negotiations, liens
will be filed on real estate transactions in the five-
state region, disputing title over literally thousands
of square miles of land and property.

Means said the republic tried to files liens against
property that the South Dakota state government
had seized for nonpayment of taxes, and on 1
January, the Republic of Lakota declared liens on real
estate held by "foreign" governments, but not on
private real estate. The county in which the attempt
was made however refused to accept them because
it claimed not to know what a "sovereign nation" was.

The State Department has handed the issue over
to the Department of the Interior, which oversees
the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). BIA spokesman
Gary Garrison dismissed the withdrawal
announcement, saying that it "doesn't mean anything.
These are not legitimate tribal governments elected
by the people [...] when they begin the process of
violating other people's rights, breaking the law,
they're going to end up like all the other groups that
have declared themselves independent - usually
getting arrested and being put in jail," according
to a 4 January report.

Internal Sioux controversy

The announcement has stirred up controversy in
the Sioux nation as well.

On 3 January, Rosebud Sioux Tribe President Rodney
Bordeaux told Indiancountrytoday.com that the group
led by Means represented "
individuals acting on their own."

"They did not come to the Rosebud Sioux tribal
council or our government in any way to get our
support and we do not support what they've done
[...] Russell made some good points. All of the treaties
have not been lived up to by the federal government,
but the treaties are the basis for our relationship
with the federal government [∑] We're trying to
recover the lands that were wrongfully taken from us,
so we are going by the treaties. We need to uphold
them. We do not support what Means and his group
are doing and they don't have any support from
any tribal government I know of.
They don't speak for us."

Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Chairman Joseph
Brings Plenty echoed those sentiments: "What
has been said by these individuals has been talked
about from dinner table to dinner table since I
was a young kid; but the thing is, these individuals
are not representative of the nation I represent.
I may agree, I may disagree, but they have not
gone out and received the blessing of the people
they say they are speaking for," the Rapid City
Journal reported on 7 January.

Means responded to these sentiments, saying:
"I maintained from the get-go I do not represent,
nor do the free-thinking, free-seeking Lakota
want to have anything to do with, the 'hang
around the fort' Indians, those collaborators with
the government who perpetuate our poverty,
misery and our sickness - in other words, our
genocide. They are part and parcel of that genocide."

Means does have his supporters; a
representative for the Pine Ridge
Reservation's council will "consider the proposal."

Means believes that his movement's struggle
for sovereignty has spread far beyond US borders,
and international interest will support his group's cause;
"If the US violates the law, the whole world will know it,"
he told the Rapid City Journal on 7 January.

During a 24 January telephone interview,
Means told ISN Security Watch that Washington
had so far failed to respond to the declaration, but
"they longer they take, the better for us."

It's better for us because it allows us to strengthen
our provisional government, which includes
investors in our energy company."

When queried about the response from abroad
and other Indian tribes, Means said:
"We have no concerns about the response from
other governments as yet because we are too busy
being free. We have been contacted by other reservations
because other Indian tribes want to do the same thing,
including the northern Cheyenne in Montana and
the Objibay in Wisconsin."

"We are making sure that we follow all the laws
of the US Constitution and international law,
thereby avoiding any confrontation,"
Means emphasized.

In an interview with ISN Security Watch,
Jerry Collette, the Republic of Lakota's
provisional government interim attorney
general, echoed Mean's observations, noting
Washington's silence by saying:
"They have not left yet. In spite of being given a
very polite notice, they have continued to
trespass on Lakota land."

According to Collette, other Indian nations
have shown "overwhelming support."

As for foreign interest in the Sioux cause,
Collette noted that the greatest empathy was
displayed by another long-suffering nation.
"Our most supportive response has come from
the longest colonized people in Europe - the Irish."

America's Indian population has waited 221
years for Washington to live up to its treaty
obligations. While it would be nice to see them
finally get justice, the current administration's
cavalier attitude towards its international treaty
responsibilities would seem to indicate that
America's long-suffering indigenous population
is in for a long wait.

Dr John C K Daly is a Washington DC-
based consultant and an adjunct scholar
at the Middle East Institute.

~~~~~~

Reading this article, I couldn't help myself
but having a sneaking suspicion that this secession
story is somewhat related to the Palestinian struggle
against the Zionist occupation, and it wasn't the
similarities between the treatment of both native
populations. Until I had a closer look at the author
and who he works for. The fact that a scholar of
the crypto-Jewish Middle East Institute bothers
to write a long article on the topic makes it pretty
clear that the Zionazis are behind the indigenous
movements from Hawaii to Alaska to the Midwest.
They are doing so as a reminder to U.S. citizens
that they too have dispossessed a native population,
and therefor have no right to lecture Israelis on their
treatment of the Palestinians. They are also trying to
scare U.S. citizens, that if the Palestinians were
successful in their struggle against the Zionist
invaders, they too might be forced one day
to pack and leave.

Let me make it very clear: There is nothing
wrong with the demands of those native
populations, quite the opposite. What annoys me
though is how the Zios are taking advantage of
their legitimate grievances. It is not like they are
genuinely trying to help those poor bastards.
They are only trying to help the Jews-only state
with its on-going genocide and ethnic cleansing of the
Palestinian people. Quite typical, I might add, for the
folks who brought us the Native Indian casino.
[Andrew Winkler]

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1 comment:

  1. Anonymous5:50 pm

    It is rather ludicrous to have such pontification about an event which only exists in cyber space and has no reality on the ground. Foreigners in particular are vulnerable to this kind of propaganda, as they have no reliable background information. It has always been the game that the American Indian Movement has played to gather , for instance, sympathy for their cause: witness the rally around the very guilty murderer, Leonard Peltier, incarcerated for thirty years, whom unknowing foreigners are told is a political prisoner languishing in the American jail system.....

    For a response to all of this, see the statement by the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty council, and its spokesperson Charmaine White Face, which explains that 3/4 of the Lakota adult male vote is necessary to bring any changes to the Treaty between the Lakota nation and the USA, and how Russell Means has not been empowered to discuss this matter, and is only one man. The Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council is the duly authorized group to conduct such diplomacy for the Lakota nation.

    For a real historical documentation
    of the role played by
    Russell Means and the American Indian Movement vis-a-vis american Indian people, see recently published book, "The American Indian Mafia" by Joseph Trimbach. I can guarantee you a real eye opener.

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