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The Lakota Secede from the US

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Gaborn

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WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday.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

Story is here
 

Retrofluxed

Member
Thats all find and dandy, but I'm sure they really didn't think this through very much. As an independent nation, the US does not have to fund your businesses, highways, schools and etc. Plus, they are going to have to produce their own currency (backed by what?), goods, utilities and other essentials. Its a bad move IMO.
 

Gio_CoD

Banned
So does that mean that the Lakotas have to stay within their "country"? Like, no trips to Wal-Mart or the gas station? Sounds like it's gonna be rougher on them than us.
 

Crushed

Fry Daddy
6khncpd.jpg


Man, their chief looks like an Native American John Travolta.

goat said:
As an independent nation, the US does not have to fund your businesses, highways, schools and etc. Plus, they are going to have to produce their own currency (backed by what?), goods, utilities and other essentials.

All they need is the Great Spirit and the Mighty Buffalo, and they can sustain themselves.
 

Madman

Member
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.
Perhaps I am uninformed, but how will them seceding help any of these issues?
 

ToxicAdam

Member
Taking thirty years to follow through on this isn't exactly helping to combat the stereotypes of lazy Native Americans.
 

SUPREME1

Banned
ToxicAdam said:
Taking thirty years to follow through on this isn't exactly helping to combat the stereotypes of lazy Native Americans.

You're a dick.

----

At least I now know where I'll be heading when the draft comes up. Also, I'd like to invest in there soon-to-be mighty currency..

6khncpd.jpg
+
800px-United_States_one_dollar_bill,_obverse.jpg


Lakota Peso > Euro

Somone photoshop.. PLEASE!
 
Smiles and Cries said:
someone post the lakota map showing the land area

using wii so cant copy paste
1868.jpg


mapkey1.jpg
Lakota Nation: Reserved by the 1868 Treaty for the unreserved use of the Lakota people

mapkey2.jpg
1876: Lakota reservation after the US stole the Black Hills

mapkey3.jpg
Lakota reservations after 100 years of court actions
 

Shard

XBLAnnoyance
So the Lakotas want to make that jump from nation to nation-state, I wonder who is actually going to recognize this?
 
Shard said:
So the Lakotas want to make that jump from nation to nation-state, I wonder who is actually going to recognize this?

Anybody who currently doesn't care for the US...so probably at least a few nations

ronito said:
South please take note.

too many carpetbaggers here now for it to work. but, I do wish sometimes.
 

Dr.Guru of Peru

played the long game
Madman said:
Perhaps I am uninformed, but how will them seceding help any of these issues?

I don't think they really want to secede; instead, this is probably an attempt to bring more attention to their predicament.
 

Shard

XBLAnnoyance
Smiles and Cries said:
the land area is huge still the tribes here in connecticut went with the casinos plan and now stinkin rich

can this lakota move work?


Depends on if they can actually take half of Nebraska with them.
 
Shard said:
Depends on if they can actually take half of Nebraska with them.

they'll get one of the dark red if they're lucky maybe they can swing both if they use a shoestring annexation...I don't know if there's some international law about countries being contiguous when landlocked by another country but it seems like there would be
 

JayDubya

Banned
HomShaBom said:
and we can do it again

Let's not be so quick and eager to repeat the injustices of the past.

Trouble is, of course, that it is the distant past and there's not much to be done about it now, including giving back land.

While Means is a closely related ideological cousin (IIRC, he's a geolibertarian, or Georgist) I have to respectfully disagree with him on this point. If we conceded his point, I suppose we'd have to give back a lot to France and Spain. Hell, we'd have to give ourselves back to Britain. :lol

I suppose it is different here, though. Land taken through military conquest is not the same thing as contracts failing to be honored.
 
I'm not really up on all this stuff... are the Lakota trying to take back the entire yellow area on the map, which would include areas where Americans live? That's gonna be tough.
 
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