Sioux Indians of Lakota Tribe Tell State Dept. of Secession
A hundred and seventeen years after the massacre at Wounded Knee, has the hour of independence for the Sioux Indians finally arrived? According to this news item from France’s Le Monde newspaper, on December 17 a Sioux delegation arrived at the State Department in Washington to declare sovereign nation status and withdraw from all treaties with the U.S. government because, ‘Our treaties with the United States government are nothing more than worthless words on worthless paper – repeatedly violated in order to steal our culture, our land and our ability to maintain our way of life.’
“We are no longer citizens of the United States of America … We are legally within our rights to be free and independent.”
– Russell Means, Leader of Lakota Delegation to Washington
By Corine Lesnes, Washington Correspondent
Translated By William Kern
December 23, 2007
France – Le Monde – Original Article (French)
A group of Lakota Indians has decided to secede from the United States . On December 17, a delegation arrived in Washington to inform American authorities. The leader of the group, writer, actor and activist Russell Means, submitted a letter to State Department officials announcing their decision to sever treaties signed in 1851 [Treaty of Mendota and Traverse De Sioux ] and 1868 [Treaty of Fort Laramie ]. “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,” Russell Means explained at a press conference organized at a Church on Washington.
[Editor's Note: An earlier press release said, "Our treaties with the United States government are nothing more than worthless words on worthless paper - repeatedly violated in order to steal our culture, our land and our ability to maintain our way of life." Lakota reservations recognized by the U.S. government include Ogalala Ogalala, Sicangu, Hunkpapa, Mniconjou, Izipaco, Siha Sapa, and Ooinupa. Some Lakota also live on other Sioux reservation in eastern South Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska.]
To limit any repercussions, the American government didn’t respond to the gesture. The secessionist group has announced its intent to distribute passports and driver’s licenses, but it doesn’t represent tribal leaders. Mr. Means, who tried to obtain the presidency of the Oglala Sioux in 2006, wasn’t elected. At his press conference held in the presence of Bolivia’s ambassador to Washington [Gustavo Guzman] – who declared his support for the activists – he admitted that the initiative was not unanimous.
[Ambassador Guzman was also quoted as saying, "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."]
“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. The Lakota are one of the tribes the form the United Sioux Nation and its members are some of the most underprivileged people in the United States. The Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota has a poverty rate rivaling any found in the third world: Ninety seven percent live below the poverty level, 85 percent are jobless and average life expectancy for men stands at 44 years.
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9 Responses to “Sioux Indians of Lakota Tribe Tell State Dept. of Secession”
We Discussed this over at Middle Earth Journal and on Mid Stream Radio last week and a link to an interview with Russell Means can be found here.
What will happen if the Indians secede and take their casinos with them. The taxes at Indian casinos isn’t chump change. I saw(not the Mitten way) the conditions in the northern Michigan UP (Brimley) and the western end of South Dakota in the 1970′s, it’s a big jump from todays conditions.
These people don’t represent anyone but themselves. Russell Means appointed himself, the Native Americans he claims to represent sure didn’t appoint or elect him to anything. It’s a meaningless publicity stunt that deserves no attention. Issues in the Native American community deserve attention not this jerk-off.
Good grief. For once I agree with Bones about something.
From what I hear, Indian tribes are sovereign nations unto themselves in the USA and they pay no local, state or Federal taxes on anything, including casino profits.
Is Ward Churchill going to be the guy’s VP? hahaha
Now, now, everybody:
1. These things aren’t taken too seriously. Often it’s just the occasional true extreme Rightist, who claims his home or property is indepedent, often for [anti-]tax activist purposes. As with them, with this case, the issue won’t last long. It will take less time to resolve than Manifest Destiny took to settle a much larger question of force over who had jurisdiction over much of North America.
2.
The secession wouldn’t last long, and if we wanted to be creative in imagining things, rather than commando raids on the casinos or bombing them, just imagine a full cordon and blockade of that “sovereign nation.” No power, no water…nothing allowed in or out. (Kind of what we should have done in many cases in Iraq, but we weren’t prepared or ready to do.)
The article from Le Monde is lifted from the report of AFP (Agence France Presse) which was published internationally while being the epitome of bad journalism: the reporter was sloppy. She did not verify her facts before qualifying the four individuals that showed up in Washington D.C. as “chiefs” or “leaders’ or “representatives of the Lakota Nation”, etc… and oh yes, the “descendants of Sitting bull and Crazy Horse” which they are not. These four individuals represent no one but themselves. They do not carry any authority or represent any official body of the Lakota Nation whatsoever.
The main actor in this grand stand is Russell Means whose home address on Crazy Horse Drive of Pine Ridge serves as business address for Lakota Freedom Delegation. Pine Ridge Reservation is the home of the Oglala, one of the seven bands of the Lakota Nation (settled on eight reservations). Each band has two forms of government: the Tribal Council, established by democratic vote in elections, and the traditional elders’ council which deals primarily with the issues of territorial rights, the various treaties signed with the U.S., ETC.. Russell Means has a residence on Pine Ridge and tried to get elected as Chairman of on Pine Ridge Reservation on three occasions, and each time lost the elections, but he is not an Oglala. The reason is quite simple: all Oglala lakota people know he is not an Oglala , but a Rosebud individual (reservation of Sicangu or Brule, next door). His two brothers, Bill and Ted, quite correctly live on the Rosebud reservation. Their genealogy, to be found in the archives of the Oglala Lakota College, states that Ruseell Means was born of a Rosebud woman, and a father who was the son of a Crow woman and a white man, a member of the American military forces.
The only two newspapers that seemed to know the real facts behind the appearance of official representation were the local newspapers, the Rapid City Journal and the Indian newspaper Indian Country Today. Both took this story with a grain of salt, and the RCJ did the right thing: they got in touch with the Chairman of the Rosebud Reservation (note: not the Pine Ridge reservation) to ask his take on the matter. The Chairman of the Rosebud Reservation, of which Russell means is a constituent, replied that he knew absolutely nothing of this stunt, and he and his government certainly had not seceded and did not intend to. As for the claims of having contacted all sorts of ruling bodies of the Lakota nation for three months before announcing the annulment of the Treaty with the US government, it seems that too is not the outright truth as Avis Little Eagle of Standing Rock reservation also stated that this was the first she had heard of it, and Avis – whom I know personally – works both as a member of the Tribal Council and with the traditional viewpoint.
It is unfortunate that the AFP has circulated a story which is essentially no more than a stunt, that Le Monde has reprinted it and that the world press is eager to reprint without factual background as to its veracity. Even the Turks are now sending words of congratulations to Russell Means, which should shame him (but he is beyond shame and honor) as the Turks are known for their genocide of the Armenians, their “imperialist” Ottoman Empire, and more recently, their desire to crush the KURDS of northern Iraq. If Mr. Means knew history, he would know that every freedom fighter in the world sees an ally in the Kurds. The Kurds are the friends of those who seek equity and democratic freedom. Shame, shame on the Lakota Freedom Delegation, Russell Means, Gary Rowland, Duane martin, and Phyllis Young, for publicizing the fact that the Turks are pleased with their actions.
Noted that Indian Country Today, the nation’s largest Native American newspaper has not yet mentioned this event. Neither has Lakota News, nor apparently has the local community radio
station in Lakota terrain. A mere press release in this case,
appears to have been taken at face value, and without
question, instead of vetted well. There are several
serious stories underlying this matter and other related matters that have nothing to do with Mr. Means. I believe we will in coming days hear more here at TMV on the actual concerns. No native group is monolithic.
And perhaps the larger story here at the moment, most of all,
given LaDonna’s analyses, is how world communities
can take up and repeat ‘news’ like the child’s game of ‘Telephone,” in the same way that individuals take up
false ‘urban legends’ as whole cloth… at least until someone exposes their faulted origins.
It is true that in all human nature, there is a desire to
hear ‘news’ that supports one’s views, salves one’s wounds, makes one feel strong and walk with pride, to hear someone say out loud what many are secretly thinking. It is true of all of us. We probably, seriously, need an international Snopes… for when news instead of being covered has become unwittingly or not, a publicity auxiliary … and for whenever journalism has fallen into jingoism.
dr.e