Better take your passports on I-90: Our friends the Lakota people have served notice to the US State Department that they are withdrawing from treaties signed with the United Stated federal government. Expect the buffer zone around Bear Butte to expand to about 200 miles: Lakota country includes parts of South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Nebraska.
Also expect an economic boom: following white South Dakota's "no taxes" lead, the Lakota have declared that citizens can live in their independent nation tax-free, as long as they renounce their US citizenship.American Indian activist Russell Means points to the September 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [PDF file] as support for his group's claim of sovereign authority. But don't get out your anti-black-helicopter missiles just yet: Article 46, paragraph 1 of the UN declaration reads as follows:
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, people, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act contrary to the Charter of the United Nations or construed as authorizing or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent States.
But President Bush proved you don't need UN support to do what you want. The Lakota people have the Bolivians on their side, and they're working on Venezuela, Chile, and South Africa. better bring the Guard back from Iraq -- we might have a little soft partitioning to deal with right in our backyard.
Additional reading (sorry, more PDFs -- does no one just make a nice HTML file anymore?):
- [PDF file] Lakota Treaty Withdrawal Letter, 2007.12.17
- [PDF file] First International Indian Treaty Council, "Declaration of Continuing Independence," June 1974.
Does this mean the US government will stop giving the Lakota people money??? Will their share of the BIA just be paid out as they see fit? What about all those US citizens who paid for homes out there who might not want to be exiled from the States?
ReplyDeleteThis is all silly in my opinion. What happened to the Native Americans is horrible, but this isn't going to do anything, except maybe make headlines.
You raise an interesting point, Christine. Indian Health Services is a government agency carrying out the treaty agreements -- health care, as I recall, was one of the perks we offered in return for the land the Indians were willing to cede. If the other side pulls out of the treaties, we might have a legal case (not a moral one, mind you) for defunding IHS. Anyone else have thoughts on that?
ReplyDeletelakota men have the lowest life expectancy out of any in the world almost... where's their health care been?
ReplyDeletereality speaks, america's a lair.
The US government has sort of already stopped giving the Lakota money: we're defendants in a lawsuit over up to $176 billion in mismanaged BIA funds.
ReplyDeleteI'm still looking for evidence that this isn't merely a publicity stunt by AIM activists to call attention to our government's shoddy behavior; if there is more to it, however, we don't exactly have clean hands and it's not clear that the Lakota would be any worse off than they have been.
The US government has done very bad things to the Native Americans, no argument there. But I don't think Native Americans are going to get all that land back, even if they should.
ReplyDeleteHonestly I've never understood the politics of Reservations, and how they are sovereign nations within the US...Seems like an odd concept to me. I do sympathize with the current plight of the people living there, something should be done.
I guess I look at this in the same way Mr. Madville Times seems to view pro-life supports trying to get anti-abortion bills passed every year. They are trying to do something they feel is morally right, but...couldn't the money and time be better spent?
I don't know if leaving the US will provide a better quality of life for Native Americans. I think programs and services could be provided on a local level to help. Encouraging better education, drug and alcohol prevention and treatment, economic growth, healthy living programs on food and diabetes (Native Americans have some of the highest rates of diabetes, and this leads to a plethora of other health problems).
Wouldn't that help people more than withdrawing from treaties?