Lakota Declare independance from United States

I first saw this on myspace but wanted to double-check it before posting it here – and I found confirmation here.

The Lakota Nation has officially withdrawn from treaties that allowed the United States to annex their land and have declared themselves an independent nation. They are currently seeking international recognition and waiting for an official acknowledgement from the United States federal government.

And, the very best part, they’re completely within their legal rights to do so. I repeat, this is 100% legal and a failure on the part of the US to recognize their independence would constitute a severe breach of international law.

Here’s the official list of reasons given:

In the face of the colonial apartheid conditions imposed on Lakota people, the withdrawal from the U.S. Treaties is necessary. These conditions have been devastating:

MORTALITY
• Lakota men have a life expectancy of less than 44 years, lowest of any country in the World (excluding AIDS) including Haiti.
• Lakota death rate is the highest in the United States.
• The Lakota infant mortality rate is 300% more than the U.S. Average.
• Teenage suicide rate is 150% higher than the U.S national average for this group.DRUGS AND ALCOHOL
• More than half the Reservation’s adults battle addiction and disease.
• Alcoholism affects 8 in 10 families.INCARCERATION
• Indian children incarceration rate 40% higher than whites.
• In South Dakota, 21 percent of state prisoners were Native.
• Indians have the second largest state prison incarceration rate in the nation.DISEASE
• The Tuberculosis rate on Lakota reservations is approx 800% higher than the U.S national average.
• Cervical cancer is 500% higher than the U.S national average.
• The rate of diabetes is 800% higher than the U.S national average.
• Federal Commodity Food Program provides high sugar foods that kill Native people through diabetes and heart disease.POVERTY
• Median income is approximately $2,600 to $3,500 per year.
• 97% of our Lakota people live below the poverty line.
• Many families cannot afford heating oil, wood or propane and many residents use ovens to heat their homes.HOUSING
• Elderly die each winter from hypothermia (freezing).
• 1/3 of the homes lack basic clean water and sewage while 40% lack electricty.
• 60% of Reservation families have no telephone.
• 60% of housing is infected with potentially fatal black molds.
• There is an estimated average of 17 people living in each family home (may only have two to three rooms). Some homes, built for 6 to 8 people, have up to 30 people living in them.UNEMPLOYMENT
• Unemployment rates on our reservations is 85% or higher.THREATENED CULTURE
• Only 14% of the Lakota population can speak Lakota language.
• The language is not being shared inter-generationally, today, the average Lakota speaker is 65 years old.
• Our Lakota language is an Endangered Language, on the verge of extinction.

After 150 years of colonial enforcement, when you back people into a corner there is only one alternative. That alternative is to bring freedom back into existence by taking it back – back to the love of freedom, to our lifeway.

http://www.lakotafreedom.com/why.html

In a nutshell, it all comes down to the fact that being absorbed into the USA has been a disaster for Indigenous people, not only when it first happened but into the present as well. Native Americans should be the wealthiest people in North America, based on the incredible mineral wealth that is located on their lands, but Federal laws (which were explicitly based on the racist assumption that Native Americans were incapable of looking after their own interest) give the power to control that wealth to the federal government, which in turn sells off the rights to exploit those resources to corporate america for a pittance, a fraction of a fraction of their true value, and leaves the native people who actually OWN the land and the resources impoverished.

This isn’t just a leftist issue here folks, conservatives who claim to care about propoerty rights and oppose government meddling in peoples economic affairs should stand up for Native American’s economic and political self-determination just as much as leftists opposed to neo-colonialism and institutionalized racism. The fact that conservatives consistently fail to do so reveals their rhetoric for what it is – hot air. It’s one thing to stand up for your own economic freedom and property rights and another thing entirely to acknowledge that other people should have those same rights as well.

It’ll be intersting to see how – and if – the government reacts to this. It’s just a hunch but i’d expect the government and the corporate media to ignore it and pretend it never happened, which would nicely illustrate just how little respect either of those institutions has for the Rule of Law.

Posted: December 27th, 2007 under culture war, politrix.
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