Russell Means Continues to Advocate for Lakota Secession
Have the Lakota Natives Found the Means to Secede from the United States?
By Brant McLaughlin
"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,"says Lakota Native Russell Means, former Libertarian Presidential candidate and now angry secessionist.
According to Means, the new Lakota Nation will not charge any taxes and will issue its own national drivers licenses and passports, but there will be loosely confederated autonomous communities within the nation each making its own community rules.
Means is trying to break from a 150-year-old treaty with the United States that makes the large Lakota Reservation part of the U.S. He insists that according to Article VI of the United States Constitution, treaties are the supreme law of the land, and they can be renounced if they were essentially worthless-which is exactly how he characterizes the Lakota-United States treaties of 1851 and 1868.
Means insists that the treaties were designed to make the Native people sovereign, yet in practice they are anything but sovereign.
Lakota territory cuts across North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana. The Lakota are the largest sub-division of the Dakota Nation of Native Americans and are renowned for their prowess in hunting buffalo.
Means says that his deeply troubled people are sick and tired of being treated as second-class citizens under an apartheid system imposed upon them, and that if they take back their autonomy they can cure their societal ills and be a great nation.
The Lakota elders demanded of their people in 1974 that their community begin making lasting relationships with the international community and re-establishing their identity and autonomy.
This week, the secessionists visited the U.S. State Department along with the embassies of Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile, and South Africa in order to seek formal recognition.
"I sincerely hope that this turns out for the best. It sounds like the Lakota are working with other nations to build an infrastructure-- they're apparently building alternative energy sources: 'Energy independence using solar, wind, geothermal, and sugar beets enables Lakota to protect our freedom and provide electricity and heating to our people,'" writes the blogger at No Cookies for Me.
This journalist finds mixed feelings about this even in the people I'm corresponding with. There seems to be embattled hope and fear; and not everyone of Native American descent agrees that this move is wise or even necessary.
On the other hand, they make it clear that some Native Americans, especially of certain tribes or nations such as the Lakota, have been fed up with their predicament for a long time and they are exhilarated to see a stand being taken. But they aren't sure how the Bush Whitehouse will take to this move.
I, personally, am looking forward to the experiment.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/497959/russell_means_continues_to_advocate.html
Republic of Lakota website:
http://www.republicoflakota.com
A podcast interview with Mean is also on the site, as well as the secession letter that was hand-delivered to the State Department.
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