Turks Express Support For Declaration Of Independence By Native Americans
Following recent news about Native American Sioux-Lakota tribe's declaration of independence from the U.S., a message of support from Turks was sent to the tribe’s representative Russell Means.
Turkish Consumers Union President Bulent Deniz wrote in his message to Means, “This independence that you have declared against U.S. - the main actor of imperialism - has pleased and excited every one in the world that stands up against imperialism. In the present situation of the continuing tragedy in Iraq, this initiative of the real owners of American lands is fully supported by the Turkish Consumers Union”.
Source: Milliyet, Turkey, December 26, 2007
Posted at: 2007-12-26
http://www.thememriblog.org/turkey/blog_personal/en/4279.htm
Lakota withdraw from treaties, declare independence from U.S.
The Lakota Sioux Indians, whose ancestors include Sitting Bull, Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from all treaties their forefathers signed with the U.S. government and have declared their independence. A delegation delivered the news to the State Department earlier this week.
Portions of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming comprise Lakota country, and the tribe says that if the federal government doesn't begin diplomatic discussions promptly, liens will be filed on property in the five-state region. Here's the news release.
"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," said Russell Means, a longtime Indian rights activist. "This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically Article 6 of the Constitution," which states that treaties are the supreme law of the land.
"It is also within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by the U.S. and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are legally within our rights to be free and independent," he added during a press conference yesterday in Washington.
The new country would issue its own passports and driver licenses, and living there would be tax-free, provided residents renounce their U.S. citizenship, he said, according to a report from Agence France-Presse.
The Lakota say the United States has never honored the pacts, signed with the Great Sioux Nation in 1851 and 1868 at Fort Laramie, Wyo.
"We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children," said Phyllis Young, who helped organize the first international conference on indigenous rights in Geneva in 1977.
Means said the "annexation" of native American land had turned the Lakota into "facsimiles of white people."
In 1974, the Lakota drafted a declaration of continuing independence. Their cause got a boost in September, when the United Nations adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. The Bush administration opposed the measure.
(1855 portrait of Sitting Bull by David Frances Barry, Library of Congress)
Posted by Michael Winter at 07:42 PM/ET, December 20, 2007 in Nation
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/12/lakota-withdraw.html
Lakota group pushes for new nation
By Faith Bremner
WASHINGTON - A group of "freedom-loving" Lakota activists announced a plan Wednesday for their people to withdraw from treaties their forefathers signed with the U.S. government.
Headed by leaders of the American Indian Movement, including activist, actor and Porcupine resident Russell Means, the group dropped in on the State Department and the embassies of Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile and South Africa this week seeking recognition for their effort to form a free and independent Lakota nation. The group plans to visit more embassies in the coming months.
The new nation is needed because Indians have been "dismissed" by the United States and are tired of living under a colonial apartheid system, Means said during a news conference held at Plymouth Congregational Church in northeast Washington. He was accompanied by a bodyguard and three other Lakota activists - Gary Rowland, Duane Martin and Phyllis Young, all of South Dakota.
"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, comparing elected tribal governments to Nazi collaborators in France during World War II.
Rodney Bordeaux, chairman of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, said his community has no desire to join the breakaway nation. Means and his group, which call themselves the Lakota Freedom Delegation, have never officially pitched their views to the Rosebud community, Bordeaux said.
"Our position on that is we need to uphold the treaties, and we're constantly reminding Congress of that message," Bordeaux said. "We're pushing to maintain and to keep the treaties there because they're the basis of our relationship with the federal government."
Nation's proposals
Members of the new nation would not pay any taxes, and leaders would be informally chosen by community elders, Means said. Non-Indians could continue to live in the new nation's territory, which would consist of the western parts of North and South Dakota and Nebraska and eastern parts of Wyoming and Montana. The new government would issue its own passports and drivers licenses, Means said.
"Our withdrawal (from the treaties) is fully thought out," Means said, referring to peace treaties the Lakota people signed with the government in 1851 and 1868. "We were mandated by our elders in 1974 to do two things. First, to establish relationships with the international community... and the second mandate, of course, was to reestablish our independence."
Bolivian Ambassador Gustavo Guzman, who attended the press conference out of solidarity, said he takes the Lakotas' declaration of independence seriously.
"We are here because the demands of indigenous people of America are our demands," Guzman said. "We have sent all the documents they presented to the embassy to our ministry of foreign affairs in Bolivia and they'll analyze everything."
Contact Faith Bremner at
[email protected].
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071220/NEWS/712200347/1001
Lakota Indians work to secede from U.S.
Published: Dec. 21, 2007 at 2:15 PM
PORCUPINE, S.D., Dec. 21 (UPI) -- A Lakota delegation notified the State Department that they've withdrawn from the United States, renounced treaties and are now an independent nation.
American Indian Movement founder Russell Means also began notifying foreign embassies worldwide, and plans to deliver the declaration to the United Nations.
"We are now a free country and independent of the United States of America," Means told the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal. "This is all completely legal."
The State Department has not responded, he told the newspaper.
The server for the Lakota Web site crashed Thursday after news spread of the Native American secession attempt.
Lakota tribes have contested the U.S. government over land they claim was promised by treaty then taken from them, particularly in western South Dakota. The tribes have refused a 1980 federal court settlement that awarded cash compensation but not land. That settlement is now valued at $1 billion, the Journal said.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/12/21/lakota_indians_work_to_secede_from_us/3796/
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