WASHINGTON —
The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull
and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States.
"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,'' long-time Indian rights
activist Russell Means said.
A delegation of
Lakota leaders has delivered a message to the State Department, and
said they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with
the federal government of the U.S., some of them more than 150 years old.
The
group also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan
embassies, and would continue on their diplomatic mission and take it
overseas in the coming weeks and months.
Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.
The
new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and
living there would be tax-free - provided residents renounce their U.S.
citizenship, Mr Means said.
The treaties signed with the U.S. were merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists said.
Withdrawing from the treaties was entirely legal, Means said.
"This
is according to the laws of the United States, specifically article six
of the constitution,'' which states that treaties are the supreme law
of the land, he said.
"It is also within the
laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by
the US and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are
legally within our rights to be free and independent,'' said Means.
The
Lakota relaunched their journey to freedom in 1974, when they drafted a
declaration of continuing independence — an overt play on the title of
the United States' Declaration of Independence from England.
Thirty-three
years have elapsed since then because "it takes critical mass to combat
colonialism and we wanted to make sure that all our ducks were in a
row,'' Means said.
One duck moved into place in September, when the United Nations
adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples —
despite opposition from the United States, which said it clashed with
its own laws.
"We have 33 treaties with the
United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our
land, our water, our children,'' Phyllis Young, who helped organize the
first international conference on indigenous rights in Geneva in 1977,
told the news conference.
The U.S.
"annexation'' of native American land has resulted in once proud tribes
such as the Lakota becoming mere "facsimiles of white people,'' said
Means.
Oppression at the hands of the U.S.
government has taken its toll on the Lakota, whose men have one of the
shortest life expectancies - less than 44 years - in the world.
Lakota
teen suicides are 150 per cent above the norm for the U.S.; infant
mortality is five times higher than the U.S. average; and unemployment
is rife, according to the Lakota freedom movement's website.
