BREAKING NEWS: LAKOTA NATION DECLARES INDEPENDENCE

It is rare that we have good news to offer readers, but this is potentially momentous, and we should all be vigilant that government authorities restrain themselves from using violence as a means of suppression as in the past. Also, it is to be hoped that as many indigenous organizations and nations as possible lend the weight of their recognition to Lakota nationhood. The news below is somewhat disjointed, cobbled together from a variety of sources.

We are a Sovereign Nation
A Declaration of Independence from the USA

By LAKOTA FREEDOM DELEGATION
Lakota Sioux Indian representatives declared sovereign nation status today in Washington D.C. following Monday's withdrawal from all previously signed treaties with the United States Government.

The withdrawal, hand delivered to Daniel Turner, Deputy Director of Public Liaison at the State Department, immediately and irrevocably ends all agreements between the Lakota Sioux Nation of Indians and the United States Government outlined in the 1851 and 1868 Treaties at Fort Laramie Wyoming.

"This is an historic day for our Lakota people," declared Russell Means, Itacan of Lakota. "United States colonial rule is at its end!" "Today is a historic day and our forefathers speak through us. Our Forefathers made the treaties in good faith with the sacred Canupa and with the knowledge of the Great Spirit," shared Garry Rowland from Wounded Knee. "They never honored the treaties, that's the reason we are here today."

The four member Lakota delegation traveled to Washington D.C. culminating years of internal discussion among treaty representatives of the various Lakota communities. Delegation members included well known activist and actor Russell Means, Women of All Red Nations (WARN) founder Phyllis Young, Oglala Lakota Strong Heart Society leader Duane Martin Sr., and Garry Rowland, Leader Chief Big Foot Riders. Means, Rowland, Martin Sr. were all members of the 1973 Wounded Knee takeover.

"In order to stop the continuous taking of our resources ñ people, land, water and children- we have no choice but to claim our own destiny," said Phyllis Young, a former Indigenous representative to the United Nations and representative from Standing Rock. Property ownership in thefive state area of Lakota now takes center stage. Parts of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana have been illegally homesteaded for years despite knowledge of Lakota as predecessor sovereign [historic owner]. Lakota representatives say if the United States does not enter into immediate diplomatic negotiations, liens will be filed on real estate transactions in the five state region, clouding title over literally thousands of square miles of land and property. Young added, "The actions of Lakota are not intended to embarrass the United States but to simply save the lives of our people".

Following Monday's withdrawal at the State Department, the four Lakota Itacan representatives have been meeting with foreign embassy officials in order to hasten their official return to the Family of Nations. Lakota's efforts are gaining traction as Bolivia, home to Indigenous President Evo Morales, shared they are "very, very interested in the Lakota case" while Venezuela received the Lakota delegation with "respect and solidarity." "Our meetings have been fruitful and we hope to work with these countries for better relations," explained Garry Rowland. "As a nation, we have equal status within the national community."

Education, energy and justice now take top priority in emerging Lakota. "Cultural immersion education is crucial as a next step to protect our language, culture and sovereignty," said Means. "Energy independence using solar, wind, geothermal, and sugar beets enables Lakota to protect our freedom and provide electricity and heating to our people."

The Lakota reservations are among the most impoverished areas in North America, a shameful legacy of broken treaties and apartheid policies. Lakota has the highest death rate in the United States and Lakota men have the lowest life expectancy of any nation on earth, excluding AIDS, at approximately 44 years. Lakota infant mortality rate is five times the United States average and teen suicide rates 150% more than national average. 97% of Lakota people live below the poverty line and unemployment hovers near 85%.

"After 150 years of colonial enforcement, when you back people into a corner there is only one alternative," emphasized Duane Martin Sr. "The only alternative is to bring freedom into its existence by taking it back to the love of freedom, to our lifeway."

We are the freedom loving Lakota from the Sioux Indian reservations of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana who have traveled to Washington DC to withdraw from the constitutionally mandated treaties to become a free and independent country. We are alerting the Family of Nations we have now reassumed our freedom and independence with the backing of Natural, International, and United States law.

For more information, please visit our new website at
http://www.lakotafreedom.com/
Lakota
444 Crazy Horse Drive, P.O. Box 99;
Porcupine, SD 57772

FROM THE LAKOTA FREEDOM WEBSITE:

We are the freedom loving Lakota from the Sioux Indian reservations of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana who have suffered from cultural and physical genocide in the colonial apartheid system we have been forced to live under.

We are continuing the work that we were asked to do by the traditional chiefs and treaty councils, and 98 Indian Nations at the first Indian Treaty Council meeting at Standing Rock Sioux Indian Country in 1974.

During the week of December 17-19, 2007, we traveled to Washington DC and withdrew from the constitutionally mandated treaties to become a free and independent country. We are alerting the Family of Nations we have now reassumed our freedom and independence with the backing of Natural, International, and United States law.

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.

We do not represent those BIA or IRA governments beholden to the colonial apartheid system, or those "stay by the fort" Indians who are unwilling claim their freedom.

FOR MORE, PLEASE READ THE LAKOTA DECLARATION OF CONTINUING INDEPENDENCE AT:
http://www.lakotafreedom.com/declarationofcontinuingindependence.pdf

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TURTLE ISLAND CONFEDERACY: Press Release

Many thanks to Dr. Roi Kwabena for forwarding this press release to The CAC Review several days ago:

PRESS RELEASE
September 14, 2007:

Dozens of Indigenous Sovereign Nations throughout Canada and the United States have agreed to move forward with a Declaration of Sovereignty, by which these Indigenous Sovereign Nations will band together to re-assert their inherent sovereignty, inviting all Indigenous Sovereign Nations from all around the world to join. This newly con-federated Nation is appropriately named "The Turtle Island Confederacy." Those who know will understand that "Turtle Island" is another traditional name for "the World." This is truly a universal Declaration. The Hereditary Chiefs of these Indigenous Sovereign Nations will gather at a signing ceremony to take place at a central location in Michigan on November 24, 2007, at which time The Turtle Island Confederacy will be born.

Again, those who know will understand that the traditional governing systems and the traditional cultures of these Indigenous Sovereign Nations were and continue to be decimated by laws enacted by their "host" countries, including Canada and the United States, which laws, among other things, impose false (proxy)(foreign) governments on our people. This true Declaration of true Sovereignty has the blessing of the Creator and International Law.

The creation of The Turtle Island Confederacy on November 24 will immediately free the Indigenous Sovereign Nations to re-assert their sovereignty, an inherent sovereignty that was never surrendered and never could have been surrendered. It has taken the Indigenous Sovereign Nations over 200 years to regroup and arrive at this crucial point in history to re-commence performing their sacred duties to care for Mother Earth and, hence, all people. It is no accident and no coincidence that the Creator has chosen this time to arrange the rebirth of this ancient Nation. The air, the water, the land and all living things are in danger now as never before. The Turtle Island Confederacy is born from all things positive, not from anger for past oppression and atrocities undeniably committed. These things are forgiven. When the colonizers arrived, we welcomed them and cared for them when they could not care for themselves. They were like children sitting at our feet in need of sustenance, which we gladly provided. The children grew up steadily over the course of several hundred years, only to rebel against their caregivers, reacting with greed and forgetfulness of all we did for them and all we tried to teach them. For this they are also forgiven. The time has come, however, when these now young adults must realize and admit the innocent error of their youthful and frivolous ways and turn once again to the wisdom and care of those who raised them. Unwittingly, they developed along the way the technological and linguistic means for all Indigenous Sovereign Nations to now join together with one good mind and one pure heart for the good of all humans.

In conclusion, The Turtle Island Confederacy extends an open invitation to all Indigenous Sovereign Nations to join us on this historic and epic peaceful path into the future and also to convey this all-important message to all colonizing states: "The Turtle Island Confederacy extends, once again, its open hand in friendship and in good faith as our gesture of our desire to continue to coexist for the benefit and respect of all people and our one true Mother, "Turtle Island."

Contact Information:

tmnottawayratt@hotmail.com (Jacob Wawatie, Chief, Algonquin)

Chief_Capilano@hotmail.com (Jerry Capilano, Chief, Squamish)

Gmetallic@hotmail.com (Gary Metallic, Chief, Mi'kmaq)

Tonyplaw@optonline.net (Tony P., Attorney, Mohawk)

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Senate Panel Revisits Kennewick Controversy, Sides with Tribes

Senate panel OKs bill that could return Kennewick Man to tribes
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

RICHLAND, Wash. -- A U.S. Senate committee has approved a bill that could allow American Indian tribes to claim the ancient bones of Kennewick Man, a 9,300-year-old skeleton found on the banks of the Columbia River in 1996.

This is the third time a change has been proposed to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The change would ensure that federally recognized tribes could claim ancient remains even if a direct link to a tribe can't be proven.

The act governs the control of American Indian skeletons, requiring museums and federal agencies to return them to tribes if there is evidence that links the remains to the tribes.

This latest two-word addition tucked inside a bill to allow tribal participation in methamphetamine grants, among other things, would expand the definition of what remains are considered ancestral. The Senate Indian Affairs Committee approved the bill last week.

READ MORE...
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American Indians confront UC-Berkeley over remains

From The San Francisco Chronicle

Native Americans ask UC Berkeley to return museum artifacts

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Native American groups rallied Friday at UC Berkeley in an attempt to get campus officials to allow them to return thousands of museum artifacts to tribes from California to Alaska.

A group that included university staff and tribal representatives used to decide which items must be returned to the tribes, but a reorganization at the Hearst Museum put museum staff members in charge, and tribal leaders say the new configuration shuts them out.

The move comes as increasing numbers of tribal leaders, using a law approved nearly 20 years ago, try to get possession of human remains and cultural artifacts.

After an hourlong noon rally - during which they extolled the virtues of relinquishing to tribes the remains of 13,000 Native Americans stored at the museum - the 200 protesters marched from Sproul Hall to campus administration offices where they demanded to meet with Chancellor Robert Birgeneau.

Assistant Chancellor Beata FitzPatrick emerged briefly from California Hall to assert that the university is abiding by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

READ MORE...

Anthropology and Indigenous Sovereignty

From The Seattle Times:

Anthropology: the great divide

In the fall of 1996, anthropologist Richard Jantz e-mailed fellow scientists with a plea to help save history.

The University of Tennessee professor urged colleagues to challenge the federal decision to give the 9,300-year-old remains that became known as Kennewick Man to the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla for burial. In Jantz's view, the Army Corps of Engineers was about to slam shut a critical window into America's past.

In Seattle, archaeologist Julie Stein read the e-mail with disdain. She had had enough of the ham-handed handling of the unusual case of the remains found on the shores of the Columbia River in southeastern Washington. Then-curator of the Burke Museum of Natural History, Stein had spent 14 years studying Washington archaeology and building relationships with local tribes.

She fired back, chiding Jantz for the effort and alleging the Benton County coroner's local consulting anthropologist, who collected the remains, had attempted to mislead the tribes and the corps by saying they belonged to a recent European settler. She also noted hand bones were submitted for carbon-dating without proper consultation with tribes.

"This is an example of why every tribe in the United States should mistrust and detest archaeologists," she said. "This write-in campagne (sic) of yours is targeted toward the wrong individual.

"Disgustedly yours, ... " she concluded.

Neither Jantz nor Stein knew it then, but the Kennewick Man case would gain international renown — and its accompanying controversy would highlight not only the conflict between principals of scientific inquiry and tribal sovereignty but also a deep professional divide within American anthropology.

READ MORE...