Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

January 2, 2008

Los Angeles City Beat on Lakotah: US Out of Upper Midwest

U.S. Out of the Upper Midwest
The Lakota Sioux start their own country
By RON GARMON

Look at me, see if I am poor, or my people either. The whites may get me at last, as you say, but I will have good times till then. You are fools to make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hard-tack, and a little sugar and coffee.
–Sitting Bull

"I called up LFD and spoke to Canupa Gluha Mani (Duane Martin, Sr.) longtime AIM activist, veteran of the 1973 Wounded Knee standoff and one of the four delegates sent to Washington. 'They can kill us if they want to,” he shouted, outrage venting through the receiver. They can assassinate us. However, it’s up to them to understand what they’ve been doing since the treaties were signed since 1803. Our people have been living up to it subsequently to this God-forsaken day. The First Nations people wouldn’t have to do this if the colonial government in Washington lived up to its obligations. They lie, so we have to endure Third World conditions with five or six families living in a two-bedroom house. They never live by the treaties or else they would’ve stopped the flow of illegal alcohol coming onto the Pine Ridge reservation in June. That’s how much they live up to treaty. It’s an insult. We were promised a treaty ‘as long as the grass grows’ and we get this? Don’t be going into Iraq and killing all the poor people only to turn it into a big Indian reservation like they have here.'"
Read article:
http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=6732&IssueNum=239

1 comment:

Edmund said...

In an interview, Russell Means said that the Northern Cheyenne Indians are considering treaty withdrawal as well. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hrr/2007/12/22/Russell-Means- Then a few days later, the president of the Northern Cheyenne was arrested by the BIA (http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/12/30/news/state/30-standoff.txt) and since then there's been no news at all on the Northern Cheyenne Indians.