By Charmaine White Face
Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council, spokesperson
.
The defense of the Black Hills, and other land under the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868 was put in the hands of Lakota traditional bodies and the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council created in 1893.
In response to the Press Release released in December by Russell Means in Washington D.C., the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council issued the following declaration:
"There is a provision within the Treaty of 1868 that our ancestors had included. Article 12 says the Treaty of 1868 could not be changed except by three-fourths of the (Lakota) male vote. This was done expressly to protect the people, the land, and our way of life.
Russell Means is only one man and has not received the 3/4 adult male approval. His efforts, however, remind the world that we still have an international treaty with the USA.
Sincerely, Charmaine White Face, Spokesperson,
Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council."
In response to the Press Release released in December by Russell Means in Washington D.C., the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council issued the following declaration:
"There is a provision within the Treaty of 1868 that our ancestors had included. Article 12 says the Treaty of 1868 could not be changed except by three-fourths of the (Lakota) male vote. This was done expressly to protect the people, the land, and our way of life.
Russell Means is only one man and has not received the 3/4 adult male approval. His efforts, however, remind the world that we still have an international treaty with the USA.
Sincerely, Charmaine White Face, Spokesperson,
Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council."
.
PHOTO: Fallen leaves cover the ground in the Black Hills National Forest. Photo by Bonnie Jones/US Dept Agriculture.
3 comments:
From: Bob Taft
Sent: Jan 18, 2008 3:58 PM
To: bill.harlan@rapidcityjournal.com
Subject: Elections> Lakota group secedes from U.S.
Good for the Lakota. If you watch the financial news you can see that the debt money millstone is carrying our whole country over the brink. It's a good time for regional groups to go back to the basics of our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) of the Algonquin Confederation (Iroquois Constitution, circa 1500 CE) which was the direct inspiration for the 1777 Articles of Confederation which brought the early 13 colonies to statehood, independent of foreign rule. Look here for details:rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=74897
The Algonquin Confederation derived sensible governmental structure either from their own European roots, or from plain old common sense that kept 95% of peoples' sovereignty back home where it belongs. Until we grow beyond the greed of democracy and quit trying to dominate our neighbors we will continue to be mere pawns in the games of our money masters.
Under the Algonquin Confederation, the women of the clans picked one man to sit in the first council. From thereon the council levels would pick one man to sit at the next higher level. No public participation (democracy) needed or allowed. This was just as had been in place in Saxon Britain before the Norman conquest of 1066. The Saxons called their basic political unit (equivalent to a clan) a "tun." Ten tuns were monitored by a Hundred court. We could today go from the tun level to the Congress (unicameral, of course) in five or six steps, councils along the way serving as city, county and state governments, each level deriving limited amounts of sovereignty as the people back at the clan or tun level desire. This was all so very simple four or five hundred years ago, and could be so again. The only problems would be for the few million government parasites who would have to find an honest source of income once more.
By the way Russell, we just moved up here from the Wind River country. If you do get the Black Hills back I hope you'll let me stay.
Best regards,
Bob Taft
The Taft Ranch
Upton, Wyoming
(307) 465-2206
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man
who reads nothing but newspapers." [Thomas Jefferson]
rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=74897
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint
the great ones to public office." Aesop
Lakota group secedes from U.S.
By Bill Harlan, Journal staff Thursday, December 20, 2007
REXT SOURCE: rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2007/12/20/news/local/doc476a99630633e335271152.txt>
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Political activist Russell Means, a founder of the American Indian Movement, says he and other
members of Lakota tribes have renounced treaties and are withdrawing from the United States.
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· Lakota group secedes from U.S. (434)
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"We are now a free country and independent of the United States of America," Means said in
a telephone interview. "This is all completely legal."
Means said a Lakota delegation on Monday delivered a statement of "unilateral withdrawal"
from the United States to the U.S. State Department in Washington.
The State Department did not respond. "That'll take some time," Means said.
Meanwhile, the delegation has delivered copies of the letter to the embassies of Bolivia,
Venezuela, Chile and South Africa. "We're asking for recognition," Means said, adding
that Ireland and East Timor are "very interested" in the declaration.
Other countries will get copies of the same declaration, which Means said also would be
delivered to the United Nations and to state and county governments covered by treaties,
including treaties signed in 1851 and 1868. "We're willing to negotiate with any American
political entity," Means said.
The United States could face international pressure if it doesn't agree to negotiate, Means
said. "The United State of America is an outlaw nation, we now know. We've understood
that as a people for 155 years."
Means also said his group would file liens on property in parts of South Dakota, Nebraska,
North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming that were illegally homesteaded.
The Web site for the declaration, "Lakota Freedom," briefly crashed Thursday as wire
services picked up the story and the server was overwhelmed, Means said.
Delegation member Phyllis Young said in an online statement: "We are not trying to
embarrass the United States. We are here to continue the struggle for our children and
grandchildren." Young was an organizer of Women of All Red Nations.
Other members of the delegation include Rapid City-area activist Duane Martin Sr. and
Gary Rowland, a leader of the Chief Big Foot Riders.
Means said anyone could live in the Lakota Nation, tax free, as long as they renounced
their U.S. citizenship. The nation would issue drivers licenses and passports, but each
community would be independent. "It will be the epitome of individual liberty, with
community control," Means said.
To make his case, Means cited several articles of the U.S. Constitution, the Vienna
Convention on the Law of Treaties and a recent nonbinding U.N. resolution on the
rights of indigenous people.
He thinks there will be international pressure. "If the U.S. violates the law, the whole
world will know it," Means said.
Means' group is based in Porcupine on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
It is not an agency or branch of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Means ran unsuccessfully for
president of the tribe in 2006.
Lakota tribes have long claimed that the U.S. government stole land guaranteed by
treaties -- especially in western South Dakota. "The Missouri River is ours, and so are
the Black Hills," Means said.
A U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1980 awarded the tribes $122 million as compensation,
but the court did not award land. The Lakota have refused the settlement. (As interest
accrues, the unclaimed award is approaching $1 billion.)
In the late 1980s, then-Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey introduced legislation to return
federal land to the tribes, and California millionaire Phil Stevens also tried to win support
for a proposal to return the Black Hills to the Lakota.
Contact Bill Harlan at 394-8424 or bill.harlan@rapidcityjournal.com
The response from Chairman White Face, Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council spokesperson claims 3/4 of the male members has to vote on treaty matters.
I would wonder if these councils had or would ever call for a vote of the Lakotah people? This is the same Orwellian double speak which the US government hides behind, the latest may be the Jan.4th & 7th, 2008 Supreme Court rejection to even address the 1st amendment of the right ... and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
http://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/UPDATE/Update2008-01-13.htm
If the US Supreme court will not let people have redress what do we expect from councils working with the Bureau of Indian Affairs?
Well if it will be left to the "democratic process" nothing positive will ever happen. This is not a treaty matter anyway. No one is being asked to ratify a treaty but to take back sovereignty that has been too long abused and ignored.
Self-responsibility is a big step but it equates to freedom. The current despotic USGov is headed for a collapse on purpose so that a North American Union can result, as a prelude to a world government.
The best time to re-institute any sort of regional autonomy is when the old is on the way out and the new hasn't gotten here yet.
The old Iroquois Constitution will show the way back to a saner society as once existed under the 1777 Articles of Confederation which it inspired. Anything less is just the same old same old.
Best regards,
Bob Taft
The Taft Ranch
Upton, Wyoming
(307) 465-2206
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man
who reads nothing but newspapers." [Thomas Jefferson]
[-].rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=74897
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint
the great ones to public office." Aesop
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