Lakota Nation Renounces US Citizenship
Posted by Jack Stephens on January 5, 2008
Yolanda blogs:
This is huge. The decision by the Lakota leadership to withdraw from the United States was announced three days ago, but I only heard about it just this second. The Lakota have declared their independence from the US after over 150 years of broken treaties, oppression, and violence. The Lakota cite both the US Constitution and the United Nations’ Vienna Convention as legal precedent for their decision. The Nation has not only delivered official notice to the State Department, but have appealed to the embassies of several UN member nations, such as South Africa and Venezuela, for support and recognition.
The official press release is below. More information here and here.
David Schraub said
Too optimistic. The folks who made this announcement are not “the Lakota leadership.” They’ve ran in elections for the Lakota leadership, but they’ve lost. It does not appear they have any right to speak for the tribe in any capacity, much less possess the legal authority (even from the Lakota perspective) to make this sort of pronouncement. Indeed, they sort of concede this, albeit in rather colorful language, when they say:
“‘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.” [From your Argus-Leader link]