[LINK] The Lakota have declared independence (?)

[rfmcdonald]

zarq's informative roundup post on the recent declaration of independence made by some representatives of the Lakota people of the Great Plains certainly caught my attention when I saw it. More from the Rapid City Journal below.

A group represents the Lakota Sioux Indian representatives from various reservations and states said Wednesday that it is declaring sovereign nation status and withdrawing from all treaties with the U.S. government.

"This is an historic day for our Lakota people," said Native American action and activist Russell Means. "United States colonial rule is at its end!"

Means was part of a four member Lakota delegation that traveled to Washington, culminating years of internal discussion among treaty representatives of the various Lakota communities. Other delegation members included Women of All Red Nations founder Phyllis Young, Oglala Lakota Strong Heart Society leader Duane Martin Sr., and Garry Rowland, Leader Chief Big Foot Riders. Means, Rowland, Martin were all members of the 1973 Wounded Knee takeover.

The move to form an independent nation will focus on property rights in a five-state area where the treaties in question were drawn up. The states include South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana – areas that the group say have been illegally homesteaded for years despite knowledge of Lakota as the historic owners.

If the U.S. government does not immediately enter into diplomatic negotiations, the group said in a news release, liens will be filed on real-estate transactions across the region -- an action it says could cloud title issues over thousands of square miles of land and property.

"In order to stop the continuous taking of our resources – 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.

Young added, "The actions of Lakota are not intended to embarrass the United States but to simply save the lives of our people.”

The group has been meeting all week with foreign leaders in an effort to gain political support for sovereign nation status, including Bolivia Indigenous President Evo Morales. Morales said his country is “very, very interested in the Lakota case.”

I doubt this will come to much in the end. It's not at all clear what relationship these activists have with the elected Lakota government and the Lakota electorate, but more importantly it's also quite clear that the United States wouldn't tolerate allow a single state or a part of a state to make a a unilateral declaration of independence within the United States. In the end, I suspect that the Lakota sovereignty movement might come to resemble still more closely the Iroquois sovereignty movement. This second movement hasn't managed to secure internationally recognized independence for the Iroquois, but it has managed to carve out interesting niches within the Canada-United States border region where the Iroquois make their home. What sort of market for demi-sovereign enclaves exists in the United States, I wonder?