Article: 350 of sgi.talk.ratical From: (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe) Subject: Lakota Nation: beginning of US "breakaway `republics'" Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc. Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1991 16:22:07 GMT Lines: 163 from ACTIV-L: Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1991 15:55:29 CST Sender: Activists Mailing List From: Students For Unbiased Media Subject: IG 7.3: The Lakota Nation To: Multiple recipients of list ACTIV-L The Information Gulf November 28, 1991, Vol.I, #7 The following article is excerpted from The Information Gulf, a publication from the Princeton Information Project. Copyrighted articles are marked as such and may not be reprinted without the permission of the original source. For a printed copy of the IG, send a SASE (9x6" 52c) to F.Bertoldi, Princeton Univ.Obs. Peyton Hall, Princeton NJ 08544 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= THE LAKOTA NATION: ANOTHER BREAKAWAY REPUBLIC by David Seals from Lies of Our Times (c) 11/91 The Lakota Indians declared independence from the United States this summer. They claimed as their ancient territory an area larger than the Ukraine, based on 19th century strategic reduction Treaties that were easily ratified by the Senate, signed by a lame-duck President, and upheld by the Supreme Court in 1980. National Noncoverage Hardly a word of this historic disintegration of what NBC's Tom Brokaw called "the only remaining superpower" escaped from the media centers on the Coasts. The Black Hills bioregion deep in the heartland of the U.S.A. received less attention from the media than coal miners in Siberia. True, tanks were not shooting it out with picturesque warriors on horseback, as they had back in 1973 at Wounded Knee - which got extensive, if inaccurate, coverage in all the media. This was a peaceful, spiritual Revolution, but no less broad-reaching in its political and social implications than the AIM-FBI wars here in the 1970s. The local and regional media knew it was important. The Denver Post ran a front-page headline on July 18: "Indians Reject U.S., Claim Half Of S.D." The Rapid City network affiliates billed it as their top story for weeks, with hysterical headlines like "Indians Taking Over!" "Another Wounded Knee?" was a common parallel drawn by many in the newsrooms and saloons of Deadwood and Mount Rushmore. Even the staid Rapid City Journal, the only daily for 250 miles, deigned to run a few front-pagers like "Indians Ask For Return Of Bear Butte And The Black Hills." Stories piled up on stories, only to be duly ignored by the networks and wire services. At first, a group of Lakotas took a few acres on their sacred mountain, Bear Butte, on the northern edge of the Black Hills. There were only a few tipis and a couple of families fed up with the starvation and alcoholic genocide on the federally mandated reservations. Then a few more Indians joined them, and set up a few more tipis, and took a few more acres of private land. Tensions flared with the local non-Indian "landowners." For the Lakotas, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes of this upper plains bioregion Bear Butte is a solemn place. It is where fasts and vision quests are performed. The South Dakota State Parks agency has taken it over. It is trying to make it a tourist attraction, and is now charging admission. Even the illegal Bureau of Indian Affairs Tribal Councils came out against the fees, and at least one Tribal chairman asked South Dakota's Governor, George Mickelson, to turn the management of these 1,800 acres over to the Indians. The Governor said no. An Indian-White "Reconciliation Council" erupted in anger over the Governor's intransigence. More Indians moved onto Bear Butte, explaining to startled TV reporters that "we might as well take the mountain since the Governor won't even talk about it." The Governor started calling the Chairmen "total failures" in their economic and political management of hundreds of thousands of acres of reservations in the state. They called him names back. More Indians and others moved onto Bear Butte, still insisting that no weapons were allowed and that they were there only to pray and conduct ceremonies. Escalating Conflict The controversy escalated into a full-fledged confrontation of grievances about those old dishonored treaties, and ultimately a number of treaty council groups of elders worked out a remarkable coalition - after decades of petty feuding and family quarrels - and formed a National Provisional Government headquartered at Bear Butte. On July 14, after weeks of meetings and gatherings, coalition members all came together and held a press conference announcing "total separation from the United States." Then, in true guerrilla fashion, reminiscent of a classic Crazy Horse tactic, everyone scattered out across the prairie in four directions. By the next day, when the FBI and a few reporters came around, the camp was deserted. Worldwide Discussions Indians everywhere on the 70 million acres of their land are discussing this sovereign action and formulating detailed plans for the renewal of their nation. Two elders flew to the Hague in August to attend a General Assembly conference of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO). The Guardian and the Independent in London covered the conference with headlines like: "Shadow U.N. Attacks Use Of State Force." Other alienated and "disenfranchised" nations like South Molluccas and Tataristan and the Australian Aborigines are also members of UNPO. The Mohawk Nation has joined UNPO and recognized the Lakota Nation, as have native Hawaiians, Cherokees, the All Pueblo Indian Council, and the First Nations of Canada. The Lakotas are setting up their seven Council Fires and Elder's Council as the National Provisional Government. They are re-establishing their twelve warrior societies, seven advisory committees to reform the educational and medical and environmental crises wreaked by the totalitarian one-party capitalist State, forming a Lakota Film Commission to make sure such travesties as Dances With Wolves are never allowed here again, setting up a liquor embargo, and issuing ID cards for all citizens of Lakota as their driver's licenses and passports. In true traditional fashion they are talking to all the tiyospayes (extended families), clans, and headmen and women about the details of this renewal. By next spring they will be back at Bear Butte and in the Black Hills with much greater force and unity. They have an emergency five-year economic redevelopment plan as part of an ambitious 25-year plan. This is just the beginning. They know there are years of struggle ahead. But they are deadly serious. They see this as no more preposterous than what Lech Walesa dreamed about ten years ago, or the Baltic leaders have said this past year. Stay tuned for further developments, if you can find anybody reporting it. David Seals is a novelist, author of The Powwow Highway. ***************** Lies of Our Times is a magazine of media criticism. "Our Times" are the times we live in but also the words of the New York Times, the most cited newsmedium in the U.S. 10 issues/yr, $24 : Institute for Media Analysis, 145 West 4th St, New York, NY 10012 -- daveus rattus yer friendly neighborhood ratman KOYAANISQATSI ko.yan.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language) n. 1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating. 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.