This could be great fun to watch if the Bush administration can restrain itself from shooting Indians over the issue.  The Lakota can demonstrate that our Constitution specifies treaties are the supreme law of the land once Congress has authorized them.  They can demonstrate that the U.S. has repeatedly violated the terms of treaties with the Lakota, supporting an argument that the treaty has been breached by the party of the first part so the party of the second part is entitled to give notice that the treaty is no longer in force.  Allegedly such withdrawal from a breached treaty between nations is provided for by the 1980 Vienna Convention to which the US is a signatory.  They can demonstrate international legal support for exercise of indigenous people's right of self-determination.  Somebody involved in this initiative has a good legal mind.

In a separate article I read that Means said the Lakota will start filing liens against property which was accorded to the Lakota under the terms of the treaties, but which is now deeded to other parties without the Lakotas having sold the property to those who expropriated it.

I infer from the fact that Means and his colleagues have been visiting embassies of other nations that they intend to seek diplomatic recognition of the Lakota Nation as an independent country.  Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is likely to be quite receptive, as is Bolivia's government.  I suspect that Means and his colleagues are setting up a situation where they create venue to bring the issue of their independence before the World Court, rather than being limited to the tender mercies of the U.S. Supreme Court.

It also appears that Means et al are carefully avoiding any actions other than legal and diplomatic ones, so as to offer no "law and order" provocations or excuses to the white eyes to start shooting Indians.  <www.lakotafreedom.com>

Thursday December 20, 07:26 PM
Descendants of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse break away from US

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday.

"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference.

A delegation of Lakota leaders delivered a message to the State Department on Monday, announcing they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the United States, some of them more than 150 years old.

They also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and will continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months, they told the news conference.

Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.

The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free -- provided residents renounce their US citizenship, Means said.

The treaties signed with the United States are merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists say on their website.

The treaties have been "repeatedly violated in order to steal our culture, our land and our ability to maintain our way of life," the reborn freedom movement says.

Withdrawing from the treaties was entirely legal, Means said.

"This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically article six of the constitution, " which states that treaties are the supreme law of the land, he said.

"It is also within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by the US and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are legally within our rights to be free and independent, " said Means.

The Lakota relaunched their journey to freedom in 1974, when they drafted a declaration of continuing independence -- an overt play on the title of the United States' Declaration of Independence from England.

Thirty-three years have elapsed since then because "it takes critical mass to combat colonialism and we wanted to make sure that all our ducks were in a row," Means said.

One duck moved into place in September, when the United Nations adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples -- despite opposition from the United States, which said it clashed with its own laws.

"We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children," Phyllis Young, who helped organize the first international conference on indigenous rights in Geneva in 1977, told the news conference.

The US "annexation" of native American land has resulted in once proud tribes such as the Lakota becoming mere "facsimiles of white people," said Means.

Oppression at the hands of the US government has taken its toll on the Lakota, whose men have one of the shortest life expectancies – less than 44 years -- in the world.

Lakota teen suicides are 150 percent above the norm for the United States; infant mortality is five times higher than the US average; and unemployment is rife, according to the Lakota freedom movement's website.

"Our people want to live, not just survive or crawl and be mascots," said Young.

"We are not trying to embarrass the United States. We are here to continue the struggle for our children and grandchildren, " she said, predicting that the battle would not be won in her lifetime.