LAKOTE OYATE  

While other areas of the USA have debated declaring their independence [and others are concentrating on the Elections of 2008, news of a different type has emerged.

The Lakota Tribe has reclaimed their nation [on the 17^th of December 2007] after many decades of being oppressed. The Lakota Tribe formed their independent nation from former Sioux Indian Reservations in Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska. The reasons have been many such as Mortality, Drugs, and Alcohol, Incarceration, Disease, Poverty, Unemployment, Threatened Culture, and decades of mistreatment in the hands of programmes such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and its masters in Washington.

I.                    MORTALITY

  

1. The highest rate of death in the USA
2. The Suicide Rate for Teenagers in the Native American Population is 150% higher than the average US Teenage Group
3. Infant Mortality is 300% higher than the average US Infant Group
4. A Lower Life Expectancy than in Haiti

  

II.                 DRUGS AND ALCOHOL

   

1. Drugs and Alcoholism affects almost 80% of the families of the indigenous nation in the USA

  

III.               INCARCERATION

   

1. Native Americans have the second largest incarceration rate in America
2. Incarceration Rates are 40% higher in the Indigenous People in America than other races and ethnicities.
3. 21% of South Dakotan Prisoners are Indigenous

  

IV.              DISEASE

   

1. The Tuberculosis and Diabetes Range amongst the Indigenous Population is 800% higher than those of the average population.
2. Cervical Cancer is 500% more prevalent than the average population in America.

   

V. POVERTY, UNEMPLOYMENT, AND HOUSING

   

1. 97% of the Lakota Tribe lives below the poverty line.
2. 85% of the Lakota Tribe are unemployed
3. 60% of Housing that lacks telephones and have fatal molds.
4. 40% of Houses lack electricity.
5. Houses built for six to eight people have thirty people residing in such houses. [It resembles Cuba under Castro].

  

VI. ENDANGERED CULTURE

   

1. Lakota Children are placed in Foster Homes where they are prohibited from speaking their language and punished if they do. Many are even abused physically and psychologically.
2. The Lakota Language is becoming an endangered and possibly extinct language taking into account that the language is not being passed from generation to generation.

    

It has been because of these and past injustices imposed on the Lakota Nation by unfair treaties that have led the Lakota Nation to seek Independence. Such Independence has been binding on the Declaration of Continuing Independence signed by more than 5000 delegates representing 98 Indian tribes and Nations from North and South America.

Even as Lakota Oyate continues its struggle for independence, the Republicans and Democrats [like the British Colonial Powers who tried to stop Independence in places like India and the USA] have used defamation. The Republicans and Democrats have even used their puppets within Lakota Oyate to attempt to destroy the movement for independence within.

    Examples of such threats have come from the spokesperson of the so called “Bureau of Indian Affairs” who goes by the name of Gary Garrison. Mr. Garrison declared the following: “the group’s withdrawal «doesn’t mean anything» and threatened, «when they begin the process of violating other people’s rights, breaking the law, they’re going to end up like all the other groups that have declared themselves independent – usually getting arrested and being put in jail.» 

This comes from a spokesperson of the same Republicans and Democrats that talk about freedom and democracy abroad but repress it at home and in the American Continent. It is also rare that people like Evo Morales of Bolivia talk about indigenous rights in Bolivia and the American Continent but does not support Lakota Oyate. [Evo Morales is facing a province that has declared itself independent of Bolivia].

Press TV deserves praise for covering the Lakota Oyate Nation and other countries should give publicity and recognition. I believe that Lakota Oyate has a right to be heard and be allowed to determine their destiny.

   

REFERENCE:

 

 

http://www.lakotaoyate.net/

www.democracynow.org/2000/3/30/struggles_of_the_lakota_nation 

PRESS TV: “A Declaration of Independence from the USA”

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=35884§ionid=3510304  

http://www.lakotafreedom.com/contact.html