Lakota Independence

Seen in the Wall Street Journal (subscriber link):

The Supreme Court on Tuesday imposed a six-year deadline for suing the federal government in property disputes.

The justices ruled 7-2 that a company waited too long to complain in court that the government took the firm’s property. The decision came in a lawsuit by the John R. Sand & Gravel Co. of Lapeer County, Mich., which sought compensation for the loss of some of the land it had leased from the property owners.[...]

In the 1990s, the Environmental Protection Agency began blocking access to portions of the property because the agency was overseeing the cleanup of a landfill under the federal Superfund law. The owners of the 158-acre site in Metamora Township, Mich., had used part of the property for a landfill for tens of thousands of drums of toxic industrial waste.

The reason this article caught my attention is because of recent events on the Great Plains, where a Lakota organization claims to be reasserting its independence, and has threatened to place liens against much of five states as inappropriately taken property.

Depending on how broad a scope the six year statute of limitations opinion has, I suppose that there may now be legal precedent to argue that the Lakota declaration and liens might be many years too late.

So, it appears that “Lakota Oyate” are continuing on with their redeclaration of independence.   The map on the left now appears on the group’s website, along with an interesting press release:

Property ownership in the five state area of Lakota now takes center stage. Parts of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana have been illegally homesteaded for years despite knowledge of Lakota as predecessor sovereign [historic owner]. Lakota representatives say if the United States does not enter into immediate diplomatic negotiations, liens will be filed on real estate transactions in the five state region, clouding title over literally thousands of square miles of land and property.

Well, I suppose that’s one way to grab folks’ attention — kill the real estate market, and trigger a court battle that they’re likely to fail (presumably over some question as to whether the Lakota Freedom folks are the appropriate representatives of the Lakota Nation, as well as failure to adequately exercise their claim in years previous), but I respect the chutzpah.

A couple of days ago, I referenced an press release in which activists from the Lakota nation announced their intent to withdraw from past treaties with the United States. Fox News has an article on the declaration.

“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 said.[...]

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

I fully support the principle, but the move seems a bit unrealistic and idealistic. An independent Lakotastan is unlikely to be economically viable, and I’d be surprised if they received as much diplomatic recognition as, say, Bophuthatswana.

Then we have the whole reality that the U.S. traditionally (even before the Bush Imperial Era) has a knack for ignoring inconvenient things, as well as recent Supreme Court rulings that have held that, while treaties can have force of law, Congressional actions to legislate over or disavow treaties trump the treaties themselves.

QandO points to a press release from Lakota Freedom which announces an event Wednesday in which the Lakota Sioux will reclaim their independence:

WHAT: A Historic Event between the Lakota Sioux Indians and the United States Government: Press Conference Announcing Unilateral Withdrawal of Lakota Nation From All U.S. Treaties and Return to Independence.[...]

SUMMARY: For far too long our people have suffered at the hands of the colonial apartheid system imposed on the Lakota Sioux. Our treaties with the United States government are nothing more than worthless words on worthless paper – repeatedly violated in order to steal our culture, our land and our ability to maintain our way of life.[...]

We have no choice but to take this historic action to protect our people and our way of life, and reclaim our freedom from the colonial systems of the United States Government. So we travel to Washington D.C. to withdraw from our treaties with the United States and announce full return of our sovereign status under Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution, International and Natural Law.

The current administration has a certain…nack for ignoring laws it doesn’t want to be bound by. Somehow, I think this will be rather easy for Bush to ignore.

QandO observes:

They’re just now figuring out the treaties are worthless?

In fairness to the Lakota activists, presumably about the time they first reached that realization, the U.S. military would have had an unfortunate tendency to invade tribal lands, shooting first and asking questions later.

Perhaps now, with the military so occupied in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have less of a fear of immediate invasion.