Russell Means on WARN Radio

Russell Means

Born on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation in 1939, Russell Means is the eldest son of Hank Means, an Oglala Sioux, and Theodora (Feather) Means, a full-blooded Yankton Sioux. Shortly after the outbreak of WWII, his family moved to California, where he graduated from San Leandro High in 1958 and continued his formal education at Oakland City College and Arizona State.

Listen to it with radio above and/or download below:
The L.A. Times has called him the most famous American Indian since Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.
His indomitable sense of pride and leadership has become embedded in our national character.

Today, his path has brought him to Hollywood, thus enabling him to use different means to communicate his vital truths.

Through the power of media, his vision is to create peaceful and positive images celebrating the magic and mystery of his American Indian heritage.

Thirty years ago, reflecting the consciousness of the sixties, he captured national attention when he led the 71-day armed takeover on the sacred grounds of Wounded Knee, a tiny hamlet in the heart of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation.

Means joined “The Longest Walk” in 1978 to protest a new tide of anti-Indian legislation including the forced sterilization of Indian women.

Following the walk, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution saying that national policy was to protect the rights of Indians, “to believe, express and exercise their traditional religions, including but not limited to access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites.”

Brief: Lead roles in major feature films:
The Last of the Mohicans
Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers
As a chief in John Candy’s comedy Wagons East
As the ghost of Jim Thorpe in Wind Runner
Disney’s third highest ever selling video (Pocahantas) in which he was the voice of Pocahontas’ father, a television documentary for HBO (Paha Sapa), (Indian Father and Son) a pilot he created;
Two albums of protest music with lyrics he wrote (Electric Warrior and The Radical).
On the technological side, he stars in a CD-ROM (Under A Killing Moon) and has created his own website www.russellmeans.com .

Russell splits his time between San Jose, NM, his ranch on the Pine Ridge Sioux Indian reservation, Porcupine, SD and his office in Santa Monica, CA.

WASHINGTON — The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States.
“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.
A delegation of Lakota leaders has delivered a message to the State Department, and said they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the U.S., some of them more than 150 years old [foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317548,00.html]

Indigenous leaders said they had been assured of support from many nations, including the European Union, but added they saw no signs of flexibility in the attitude of the U.S., Australia and New Zealand.

The three countries have consistently opposed the text’s embrace of indigenous peoples’ demand for “self-determination”.

“No government can accept the notion of creating different classes of citizens,” delegations from the three countries said in a joint statement recently that also described the indigenous communities’ demand to determine their own affairs as “inconsistent with international law”.

They said the indigenous land claims ignore current reality “by appearing to require the recognition to lands now lawfully owned by other citizens.” [ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35103]

More Information:

The U.N. adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples Sept 13, 2007, Predictably, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States voted against the declaration when 143 nations voted in favor of it. [globalissues.org/HumanRights/indigenous/#MajorCountriesOpposedtoVariousRightsforIndigenousPeoples]

The Declaration is not legally binding for Member States.

Nevertheless, it will have a major effect on indigenous peoples worldwide in regards to their rights.
It is a comprehensive statement addressing issues such as collective rights, cultural rights and identity in addition to rights to education, health, employment and language among others.
The Declaration emphasizes the right of indigenous peoples to maintain and strengthen their own institutions, cultures and traditions and to pursue their development in accordance withe their aspirations and needs.

In Summary:

Reaffirming that indigenous peoples, in the exercise of their rights, should be
free from discrimination of any kind,

Concerned that indigenous peoples have suffered from historic injustices as a
result of, inter alia, their colonization and dispossession of their lands, territories
and resources, thus preventing them from exercising, in particular, their right to
development in accordance with their own needs and interests,

Acknowledging that the Charter of the United Nations, the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights1 and the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights as well as the Vienna Declaration and Programme of
Action,2 affirm the fundamental importance of the right to self-determination of all
peoples, by virtue of which they freely determine their political status and freely
pursue their economic, social and cultural development,

Bearing in mind that nothing in this Declaration may be used to deny any
peoples their right to self-determination, exercised in conformity with international
law,

The Discussion, some not all were asked:

1. Are you now a citizen of the US of America? What is your idea of Self determination? Do you forsee a civil war?
2. How do you become a non citizen and how does the people whom you represent benefit?
3. How are you going to finance yourself?
4. Protect Yourself?
5. Have you a response from the Government?
6. If this declaration is not a binding one, non binding, then how does the US have to relinquish your lands and claims to you?
7. What areas do you claim for your land?
8. Are you wanting to resolve your claim to the Black Hills, ‘womb of Mother earth’?

Johnson Holy Rock, an 83-year-old Oglala elder whose father, Jonas, survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
“It’s a healing place, a nurturing place, for us,” Holy Rock, of Pine Ridge, says. “Red Cloud used to say, ‘A man almost on the verge of death could go into those hills in the fall and not come out all winter, and when he did finally come out, he’d be fat and robust and saved from starvation and totally healthy’ [dlncoalition.org/dln_issues/black_hills.htm]

In fact, on June 30, 1980, after decades of legal wrangling, the high court upheld an award to the Great Sioux Nation of $17.1 million for the illegal taking of the Black Hills, plus $88 million in interest. Since then, that total has multiplied five-fold. Yet 21 years after that decision, the money remains untapped in the U.S. Treasury as the Sioux hold out for return of the land. “This is just my opinion, but I believe that the tribes would like to resolve this claim in a fair and honorable manner,” says Mario Gonzalez, a tribal attorney for the Oglala Sioux Tribe who worked on the Black Hills claims issue.

9. Do see the U.N. coming to your aid in regard to the treaty?
For the article 27 and 28 of rights of indigenious peoples read:
Article 27

States shall establish and implement, in conjunction with indigenous peoples
concerned, a fair, independent, impartial, open and transparent process, giving due
recognition to indigenous peoples’ laws, traditions, customs and land tenure
systems, to recognize and adjudicate the rights of indigenous peoples pertaining to
their lands, territories and resources, including those which were traditionally
owned or otherwise occupied or used. Indigenous peoples shall have the right to
participate in this process.

Article 28
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to redress, by means that can include
restitution or, when this is not possible, just, fair and equitable compensation, for
the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned or otherwise
occupied or used, and which have been confiscated, taken, occupied, used or
damaged without their free, prior and informed consent.
2. Unless otherwise freely agreed upon by the peoples concerned,
compensation shall take the form of lands, territories and resources equal in quality,
size and legal status or of monetary compensation or other appropriate redress.
10. Do believe that Native peoples ( I have heard of such prophecy) will sometime after the White man will regain native lands and way of life?

 Russell Means 1-04-08 [59:56m]: Play in Popup | Download (100)