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Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council CHR Intervention

The Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council has sent delegates to the Commission on Human Rights.  The following intervention was intended to be presented.  However, attempts at limiting our elders' message resulted in cancellation.
 Nonetheless, it is here to be shared with our Indigenous brothers and sisters and other interested persons.  Pila maya yelo.

Commission on Human Rights, Fifty Fourth Session
16 March –24 April 1998

Intervention of Tony Black Feather
Spokesman, Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council
March 26, 1998
Item 23 Indigenous Issues
 

My name is Tony Black Feather and I am the Spokesman for the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council. This is the first time that I have had the honor of making a presentation before this esteemed body although I have worked within the United Nations system for many years on behalf of our Lakota people.  I thank you for the opportunity.  I would like to thank our friends from the Society of Threatened Peoples in Germany who have helped us to make this presentation possible.

The Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council is an organization of traditional Lakota descendants of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 between the United States and the Lakota nation.  To acquaint you with where I come from, our territory stretches across the high plains of western North America encompassing parts of the states of North and South Dakota, Wyoming,
Nebraska, Montana, Minnesota and Colorado.  We are a nation with territory, language and a distinct culture.  We have always been a nation and will always be a nation.  We treated with the colonizers of North American on a nation to nation basis.

We are here to ensure that this body continue to encourage the participation of all Indigenous delegates representing their nations and peoples and in order to urge you to take positive steps towards justice for all of our people . We want to express to you the urgent need for the Commission on Human Rights to pass the Draft Declaration of the Rights of
the World's Indigenous People.  The document, as it now exists, represents the minimum standard through which the human, cultural, spiritual and territorial rights of the world's Indigenous peoples can be protected.  The passage of this document would be a first step in curing the ongoing abuse of Indigenous rights.  In the world today, it is the Indigenous peoples who
are still excluded from self-determination on our own lands in violation of our treaties and decolonization of our territory under the United Nations' founding principles.  Because the rights guaranteed to us in our treaties are not honored, the Draft Declaration in its entirety as drafted in consultation with our peoples is all the more important to us.  We want peace in our land through an end to the oppression and colonization that enslaves us.  We are here to urge you, along with us,  to rededicate
yourselves to this goal for the sake of a dying world.

The threat to human rights, self-determination and sovereignty over our unique cultures cannot be tolerated at any level.  No nation-state, despite its superior economic or military power, can be permitted to control the lives of the world's people.  We believe the efforts by nation states like Iraq to defend the sovereignty of their territory is a fundamental principle of international relations. Historically, tactics of divide, starve and conquer have been used against our people so we understand the use of embargoes and pressure from within and without.  In 1890, at Wounded Knee on our territory, the 7th Cavalry massacred our people, amongst them the elderly, the women and the children, in an attempt to disarm our own nation and out of revenge for our own defense of our sovereignty at the Little Big Horn when we defeated General George Armstrong Custer. Oppression and persecution for a people's defense of their sovereignty is not limited to past history.  While we cannot condone the oppression of ethnic groups within modern nations, we staunchly defend Iraq's right to protect its sovereignty.  In the same way, Cuba defends its sovereignty and self-determination and, as a result, stands alone in defiance of the unjust blockade by the United States.

We are sure the world wants peace.  Adopting the Draft Declaration and defending the sovereignty of all nations would be a significant step in this direction.  The Creator made us peaceful people.  The Creator did this for a reason.  Join with us and hear my words from the aboriginal peoples of the America.  With the world as a witness, the United States needs to be
disarmed from colonizing our territory so that we Lakota/Dakota people may take our place at this table for the benefit of just and lasting international peace for all the Earth's people.

Wopila.  Thank you.

Tony Black Feather
Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council
Spokesman