Mitakuye pi, Media bias sucks! Many are being duped by the false prophets supporting the continuing Oppression of our Lakota People and Wakanyeja! The Park service needs to vacate these lands. If the People want a park here its up to original heirs to these lands. Not the public or the NPS. These lands are firmly within our boundaries of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and continuing the failed relationship here with the NPS is equivalent to the Palestinians allowing the Jewish people to turn the Gaza Strip into a Israeli Park run by Palestinians. The recent reports by Native Sun News and others about the Proposed tribal national park presenting Oglala President Brian Brewer in favor only bolsters the view of the NPS. All the provisions being touted are nothing more than smoke and mirrors to get the people to forget more than thirty-eight years of breaches of the original contract MOA of 1976 that only granted the nps an easement for management. Friends Of The Earth! As many of you know myself and several Tokala brothers occupied the Stronghold in the South Unit of Badlands National Park in defiance of the National Park Service that has wrongfully controlled our sacred white wilderness for more than thirty-four-years. I have been a member of the Oglala Lakotas core negotiation team for eight-years at a negotiation table with the NPS in attempts to terminate the easement --1976 Memorandum of Agreement--which granted management over reservation lands within our exterior boundaries. Many of you have heard me speak at about this extremely important issue in great detail with a historical overview. There are several alternatives in the GMP that have been developed over these past twelve-years and not without much disappointment I might add. One of the alternatives has been consistently ignored and given little attention. Mandated by our tradition people, elders, treaty council and other bands of the Tetuwan Oyate I have steadfastly pushed for the alternative that represents justice for thousands of heirs forcefully displaced from their Tiospaye’s original allottments -- option 6-- “Deauthorization.” The stories, the pain, the oral history of now deceased elders and more than sixty-seven years of destruction by the defense department and National Park Service to our beautiful White Wilderness has had horrible consequences on our nations community self esteem. Our tribe stays on high-risk economic status as a result of the easement. Someone has to carry the huge economic burden of sustaining so many thousands of heirs who have absolutely nothing. As a result, the tribe cannot create jobs or raise the standards of living for most because of this arrangement with the NPS who raises tens of millions off our land for government employment. The solution is clear, alternative 6 is our job creation program. There are a handful of people within our ranks that are for keeping this bad relationship going with the NPS--the Oglala Sioux Parks and Recreation Authority. However, compared to the thousands of heirs who live well below the poverty level a few ranger positions is mute. Thank you for your patience dear friends of the Lakota, but time is of the essence. Pass this along far and wide for this humble cause of justice. Your comments are extremely important to what will transpire at our next meeting with gov. officials when we sit down to hash it out over the proposed billLet’s show them that the Lakota are not invisible or alone in this struggle. Most comments made here at this site are not based on a education of this sensitive issue. Please dont believe everything you read in the papers. They are most often biased towards the haves but neglect the independent voices of the Oyate. Peace be with you. For Justice!
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 07:08:35 +0000