From http://www.lakotafreedom.com/

FREEDOM!

Today is a historic day and our forefathers speak through us. Our Forefathers made the treaties in good faith with the sacred Canupa and with the knowledge of the Great Spirit, They never honored the treaties, that is the reason we are here today...Garry Rowland, Wounded Knee

From WHY

In the face of the colonial apartheid conditions imposed on Lakota people, the withdrawal from the U.S. Treaties is necessary. These conditions have been devastating:

MORTALITY

• Lakota men have a life expectancy of less than 44 years, lowest of any country in the World (excluding AIDS) including Haiti.
• Lakota death rate is the highest in the United States.
• The Lakota infant mortality rate is 300% more than the U.S. Average.
• Teenage suicide rate is 150% higher than the U.S national average for this group.

DRUGS AND ALCOHOL

• More than half the Reservation's adults battle addiction and disease.
• Alcoholism affects 8 in 10 families.

INCARCERATION

• Indian children incarceration rate 40% higher than whites.
• In South Dakota, 21 percent of state prisoners were Native.
• Indians have the second largest state prison incarceration rate in the nation.

DISEASE

• The Tuberculosis rate on Lakota reservations is approx 800% higher than the U.S national average.
• Cervical cancer is 500% higher than the U.S national average.
• The rate of diabetes is 800% higher than the U.S national average.
• Federal Commodity Food Program provides high sugar foods that kill Native people through diabetes and heart disease.

POVERTY

• Median income is approximately $2,600 to $3,500 per year.
• 97% of our Lakota people live below the poverty line.
• Many families cannot afford heating oil, wood or propane and many residents use ovens to heat their homes.

HOUSING

• Elderly die each winter from hypothermia (freezing).
• 1/3 of the homes lack basic clean water and sewage while 40% lack electricty.
• 60% of Reservation families have no telephone.
• 60% of housing is infected with potentially fatal black molds.
• There is an estimated average of 17 people living in each family home (may only have two to three rooms). Some homes, built for 6 to 8 people, have up to 30 people living in them.

UNEMPLOYMENT

• Unemployment rates on our reservations is 85% or higher.

THREATENED CULTURE

• Only 14% of the Lakota population can speak Lakota language.
• The language is not being shared inter-generationally, today, the average Lakota speaker is 65 years old.
• Our Lakota language is an Endangered Language, on the verge of extinction.

After 150 years of colonial enforcement, when you back people into a corner there is only one alternative. That alternative is to bring freedom back into existence by taking it back - back to the love of freedom, to our lifeway. Canupa Gluha Mani