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by BRENDA NORRELL
STRONGHOLD TABLE, S.D. Lakota elder Tony Black Feather told the United Nations
that the American flag represents a racist nation that violates natural and
spiritual laws, dishonors treaties and engages in a game plan of corporate
greed.
In his statement delivered to the United Nations and distributed here on
Stronghold Table, Black Feather pressed for disarmament and peace as President
Bush pressed for war in Iraq.
Urging America to "come clean in the eyes of the world," Black Feather said
people often ask him about the red, white and blue of the American flag
"I tell them that the aboriginal Lakota people of this country look at this
flag as a piece of red, white and blue cloth that stands for the foreign racist
system that has oppressed Indigenous peoples for centuries.
"For traditional Lakota people, that piece of red, white and blue cloth stands
for a system and a country that does not honor it's own word."
Black Feather, in his statement to the Working Group on Indigenous Populations,
said the flag represents a nation of dishonor.
"If it stood for honor and truth, it would remember our treaties and give them
the appropriate place under international law. But it doesn't. It dishonors its
own word and violates its treaties, that piece of red, white and blue cloth."
On the Stronghold, Black Feather distributed his written statement, which was
delivered to the United Nations in July, as he challenged the National Park
Service in the Badlands. Ignoring demands from the tribe, the Park Service
plans to excavate fossils in the burial grounds of the Ghost Dancers massacred
here after they survived the massacre of Wounded Knee.
"America is a world problem," Black Feather told National Park Service
officials leading a tour in the Badlands of the proposed excavation site on
Oglala Sioux tribal land.
Lakota gathered here say the bones of the Ghost Dancers, who danced here to
bring back the buffalo and the old ways, are revealing themselves at this time
for a reason.
With a message for humanity and calling for disarmament around the world, Black
Feather chastised the Park Service for entering sacred grounds in the Badlands
with armed park rangers.
At the resistance camp manned by the Tokala Warrior Society, the traditional
Grey Eagle Society, Russell Means and others chastised National Park Service
officials.
Pointing out violations of federal laws, Lakota said the arrogance and racism
is indicative of federal Indian policy and a nation that is spiritually
bankrupt.
Black Feather's comments on deception and the flag were representative of the
situation here.
Black Feather said of the American flag, "This colorful cloth represents
imperialism with the professed Christian duty to destroy many races of peoples
throughout the world, to illegally confiscate their possessions, property and
even their lives when U.S. interests need to be served.
"It is their intention to establish one world government, based solely on the
American system of corporate greed.
"The cloth represents a political language that is designated to make lies
sound truthful and murder respectable. This piece of red, white and blue cloth
represents a political system that is contrary to the principles of Natural Law
and the moral principles, which govern a diversified humanity.
"This piece of cloth misrepresents the human race.
"As Lakota people, we engage in different actions to remember the Natural Law
and to assert our rights."
Black Feather said the takeover of the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council offices and
the current resistance on Stronghold Table asserts the rights of the Lakota
people.
"As the aboriginal people of this land, we must understand and assert that it
is under our care. The continents of the world belong to its aboriginal peoples.
"Someday somebody will have to account for these violations of the Natural Law
and violations against Creation that the piece of cloth has been responsible
for.
"The United States needs to come clean to cleanse its conscience in the eyes of
the world. Only then will we have justice and balance in this world."
Black Feather's statement was among those of the Tetuwan Oyate Teton Sioux
Nation Treaty Council, delivered to the XXth Session of the Working Group on
Indigenous Populations in July and on Stronghold Table in August.
Brenda Norrell writes about Indian affairs and the American west.
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Photograph--Alfred Bone Shirt Sr. wearing a peace medal.