BREAKTHROUGH AT PINE RIDGE ACCORDS
Carter Successfully Negotiates New Lakota/US Treaty

Jan 29, 2018
Pine Ridge, SD
N!News Staff

After nearly three months of tense negotiations and the occasional skirmish, a treaty was signed at the Pine Ridge Accords at 11:30 CST today. Former President Jimmy Carter, who spearheaded diplomatic efforts said, “With this treaty, the Lakota Nation and the United States of America are friends once more. At last, this national tragedy is over.” The treaty brings about a permanent cessation of hostilities, and returns the Lakota Nation to normalized standing under the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Key provisions within the new treaty include:

An expansion of the Pine Ridge Reservation to include lands considered sacred to the Lakota people. Negotiators for the Lakota had initially insisted upon a broad expansion of the reservation to include all lands covered by the largely-defunct Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 – a tract that includes a significant portion of South Dakota, as well as eastern Wyoming and northern Nebraska. In the end, the treaty provided for a significantly more modest expansion: the Black Hills, as defined in the landmark Supreme Court case United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians (1980), with the notable exception of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, which will remain under the auspice of the National Park Service. Included in this expansion is the mountain known to the Lakota as Inyan Kara, home to nova Indian-activist Ptesan-Wi Thunderhawk, wife of the late nova Wakinyan whose death by apparent military-level attack brought about the uprising in August of last year. Ms. Thunderhawk, who made early but unsuccessful efforts at forging a peace treaty last year, was present for the signing ceremony, providing a white peace pipe for traditional recognition of the accord.

A revision of Tribal Police jurisdiction, permitting arrest and holding of non-tribal offenders on reservation land. Until now, Tribal Police had no authority to arrest non-tribal offenders, a situation that has been blamed in part for high rates of crime on Indian reservations. This new authority does not, however, extend to Tribal courts, an initial demand by Lakota negotiators that was abandoned in an 11th-hour compromise. Non-tribal offenders will be extradited to non-tribal courts for prosecution. Law enforcement agents in surrounding counties have by large responded positively to this change, noting that the elimination of on-reservation calls will permit greater efficiency within their departments.

I've been very busy for the past week; it seems like everyone has found their way to Inyan Kara in the past few days. But I've finally found a few minutes to post here.

As you might expect, I'm pleased with the outcome of this treaty. In part, because a long-standing wrong has been righted. In part, because this should help to cut down the crime rate on the reservation. But mostly because it brings about an end to needless killing, and I would like to think that my mate would be most happy about that as well.

I want to thank all of you who came to try to keep the peace, to heal the wounded, and to keep hope alive here for the past six months. I cannot tell you how much your efforts have meant, both to my people and myself.

It is good that things have finally settled.

It's great to hear that things are settled. Congratulations on the hard work finally bearing fruit.

Now the long, hard time of healing can begin again.

Time for me to go home! I've can't wait to snuggle once more with the One I love.

Nor I. Come on home, Rhayne.

Lesbians are so awesome.

Mail me the video. :P

You're welcome. Now don't let it happen again.

Dr. Madigan, trust me when I tell you that nobody wishes more than myself that it had not happened at all.

Well Sister. I'm going home now. Let me know how the winter pans out for you. You have but to call if you need something.

Knowing the US paradigm of honoring their treaties with Native Americans, I'm not holding my breath as to how long this peace will last.

Then again, seeing the Sioux nation one step closer to sovereign control of it's lands as a recognized nation seems more of a possibility with this.

Any interest from them regarding this?

What we have now is as close to full sovereignty as we are likely to get, Endeavor. And while the idea of full sovereignty sounds nice at first passing, it is unrealistic for the forseeable future:

* It would violate our treaties with the United States, a nation that has repeatedly made clear that it cannot and will not stand for loss of what it considers its territory. The United States can tolerate the recent expansion of our "reservation" only because they see us as being under their tent.

* International recognition against the wishes of the United States would be doubtful at best; nobody wants to anger the last of the superpowers.

* While I am happy to live in traditional fashion, even I do not entirely do so - witness this use of the OpNet, which I assure you I am not accessing via creative use of stone knives and bear skins. And very few of the People are willing to step away from the cars and modern houses and central heating to go back to a life of horses, tents and fires... which is what would have to happen, because we do not have the economic base that would be needed to keep what is considered to be the current "Western standard of living". And that is without even discussing what would happen with the loss of positive advancements such as modern medicine; while I am a healer, even I cannot be in every home of every sick and injured Lakota. I love living by the Old Ways, but for the tribes as a whole, that wind has largely already blown, and I don't know that I would like to see the events that would cause it to blow again (as it would take a catastrophic collapse to happen).

All I gotta say is that I'm not paying six bucks per beer at the next PowWow.

Hell no.