The Lakota Indians have announced they are declaring independence from the United States.

The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States.

“We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,” long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means said.

A delegation of Lakota leaders has delivered a message to the State Department, and said they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the U.S., some of them more than 150 years old.

The group also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and would continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months.

Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.

The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free - provided residents renounce their U.S. citizenship, Mr Means said.

The treaties signed with the U.S. were merely “worthless words on worthless paper,” the Lakota freedom activists said.

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Russell Means

Find out more on the official Lakota Freedom Web site. In stating why the Lakota are declaring independence from the United States, they are unsparing and candid about the “colonial apartheid system imposed on the Lakota Sioux.”

The devastation this has wrought is clear:

Lakota men have a life expectancy of less than 44 years, lowest of any country in the World (excluding AIDS) including Haiti.

The Lakota infant mortality rate is 5x the U.S. Average.

The Tuberculosis rate on Lakota reservations is approx 800% higher than the U.S national average.

97% of our Lakota people live below the poverty line.

Unemployment rates on our reservations are approximately 85%.

Teenage suicide rate is 150% higher than the U.S national average for this group.

Our Lakota language is an Endangered Language, on the verge of extinction.