Jason Coppola reports: On June 4, 2013, a draft complaint was delivered to United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights officials Giorgia Passarelli and Rekia Soumana in New York City regarding the removal of thousands of Native American children from their families and tribes in South Dakota.
It has been carried out in a manner which, says the Great Sioux Nation, could be defined as genocide. This charge is based on section 2 (e) of the UN genocide convention of 1948 and the Federal Genocide Implementation Act of 1987. It states:
“(a) Basic Offense – Whoever, whether in time of peace or in time of war and with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in substantial part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such –
(1) kills members of that group;
(2) causes serious bodily injury to members of that group;
(3) causes the permanent impairment of the mental faculties of members of the group through drugs, torture, or similar techniques;
(4) subjects the group to conditions of life that are intended to cause the physical destruction of the group in whole or in part;
(5) imposes measures intended to prevent births within the group; or
(6) transfers by force children of the group to another group;
shall be punished…”
The draft complaint was hand-delivered by Daniel P. Sheehan, Chief Counsel to the Lakota People’s Law Project, in response to the more than 700 Native American children removed from their homes and placed in foster care each year in South Dakota. Of those children, about 87 percent are placed with non-native families or group homes, far from their Indian communities, culture, and ceremonies.
This, the Sioux charge, is in violation of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) passed by Congress in 1978 which was intended to protect Indian nations, families, and culture by allowing children to remain with their extended families, a central theme in their indigenous belief system, even if in foster care.
The taking of Indian children has a long and disgraceful history in the Americas.
According to a report prepared for congress by Indian Child Welfare Act directors from South Dakota’s nine American Indian tribes, with assistance from the Lakota People’s Law Project, “For the Lakota, Nakota, and Dakota (Sioux) people of South Dakota, the absorption into state care began with the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty”.
The Fort Laramie Treaty guaranteed the Sioux Nation “the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation” of their ancestral lands spanning five US States including South Dakota. The treaties have been broken by the US Government ever since the discovery of gold in the Black Hills. [Continue reading…]
Stealing children now, along with the land, wealth, displacement of, along with what the government has allowed the financial section to do to the economy of the government and the middle class. Time for the Empire and its oligarchs to pay the piper. To continue in this direction will only result in civil disobedience, perhaps in violent ways that can’t be contained by the present powers to be. They are drinking their own kool-aid if they believe their P.R.B.S.
That juvenile offenders were tried, sentenced and sent to private prison for monetary gain to the sentencing judge was a real eye opener for me. That issue pales in comparison to what this informative article brings to light.
“The taking of Indian children has a long and disgraceful history in the Americas.”
Kill the Indian, Save the Man. “Kids for Cash”
In 1978, Congress tried to put a stop to it. They passed the Indian Child Welfare Act, which says except in the rarest circumstances, Native American children must be placed with their relatives or tribes. It also says states must do everything it can to keep native families together.
William Janklow became governor of South Dakota in 1979. Defying that legislation he promulgated the state run-foster care scam. This scam is alive and well. Very productive too in large part thanks to Children’s Home Society, the state’s largest foster care provider.
It’s reminiscent of the period in Australia’s history where they took the aborigine children and placed them with white families.
However, with the intervention of Big Pharma, the Eli Lilly branch, and its drug connection with the three juvenile psychiatric facilities in South Dakota stocked with Lakota kids the money trail now has become richer.
Federal incentives and big funds in conjunction with Big Pharma great for the state of South Dakota and is administrators while a whole generation of Native ‘American’ children is once again losing its connection to its culture.
I am a loss for words to express my horror at the plight of the vast Indian Nations under such insanity.
NPR also did a fine expose’ of this in 2011,worth a read.
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/25/141662357/incentives-and-cultural-bias-fuel-foster-system-
“If we could just get the federal government to honor our treaties”, says Brewer, “That’s the problem that we are having here”. Oglala Sioux Tribe President Bryan V. Brewer. Hmmmm..a long standing one over the decades as I remember.
A lotof people passing judgement on things they don;t really know anything about. Many of these children are raised like animals by alchololic parents and taking them out of the home and putting them with white people is a heck of alot better than the hell hole they came out of.