Speaking on behalf of the GNU Telephony project, we do intend to openly challenge and defy any such a law should it actually come to pass, so I want to be very clear on this statement. It is not simply that we will choose to publicly defy the imposition of such an illegitimate law, but that we will explicitly continue to publicly develop and distribute free software (that is software that offers the freedom to use, inspect, and modify) enabling secure peer-to-peer communication privacy through encryption that is made available directly to anyone worldwide. Clearly such software is especially needed in those places, such as in the United States, where basic human freedoms and personal dignity seem most threatened at present.

In the United States the 4th amendment did not come about simply because it was impractical to directly spy on everyone on such a large scale. Nor does it end simply because it may now be technically feasible to do so. Communication privacy furthermore is essential to the normal functioning of free societies, whether speaking of whistle-blowers, journalists who have to protect their sources, human rights and peace activists engaging in legitimate political dissent, workers engaged in union organizing, or lawyers who must protect the confidentiality of their privileged communications with clients.

However, to fully appreciate the effect of such surveillance on human societies, imagine being among several hundred million people who wake up each day having to prove they are not a “terrorist” by whatever arbitrary means the government has decided to both define the terms of such a crime and whatever arbitrary methods unknown to you that they might choose to define you as such, and where even your prosecution is carried out under the immunity of “state secrets” that all police states use to abuse of their own citizens. Such a society is one who’s very foundation is built on the premise of everyone being guilty until proven innocent and where due process does not exist. It is the imposition of such a illegitimate society that we choose to openly oppose, and to do so in this manner.

To help correct these injustices and continued deprivations, the Lakotah have established a provisional government in what is the present state of South Dakota, while seeking complete and internationally recognized sovereignty. Since that time, the Makaq have withdrawn from treaty from Canada, and groups of Haudenosaunee tribes have come together this past April with representatives of several dozen other recognized indigenous national groups to declare their own joint sovereignty.

This letter¹ was delivered to Hugo Chavez at the office of the presidency at Miraflores, and to the chancellor of the Venezuelan National Assembly, a little earlier this year, along with a Lakotah petition seeking to establish relations with and full diplomatic recognition from the government of Venezuela. –

English translation:

Hugo Chávez, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela:

Greetings and salutations,

This past December 17th of 2007, the nation and people of Lakotah have withdrawn from treaties and colonial bonds with the United States of America; and have asserted their continued rights, as promised originally in the Louisiana purchase of 1803, and formally recognized in every subsequent treaty between the Lakotah and the United States of America, to be a fully free and sovereign member of the world community of nations. Last week representatives of the Lakotah people stood before the doors of your Embassy in Washington seeking to meet with your ambassador, the honorable Bernardo Alvarez Herrera.

The Lakotah are a Nation of people who once lived free across the Northern plains. The Louisiana Purchase was shortly followed by the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, which had no place for another people living free. With Manifest Destiny came the treaties, often forced upon the Lakotah by waging aggressive war, although still made with the Lakotah as a separately recognized sovereign nation. With the treaties eventually came the reservations; internment camps where the entire Lakotah civilian population, men, woman, and children, were forced to relocate and live. 29 Treaties were made. These treaties conferred obligations and commitments upon the United States government, as well as the Lakotah Nation, as per the United States Constitution. Yet, only the Lakotah Nation has fullfilled those obligations and commitments, while the government of the United States continues to ignore its legal responsibilities. The time of treaties has now come to an end.

While Venezuela has enjoyed the wealth of oil since the 1950′s, there was a time in rural Venezuela when vast numbers lived in the worst poverty of all of Latin America. I have visited your country, and I have met people who were brought up in poverty; in huts without running water, electricity, jobs or hope. Today, they say they have found hope, their children have found education in the new schools being built, they have found jobs and opportunities to live as human beings. This was made possible by your administration.

The American Indian continues to live in poverty. The only difference is that hope has yet to come for them. The country that colonizes them has never done anything for them and instead has done much harm to them. Today, many live without electricity, without running water, without jobs or hope. Living within the world’s richest nation they have the shortest of life expectancy and among the highest infant mortality of any group of people found in the world today. The difference is that for them, they are under a foreign government, not their own. The government that colonizes them has not changed it’s behavior in over 150 years and will not do so now. They have watched the previous patterns of the United States and do not believe that the United States will ever honor its obligations under the treaties. Much like in Venezuela, companies in the United States have stolen oil and resources from the Lakotah Nation, without due payment and with the blessings of the United States government. Unlike in Venezuela, which has legal recourse as a recognized Nation, there is no possibility for change, unless they make change happen for themselves.

The Lakotah people today do not ask for special compensation for these past crimes, even though they well deserve it. Nor do they seek vengeance for what had been done to them. They only ask that what was originally taken from them be restored, nothing more. They desire only to live in peace with all who now dwell on their lands, and do so as a fully free and sovereign nation. The attached petition offers a more complete history and a clear basis for how the Lakotah have continued to be recognized as a sovereign people for over the past 150 years, as well as establishing in far greater detail why the treaties with the United States must come to an end, and hence why the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela should afford diplomatic recognition to the provisional government of Lakotah. However, there is a greater reason still.

The people of Venezuela have found hope, yet they still remember what it was like to live in poverty and without hope. They know and understand at least some of what the American Indian has suffered and endured. They understand what the Lakotah must do and why. They know, as only another people who have suffered in the past as the Lakotah suffer today, and who have struggled out of the bonds of oppression, the obstacles and difficulties the Lakotah Nation faces. For all these reasons, for the people of Venezuela, as well as for the Lakotah, it is my hope that your government will choose to recognize this reborn nation.

On Behalf of freedom loving people everywhere.

1. The letter was written with the full knowledge and consent of Russell Means and the provisional Lakotah government.