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Oglala Sioux Tribal Council Chairman has said that Donald Trump should not attend the Mount Rushmore July 4 fireworks celebration in South Dakota on Friday.
President Julian Bear Runner cited health fears about the coronavirus and also said that Trump’s assistance is an insult to the Native Americans on whose stolen land it was built.
“The fact that Trump is coming here is a security concern not only for my people on and off the reservation, but for people on the Great Plains. We have such limited resources in the Black Hills, and we are already seeing an increase in infections, “Bear Runner said in an interview with The Guardian.
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Several Native American groups plan to organize protests over the president’s scheduled appearance, the newspaper reported.
“It will cause a ruckus if he comes here. People will want to exercise their First Amendment rights to protest and we don’t want to see anyone hurt or have their lands destroyed, ”added Mr. Bear Runner.
The fireworks event will continue at the memorial on Friday night as part of the state’s Independence Day celebrations and around 7,500 participants are expected to attend despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Governor Kristi Noem confirmed that attendees will not have to practice social distancing or wear masks during the event.
The Sioux President said the visit would violate historical treaties between the US government and Native Americans that allow them sovereignty over the sacred Black Hills on which the site is carved.
“The lands on which that mountain is carved and the lands it is about to visit belong to the great Sioux nation by virtue of a treaty signed in 1851 and the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868 and I have to tell you that you do not have permission to its original sovereign owners to enter the territory at this time, “said Mr. Bear Runner.
The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that Black Hills, over which they had perpetual sovereignty under the 1868 treaty, had been illegally confiscated from the Sioux by the federal government after miners searching for gold in the area they will force the liberation of the earth.
Bear Runner added that Trump should have asked for permission to travel from the seven Sioux tribal governments before planning to make the visit.
“As the leader of the United States, you have an obligation to … honor the treaties that are the supreme law of the land,” the 34-year-old man told the newspaper.
Native American activists have argued for years that the monument to four United States Presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt, which was completed in 1941, should be removed because it was built on stolen land and the links of the figures with slavery and racial oppression.
“The rocks already had spiritual significance before Westerners came to squat on our territory,” said Bear Runner. “The land is rightfully ours, and we do not deliver to Black Hills. It would be a mistake for me as a tribal leader to remain diplomatic. We consider carvings to be a symbol of trying to cleanse ourselves and say that they have conquered us. “
The monument was designed and executed by Gutzon Borglum, an American sculptor and artist who had ties to white supremacy.
Lincoln in particular functions as a symbol of offense to Native Americans, as he ordered the execution of 38 Sioux in Minnesota during the Dakota War of 1862.
“They don’t tell the real story and it’s wrong. We only hear the remarkable story of the good things these men have done for this country, but they don’t say this land belongs to Native Americans, that the Black Hills belong to the Sioux nations, or the hanging of these Dakota men. ” Bear Runner said.
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