Big oil is relentless. Our tribes’ battle with the KXL pipeline was not long ago and now we’re dealing with another attempt to transport dirty oil through our nations. For those of you needing a primer, CNN reports on “5 things to Know about the Dakota Access Pipeline.” The five questions answered are: 1. What is the pipeline project? 2. Why is the pipeline being constructed? 3. Who is protesting? 4. Who's on which side? And 5. What's next?
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The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has sued the federal government, saying the Native American tribe was not properly consulted over the project to construct a 1,168-mile crude oil pipeline that extends over four states.
While proponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline tout its economic boost, opponents question its environmental impact.
The US Army Corps of Engineers approved the project, granting final permits in July, to the dismay of environmentalists and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
The local tribes started gathering at the construction site in July at a site called Sacred Stone Camp, named for the natural whirlwind-swirling waters once there that formed perfectly round sandstones.
Jacqueline Keeler writes at telesur:
The Missouri River Tribes, like all tribes really, have a painful and difficult history with the federal government — and the Army Corps of Engineers in particular. In the mid-20th century the Corps built dams on the river almost exclusively on tribal lands, flooding hundreds of thousands of acres of prime farm land effecting 23 Tribes and displacing 1,000 Native American farmers, and of course to benefit white farmers.
In August, more tribes traveled and joined the Standing Rock Sioux tribe to protect the water. Today, 188 Native Nations are represented, consisting of thousands of people, at Sacred Stone Camp to try to peacefully halt the construction. In a few days a judge is going to rule on whether or not the construction can continue. Our tribes are there to protect the water, it is not a protest and we are not occupying as this was our land to begin with.
It has been reported that the pipeline was originally going to pass closer to Bismarck but was rerouted because of concerns there of water contamination. It was moved to more dispensable land, traditional Indian land that was once part of the Great Sioux Nation.
I’m writing today because
yesterday, Saturday, Sept. 3, private guards armed with pepper spray and attack dogs unleashed their canines into the crowd.
Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! was on the ground at Saturday’s action and brings you this report:
On September 3, the Dakota Access pipeline company attacked Native Americans with dogs and pepper spray as they protested against the $3.8 billion pipeline’s construction. If completed, the pipeline would carry about 500,000 barrels of crude per day from North Dakota’s Bakken oilfield to Illinois. The project has faced months of resistance from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and members of nearly 100 more tribes from across the U.S. and Canada.
Our tribes’ intention has been to keep this demonstration peaceful. When we brought our pipes to pray the construction company and police told the media we had pipe bombs. The Tribal Chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux was arrested and a restraining order placed on him from appearing at Sacred Stone Camp. Many others have been arrested for trespassing.
There’s more background and video at Keeler’s piece at telesur, please read the whole thing:
This pipeline has sparked a prairie fire of united Native American resistance not seen since Wounded Knee, and a return of the Great Sioux Nation.
This 1,168-mile pipeline extending across four states from North Dakota to Illinois has sparked a prairie fire of united Native American resistance not seen since Wounded Knee, and a return of the Great Sioux Nation. This is the first time since the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn that all seven council fires have camped together.
The Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota are all members of the Océti Sakówin, the seven council fires, commonly known to most Americans as the “Great Sioux Nation.” Their dialects are distinct but they are all one people. The people of Standing Rock are known as Sitting Bull’s people (the Húnkpapa), but also include Ihánkthunwannaa (Yanktonai Dakota) bands.
According to the 1868 Treaty of Ft. Laramie, the “Great Sioux Reservation” comprised nearly 60 million acres and was roughly the size of the United Kingdom. The Standing Rock reservation is adjacent to another even larger reservation belonging to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. Together, these two reservations equal in size to El Salvador or Israel span across two states and constitute the largest continuous land area left to the Océti Sakówin. Four more Dakota/Lakota reservations along the Missouri could also be impacted. This archipelago of reservations is all that remains of their former lands — now in the hands of often hostile state governments.”
ACTION!
Update: Two petitions to sign.
One for “Heidi Heitkamp, the North Dakota Democratic senator who relied on the Indian reservation votes to eke out a victory in 2012. She’s been a strong voice for the tribes. She’s also been a strong voice for fossil fuels. She needs to speak out, one way or the other.” ~RLMiller
And from Meteor Blades: “It should be noted that Heitkamp has a special position beyond just being a senator who won because of the Native vote margin: She sits on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. That makes her stance in this matter even more important.”
From Meteor Blades’s signing of the petition
We all are stewards of the land.
#NoDAPL #RezpectOurWater
Updates, Monday, Sept. 5, 2016:
Just found a video at facebook that I can’t embed. I’ve asked for it to be published to Youtube. Here’s the Facebook link to the video.
Wow, from Dallas Goldtooth. I began a transcript after he talks about how a burial site was found near the camp in the path of the proposed pipeline. The sacred site was reported last week to the judge deciding the case. Dallas explains that the construction crew deliberately stopped working 15 miles away and came directly to the burial site and dozed it, on purpose, before the state could come out and examine it!
Here's my partial transcript:
So what Dakota Access did yesterday, [Sept. 3rd] they were building 15 miles that way, they stopped construction and hopscotched over all this land and dropped their machinery in and plowed through the last two miles, right through that cultural site. On purpose. They purposefully went through that site, plowed through those grave sites. Because they didn't wanna, they wanted to get there before the state officials could come out and do an official survey to tell them to stop. So that's what happened yesterday. As people were gathered, our Water Protectors from the camp were there for prayer, they were there for another thing and they saw all those bulldozers there and they knew, they heard there was a cultural site up there, so they went to stop the construction to protect the land. And so they pushed back, they pushed the security, the workers back. Dakota Access has their own security force that were there. So when the protesters pushed back the workers, the security force came in and and they came in really aggressive right off the bat. So the first thing that happened is that they maced the front line with pepper spray. So the front line got pepper sprayed. And they brought out their dogs, they had canines, dogs, attack dogs with them. And so they pulled those attack dogs out to hold off the protest folks. Well, one of the workers, it was very apparent that they were untrained canine units. They were not trained. They were not trained people to handle these dogs. One worker could not contain his own dog and it bit him and he let go of the leash and it went into the crowd and bit a horse, a number of people did get bit. Women and men got attacked by the dog. There was about 30 people who did get pepper sprayed. But at a certain point our people, our de-escalators within our crew were able to pull back our folks. Step out of that space, and disengage. There were no police arrests made. And there's a real good strong sense that this was done on purpose.
Amendment was added last week to the request for injunction to show Native burial sites in the path of the pipeline. Author of video says those sites were deliberately dozed this past Saturday before the state could examine the site.
From Dallas Goldtooth:
Yesterday, over 500 Water Protectors marched to the location where the Dakota Access pipeline company bulldozed thru a sacred site that included grave markers on Saturday, Sept 3rd.
This was a collective peace action that reflects the truest intent of this movement and struggle, the necessity to protect and defend the sacred.
As Oceti Sakowin people, our relationship to the land and water is the foundation of our identity.
Dakota Access literally plowed through a burial site and a significant ceremonial site that was JUST identified by the landowner and tribal experts a few days before. This was off-reservation. The tribe filed the discovery with a federal judge that is deciding whether to grant an injunction against Dakota Access.
However … in order for construction to be halted, the ND State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) had to come and officially survey the site, because it was in their jurisdiction. So what did Dakota Access do?? They plowed through the land before the SHPO could come do their surveys.
Understand this, we will stop this pipeline. But the struggle to protect the land, water and our communities is more than just the physical, it's also a spiritual struggle. That is why we chose to take this moment yesterday to have prayer for the land and ancestors that were disturbed.
Our resistance is based on love for our people and the land, not out of hate for others. We utilize peaceful direct action to demonstrate our will and led with the original instructions our ancestors have left for us.
#NoDAPL #NoPipelines #DefendTheSacred #WaterIsLife #KeepItInTheGround
You can donate to the tribe here:www.standingrock.org
CANNON BALL, ND—The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed an emergency motion Sunday for a temporary restraining order to prevent further destruction of the Tribe’s sacred sites by Dakota Access Pipeline.
“On Saturday, Dakota Access Pipeline and Energy Transfer Partners brazenly used bulldozers to destroy our burial sites, prayer sites and culturally significant artifacts,” Tribal Chairman David Archambault II said. “They did this on a holiday weekend, one day after we filed court papers identifying these sacred sites. The desecration of these ancient places has already caused the Standing Rock Sioux irreparable harm. We’re asking the court to halt this path of destruction.”
After the initial destruction Saturday, Dakota Access Pipeline returned to the area and dug up additional grounds in the pre-dawn hours Sunday, Archambault said.
The temporary restraining order was denied today, Sept. 6. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe awaits the ruling on their original motion to stop construction of the pipeline, expecting on Sept. 9.
From Red Warrior Camp:
There was absolutely no victory in the courtroom today. The judge stopped construction on the eastside of the Missouri River for 20 miles. Well we have never even had any actions on the east side of the Missouri, and all that east of the Missouri construction is mostly done. The judge allowed DAPL to continue construction where we are at, destroying sacred sites west of 1806 as of today.
