Courtesy Bucky Harjo
Sunset at the new water protectors’ camp in the path of the Dakota Access oil pipeline (DAPL).
While Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman Harold Frazier sat down with President Barack Obama at a private roundtable in Los Angeles on Tuesday, October 25, Morton County, N.D. Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier was calling in police reinforcements from six states to enforce Energy Transfer Partners’ demands that “trespassers” be removed from the path of the pipeline.
Authorities implied they may forcibly remove the water protectors from the new camp, which is on land recently purchased by Dakota Access LLC, the subsidiary that is building the pipeline.
“We have the resources. We could go down there at any time,” Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said, according to the Associated Press. “We’re trying not to.”
“We are here to enforce the law as needed,” Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said. “It’s private property.”
The so-called trespassers are Lakota citizens and their allies determined to stand their ground to prevent further destruction of burial grounds and cultural sites, and to protect their water supply from the pipeline. As DAPL moves forward with aggressive construction even on weekends and at night, water protectors took the bold action to declare eminent domain over their homelands last week and set up a new camp directly in the pipeline’s path.
What began with prayers and a single tipi alongside Highway 1806 quickly grew to more than a dozen tipis surrounded by tents, buses, cars and hundreds of water protectors. Some are calling it the “1851 Treaty Camp” to acknowledge their Treaty rights.
Across the road is the encroaching pipeline and a heavily militarized police force with armored vehicles, helicopters, planes, ATVs and busloads of officers. Tensions are growing as unarmed citizens worry that police will use unnecessarily harsh tactics.
In recent weeks, nearly 300 unarmed water protectors who were arrested have been subjected to pepper spray, strip-searches, delayed bail, exaggerated charges and physical violence, according to interviews with several who were taken into custody. The ACLU and National Lawyers Guild recently sent attorneys to Standing Rock to help the Red Owl Collective, a team of volunteer lawyers headed by attorney Bruce Ellison, who are representing many of those arrested.
On Wednesday, October 26, civil rights leader and Rainbow PUSH Coalition founder the Rev. Jesse Jackson arrived in Standing Rock to speak out against the multiple human and civil rights violations being perpetrated against water protectors.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks to water protectors standing against the Dakota Access oil pipeline on Wednesday October 26. (Photo: Courtesy KILI Radio)
“When will the taking stop? When will we start treating the first peoples of these lands with the respect and honor they deserve?”
The decision to change the pipeline route from north of Bismarck to its current route is “the ripest case of environmental racism I’ve seen in a long time,” Jackson said. “Bismarck residents don’t want their water threatened, so why is it okay for North Dakota to react with guns and tanks when Native Americans ask for the same right?”
Full story at ICTMN. Related news:
Mark Ruffalo in Standing Rock; Leo DiCaprio, Jesse Jackson Head to Standing Rock.
Fighting for Our Lives: #NoDAPL in Historical Context.
DAPL: Former Vice President Al Gore Supports the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
This is starting to get so big. All I can think about with the sheriff and governor is, what a bunch of thugs.
But I just heard the sheriff on NPR this morning stating that he is doing everything possible to deescalate an find a peaceful solution. And he’s a white man, so he would NEVER lie.*
* Unless fill in the blank with every excuse that has been used by the government or private citizens, in which case the NDNs get screwed. Again.
Ogvorbis:
Kirchmeier? :snort: Unfuckingbelievable that he’s trying to sell that shit, I hadn’t heard. No, no, that’s not what he’s doing, it’s not what he has ever done. He’s the asshole who ran to the media screaming “pipe bombs” over ceremonial pipes, and it’s gone downhill from there. Kirchmeier wants to play genocide general. Marty Two Bulls pegged him perfectly.
Caine:
It sounded like bullshit when he said it on NPR. But at least NPR is covering it and this is starting to go national. Of course, the only reason NPR was covering it was Jesse Jackson was there.
Getting big is a good thing, I think. More celebrities, more celebrity power, please! I would love to see The Rock at Standing Rock (no specific reason, I just have a thing for him).
Love the photo of Rev. Jesse Jackson on a horse.
Yeah, but it won’t be the militarized cops who start anything, they’re just there to be peaceful, it’ll all be that rabble of a protesting gang. Cna’t trust those folks to keep the peace, and anyway, that feather looked a lot like a gun!
I guess events just finally adhered to their definition of ‘newsworthy’?
The reading on Indian Country Today is informative, but extremely depressing. There might be a glimmer of hope somewhere, but I do not dare to hope. The racism against Indians seems to be too systematicaly entrenched in how USA functions.
My love and support to you.
As sad as it sounds: I hope there will always be big enough names that they don’t dare to fuck with them.