From Keystone XL Pipeline to #DAPL: Jasilyn Charger, Water Protector from Cheyenne River Reservation
AMY GOODMAN: Jasilyn, what was it like to grow up on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota?
JASILYN CHARGER: It wasn’t easy, especially for youth. It’s more about survival. And yeah, we go through all this poverty. We have suicides. We have infestation of meth, of alcoholism. But, for us, we are what grows after that. We are the life that grows after that nuke bomb exploded in the heart of our nation. We’re—we carry that within us, but it doesn’t define who we are. We really fight. We really say, yeah, all this bad stuff’s going on around us, but we don’t want that. We don’t want to hurt anymore. We don’t want to kill ourselves. We don’t want to make ourselves sick anymore. What we want is a better future for ourselves. The pain that we go through on the reservation, we don’t want our children to go through that pain, because that pain is hereditary. It passes—we pass it down to our children and so on and so forth. (emphasis added)
Watch the entire 33 minute interview.
(Democracy Now! has been doing regular reports on the Dakota Acess Pipeline water protector resistance for months. See links to its regular updates on its website, many of which are also reproduced daily, story by story, below in Beyond Nuclear's Human Rights website section.)
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Jasilyn Charger mentioned the case of Native American political prisoner Leonard Peliter. Democracy Now! reported this related news headline:
Leonard Peltier Prosecutor Joins Call for Obama to Grant Clemency:
Supporters of Leonard Peltier got a major boost this week in their campaign to win clemency for the 71-year-old Native American activist. U.S. Attorney James Reynolds, whose office prosecuted Peltier, added his voice to those calling on President Obama for a compassionate release. Speaking to The Guardian, Reynolds said, "There seems to be no point in taxpayers paying his room and board. It’s time to call it quits." Peltier is a former member of the American Indian Movement who was convicted of killing two FBI agents during a shootout on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. He has long maintained his innocence.
Democracy Now! also reported this related story: "American University Removes Leonard Peltier Statue After FBI Letter Amid Urgent Push for Clemency."