TRIBAL GATHERING FACES AGGRESSIVE STATE REPRESSION AND MEDIA MANIPULATION

This press release was sent out by Indigenous Environmental Network, P.O. Box 485, Bemidji, MN 56619, http://www.ienearth.org/

(The anti-nuclear movement, including Beyond Nuclear, has long stood in solidarity with Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) and Honor the Earth. This has included united stands in opposition to dirty, dangerous, and expensive energy industries -- both fossil fuel and nuclear industries. Re: anti-nuclear solidarity, this has extended across the uranium fuel chain, from mining and milling, all the way to radioactive waste disposal (see Skull Valley Goshutes and related info., and see Western Shoshone and related info., posted at the NIRS website; also see Beyond Nuclear's Native America, Yucca Mountain, and additional, related website sub-sections), all of which is disproportionately targeted at Native American lands, an environmental injustice, amounting to radioactive racism. Please support these groups in their time of crisis and need, as described below.)

For Immediate Release: August 23, 2016

Contact:

LaDonna Allard (CSS), ladonnabrave1@aol.com, (701) 426-2064

Dallas Goldtooth (IEN), dallas@ienearth.org, (507) 412-7609

Tara Houska (HTE), tara@honorearth.org, (612) 226-9404

The historic gathering of tribes from across the continent in opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline continues in the face of aggressive state repression and media manipulation.  Last Friday, Governor Dalrymple declared a State of Emergency in order to make additional state resources available to “manage public safety risks associated with the protest.”  Dalrymple has complained of “outside agitators” responsible for “hundreds of criminal acts,” and called on federal officials to help.  But LaDonna Allard, Director of the Camp of the Sacred Stone, says, “The gathering here remains 100% peaceful and ceremonial, as it has from day one.  We are standing together in prayer.  No firearms or weapons are allowed.  Why is a gathering of Indians so inherently threatening and frightening to some people?”

On Monday, August 22, the Morton County Board also declared a State of Emergency in order to access the funds released by the Governor - to request overtime wages, extra equipment, and money to reimburse other law enforcement agencies sending resources.  This decision relies on a false narrative of violence put forth by Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, who last week announced outrageous, unsubstantiated claims of “pipe bombs” and gun violence at the protest site.  Dallas Goldtooth, Keep It In The Ground Campaign Organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network says, “These are dangerous statements by Sheriff Kirchmeier and only foster greater resentment between local native and non-native residents. Furthermore, we have women, children and elders in our camp; and because of the Sheriff’s false narrative those families now have to fear for their own safety. ”

Meanwhile, the main road accessing the camp, Highway 1806, has been shut down by authorities since Friday.  A military-style checkpoint is established at Fort Lincoln, where motorists are constantly surveilled with cameras and interrogated about their activities.   Identities are recorded and anyone suspected of traveling to the protest site is turned away and forced to travel a long detour. These checkpoints violate constitutional protections and international law by restricting freedom of movement without justification.  They further isolate a people who are already extremely geographically and politically isolated.  At the same time, police presence has been amplified on the reservation and many have been racially profiled and harassed for no reason. 

On Monday, North Dakota’s Homeland Security Director ordered the removal of state-owned medical trailers and water tanks from the camp, citing reports of unlawful activity and fears that the equipment is unsafe.  Tara Houska, National Campaigns Director for Honor the Earth, says, “It is deeply ironic that the Governor would release emergency funds under the guise of public health and safety, but then remove the infrastructure that helps ensure health and safety in the camp.  This is nothing but repression of our growing movement to protect our water and future generations.”
 
The North Dakota Highway Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation also announced they are investigating two incidents of “laser strikes” aimed at surveillance aircraft patrolling above the camp.   “Why launch a federal investigation into a laser pointer instead of asking what right the US government has to fly surveillance planes over sovereign nations in the first place?” said Houska.  
 
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Update on August 24, 2016 by admin

The New York Times has reported on this story.

As the Bismarck Tribune had previously reported, the protest encampment is spiritual, prayerful, and peaceful in nature.

Bill McKibben in Grist: After 525 years, it’s time to actually listen to Native Americans

Joe CatronBill McKibben, Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College in Vermont, a founder of 350.org (which co-sponsored a rally at the U.S. District Courthouse in Washington, D.C. held in solidarity with the indigenous resistance against DAPL, the Dakota Access Pipeline), and a member of Grist’s board of directors, has published an article at Grist, which begins:

The center of the fight for our planet’s future shifts. But this week it’s on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation straddling the border between North Dakota and South Dakota. There, tribal members have been, well, standing like a rock in the way of the planned Dakota Access Pipeline, a huge hose for collecting oil out of the Bakken shale and carrying it off to the Midwest and the Gulf where it can be made into gasoline.

The standoff has been picturesque and dramatic, featuring American Indians on horseback. But mostly it’s been brave and lonely, far from most journalists and up against the same forces that have made life hard for Indigenous Peoples for centuries.

The U.S. Army, for instance. It’s the Army Corps of Engineers that last month granted Energy Transfer Corporation the permit necessary to start construction near the reservation, despite a petition signed by 150,000 people, and carried—on foot—by young people from the reservation all the way to Washington. That would be the same U.S. Army that—well, google “Wounded Knee.” Or “Custer.” “Washita River.” “Pine Ridge.” More.

(The Bismarck Tribune's coverage has pointed out:

In a situation of historical irony, after the work shutdown, law enforcement pulled back from the protest site on Highway 1806 to a communication command center at Fort Lincoln State Park. The park preserves the fort from which the cavalry and Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer left to never return after a fatal battle against the Sioux. A replica of Custer’s captured flag was flying among others representing some of the 25 to 30 estimated tribes that have arrived to support Standing Rock since the protest started last week.)

Native American Pipeline Protest Halts Construction in N. Dakota

Native American protesters succeeded in halting construction of the Dakota Access pipeline near Cannon Ball, N.D. Credit: Courtesy of Montgomery BrownPhil McKenna has published an article in Inside Climate News (the publication won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, for its series on the tar sands crude oil spill in the Kalamazoo River) describing the mounting Native American protests against the so-called Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's ancestral lands along the Missouri River in North Dakota. The article begins:

A groundswell of Native American activists has temporarily shut down construction on a major new oil pipeline with an ongoing protest that has drawn around 1,200 people to Cannon Ball, N.D.

Construction workers walked away from their bulldozers Monday after protesters surrounded the equipment and called for an end to construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. A group of protesters on horseback also staged a mock charge toward a line of law enforcement officials guarding the site, and the county sheriff alleged others have fired guns and set off pipe bombs.

The $3.8 billion pipeline at the heart of the protest would carry about half a million barrels of crude oil per day from the Bakken oil field to Illinois where it would link with other pipelines to transport the oil to Gulf Coast refineries and terminals.

The protest was staged at a spot where the pipeline would pass beneath the Missouri River, just upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, a community of 8,500 along the Missouri River in North and South Dakota.

More.