Today's Midwest Energy News headlines/links re: DAPL resistance

PIPELINES:
• Dakota Access pipeline protesters set up a new camp on private property they say belongs to Native Americans under a more than century-old treaty, moving into the project’s direct path for the first time. Local officials say they won’t be immediately removed due to a lack of manpower. (Associated Press)
• Police departments in Wisconsin, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, Indiana and Nebraska are sending in extra officers to help manage Dakota Access protests. (Associated Press)

Clinton’s Troubling Silence on the Dakota Access Pipeline

Oscar Ortega has published an article at Counterpunch.

New Encampment in Pipeline Path and 2 Blockades Established on Unceded Territory

Press release, as posted at Honor the Earth's website:

For Immediate Release:  October 23, 2016

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

Dallas Goldtooth (IEN), dallas@ienearth.org, 708-515-6158

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

Cody Hall (RWC), cody.hall.605@gmail.com, (605) 220-2531

Cannon Ball, ND - This morning, at approximately 8am central, water protectors took back unceded territory affirmed in the 1851 Treaty of Ft. Laramie as sovereign land under the control of the Oceti Sakowin, erecting a frontline camp of several structures and tipis on Dakota Access property, just east of ND state highway 1806. This new established camp is 2.5 miles north of the Cannon Ball River, directly on the proposed path of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). This site is directly across the road from where DAPL security dogs attacked water protectors on September 3rd.  

To ensure the protection of this new camp from overtly militarized law enforcement, water protectors have established two road blockades.  One north of the Frontline Camp, on Highway 1806, and another immediately west of Highway 1806, on county road 134.  

Police have discharged weapons, using rubber bullets to shoot down drones being used to document the police activity and actions.  

This frontline camp is located on the final three 3 miles of the proposed pipeline route, before it connects with the drill pad that will take the pipeline beneath the Missouri River. Active construction of the Dakota Access pipeline is 2 miles west of this frontline camp. Oceti Sakowin water protectors continue an on-going pledge to halt active construction as frequently as possible. 

Mekasi Camp-Horinek, an Oceti Sakowin camp coordinator states, “Today, the Oceti Sakowin has enacted eminent domain on DAPL lands, claiming 1851 treaty rights. This is unceded land. Highway 1806 as of this point is blockaded. We will be occupying this land and staying here until this pipeline is permanently stopped. We need bodies and we need people who are trained in non-violent direct action.  We are still staying non-violent and we are still staying peaceful.”

Joye Braun, Indigenous Environmental Network organizer states, “We have never ceded this land. If DAPL can go through and claim eminent domain on landowners and Native peoples on their own land, then we as sovereign nations can then declare eminent domain on our own aboriginal homeland. We are here to protect the burial sites here. Highway 1806 has become the no surrender line.”

Ladonna Bravebull Allard, Sacred Stone Camp, “We stand for the water, we stand on our treaties, we stand for unci maka- we stand and face the storm.”

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Beyond the Spectacle of the Dakota Access Protest, Native Americans Find Hope in Their Common Mission

As reported by Inside Climate News.

The Standing Rock fight is for all of us

Freedom Socialist ran this editorial in its Oct.-Nov. 2016 (Vol. 37, No. 5) edition:

When a security company set dogs on people challenging bulldozers in North Dakota on Sept. 3, the scalding images recalled similar violence against civil rights protesters in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963. And just as that Birmingham struggle was a defining moment, so too is the struggle for water and sovereignty by the Standing Rock Sioux and thousands of supporters, including nearly 300 Indian nations.

The Dakota Access Pipeline is a project of Energy Transfer Partners that would bring fracked crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois. It is disrupting sacred sites and would run under the main source of water for the Sioux. Of course, the corporation claims there is no danger — but another route was nixed because of concerns that a leak might pollute the water supply of the state capital.

This battle is bound up inseparably with the emergency need to end dependence on fossil fuels. The Standing Rock Sioux are in the vanguard of the fight for a planet that is livable for humanity and sustainable for generations to come — just as Native peoples have been historically.

Read a solidarity statement by the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women here and visit standingrock.org, rezpectourwater.com, and nodaplsolidarity.org for ways to support this crucial struggle.

To listen to this and other articles from this issue, click here.