A video report from Democracy Now! shows a group of persons trying to disperse the crowd with dogs and pepper spray.
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She wrote, “I approved this message”, on the blade of a bulldozer.
The $7.9 billion pipeline meant to export Albertan petroleum to the west coast had first been authorized by the Conservative government, despite the strong opposition of the native communities near its trajectory. Officials say two protesters were secured to heavy equipment.
According to the Chairman of the Sioux Tribe of Standing Rock, Dave Archambault II, the pipeline threatens the lives of the people on the reserve and of the millions of people living downstream on the Missouri River, as well as ancestral Sioux sites.
The battle over the Dakota Access Pipeline has intensified, with heated protests and an attempt for an emergency halt in construction. Standing Rock is part of a reservation, so for tribe members to be arrested on site is particularly heinous.
The DAPL issue is being reviewed in the Washington D.C. court system, one of citied violations include, the Fort Larmie Treaty of 1868 which guarantees the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe shall enjoy the “undisturbed use and occupation of our permanent homeland, the Standing Rock Indian Reservation”.
Jan Hasselman, attorney for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, says that the choice to come over Labor Day weekend and destroy the burial site was deliberate: “We’re days away from getting a resolution on the legal issues, and they came in on a holiday weekend and destroyed the site.What they have done is absolutely outrageous”. The tribes filed a motion this past weekend to temporarily halt construction.
Hasselman said Tuesday that the tribe was “disappointed that some of the important sacred sites that we had found and provided evidence for will not be protected”. This pipeline would travel through the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s ancestral lands and pass within a half a mile of its current reservation.
“EEP has completed a review of Sandpiper and concluded that the project should be delayed until such time as crude oil production in North Dakota recovers sufficiently to support development of new pipeline capacity”, an EEP spokesperson said.
A spokeswoman for Stein said Tuesday that activists invited her to leave a message at the protest site.
Attorneys for Energy Transfer Partners filed court documents Tuesday morning denying that workers have destroyed any cultural sites. Assembly of First Nations (AFN) Manitoba Regional Chief Kevin Hart, Co-Chair of the Climate Change and Environment Chiefs Committee and AFN portfolio holder for alternative/green energy, joined global human rights experts and Indigenous leaders today to speak out against the lack of meaningful consultation with Indigenous communities prior to this pipeline’s development.
“The Corps acknowledges that the public interest would be served by preserving peace near Lake Oahe until the Court can render its well-considered opinion on Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction”, the Corps said.
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The Army Corps of Engineers won’t oppose the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s request for a temporary work stoppage on part of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
