“The Court also recognizes that numerous troublesome “peaceful protestors” are from out-of-state who have political interests in the pipeline protest and hidden agendas vastly different and far removed from the legitimate interests of Native Americans of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe who are actually impacted by the pipeline project”. However, Dakota Access has continued construction.
Advertisement
While this is a real victory, the ruling class’ intention is not to halt the pipeline, but to halt the convergence of people and to halt this protest against corporate America’s destruction of lives and the planet in its greed for profit. Almost 40 have been arrested as the protest has grown in size, including Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman David Archambault II. Native Americans were shocked when they went to plant their tribal flags at the construction site and found the bulldozers working over the weekend. Still, he said, the tribe hadn’t shown the pipeline work would likely cause damage. Construction and nonviolent blockades continue along nonfederal lands, despite the government’s request that Dakota Access halt construction voluntarily.
The 1,172-mile project will carry almost a half-million barrels of oil daily from North Dakota’s oil fields.
The next day, more than 500 people marched back to the site and held a prayer, mourning the destruction of their ancestors’ graves.
The pipeline company says it’s committed to finishing the project. “The pipeline guy came to my brother’s door and said, ‘yeah we’re going to cut through the corner of your farm, sign here, ‘ we had thought about it and thought about it, and we said no”.
What’s behind the opposition to the pipeline, and what makes it spiritual?
For two days the paddlers traveled 40 miles on the Missouri before landing at Standing Rock. The company has a history of major problems with its lines, responsible for more than 800 spills since 1999, including the largest inland oil pipeline spill in USA history – the 2010 Kalamazoo River disaster. Josef Hartzel, a senior biochemistry major at UWSP, says it short and sweet: “We should care because we have some of the freshest water in the USA and a pipeline would destroy our water quality”. They were met with pepper spray and guard dogs. Maybe not on you, but our children and our grandchildren, they will suffer more than we do.
“I think what is happening is tribes in the USA and Canada and elsewhere are saying enough is enough, and it is coalescing around this fossil-fuel infrastructure”, Hasselman said. “We are going to beat this”. Fifteen minutes later, in an unprecedented move, the departments of Justice, the Interior and the Army issued a joint letter announcing that permission to build the pipeline on land controlled by the Army Corps of Engineers would be denied until after “formal, government-to-government consultations” with impacted tribes about “the protection of tribal lands, resources and treaty rights”. At the pipeline site in North Dakota, a number of people have locked themselves to heavy machinery in civil disobedience. The crowd at the so-called spirit camp is estimated in the thousands.
For the “PBS NewsHour”, I’m William Brangham near the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota.
Advertisement
The image of Native Americans being attacked as they try to protect sacred land shocked many, among them commentator Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC whose condemnation of their treatment on August 26 has been widely shared: “Dakota means friend, friendly”, he begins.
