News aus Standing Rock – No Dakota Access Oil Pipeline
Unter diesem Menuepunkt speichern wir diverse News und Berichte zu den Protesten gegen die DAPL und zur militärischen Aufrüstung der Staats- und Kapitalaggressoren. Wir starten demnächst eine online-petition zwecks Solidarität mit den AktivistInnen in Nord Dakota. Außerdem sammeln wir Spenden für die protectors of water and sacred sites. Ihr könnt eure Spenden uns mit dem Verwendungszweckwort “Standing Rock” überweisen. Wir eruieren zur Zeit, wie und wohin die Spenden dann so transferiert werden, dass sie auch wirksam eingesetzt werden.
online gestellt 3.12.2016
CNN -News: Hier ein CNN-Beitrag. Über die Polizeigewalt war bei CNN nichts zu hören. Sie schwiegen zu den Vorkommnissen und springen nun auf den rollenden Medienzug. Aber last not least bleibt CNN staatstragend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFW3k9R9_xU&app=desktop
online gestellt 1.12.2016
…und hier ein Bericht von Dorothea Hahn (TAZ) 1.12.2016
Protest gegen Pipelinebau in North Dakota
Gekommen, um zu bleiben
Die Camps des Pipeline-Protests sollen geräumt werden, fordert North Dakotas Gouverneur. Die Demonstranten denken gar nicht daran.
Es ist kalt. Doch das soll kein Grund für das Ende des gewaltfreien Widerstands sein Foto: reuters
NEW YORK taz | Die Begründung für die Räumungsanordnung klingt geradezu fürsorglich. Wegen der Gesundheitsgefahren im eisigen Winter von North Dakota soll das Oceti Sakowin Camp am Cannonball River bis spätestens 5. Dezember verlassen sein, erklärt der republikanische Gouverneur Jack Dalrymple.
Doch die Tausende indigenen US-Amerikaner, die gegen die Pipeline protestieren, die quer durch Bestattungsstätten ihrer Vorfahren führt, die ihre Wasserversorgung bedroht und die – einmal mehr – ihre Ansprüche aus Verträgen über ihre territorialen Rechte verletzt, lassen sich nicht einschüchtern. Sie bleiben in den Tipis und Jurten und auf dem verschneiten Land, beten und demonstrieren.
Am Wochenende erwarten sie weitere Verstärkung. Dann wollen Veteranen aus den Kriegen im Irak und in Afghanistan nach North Dakota kommen, um mit den Sioux für ihre Rechte zu kämpfen.
Die Lage im „Herzland“ der USA hat sich seit September weiter zugespitzt. Die Proteste gegen die Dakota Access Pipeline hatten im April begonnen. Junge Angehörige des Sioux-Stammes von dem unmittelbar benachbarten Standing-Rock-Reservat gaben das Startsignal, als sie verlangten, die Route der Pipeline, die Öl aus den Tausenden von Frackingbohrstellen in North Dakota nach Illinois transportieren soll, zu verlegen. Bismarck, die Hauptstadt von North Dakota, hatte die Pipeline als zu gefährlich abgelehnt. Daraufhin war die Route an den Rand des Reservats verlegt worden.
Angehörige von mehr als 300 Stämmen
Anders als bei früheren indigenen Protesten folgten Angehörige von mehr als 300 Stämmen dem Aufruf. Sie richteten Protestlager ein, legten Straßen und Schulen an und machten das gebiet am Cannonball River zum Ort der größten indigenen Bewegung in den USA seit Jahrzehnten. Gegenwärtig halten sich mehrere Tausend Menschen dauerhaft in den Camps auf.
Tausende weitere – darunter Priester und Rabbiner, aber auch schwarze Bürgerrechtler und Delegierte aus ganz Lateinamerika – haben sie mit Besuchen unterstützt. Während kleinere Gruppen Baugeräte lahmlegten, setzten die Sprecher der Bewegung von vornherein auf unbewaffneten und gewaltfreien Widerstand.
Der fürsorglich klingende Gouverneur Dalrymple beantwortete die Proteste mit der Polizei. Er schickte gepanzerte Fahrzeuge. Immer wieder haben seine Polizisten Granaten, chemisches Gas und Knüppel eingesetzt. Am zurückliegenden Wochenende traktierten sie bei Temperaturen von weit unter null Grad Hunderte Demonstranten mit Wasserwerfern.
Parallel zu der körperlichen Repression überziehen die Behörden die Demonstranten mit einer Welle von Klagen. Diese reichen vom Vorwurf von „Hausfriedensbruch“ bis zu angeblichem Aufstand. Hunderte wurden festgenommen, mussten erniedrigende Ganzkörperdurchsuchungen über sich ergehen lassen und orangefarbene Overalls tragen. Während die großen US-Medien den Konflikt lange ignorierten, landeten auch mehrere Journalisten von engagierten linken Medien in North Dakota vor Gericht.
Obama schweigt
Außer am Rand des Reservats ist die 1.200 Meilen lange Pipeline für 3,7 Milliarden Dollar Baukosten fast fertig. Nach Auskunft der Betreiber könnte sie Ende des Jahres in Betrieb gehen. Bislang hoffen die Demonstranten vergeblich auf ein Machtwort aus dem Weißen Haus. Der scheidende Präsident Barack Obama hat zwar die umstrittene Keystone XL Pipeline gestoppt, das Pariser Klimaabkommen unterzeichnet und versprochen, er werde die Souveränität der Stämme verteidigen.
Doch zur Dakota Access Pipeline schweigt Obama weitgehend. Er könnte sie mit seiner Unterschrift streichen. Das würde zwar seinen Nachfolger im Weißen Haus nicht daran hindern, die Entscheidung rückgängig zu machen, hätte jedoch symbolischen Wert.
Der Multimilliardär Trump war selbst Anteilseigner der Betreibergesellschaft Energy Transfer Partners – noch 2015 hielt er Anteile im Wert von 0,5 bis 1 Million Dollar –, und er hat gesagt: „Ich will die Pipeline, und ich will davon profitieren.“
online gestellt 1.12.2016
und hier ein Beitrag des Deutschlandfunks vom 30.11.2016.Den Link zum eigentlichen Radiobeitrag findet ihr auf der Startseite.
Indianer-Proteste gegen PipelineDie Zeit wird knapp
Es ist das größte Protestcamp der indianischen Bevölkerung in den letzten hundert Jahren: Um eine Pipeline in North-Dakota zu verhindern, harren die Standing Rock Sioux und andere Stämme seit Monaten aus. Sie fürchten, dass ein Leck der Pipeline ihre Lebensgrundlage zerstören könnte. Doch es geht um mehr als Öl.
- Protest gegen den Bau einer Erdölpipeline in North Dakota: Aktivisten und Bewohner des Sioux-Reservats fürchten um ihr Trinkwasser (Imago)
Europäische Invasion in Nordamerika Sichtbare Narben im Immunsystem der Ureinwohner
Ureinwohner Beseitigung eines skandalösen Unrechts
Besiedelung Amerikas Ureinwohner haben Verwandte in Westsibirien
Christliche Mission in den USA Wie die “Indianer” zu Amerikanern gemacht wurden
Massaker vor 125 Jahren 300 tote Indianer am Wounded Knee
USA 90 Jahre Bürgerrechte für Indianer
Plötzlich eskalierte der Protest: Bei Temperaturen um den Gefrierpunkt und scharfem Wind setzten die Sicherheitskräfte Tränengas und Wasserwerfer ein, um die Demonstranten auseinander zu treiben.
Am Ende zählte man 150 Verletzte – 17 von ihnen mussten in Krankenhäusern versorgt werden. Doch die Demonstranten wichen nicht. Sie harren seit Monaten an der Mündung des Cannonball Rivers in den Missouri aus. Ihr Camp ist mittlerweile zur größten Versammlungsstätte der indianischen Bevölkerung in den letzten hundert Jahren angewachsen – zu den Standing Rock Sioux haben sich Indianer vom Stamm der Arikara, der Mandan und der Cheyenne gesellt und viele Aktivisten aus dem ganzen Land. Sie kämpfen hier gegen den letzten Abschnitt der 1.885 Kilometer langen Dakota Access Pipeline, die künftig Rohöl aus North Dakota nach Illinois pumpen soll.
Diese Pipeline verläuft zwar nur am Rand des Indianer-Reservats der Standing Rock Sioux und sie soll unter dem Fluss und unter dem angrenzenden See durchgeführt werden. Doch die Indianer fürchten um ihre Wasserreservoirs, von denen sie in der Prärie abhängig seien. Ein Leck an der Pipeline, ein Unfall, ein Anschlag könnte ihr Trinkwasser vergiften und ihre Lebensgrundlage zerstören. Die Betreiberfirma hält dagegen: Die Pipeline sei viel sicherer als die vielen Tanklastzüge, die jetzt unterwegs seien. Dennoch sagt Jeff Chavis vom Stamm der Pee Dee: “Wir bleiben, bis sie die Pipeline stoppen.” Und sie sollen ihre Maschinen und ihre Leute gleich mitnehmen. Hier gibt es nichts zu verhandeln.
Die letzte Ruhestätte der Verstorbenen darf nicht gestört werden
Es geht jedoch um mehr als um Öl und um Geld und billige Transportwege. Es geht den Indianern um ihr Land, das ihnen heilig ist und das sie nicht wirtschaftlichen Interessen opfern wollen. Unweit des Flusses richteten die Soldaten unter General Alfred Sully am 2. September 1863 ein Blutbad an, das als “Whitehall-Massaker” in die amerikanische Geschichte einging und unter den Indianern Hunderte von Todesopfern forderte. Viele von ihnen fanden hier ihre letzte Ruhestätte, die nach indianischem Ritus nicht gestört werden darf. Deshalb sagt James Smith von den Cheyenne: “Das ist für uns Ureinwohner einfach nur schmerzlich.”
Die Proteste werden von dem Versuch begleitet, das letzte Teilstück dieser Ölpipeline noch auf juristischem Wege zu verhindern. Immerhin gelang es, das Pipeline-Unternehmen Energy Transfer Partners darauf zu verpflichten, vor Erteilung der Baugenehmigung noch weitere Gutachten einzuholen. Firmenchef Kelly Warren will sich aber unter keinen Umständen darauf einlassen, die Pipeline zu verlegen und dem Streit damit ein Ende zu machen, wie Präsident Obama das vorgeschlagen hatte.
Unterdessen stehen die Zeichen eher auf Eskalation: Anfang der Woche setzte das US-Army Corps of Engineers, das das Land offiziell verwaltet, den Indianern und Demonstranten eine Frist bis zum 5. Dezember: Bis dahin müssen sie das Areal geräumt haben. Auch der Gouverneur von North Dakota kündigte die Evakuierung des Camps an. Die Begründung: Es seien in den nächsten Tagen schwere Schneestürme zu erwarten, denen sich niemand ungeschützt aussetzen könne. Für Dave Archambault macht das die Lage nur noch dramatischer. Er ist der Stammesführer der Standing Rock Sioux.
Archambault setzt unterdessen auf Präsident Obama, der sich in einem Interview dafür ausgesprochen hatte, die Rechte der indigenen Bevölkerung auf ihr geheiligtes Land zu achten.
Viel Zeit bleibt nicht mehr. Am 20. Januar tritt Donald Trump die Nachfolge von Barack Obama an. Trump ist an dem Pipeline-Unternehmen Energy Transfer Partners finanziell beteiligt.
online gestellt 1.12.2016
Pipeline protesters dig in,
despite bitter cold and orders to leave
Blockade
online gestellt 30.11.2016
How Indigenous Activists in Norway Got the First Bank to Pull Out of the Dakota Access Pipeline
Monday, 28 November 2016 00:00 By Alexis Bonogofsky, Truthout |
Sámi artist Sara Marielle Guap Baeska holds the Sámi flag with other Sámi activists and Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault. (Photo: Jeff Schad Imagery)
On November 8, 2016, Beaska Niillas, chairman of the Norwegian Sámi Association (NSA) walked into a conference room in Oslo, Norway, with his wife, Sara Marielle Gaup Beaska, who had spent time in Standing Rock. Both are members of the Sámi Parliament and Beaska is a member of the Norwegian Society for the Conservation of Nature. Niillas and Beaska flew over 1,000 miles from their home in Finmark, the homelands of the Indigenous Sámi people and the most northern province of Norway located above the Artic circle.
Niillas set up a meeting with executives at DNB, Norway’s largest bank, to demand that they withdraw their investment in the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL).
“It is natural that we would try to help Standing Rock. It is easy for Indigenous people around the world to recognize the struggle. We see what they are going through and we feel it. There is no them, only us,” Niillas said in a Skype interview with Truthout.
In his hands was a 20-page report documenting the human rights abuses that members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and their allies have experienced at the hands of the state of North Dakota and Dakota Access LLC’s private security firm. Thousands have gathered to assist the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in protecting the area from the construction of the $3.7 billion project that would transport crude oil from the Bakken oil field in North Dakota to a refinery to near Chicago.
The story of how the Sámi received that report illustrates how international networks of Indigenous people are challenging the power structure behind the oppression of Indigenous people all around the world, Niillas said.
Baeska Niillas (left) at a solidarity event for the Standing Rock Tribe in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: Audrey Siegl)
DNB, a direct investor and loan provider to the Dakota Access pipeline, loaned $120 million to the Bakken pipeline project and extended $460 million in credit lines to companies with ownership stakes, specifically Energy Transfer Partners, Sunoco Logistics, Phillips 66 and Marathon.
“I went to that meeting knowing that to succeed, we needed independent documentation of the human rights abuses,” Niillas said. “We needed something to convince the bank that the abuses weren’t just found on social media. Five hours before the meeting, I had the report I needed in my hands.”
That report came to Niillas unexpectedly from law school graduate Michelle Cook, who had worked at the Standing Rock camp to develop a legal infrastructure to support the tribe and its allies.
“There [were] four people, big shots in a big company,” Niillas said. “None of us knew what to expect. They seemed confident at the start and then uncomfortable as we started talking about what was happening at Standing Rock. By the end, I could see they realized the severity of the situation that they were in.”
Shortly after that meeting, on November 17, 2016, DNB sold off $3 million in assets. Although the bank is still responsible for offering the pipeline companies hundreds of millions of dollars in credit — about 10 percent of the credit needed for the project — Sámi activists are confident this is just the start of complete divestment of Nordic countries from the pipeline, and they recently scored yet another victory: On November 24, Odin Fund Management, a major fund manager in Norway, also announced that it sold $23.8 million worth of shares that were invested in the companies that are part of the Dakota Access pipeline.
The One Who Walks Around You
Four thousand miles away and one week prior to meeting with DNB, Cook was unaware of what Sámi activists were planning in Norway. A member of the Navajo Nation, an attorney, a trained human rights observer and a member of the Water Protector Legal Collective, she had to leave her legal post at the Standing Rock camp to take care of her mother who recently had a stroke.
Cook is part of the Honághááhnii Clan of the Navajo nation, which translates into the “One Who Walks Around You.” She needed to be with her mother but wished she could do something more to support the other Water Protectors while away from camp. Nearly a month before the latest brutal attack by police against unarmed people in Standing Rock on November 20, she’d felt helpless as she watched from afar on October 27 as 200 police in riot gear used pepper spray, armored vehicles, rubber bullets, stun guns and beanbag rounds to try to move people from the path of the pipeline.
Tanks and police in North Dakota at the Standing Rock Water Protectors camp. (Photo: Pat Clayton)
“All I could do at that moment was pray for Standing Rock,” Cook told Truthout. “I prayed for something I could do from where I was. I got a call from the Netherlands. A guy had found me and was asking for hard evidence of human rights abuses to start taking to banks. I had prayed out of desperation for something I could do. The Creator answered my prayer.”
Cook immediately called her team at the Water Protector Legal Collective and began working on a detailed report documenting the human rights abuses that she and others from the group had witnessed in North Dakota, including every verifiable violation from other legal observers and attorneys at camp.
“I told my friends, ‘I promise you, even if I am not there with you, we are going to come for them, and come for the people that are doing this. I will find a way to give these people a devastating blow. And if there is a way I can do it financially, than that is what I’ll do,'” Cook said.
Cook sees her report as a way to let members of the banking community know what they are supporting.
“It is a cry of desperation for the banks to pull out and divest before this results in the loss of life,” Cook said. “I do not want to have another Indian massacre in the US; I don’t want to watch people be massacred. We are trying to tell these bankers, you have to stop before this gets to a point where you can’t return from. They need to understand that is how bad it is. It is life and death right now. They have the power right now to choose life. I want them to understand the weight and consequences of their decisions. Either our people will be safe and live, or someone will die. They can prevent that.”
The Power of Transnational Indigenous Solidarity
As thousands gathered at Standing Rock in the late summer, Ellen Marie Jensen, a Sámi-American whose father emigrated from Finmark to the United States in 1965, was attending university in Tromsø, Norway, studying for her Ph.D. She had been active in Native American sovereignty rights issues for years back in Minnesota when she lived there.
“Norwegian and Sámi people settled in North Dakota and settled the lands that the [Sioux] people were removed from,” Jensen told Truthout. “We have a responsibility to help them. My people know their struggle. I am in Norway and can’t fight on the front lines, but I need to do everything I can from here.”
Jensen and many others began to organize protests at DNB bank locations and solidarity events in Norway.
Sámi people in Tromsø, Norway hold a solidarity event on September 28, 2016. Ellen Jensen, a Sámi-American organizer, is holding the Solidarity sign on the left. (Photo: Øvind Ravna)
DNB began to feel pressure and released a statement in early November:
DNB is concerned about how the situation surrounding the oil pipeline in North Dakota has developed. The bank will therefore use its position as lender to the project to encourage a more constructive process to find solutions. We expect the companies and the responsible authorities to take a serious view of the situation.
Around that same time, back across the Atlantic, in the northern plains of Montana, Mike Scott, a coal organizer for the Sierra Club in the Powder River Basin, was also watching from afar — just as Cook, Jensen and Niillas had — as militarized police attacked people in North Dakota. Scott is of Sámi descent as well. His family emigrated from Norway and homesteaded in North Dakota in the early 20th century.
“I couldn’t leave my farm, but I needed to do something,” Scott told Truthout. “I thought, what can I do? I realized there were Norwegian money connections to the DAPL and I had community in Norway. That is where I could make a difference.”
Scott sent a message out to the Sámi-American Facebook group and forwarded the idea of organizing protests at Norwegian embassies in America. Jensen responded immediately and connected Scott with Niillas, whom she knew was meeting with DNB in the next couple of days.
A Sámi flag hangs on the left side of a gate in the path of the proposed DAPL pipeline in North Dakota along with the flags of other tribal nations supporting the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. (Photo: J Marcangela Niva Capecchi)
Niillas told Scott he needed an independent report documenting the human rights abuses happening at the camp. Scott called a friend who had been working with Cook at the Standing Rock camp with the legal team.
“Mike Scott called me and said they needed a factual, independent document detailing the human rights abuses for DNB. I couldn’t believe it. I had just finished it. I told him it’s done! It’s done!” Cook said.
Scott connected Niillas and Cook, and Niillas received the report just in time for his meeting. It documented not only the human rights violations but also the legal obligations of DNB. It also documented the international human rights laws that were being broken in North Dakota, while clearly laying out DNB’s role in the human rights violations occurring in North Dakota. The report stated:
Funding the Energy Transfer Partners affiliates and Dakota Access, thereby enabling construction of the Pipeline, implicates DNB in the ongoing violations of human rights occurring in North Dakota.
“I had only dreamed that we could get this type of documentation,” said Niillas.
Reflecting on the sequence of events that led up to the meeting in Oslo, Niillas said he believes in the power of connecting Indigenous peoples all over the globe.
“One mosquito will not bother a snake. But a thousand mosquitos will kill it,” Niillas said.
The collaboration across countries and continents ultimately achieved its goal: DNB divested from the Dakota Access pipeline.
The Sámi Parliament shows solidarity with Standing Rock. (Photo: Kenneth Hætta)
Getting Banks to Divest
Niillas, Cook, Jensen and Scott all believe that this first divestment is only the beginning of financial institutions pulling out of the pipeline project. They are planning to keep working together to keep the pressure on DNB and other Nordic banks that are invested in the pipeline and to force them to pull their lines of credit as well.
“When [the bank] divested, they committed themselves to a path. We will give them a little room to make the right decision and pull the credit line, but we will not back down,” Niillas said. Niillas and his wife will be traveling to Standing Rock on December 12.
Sámi artist Sara Marielle Guap Baeska joins the Standing Rock encampment with her sister. (Photo: Jodi Troute)
An international day of action is being planned for December 1. Sámi activists and their allies will hold events in the United States, Norway, Sweden and New Zealand both to celebrate DNB’s initial step and also to continue to pressure it and other Scandinavian banks to withdraw fully from the project. Scott, Jensen and Niillas are coordinating actions to target DNB directly.
“This isn’t just an issue in the US. There are a bunch of international banks invested in this thing, and they need to be held accountable for what they are doing,” Scott said. “What happened in Norway with DNB can provide a model for others. Whatever community you are in, there is power in it. We need to connect with each other.”
Jensen says the connections between people in the US with Sámi heritage and the Sámi in Norway allow for a powerful alliance that will continue to grow, supporting efforts in North Dakota and elsewhere.
“We have a profound obligation to fight with the Native Americans,” Jensen said. “The cross-Atlantic connections are being mobilized. The Nordic countries hate to look bad internationally. This is the result of dedicated work of the grassroots on the ground.”
Cook also sees this as a winning strategy and is hoping that activists, organizations and those that can’t be on the front lines will learn from what happened. Public pressure is important and sets the stage for divestment but, she says, banks have internal procedures, and legal documentation is necessary to get them to begin the process.
“They have to have hard evidence that will compel their own internal structures, their own internal policies to question and raise the suspicions enough so we can compel them to do an independent investigation. We need to provide the factual information that they need.”
Cook isn’t backing down, and she believes the work is even more important now, after watching Protectors get blasted with water in freezing temperatures this Sunday. One woman in Standing Rock was so severely injured by police that she may have to have her arm amputated.
“I want all of those bankers to know that we are going to come after you,” Cook said. “I will chase them to the ends of the Earth. We will hold them accountable. This is on them.”
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
Alexis Bonogofsky
Alexis Bonogofsky is a fourth generation Montanan, rancher and anti-coal organizer who was featured in the recent climate change documentary This Changes Everything. In 2014, she was awarded a Cultural Freedom Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation.
online gestellt 27.11.2016
he smiling evolvement of Pres. Obama’s for Native Americans: President Obama never stops caring and smiling
Smiling deployment of the military against Native Americans for the Dakota Access Pipeline
Pres. Obama’s smiling legacy for Native Americans: The Army Corps outlined its plans to remove Water Protectors from their frontline encampment areas on December 5th, and feed the federal prisons with more Native Americans, who try to resist the displacement of Native peoples … for Wall Street’s sake
The first sitting US President to set foot in Native American tribal land, Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, Jun 13, 2014
All favorite moments are underscored by President Obama’s undying faith and belief in that which unites us and makes us human.
President Obama never stops caring
https://theobamadiary.com/2014/12/23/2014-arapahos-most-memorable-moments/
US Army orders eviction of Dakota protesters’ camp, tribe says
Engineer corps says the main encampment must be cleared in nine days because of the onset of winter weather
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/26/us-army-orders-eviction-of-dakota-protesters-camp-tribe-says
Our President-to-Be Has Stock in the Dakota Access Pipeline
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/our_soon-to-be_president_has_stock_in_the_dakota_access_pipeline_20161125
#NoDAPL Eviction Announced: Will You Keep Fighting With Us?
As people from around the country continue to converge in Standing Rock, and less than a week after police blasted Water Protectors with water cannons in freezing temperatures while gassing them in a confined space, the Army Corps of Engineers has lived up to a long-held tradition of the United States government — the displacement of Native peoples. In a letter addressed to Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II, the Army Corps outlined its plans to remove Water Protectors from their frontline encampment areas on December 5. In what we can expect will be a violent spectacle, reminiscent of the violence we have already witnessed during this struggle, Indigenous people will once again be faced with forced relocation for the sake of white wealth. While the government has at times voiced sympathy for the Protectors, such actions are, of course, both historically consistent and arguably predictable, but that doesn’t dull the pain….
… But if either Obama or his friends believe he will not be tainted by the memory of their behavior in this matter, they are sorely mistaken. The pages of history are already being written, and everything that has happened, and everything that has yet to unfold, will be told and retold. We are not simply Protectors and warriors. We are storytellers, and we will not allow the indulgence of forgetting….
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38528-nodapl-eviction-announced-will-you-keep-fighting-with-us
Related Stories
Standing Rock Sioux Chairman: Dakota Access Pipeline “Is Threatening the Lives of My Tribe”
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! | Video Report
Standing Firm at Standing Rock: Why the Struggle Is Bigger Than One Pipeline
By Sarah Jaffe, Moyers & Company | Report
From the Sioux to the Sault: Standing Rock Spirit Spreads to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
By Brian Bienkowski, Environmental Health News | Report
Obama Plans to Evict Standing Rock Water Protectors from DAPL Protest Camp
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Obama-Plans-to-Evict-Standing-Rock-Water-Protectors-from-Camp-20161126-0011.html
From Standing Rock, Taking Things Back on ‘Thingstaken’
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/From-Standing-Rock-Taking-Things-Back-on-Thingstaken-20161124-0009.html
Pressure mounts on Obama to end Dakota pipeline standoff
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/dakota-access-pipeline-protest-costs-pressure-president-obama-standoff/
Father of Activist Injured at Standing Rock Calls on Obama to Stop Dakota Access Pipeline Drilling
https://www.democracynow.org/2016/11/23/father_of_activist_injured_at_standing
What Standing Rock Needs Obama to Do Quickly—Before Trump Takes Over
Trump will try to fast-track fossil fuel projects across the country. That makes the final months of President Obama’s term more important than ever.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/11/21/what-standing-rock-needs-obama-do-quickly-trump-takes-over
Standing Rock Member Reminds Barack Obama About Promise He Made When They Met
“You said, ‘Let’s not make this just a dream,’ and right now it kind of feels like it was a dream.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kendrick-eagle-standing-rock_us_5837379ee4b01ba68ac44e65
Leader of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Calls On Obama to Halt Pipeline After Violent Clash
http://abcnews.go.com/US/leader-standing-rock-sioux-tribe-calls-obama-halt/story?id=43690859
White House stays quiet after police confrontation at Standing Rock
http://grist.org/article/white-house-stays-quiet-after-police-confrontation-at-standing-rock/
President Obama: Declare a “Standing Rock” national monument to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline
Even though the Obama Administration put a temporary hold on construction on part of the Dakota Access pipeline, the company building it will be agitating heavily to continue construction when Donald Trump is president. That means the best shot we have at stopping the Dakota Access pipeline is through bold action by President Obama to declare a “Standing Rock” national monument.
To President Obama: The Dakota Access pipeline would carry some of the dirtiest oil on the planet across four states, putting at risk farms, native sacred places, critical water sources, and our fight against climate change. Tribal Nations including the Standing Rock Sioux have led the fight with farmers and activists to protect their land and water from the pipeline. But more action is needed, and soon.
The election of Donald Trump to be our next president means the stakes are higher than ever in our fight against climate change. In order to make sure we stop the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline,
we need you to declare a “Standing Rock” national monument.
https://go.ourrevolution.com/page/s/standing-rock-monument
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-declare-standing-rock-a-national-monument-to-stop-the-dakota-access-pipeline
Every Day Is Just Another Day
http://www.commondreams.org/further/2016/11/23/every-day-just-another-day
Day of Mourning Statement by Leonard Peltier: The Standing Rock People are My People
http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/day-mourning-statement-leonard-peltier-standing-rock-people-people/
Leonard Peltier’s Serious Illness Sparks Renewed Effort for Presidential Clemency
http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/leonard-peltiers-serious-illness-sparks-renewed-effort-for-presidential-clemency/
Send a Letter to the President
Tell Him to Free Peltier Now… Because It’s the Right Thing to Do!
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Obama,
A Native American man has been imprisoned for nearly 40 years in violation of his human rights. That’s a problem, but the solution is simple. Mr. President, I strongly urge you to immediately grant clemency to Leonard Peltier.
http://www.freepeltiernow.org/WHLetter.html
online gestellt 27.11.2016 aus junge Welt
Überfall auf Pipelinegegner
Brutale Angriffe von Polizei und privaten Sicherheitsdiensten auf Aktivisten in North Dakota
Jürgen Heiser
Angesichts der jüngsten Polizeieinsätze auf dem Baugelände der »Dakota Access Pipeline« (DAPL) in North Dakota beschuldigt der Historiker Ward Churchill US-Konzerne, bei der Durchsetzung ihrer Interessen »über Leichen zu gehen«. In einem Interview des englischsprachigen Programms des russischen Auslandssenders RT bezeichnete Churchill die Überfälle auf die Protestbewegung als »Glieder einer langen Kette der Repression«, der die indigenen Stämme seit Gründung der USA ausgesetzt seien. »Sie haben keine Rechte, auf die ein Unternehmen Rücksicht nehmen müsste«, sagte der 69jährige, der selbst indigene Vorfahren hat und in den 1960er Jahren das »American Indian Movement« mitbegründete.
Im Norden des Standing-Rock-Reservats gehen Sicherheitskräfte seit dem vergangenen Wochenende unter Einsatz von Tränengas, Wasserkanonen, Gummigeschossen und Schockgranaten mit äußerster Brutalität gegen Aktivisten vor, die einen DAPL-Bauabschnitt besetzt halten. Mehr als 300 Demonstranten seien verletzt worden, wie Sanitätskräfte des „Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council“ berichteten. Darunter die 21-jährige New Yorkerin Sophia Wilansky. Sie wurde nach Zeugenaussagen von einer Schockgranate getroffen und ihr linker Unterarm so schwer verletzt, dass er eventuell amputiert werden muss.
Ihr Vater Wayne Wilansky widersprach in Interviews der Behauptung des Morton-County-Sheriffbüros, „weder Schockgranaten noch andere Explosivmittel eingesetzt“ zu haben. Das sei „absurd und völlig unglaubwürdig“, weil Ärzte seiner Tochter Granatsplitter aus dem Arm entfernen mussten. „Wir sind hier nicht in Afghanistan oder Irak“, sagte Wilansky und forderte US-Präsident Barack Obama auf einzugreifen. Die Situation sei sehr gefährlich. Die Polizei müsse dringend „demilitarisiert“ werden.
Außer US-Nationalgarde und Polizei aus sieben US-Bundesstaaten werden im Auftrag des DAPL-Betreibers „Energy Transfer Partners“ (ETP) auch private Sicherheitsdienste wie „TigerSwan“ des Unternehmens „Academi“ (ehemals „Blackwater“) gegen die Pipelinegegner eingesetzt. Es sei deshalb nicht immer die Polizei, die eskaliere, so Historiker Churchill. Die aus Ex-Soldaten gebildeten Privatarmeen verfügten „über die hochentwickelte militärische Expertise, die dann faktisch auch das Kommando über die Polizei“ übernehme.
Das alles geschehe „für den Profit“, sagte Churchill. Wenn die ehemals zwischen Washington und den indigenen Stämmen als „Vertragsterritorien“ für die Reservate festgelegten Gebiete „mit all ihren Bodenschätzen aus dem Staatsgebiet der USA herausgenommen würden, dann würde die US-Wirtschaft morgen zusammenbrechen“.
Das bestätigte ETP-Chef Kelcy Warren. Laut Chicago Tribune sagte er, es gebe „keinen anderen Weg“, als die Pipeline „an diesem Ort zu bauen“. Gestärkt durch den Coup, der ihm diese Woche gelang, lässt er seine Bautrupps nun die Rohre auch ohne Regierungserlaubnis unter dem Missouri River verlegen. Mit einem von den Konzernmedien gefeierten „20-Milliarden-Dollar-Deal“ war Warren die Fusion mit „Sunoco Logistics Partners“ (SLP) gelungen. „Zwei Giganten des Ölgeschäfts“ hätten damit „den ersten von vielen ´Trump Deals‘ auf dem Energiesektor“ vollzogen, wie der Sender CNBC meldete: ETP mit ihrem Pipelinenetz von landesweit 114 000 Kilometern und SLP als Förderer und Vermarkter fossiler Brennstoffe.
Weil der designierte US-Präsident Donald Trump die Erdölindustrie stärken und „die Schatztruhe unerschlossener Energien“ öffnen wolle, sei „das Pipelinegeschäft der Gewinner unter Trump“. Angesichts von „mindestens 203 Lecks in den Ölleitungen“, für die SLP in den vergangenen Jahren verantwortlich gewesen sei, sieht das Magazin Mother Jones in der Fusion indes eher Anlass für stärkere Proteste der Wasserschützer als für ihr Zurückweichen.
online gestellt 25.11.2016
online gestellt 25.11.2016
weitere Links, die uns das Mumia-Bündnis gesendet hat:
(Huffington Post) Woman’s Arm May Be Amputated After Horrific Injury At Standing Rock Protests – Initial reports said police threw concussion grenades, though they deny this. (October 22.2106) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/standing-rock-arm-amputation_us_5834853ee4b09b6055ff01ec (Native News) Water Protector Arm May Need Amputation after Police Brutality at Standing Rock (October 22, 2016) http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/water-protector-arm-needs-amputation-police-brutality-standing-rock/ (The Guardian) Dakota Access pipeline protester ‘may lose her arm’ after police standoff – Sophia Wilansky, 21, was seriously injured after being hit by projectile when officers threw less-than-lethal weapons at demonstrators, her father said (October 22, 2016) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/22/dakota-access-pipeline-protester-seriously-hurt-during-police-standoff-standing-rock Standing Rock Protester in Danger of Losing Arm After Police Use Force – Sophia Wilansky’s left arm was damaged severely after protesters say police hit her with a concussion grenade. (October 23, 2016) http://www.snopes.com/2016/11/22/standing-rock-protester-in-danger-of-losing-arm-after-police-use-force
online gestellt 25.11.2016
300 Injured At Standing Rock: “He just smiled and shot both my kneecaps”
C: @bluefancyshawl on Twitter
The dying days of President Obama’s administration are being deeply shamed by the actions of the authorities against the First Nations and others fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline.
And the extreme violence from the authorities seems to be deteriorating by the day.
There is growing outrage and condemnation as more and more first-hand accounts and footage emerge of water cannons, rubber bullets, tear gas and even stun grenades being used against some 400 water protectors on Sunday night and early yesterday morning.
Some 300 people were hurt after being hit by either water, gas, grenade or rubber bullet. An estimated 27 needed hospital treatment. Reports from legal observers suggest that several people were unconscious having been hit by rubber bullets. There were so many casualties that the local school gymnasium had to be opened for emergency relief.
There are graphic photos online of serious injuries incurred by the protectors. If you want to see the extent of some injuries go here, but the images are distressing.
In freezing temperatures, police fired cold water to prevent the protectors removing blockades on the Backwater Bridge on Highway 1806, near the camps they have been occupying for months. In response, activists lit fires to try and keep their soaking companions warm. This seems to have further inflamed tensions.
Dallas Goldtooth, one of the organisers, said: “Folks have a right to be on a public road. It’s absurd that people who’ve been trying to take down the barricade now have their lives at risk.” He called the Police tactics “an excessive and potentially deadly use of force”.
Indeed, there were harrowing reports of violence against the water protectors:
One activist from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, Black Elk said, “All of a sudden there were these bright, blinding spotlights, so you could see each other, but you couldn’t see [the police]. Every once in awhile you could hear someone scream who had been hit by a rubber bullet.”
“I was tear gassed over 15 times, which made it hard to breathe and left my face burning for hours,” recalls Cheyenne, a young native woman from Michigan. “I got hosed down with a water cannon in freezing temperatures leaving me hypothermic, and I was slammed into a barbed wire barricade out of panic caused by the police after a flash grenade was thrown and caught fire to a field.”
Another young native man from the Ojibwe nation said “He shot me with a rubber bullet right in the belly button, and when I showed him that he had hurt me, he just smiled and shot both my kneecaps”.
On Sunday night, the Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council called on authorities to stop using water cannons against the protesters, saying the below-freezing weather could cause hypothermia and criticizing the “potentially lethal use of these controversial methods against people peacefully assembled.”
A surgeon with the Healing Council, Jesse Lopez, from Kansas City said: “We are standing back in a state of disbelief. I maybe could see pepper spray, maybe rubber bullets, maybe tear gas, but water cannons? That’s done to inflict deliberate, severe, life-threatening harm.”
As usual, the local sheriff’s office spun a total different story that shows what misinformation the authorities are releasing: “We have not received any reports that can be verified of protesters that were injured.”
online gestellt 25.11.2016
Hundreds of veterans are “self-deploying” to Standing Rock on Thanksgiving. Their assignment is to “defend the water protectors from assault and intimidation.” Militarized police shot water cannons into the crowd during subfreezing weather (26 degrees) doing some very serious damage
Veteran, activist, and screenwriter Wesley Clark Jr. organized a veterans’ event with retired Baltimore police officer and Marine Corps veteran Michael Wood Jr. according to a report in the Washington Post. Clark said:
‘It doesn’t matter if you are a libertarian, a conservative, or a progressive, this is everyone’s fight.’
The “Veterans Stand For Standing Rock” event is a cry for veterans to “assemble as a peaceful, unarmed militia” and protect the innocent. Water protectors are defending the Missouri River which is a source of water for millions of people all the way from North Dakota to Kansas City and on to St. Louis where it meets the Mississippi River.
The reason this is necessary is that the DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline) is trying to run a pipeline beneath the river. It is not a question of if a leak will happen, it is a question of when. The pipeline will push 470,000 barrels of crude oil through every day. Not only will the pipeline impact the river, constructing it would destroy sacred Native American lands.
The gofundme campaign for the veterans’ event raised $43,870 of its $100,000 goal in just 10 days. They will use the money to provide transportation, food, and supplies for the volunteer veterans. The event page reads:
‘It’s time to display that honor, courage and commitment we claim to represent. It’s time for real patriots. Now more than ever, it’s time for anyone and everyone to lead.’
Clark said they are shooting for 500 veterans to attend:
‘I’m going for religious reasons. I’m not a leader. I’m not in charge. We are self-organizing this. (But) if we only have 20 or 30, that’s what God provides us.’
Clark was deeply touched when an elder from Standing Rock told him what was happening:
‘When she described what was going on, it brought tears to my eyes. People are concerned about the way the elders who are praying are being brutalized, and what we are doing to the planet.’
Veterans across the country have heard the call of this event. Veteran Marine Jade Emilio Snell said:
‘I’ve been watching the news, how they’re spraying everybody and using rubber bullets, and these guys are fighting for what they believe in and as a veteran we took an oath. We’re not just there to protect Americans in foreign countries. We’re here to protect this country inside of it, too.’
The veteran’s operation order reads:
‘In the ultimate expression of alliance, we are there to put our bodies on the line, no matter the physical cost, in complete nonviolence to provide a clear representation to all Americans of where evil resides.
‘The water protectors are leading the way against this same evil which we must all face globally, saving ourselves and our children from the apocalyptic outcome of climate change.
Wood explained another reason for supporting the protesters:
‘No group in the country has served a greater percentage in US military than Native Americans. We need to support them.’
online gestellt 25.11.2016
Police has used a concussion grenade against Dakota Access Pipeline demonstrators on Sunday. As a result, one of the activists may lose her arm.
Protesters clashed with police at Backwater Bridge over the Dakota Access pipeline on Sunday, Nov. 20, 2016 (Photo: Morton County Sheriff’s Office)
After law enforcement officers used a concussion grenade against Dakota Access Pipeline demonstrators during the Sunday protest on a bridge near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, Sophia Wilansky, one of the fellow demonstrators, may lose her arm, her father Wayne Wilansky said. At the same time, the fact of using of any weapons that could have caused such damage have been denied by authorities.
According to pipeline protester Dallas Goldtooth, Wilansky was “struck directly by a concussion grenade.” Reportedly, the girl was handing out bottles of water to protesters at the moment of the hit. A photo, allegedly showing Wilansky in a vehicle with a severe arm injury, with a clearly visible bone, was published online.
The girl was taken to a Minnesota hospital, where she was sent to surgery. Her father said that Sophia had 20 or more surgeries in hope of saving her arm. He also added that there are witnesses, who clearly saw that law enforcement officers threw the concussion grenade.
“This is not Afghanistan, this is not Iraq… we don’t throw grenades at people,” Wayne Wilansky said, blaming the authorities for his daughter’s injury.
Meanwhile, spokeswoman for the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, Maxine Herr, has denied all accusations, contradicting several reports from activists.
“It wasn’t from our law enforcement, because we didn’t deploy anything that should have caused that type of damage to her arm,” the Los Angeles Times quoted her words.
Herr also added that the girl could be wounded, when demonstrators were “rigging up their own explosives” in order to throw them at police.
“The only explosion the officers heard was on the protesters’ side,” Herr said.
Chemical and “less lethal” munitions fired at #NoDAPL water protectors by Morton County Sheriff & assisting agencies Sunday night/Monday am
— Unicorn Riot (@UR_Ninja) 05:23 – 22 ноября 2016
According to activists, a total of 26 people, including Wilansky, were taken to a hospital after the clashes with police on Sunday. Reportedly, more than 200 demonstrators had to be treated for hypothermia, as water cannon in below-freezing temperatures was used by the Sheriff’s Department against them. Authorities also used tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters.
Demonstrations against the $3.7 billion Dakota Access Pipeline have been taking place since spring 2016. Protestors are sure that the pipeline could pollute nearby water sources and destroy sacred sites of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe
online gestellt 15.11.2016 (aus Rolling Stone)
Neil Young Celebrates 71st Birthday Performing at Standing Rock Protest Site
Singer performs for protestors of the Dakota Access Pipeline
Neil Young celebrated his 71st birthday with some activism Saturday as the singer visited Standing Rock, site of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, to perform for those involved in the standoff.
“Got my birthday wish today, my girl took me to #StandWithStandingRock #WaterIsLife,” Young wrote on social media. “Those who damage Mother Earth, damage us all, forgive them, they don’t yet see.” Young also posted video of himself strolling through the crowd of protestors while strumming on his acoustic guitar and harmonica.
In September, Young unveiled his new protest song “Indian Givers,” which takes aim at the proposed and controversial Dakota Access Pipeline that cuts through Native American land. The track will appear on Young’s upcoming LP Peace Trail.
“History is being made right now,” Young recently told the Los Angeles Times of the DAPL protests. “The protesters are prepared to give up their lives, and unfortunately I think what it’s going to take for more people to pay attention is that somebody’s going to get killed.”
On November 27th, Dave Matthews will perform a Washington, D.C. benefit concert in support of those protesting at Standing Rock. Matthews will be joined by Tim Reynolds, Neko Case, Ledisi and more at the Stand With Standing Rock gig at DAR Constitution Hall.
“How can we continue to allow oil money to dictate our environmental and social policies?” Matthews said in the statement. “The people of Standing Rock, and those who are supporting them, are standing up for their children and all of our children. We are letting the Dakota pipeline silence their voices. Not only are they desecrating sacred lands, but they also threaten to poison the Missouri River.”
All proceeds support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and supply resources and legal assistance to the “water protectors” fighting the pipeline.
onlinegestellt 11.11.2016
Cannon Ball, North Dakota– Last month, spirit rider Mason Redwing was charged with felony reckless endangerment of law enforcement and a felony count of terrorizing law enforcement after he allegedly rode his horse towards a police line. On Tuesday, Judge Romanick found no probable cause and dismissed all charges against Redwing.
Similarly, Wanikiyewin Loud Hawk, a South Dakota native, was arrested on charges of reckless endangerment, criminal trespass, disorderly conduct, and obstruction of government function. The charges were dropped after Judge Romanick once again found no probable cause.
Water protector Red Fawn Fallis was arrested on the frontline last week for allegedly firing a .38-caliber pistol three times. The gun is claimed to have fired as Fallis was pinned to the ground by an officer, as two additional officers held her left arm. She faces charges for attempted murder, and her bond was set at $100,000, the highest yet of this campaign.
Sean Turgeon, also known as Prolific the Rapper, faces two charges of reckless endangerment and one misdemeanor obstruction of government function, after Morton County made allegations the he flew a drone near a North Dakota Highway Patrol aircraft. Turgeon gained national recognition through his music videos that criticize Dakota Access and the violent law enforcement response. He was released on bond on October 31, 2016.
These charges and arrests come after weeks of militarized police response and escalation of violence. Just last week, over 300 police officers fired pepper spray, percussion grenades, and shotguns at largely unarmed DAPL protesters, and a prayer circle of elders was interrupted and all were arrested for their peaceful protest.
Eryn Wise, International Indigenous Youth Council, “Red Fawn is a valued member of our community and a revered friend of the International Indigenous Youth Council. When we heard of the charges, all of us were in disbelief. Red Fawn has continually supported the youth council since its inception and is responsible for personally rescuing many of our members from the front lines after being brutalized by police. She is an extension of our organization and a selfless caretaker, being responsible for many women and elders within her own encampment. We’d like to ask as a council that you stop sharing the mugshot of our sister and instead speak her name. Uplift her in prayer and remember that even our most gentle and devoted warriors are under attack.”
Tara Houska, Honor the Earth, “The contrast between the treatment of indigenous people protecting their water and sacred sites vs. the so-called “Bundy Standoff” of armed white folks taking over a federal building is stark. We have seen elders arrested while praying, teenagers maced, unarmed protectors tased, and horses killed by police. Life altering consequences await us, at the hands of a prosecutor eager to comb the books for felony charges. This isn’t justice. America should be in an uproar over what’s happening to indigenous people and their allies within U.S. borders. President Obama’s “let it play out over several weeks” isn’t an answer. Order a full Environmental Impact Statement and protect the water and sacred sites at issue for the people.”
online gestellt 11.11.2016
Cannon Ball, North Dakota- On Wednesday, November 2, law enforcement desecrated the burial grounds of Alma Parkin and Matilda Galpin, the indigenous women who once owned the Cannonball Ranch. As water protectors held a water ceremony, snipers shot at them from armored vehicles parked around the tree marking the graves.
Water protectors building a makeshift bridge across the Cannonball River were met by riot police firing less-than-lethal munitions at point blank range and indiscriminately blasting OC Spray on peaceful unarmed people. The bridge was torn down per the orders received by Morton County from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Morton County police then unleashed pepper spray and tear gas on water protectors standing in the river with their hands in the air.
A teenage boy was shot in the back by a rubber bullet at point blank range, causing him to cough up blood. He was examined on site by Dr. Jesse Lopez who confirmed that the young man did not go to the hospital. In addition to the young man, two additional people were shot at and hit with rubber bullets. Over 100 were injured in total and the camp’s medical facilities were overwhelmed.
According to reports, protectors began falling back from the shoreline in a “domino effect” and medics laid tarps across the grass to treat the wounded whose entire bodies were covered in pepper spray. Many people worked to haul protectors by boat back to the south side of theriver to receive treatment for mild hypothermia and chemical burns.
Police continue to monitor throughout the nights. High powered flood lights have been posted all along the hills surrounding DAPL’s drill pad where they intend to drill under the Missouri River. The pad has been fortified with concrete walls and razor wire as the company works around the clock.
Eryn Wise, International Indigenous Youth Council, “Members of our youth council were again among the first to be wounded while in the water today, trying to rescue their relatives from being hurt. I spent an hour washing pepper spray from their hair and faces. They asked me, ‘When will this end?’ I had no answer.”
Linda Black Elk, Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council, “As I used milk of magnesia to treat pepper spray victims, I looked towards the river the sight that met my eyes was horrific. Rows upon rows of white armored militarized police were firing indiscriminately into the water at brown people who were swimming, risking hypothermia, and rowing kayaks and canoes to protect the water and stop a pipeline.”
LaDonna Bravebull Allard, Sacred Stone Camp, “They parked their armored cars on the graves of Matilda Gaplin, Eagle That Looks At Woman, and her are her daughters Louisa DeGrey Van Solen and Alma Parkins who once owned the Cannon Ball Ranch. Next to her is her husband Charles Parkins, and 11 babies. These are famous people for us here in Indian country. Matilda was the only woman to sign the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. Louisa was the first school teacher on Standing Rock. I am deeply hurt to see the desecration of their graves.”
online gestellt 11.11.2016
Cannonball, ND – Over 300 police officers in riot gear, 8 ATVs, 5 armored vehicles, 2 helicopters, and numerous military-grade humvees showed up north of the newly formed frontline camp just east of Highway 1806. The 1851 Treaty Camp was set up this past Sunday directly in the path of the pipeline, on land recently purchased by DAPL. Today this camp, a reclamation of unceded Dakota territory affirmed as part of the Standing Rock Reservation in the Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1851, was violently cleared. Both blockades established this past weekend to enable that occupation were also cleared.
In addition to pepper spray and concussion grenades, shotguns were fired into the crowd with less lethal ammunition and a sound cannon was used (see images below). At least one person was tased and the barbed hook lodged in his face, just outside his eye. Another was hit in the face by a rubber bullet.
A prayer circle of elders, including several women, was interrupted and all were arrested for standing peacefully on the public road. A tipi was erected in the road and was recklessly dismantled, despite promises from law enforcement that they would merely mark the tipi with a yellow ribbon and ask its owners to retrieve it. A group of water protectors was also dragged out of a ceremony in a sweat lodge erected in the path of the pipeline, wearing minimal clothing, thrown to the ground, and arrested.
A member of the International Indigenous Youth Council (IIYC) that had her wrist broken during a mass-arrest on October 22nd was hurt again after an officer gripped her visibly injured wrist and twisted it during an attempted arrest. At least six other members of the youth council verified that they had been maced up to five times and were also shot and hit with bean bags. In addition to being assaulted, an altar item and sacred staff was wrenched from the hands of an IIYC member by police. Several other sacred items were reported stolen, including a canupa (sacred tobacco pipe).
Two medics giving aid at front line were hit with batons and thrown off the car they were sitting on. Then police grabbed another medic, who was driving the car, out of the driver side while it was still in motion. Another water protector had to jump into the car to stop it from hitting other people.
Members of the horse nation herded around 100 buffalo from the west and southwest of the Cannonball Ranch onto the the DAPL easement. One rider was reportedly hit with up to four rubber bullets his horse was reported to be hit in the legs by live rounds. Another horse was shot and did not survive.
A confirmed DAPL private security guard was spotted among the protectors with an automatic rifle heading towards camp. Water protectors acted swiftly to stop the man who was attempting to flee the scene in his pickup. One protector stopped the assailant’s vehicle with their own before the security guard fled to nearby waters, weapon in hand. Bureau of Indian Affairs police arrived on scene and apprehended him.
Three water protectors locked themselves to a truck in the middle of the road and surrounded it with large logs. After several hours of standoff, the police advanced in a sweep line and moved people approximately 1 mile back down the highway towards the main encampment on the Cannonball River. Water protectors then retreated to the bridge over Highway 1806 and erected a large burning blockade that the police were unable to cross.
Law enforcement from at least five states (North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, Nebraska) were present today through EMAC, the Emergency Management Assistance Compact. This law was passed by the Bill Clinton administration and allows states to share law enforcement forces during emergencies. It is intended for natural disasters and has only been used twice for protests; once in the summer of 2015 during the demonstrations in Baltimore and here on the Standing Rock Reservation. Over 100 were arrested today in total.
Kandi Mossett, Indigenous Environmental Network stated, “I went to the frontline in prayer for protection of the Missouri River & found myself in what I can only describe as a war zone. I was sprayed in the face with pepper spray, the guy next to me was shot by something that didn’t break the skin but appeared to have broken the ribs & another guy beside me was randomly snatched violently by police shoving me into the officers who held me off with batons then tried to grab me. I’m still in shock & keep waiting to wake from what’s surely a nightmare though this is my reality as a native woman in 2016 trying to defend the sacred.”
Ladonna Bravebull Allard of Sacred Stone Camp says, “My people stand for the water, and they attack us. My people stand up for the graves of our people, and they attack us. My people stand up for our sacred places, and they attack us. My people pray, and they stop us, dragging us from our prayer, and throw us in the dirt. I know this is America- this is the history of my people. America has always walked though the blood of my people.
How can we stand in the face of violence? Because I was born to this land, because the roots grow out of my feet, because I love this land and I honor the water. Have we not learned from history? I pray for each of the people who stand up. We can not live like this anymore. It has to stop- my grandchildren have a right to live. The world has a right to live. The water, the life blood of the world? has a right to live. Mni Wiconi, Water of Life. Pray for the water, pray for the people. Stop Dakota Access- killer of the world.”
Eryn Wise of the International Indigenous Youth Council stated, “Today more than half of our youth council were attacked, injured or arrested. In addition to our brothers and sisters being hurt and incarcerated, we saw police steal our sacred staff. I have no words for what happened to any of us today. They are trying to again rewrite our narrative and we simply will not allow it. Our youth are watching and remember the faces of the officers that assaulted them. They pray for them.”
###
Shotgun into the crowd: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BysUexxOGui6a3BXQ3NWdDJ5TTQ/view?usp=sharing
Peppersray: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BysUexxOGui6VFZJemhaMU9Iek0/view?usp=sharing
Prayer Circle: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BysUexxOGui6NUJodDVKZDAxLTA/view?usp=sharing
online gestellt 8.11.2016
Dakota Access Pipeline Construction Halted Near River as Camps Continue in Prayer
Published November 6, 2016
CANNON BALL, NORTH DAKOTA—As thousands poured onto the Standing Rock Indian Reservation to pledge their support with the Tribe’s fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline, construction near the Missouri River has been halted due to claims that the company is on Federal land. The Dakota Access Pipeline has continued construction under the fallacy that they were operating on land previously purchased by the company. Through investigative journalism and drone video footage, documentation of pipeline misconduct has been shared and witnessed by people from all over the world and has influenced the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct an official review of pipeline construction.
“Since this company has arrived on our land, it has blatantly disregarded the law and our people,” expressed Oceti Sakowin Camp Coordinator Phyllis Young. “With recent announcements that the company must stop constructing near the Missouri River, it is another sign that only have we been right this entire time, but how they continue to disregard anything in their path.”
Average temperatures continued through the weekend and camps continued to receive supporters from various parts of the world. Youth runners who started in Flagstaff, Arizona representing the Hopi, Navajo, and Pueblo peoples arrived in the afternoon and were welcomed with a standing ovation. Representatives from Tribes from South America brought letters of support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and shared their experiences in their fight against companies seeking to exploit indigenous peoples.
“It is beyond overwhelming to see and experience all of the support that continues to support of our fight against the pipeline,” said Sitting Bull College Visitor’s Center Coordinator Jen Martel. “The world is watching and is saying it is time for us to stand up against corporate greed.”
With the halting of the construction near the Missouri River, Phyllis Young also shared with camp that Army Corps of Engineers Colonel Henderson apologized for allowing the Morton County Sheriff’s Department for not allowing water protectors to go onto sacred land to pray for the disturbance caused by the pipeline. This past Wednesday, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department destroyed a makeshift bridge intended for elders and spiritual leaders to cross the Canteputa Creek and continued to use pepper spray, mace and fired rubber bullets hitting CNN Reporter Erin Schrode continuing to cause chaos and trauma to those committed to non-violent demonstration against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
“We are pursuing legal action against the Army Corps of Engineers in their misinformation to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department,” continued Phyllis Young. “They have continued to ignore our pleas to stop this pipeline and the more we share, the more our truth is revealed.”
online gestellt 6.11.2016
Amnesty International just sent human rights observers to North Dakota to protect water protectors (aus US Uncut)
|
online gestellt 6.11.2016
At Standing Rock, women lead fight in face of Mace, arrests and strip searches (aus the guardian)
Prairie McLaughlin said she has daily flashbacks – “daymares” – about the police.
Sitting inside a small tipi where she is camped out while protesting the Dakota Access pipeline, she took a drag of her cigarette and recounted how officers took her to a North Dakota jail last month where, she says, a group of male and female guards forcibly removed her clothes when she refused to strip in front of them.
“I’m beyond traumatized,” the 33-year-old Native American woman said through tears.
But, when asked if she was prepared to keep defending the Standing Rock tribe’s water, McLaughlin’s face hardened. “Everyone needs to stand up,” she said.
McLaughlin, the daughter of LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, a Standing Rock Sioux tribe member and founder of the Sacred Stone camp, is one of hundreds of women who have led the growing movement to stop the $3.7bn project threatening their land and culture. Her friends have been arrested and subjected to what they describe as cruel and inhumane treatment.
Many say that female “water protectors”, in some cases drawing on matriarchal tribal structures, are the core spiritual leaders strategizing how to block the “black snake” pipeline and planning actions to stand up to a police force that has gone to great lengths to defend an oil corporation.
“Women are the backbone of every tribe and every indigenous community,” said Caro Gonzales, a 26-year-old member of the Chemehuevi tribe.
Gonzales, who also goes by the name Guarding Red Tarantula Woman, identifies as “two spirit”, a term for indigenous queer people.
“Whether feeding people or being on the frontlines … it’s all indigenous women and two spirits.”
Native women say they are protecting the basic human right to clean water. But for some indigenous activists, the internationally recognized movement has become a larger fight against a history of misogyny, racism and abuse by law enforcement.
‘Native lives matter’
Indigenous women have long had a fraught relationship with American police – whether in the form of questionable fatal shootings or law enforcement inaction in the face of human trafficking crises and sexual assault epidemics.
“It’s always been happening,” McLaughlin said, but “people in the world see it now.”
Although indigenous rights are often ignored in the discussion of police brutality, studies have shown that Native Americans are more likely than any other racial group to be killed by law enforcement, prompting some to adopt the rallying cry, “Native lives matter”, a reference to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Native tribal leaders have also repeatedly argued that oil booms in states like North Dakota have had dire consequences for indigenous women due to the influx of highly paid oil workers living in so-called “man camps”. Law enforcement officials have found that the temporary camps can lead to upticks in human trafficking, assault, rape and drug crimes.
When speaking out against the Keystone XL pipeline, native leaders argued that indigenous women were sexually assaulted by non-native men at alarmingly high rates and that police have failed to prevent and prosecute these crimes when they accelerate amid an oil boom.
For native women leading at Standing Rock, police disrespect of indigenous culture and women is unsurprising.
“North Dakota law enforcement have no qualms about grabbing people and throwing them to the ground,” said Cheryl Angel, a Sicangu Lakota tribe member.
“I just felt kind of violated all because of being Native American,” said Johanna Holy Elk Face, a 63-year-old woman who was recently arrested.
It’s unclear how many many women have been apprehended in the more than 400 arrests police have made of Dakota Access pipeline activists. But some women said they felt targeted.
“They picked out people who they thought were leaders,” said Xhopakelxhit, a Native American woman who was recently arrested during a protest. “It was outright brutal force.”
‘Brutalized and dehumanized’
Angel, 56, recounted the birth of the Sacred Stone camp when “the pipeline was just a drawing in a piece of paper”.
She and a few others were chatting in a group message and knew they had to find a way to stop the project on the ground. In April, members of the Standing Rock Lakota and other indigenous nations rode on horseback and established the first spiritual camp.
“It was women on the frontlines praying,” she said. “One of our traits that is very strong is to protect. There was no fear.”
Elder women, under threat of arrest, have led prayer circles directly on land where construction is planned. Young women leading the Standing Rock youth council have faced Mace, teargas and rubber bullets during increasingly tense standoffs with police.
Several women who were arrested said they were crowded into vans and cells. Behind bars they encountered mostly native women, many who were incarcerated for what appeared to be low-level offenses.
Gonzales said the jail was packed with native women incarcerated for reasons other than the pipeline actions, including one who was pregnant and feared she was having a miscarriage and another who appeared to be severely ill.
“They were brutalized and dehumanized the same way I was,” said Gonzales, adding that it seemed clear many were locked up for nonviolent offenses or because they were too poor to immediately pay bail. “Brown and black people and native people get put away for really doing nothing.”
McLaughlin, who was charged with resisting arrest, became most distraught recounting police violence against young women at the center of demonstrations where law enforcement have repeatedly fired rubber bullets.
“You know what it’s like to watch a little girl get pushed down and shot point blank in the face while we’re trying to save her?”
Asked about McLaughlin’s arrest, a spokeswoman for the Morton County sheriff’s office said she “refused to cooperate during the intake and assessment” and was escorted into an “isolation cell” where she was instructed to lay on a jail mattress and change. McLaughlin was eventually “undressed by female jail staff”, the spokeswoman said.
Lauren Howland, a 21-year-old youth council leader and member of the San Carlos and Jicarilla Apache tribes and Navajo Nation, said she felt that police were discriminating against indigenous people.
“I think they want to say you’re under arrest for being not white and praying not to Jesus or not to God,” said Howland, who said an officer broke her wrist during one incident.
The experience has shaken her faith in law enforcement, she added.
“Are they really there to protect and serve me? Or if someone gives them a few hundred bucks are they going to come over here and beat me again?”
online gestellt 6.11.2016
Guests
chair of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
President Obama says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is considering rerouting the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline, amid months of resistance from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and members of more than 200 other Native American nations and tribes from across the Americas. “My view is that there is a way for us to accommodate sacred lands of Native Americans,” Obama said. “And I think that right now the Army Corps is examining whether there are ways to reroute this pipeline in a way.” Meanwhile, on Wednesday, police deployed pepper spray and tear gas against dozens of Native American water protectors during a standoff at Cantapeta Creek, north of the main resistance camp. At least two people were shot with nonlethal projectiles. Video and photos show police firing the pepper spray and tear gas at the water protectors, who were peacefully standing in the creek. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had ordered police to arrest the Native Americans and destroy a bridge that members of the camp had constructed over the creek in order to protect a sacred burial ground they say is being destroyed by construction and law enforcement activity.
NEXTWho is Kelcy Warren, the Texas Billionaire and Folk Music Fan Behind the Dakota Access Pipeline?
TRANSCRIPT
NERMEEN SHAIKH: President Obama says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is considering rerouting the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline, amid months of resistance from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and members of more than 200 other Native American nations and tribes from across the Americas. Obama made the comment during an interview with NowThis News.
VERSHA SHARMA: One thing the candidates aren’t really talking about is the Dakota Access pipeline.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Yeah.
VERSHA SHARMA: Is that something that you would consider intervening in? People have called for your administration to make a call.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We’re monitoring this closely. And, you know, I think, as a general rule, my view is that there is a way for us to accommodate sacred lands of Native Americans. And I think that right now the Army Corps is examining whether there are ways to reroute this pipeline in a way.
VERSHA SHARMA: So that’s a possibility, right?
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: So—so, we’re going to let it play out for several more weeks and determine whether or not this can be resolved in a way that I think is properly attentive to the traditions of the first Americans.
VERSHA SHARMA: Is there something to be done about the way protesters are being treated right now, though? They’re getting sprayed with rubber bullets. We’re seeing some kind of shocking footage.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Yeah, I mean, it’s a challenging situation. I think that my general rule when I talk to governors and state and local officials, whenever they’re dealing with protests, including, for example, during the Black Lives Matters protests, is there is an obligation for protesters to be peaceful, and there’s an obligation for authorities to show restraint. And, you know, I want to make sure that as everybody is exercising their constitutional rights to be heard, that both sides are refraining from situations that might result in people being hurt.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: President Obama’s comments came on Tuesday, the same day that North Dakota officials approved an additional $4 million for policing, bringing the total costs of the police crackdown on the pipeline protests to $10 million.
On Wednesday, police deployed pepper spray and tear gas against dozens of Native American water protectors during a standoff at Cantapeta Creek, north of the main resistance camp. At least two people were shot with nonlethal projectiles. Video and photos show police firing the pepper spray and tear gas at the water protectors, who were peacefully standing in the creek. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had ordered police to arrest the Native Americans and destroy a bridge that members of the camp had constructed over the creek in order to protect a sacred burial ground they say is being destroyed by construction and law enforcement activity.
AMY GOODMAN: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had ordered police to arrest Native American protesters and destroy a bridge that members of the camp had constructed over the creek. The protesters, or water protectors, as they call themselves, had gathered to pray and protect sacred sites they believe were being disturbed by construction and law enforcement activity.
Well, for more, we’re going to North Dakota to speak with Dave Archambault, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
Chairman, welcome to Democracy Now! First, please respond to this statement, that I think surprised many, President Obama talking about considering rerouting the pipeline. Can you explain what is being considered right now?
DAVE ARCHAMBAULT II: You know, Amy, what the president is doing is he’s starting a process that is needed, and that is to respect indigenous peoples’ rights. A reroute is something that can require new state permits, new federal permits to cross waterways, new land owner agreements, and it also can restart the process, where proper consultation can take place and environmental studies can happen. And so, that’s a—that’s a huge step. I think this whole process was flawed from the beginning.
But it also has to reflect what we’ve been saying all along, is that indigenous peoples’ rights continue to get violated, and it’s about time that it stop. You know, we’ve been all about protecting water and our treaty territory. If you look at a map—in 2010, there was a study on the number of pipeline breaks. There’s a hole in that map, and that’s our treaty lands. That’s pretty much all we have, and we need to protect it. But that’s one step.
The next step is, is starting to take a look at what is it that we have to do around the world as people. We have to start changing our dependency on fossil fuels, and we have to start investing in renewable energies. Until we stop driving cars that use fossil fuels, this is going to be a force that continues to exist. So we have to start to look at ways we can be self-sustaining without fossil fuels, and force investments, force corporations to look at how can we save this world. Right now, Standing Rock has our sovereign rights, our sovereign lands, and we’re asking that you stop infringing on them. We have said it repeatedly. And I think, with the president’s statement, it’s starting to be heard.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain exactly what the process is, the consultation that’s going on for the rerouting? And when will they stop building where they are, or will it involve stopping doing what they’re doing, for example, yesterday and the last week and earlier this week?
DAVE ARCHAMBAULT II: So, this—I don’t have a timeline, and I haven’t been consulted on this. This is just something that comes from what the president has stated in his comments. The company continues to ignore federal government. Company—this company is something that is—they just destroyed some more sacred sites. And they knew about these sites on October 17th, but they didn’t inform anyone until October 27th. They plowed through it. And, you know, that’s cause for the state to ask the company to cease work. That’s cause for the Corps of Engineers to say, “Shut down now. You’re not going to get this permit because you continue to violate indigenous peoples’ rights.” But the company is not going to do that, because they feel they have every legal right. And this is driven by money and greed. And it only comes from the continued dependency that we all have on fossil fuels.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And do you think that the Obama administration can do something more now, as the Army Corps considers rerouting the pipeline?
DAVE ARCHAMBAULT II: Right now they need to say, “No easement. You’re not going to get the easement.” The Obama administration or the Army Corps of Engineers can release that statement today, and then the construction will stop. You know, this company is driven with greed and money, but it’s also driven by investors. People who invest in pipeline companies are asking for timelines to be met. But if they know that they will not get the easement, they can stop construction.
AMY GOODMAN: I was interested that President Obama said, “We’re going to look at this for a few more weeks.” And I was wondering what it was they are waiting on, as people are shot with pepper spray, rubber bullets, the concern of what will happen, finding an infiltrator who had an AR-15 gun, who put a bandana over his face, who actually had Dakota Access pipeline security ID. What would it take for President Obama—why is he waiting a few weeks?
DAVE ARCHAMBAULT II: You know, Amy, that’s a really good question, and I’m not the person to answer that for you. I think it would be a question that only the Obama administration can answer. We were told that they were going to review the whole process. And so, whatever that means, we’re hopeful and we’re prayerful that the process stops this pipeline and looks at protecting our indigenous rights and our lands and our water.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, the money that the North Dakota sheriff is getting now, I think it’s what? Up to $10 million, just requested another $4 million. When we were there, we saw the MRAP, the armored personnel carrier. You’ve got the sound cannons, the heavily militarized police. What is your response to what’s happening? And what are they requesting? And what about the involvement of the North Dakota Legislature and the governor?
DAVE ARCHAMBAULT II: OK, Amy, you know, what’s happening is unfortunate with the state government. There were—there has been an oil boom in North Dakota, and—since 2003. And there’s been the exploitation of fossil fuels with fracking. And in the region, northwest region of North Dakota, there’s been an influx of people. Our unemployment rate was 5.0 in United States, and North Dakota was 2.8. There was people coming from all over. And what was happening was there was routine major crimes being committed—murders, rapes, unsolved murders, sex trafficking, the worst drugs that you can think of being trafficked through there. And we didn’t see militarization of law enforcement. We didn’t see National Guard being deployed. We didn’t see the state call a state of emergency. And this has been going on for almost a decade. But as soon as indigenous people and all the supporters come together to stand up against fossil fuels, the state says, “Let’s throw $10 million at this and make them go away.”
Well, our commitment is not going to go away. The state has to understand that. And a lot of this force is unnecessary. But that’s just how it is. And, you know, there’s the underlying treatment of indigenous peoples. And we’re saying enough is enough. And it’s starting to expose a lot of things to where—how do we get past this once this is over? How are we going to re-establish relationships? And how are we going to move on? And how are we going to handle ourselves? Because this is starting to create a whole lot of anger and frustration, which was already there, from 200 years, by the treatment of the federal government, state governments on indigenous peoples.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, I wanted to ask you, Chairman Archambault—in a moment, we’re going to talk more about Kelcy Warren, who is the CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, that owns the Dakota Access pipeline. He also is a folk music maven, has a record label, is big in the Austin music scene. And his music idol is Jackson Browne. We understand Jackson Browne is coming to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation Thanksgiving weekend on Sunday night and will be having a concert. It’s interesting that Kelcy Warren—the pipeline is called the Dakota Access pipeline, and that his music festival in Texas, where, for example, our next guests, the Indigo Girls, have performed, is called the Cherokee Creek Music Festival. And I was wondering about your thoughts on using Native names—Cherokee Creek and Dakota—the CEO of the company that is pushing this pipeline forward?
DAVE ARCHAMBAULT II: You know, Amy, we brought this concern up. It’s not only the company Dakota Access or Cherokee Creek, but indigenous people have a right to their intellectual property. And our rights have been violated and taken from us all across the board, including our name. So if you look at the state of North Dakota and the state of South Dakota, those states, as well, took our name, and not really understanding what it means. And then, the Dakota Access pipeline, to use our name, Dakota, which means “friend,” it’s not right. And that’s an intellectual property that should be owned by us. But it doesn’t matter. It seems like no matter what is our ownership, whatever we own or whatever is our right, it’s been infringed on for the past 500 years.
AMY GOODMAN: Dave Archambault, we want to thank you for being with us, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, speaking to us from North Dakota. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, we ask, who is Kelcy Warren, the CEO of Energy Transfer Partners? We’ll speak with a reporter and then be joined by the Indigo Girls, a well-known musical group who have played at Standing Rock and also at Warren’s folk festival in Texas, but are now leading a petition of singers and musical groups to stop supporting the Dakota Access pipeline. Stay with us.
online gestellt 31.10.2016
We must stand with Standing Rock
reports on the latest wave of repression and mass arrests aimed at the anti-pipeline protesters in Standing Rock.
Militarized riot police crack down on the water protectors at Standing Rock
ON OCTOBER 27, police unleashed a wave of brutality on Native American water protectors in Standing Rock, North Dakota, who had recently moved their encampment directly in the path of Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) construction. Protectors were maced and beaten at the hands of the police, and some 141 people were arrested.
This latest assault on protesters comes less than a week after another crackdown, when nearly 130 water protectors were arrested on October 22-23 and charged with crimes including aggravated assault, participating in a riot and resisting arrest. These attacks come after a federal appeals court lifted a temporary injunction against construction on October 9, opening the way for Energy Transfer Partners, the corporation behind the pipeline project, to resume construction–but the water protectors have vowed to keep up their protest. Protectors set up barricades with cars and old tires to try and stop officials from moving in.
Officials claim that the protectors are violent, but it has been the police, private security and National Guard forces who have repeatedly attacked. In this latest assault, some 300 highly militarized police with armored vehicles and riot gear reportedly joined with 80 military personnel and 150 DAPL workers to unleash rubber bullets and bean bag rounds on the water protectors. More than 40 protesters suffered injuries, including welts and broken bones, Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault II said during a press conference on October 29.
Visit Nodaplsolidarity.org for information about how to get involved and support the Standing Rock protesters.
Reports say that the Morton County Sheriff’s Department personnel have been strip-searching every arrestee, and leveling charges against them that include trespassing on private property and inciting a riot.
The state’s protection of a private pipeline instead of the Lakota people’s treaty rights recalls the way officials were more concerned about the destruction of a gas station rather than human lives following the death of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. It also is reminiscent of the history of the U.S. Cavalry, which trampled Native treaty rights across the plains.
In the days leading up to the latest arrests, prominent activists, including actors Mark Ruffalo, Leonardo DiCaprio, Susan Sarandon and Shailene Woodley, along with Rev. Jesse Jackson, traveled to Standing Rock in support of the protest against DAPL. This has helped bring some much-needed media attention to the ongoing protest, which has suffered from a media blackout in the mainstream press.
Tara Houska, the national campaigns director for the Native activist group Honor the Earth, described the brutality on Democracy Now!:
There were police walking around everywhere with assault rifles. Directly across from us, there was actually a policeman holding his rifle trained on us, directly on us. Bean bag rifle assault–bean bag non-lethal weapons were also aimed at us. Every time we put our hands up, they’d put them down. As soon as our hands came down, they would aim back at us. Police officers were smiling at us as they were doing these things. There were police officers filming this, laughing, as they–as human beings were being attacked, being maced. I mean, it was a nightmarish scene. And it should be a shame to the federal government, it should be a shame to the American people, that this is happening within U.S. borders to Indigenous people and to our allies, to all people that are trying to protect water. Yesterday was a really shameful moment for this country and where we stand.
Videos of the scene resembled a war zone. While the tensions were high, a herd of buffalo came around the hill and protesters stopped and watched in awe. It was a powerful symbolic moment–historically, buffalo were slaughtered by the U.S. government because they were a primary source of food and a sacred symbol to the Lakota.
As the police closed in on the water protectors, they drew inspiration from the Black Lives Matter movement chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot.” Black Lives Matter activists have expressed their support for the Standing Rock protesters–sending a delegation to Standing Rock over the summer and, this week, calling for renewed solidarity in the wake of the most recent repression.
This solidarity is growing. Among those calling for support of the Standing Rock water protectors are Palestinian rights supporters and several labor unions, including the Communications Workers of America and National Nurses United–despite a shameful defense of DAPL by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
In the wake of the latest attack on the Standing Rock protesters, activists in several cities also have begun to organize small but important solidarity demonstrations and the passage of resolutions in support of the protesters.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
ACTIVISTS HAVE been calling on the Obama administration to step in more forcefully on the side of the protesters. So far, the administration has largely waffled–although feeling the pressure from activists, it recently renewed calls for Energy Transfer Partners to “voluntarily” halt construction.
On October 25, just days before the latest attack on protesters, the Justice Department, Department of Interior and Department of the Army reiterated the call for Energy Transfer Partners to voluntarily cease construction in the 20-mile corridor leading to the pipeline’s proposed crossing at the Missouri River. Legally, the pipeline should not be built underneath the Missouri river while waiting on an environmental report, but the pipeline’s backers want to complete as much construction on the project as possible before winter begins and temperatures become too frigid for building.
With the presidential election less than two weeks away, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton has been largely silent about the pipeline and the protests against it, while Donald Trump’s campaign, it was recently revealed, has received $100,000 from the CEO of Energy Transfer Partners.
Last week, the Clinton campaign released a statement for the first time about the pipeline and the protests–but it refuses to take a side. While calling vaguely for “respect” for protesters’ rights, the statement emphasizes that “all voices should be heard”–as though the conflict between Energy Transfer Partner’s profits and protesters’ right to clean water are somehow equivalent. It states:
We received a letter today from representatives of the tribes protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. From the beginning of this campaign, Secretary Clinton has been clear that she thinks all voices should be heard and all views considered in federal infrastructure projects. Now, all of the parties involved–including the federal government, the pipeline company and contractors, the state of North Dakota, and the tribes–need to find a path forward that serves the broadest public interest. As that happens, it’s important that on the ground in North Dakota, everyone respects demonstrators’ rights to protest peacefully, and workers’ rights to do their jobs safely.
On the left wing of the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders has been outspoken against the pipeline and has called on Obama to stop it. While it’s good that Sanders has spoken out, his call to vote for Hillary Clinton as the “lesser evil” will have the effect of blunting criticism of Clinton’s stand on the issue.
But the water protectors are making sure that Clinton faces pressure on the issue. On October 27, young protesters from camp Oceti Sakowin, the Seven Council Fires and the Standing Rock Sioux Nation flew from the encampment to Clinton’s campaign headquarters in New York. The campaign refused to meet with the delegation of water protectors, who responded by setting up a tipi in the middle of Clinton’s headquarters.
“As a young person I want to know what the next four years are going to entail,” activist Garrett Hairychin said in a statement. “Is Hillary going to be focused on protecting our land? I want to know if my younger family is going to be safe. Our present situation is in dire need of a leader that still remembers that our kids are here. We want to protect the future for the young ones that come after us.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
SO FAR, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is the only major candidate to have taken an unequivocal stand against the pipeline and in support of protesters. Stein traveled to Standing Rock in September, and has condemned the violence directed against the water protectors, pointing out that it resembles the violence that Indigenous people have faced in this country since its inception.
“We condemn the violent repression of the peaceful protests against DAPL as human rights abuses…These are not the actions of public servants sworn to protect and serve the community, but the unconscionable oppression of an occupying army against the original inhabitants of this land,” a recent statement from the Stein campaign noted. “For hundreds of years, the U.S. government has stolen land from and brutalized indigenous peoples across this continent, prioritizing resource extraction for private profit over the public interest.”
Ironically, on the same day of the latest arrests and repression directed against the Standing Rock water protectors, Ammon and Ryan Bundy and five other right-wing protesters who participated in a 41-day armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon were acquitted on firearms charges and conspiracy to impede federal workers.
The Bundys and their right-wing militia took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge with guns, calling on the U.S. to give “their” land back. The hypocrisy is staggering: When Native Americans stand in peaceful protest to protect their own treaty lands they are maced, beaten and arrested, but armed right-wingers that take over public land are set free.
The fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline is a continuation of struggle in defense of the environment and of tribal sovereignty that touches on the settler-colonialism at the heart of the founding of the U.S. and the historic genocide of Native Americans. In the days and weeks to come, we have to stand united with the Standing Rock water protectors against ongoing repression from the state–and call for full Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.
online gestellt am 30.10.2016
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. — The Native Americans who have spent the last months in peaceful protest against an oil pipeline along the banks of the Missouri are standing up for tribal rights. They’re also standing up for clean water, environmental justice and a working climate. And it’s time that everyone else joined in.
The shocking images of the National Guard destroying tepees and sweat lodges and arresting elders this week remind us that the battle over the Dakota Access Pipeline is part of the longest-running drama in American history — the United States Army versus Native Americans. In the past, it’s almost always ended horribly, and nothing we can do now will erase a history of massacres, stolen land and broken treaties. But this time, it can end differently.
Those heroes on the Standing Rock reservation, sometimes on horseback, have peacefully stood up to police dogs, pepper spray and the bizarre-looking militarized tanks and SWAT teams that are the stuff of modern policing. (Modern and old-fashioned both: The pictures of German shepherds attacking are all too reminiscent of photos from, say, Birmingham, Ala., in 1963.)
The courage of those protesters managed to move the White House enough that the government called a temporary halt to construction. But the forces that want it finished — Big Oil, and its allies in parts of the labor movement — are strong enough that the respite may be temporary.
In coming weeks, activists will respond to calls from the leaders at Standing Rock by gathering at the offices of banks funding the pipeline, and at the offices of the Army Corps of Engineers, for protest and civil disobedience. Two dozen big banks have lent money to the pipeline project, even though many of them have also adopted elaborate environmental codes. As for the Corps, that’s the agency that helped “expedite” the approval of the pipeline — and must still grant the final few permits. The vast movement of people across the country who mobilized to block fossil-fuel projects like the Keystone pipeline and Shell’s plans to drill in the Arctic need to gather once more. This time, their message must be broader still.
There are at least two grounds for demanding a full environmental review of this pipeline, instead of the fast-track approvals it has received so far. The first is the obvious environmental racism of the whole project.
Originally, the pipeline was supposed to cross the Missouri just north of Bismarck, until people pointed out that a leak there would threaten the drinking water supply for North Dakota’s second biggest city. The solution, in keeping with American history, was obvious: make the crossing instead just above the Standing Rock reservation, where the poverty rate is nearly three times the national average. This has been like watching the start of another Flint, Mich., except with a chance to stop it.
The second is that this is precisely the kind of project that climate science tells us can no longer be tolerated. In midsummer, the Obama administration promised that henceforth there would be a climate test for new projects before they could be approved. That promise was codified in the Democratic platform approved by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which says there will be no federal approval for any project that “significantly exacerbates” global warming.
The review of the Dakota pipeline must take both cases into account.
So far, the signs are not good. There has been no word from the White House about how long the current pause will last. Now, the company building the pipeline has pushed the local authorities to remove protesters from land where construction has already desecrated indigenous burial sites, with law enforcement agents using Tasers, batons, mace and “sound cannons.” From the Clinton campaign, there’s been simply an ugly silence, perhaps rooted in an unwillingness to cross major contributors like the Laborers’ International Union of North America, which has lashed out against the many other, larger unions that oppose the project. But that silence won’t make the issue go away: Sioux protesters erected a tepee in her Brooklyn campaign office on Thursday. If Mrs. Clinton is elected on Nov. 8, this will be the new president’s first test on environmental and human rights.
What’s happening along the Missouri is of historic consequence. That message should reverberate not just on the lonely high plains, but in our biggest cities, too. Native Americans have carried the fight, but they deserve backup from everyone with a conscience; other activists should join the protest at bank headquarters, Army Corps offices and other sites of entrenched power.
The Native Americans are the only people who have inhabited this continent in harmony with nature for centuries. Their traditional wisdom now chimes perfectly with the latest climate science. The only thing missing are the bodies of the rest of us joining in their protest. If we use them wisely, a fresh start is possible.
online gestellt am 29.10.2016
aus RT deutsch. North Dakota: Eskalation bei Protesten gegen Pipeline
Gestern kam es in im US-Bundesstaat North Dakota zu gewaltsamen Zusammenstößen zwischen der Polizei und Demonstranten. Hunderte von Polizisten in schwerer Ausrüstung räumten ein Gelände, das den Demonstranten als Camp diente. Es wird über mindestens 117 Festnahmen berichtet. Die Polizei war ins Camp eingedrungen und hatte die Demonstranten umstellt.
Das von den Demonstranten für das Camp genutzte Gelände befindet sich in Privateigentum. Anlässlich der gewaltsamen Ausschreitungen fielen auch Schüsse. Am Donnerstagabend gegen 19 Uhr postete das Morton County Sheriff’s Department auf Facebook, dass eine Frau festgenommen wurde, die nahe dem Highway 1806 auf Polizisten geschossen habe.
Die Polizei setzte in massivem Umfang Tränengas und Pfefferspray ein. Vonseiten der Demonstranten hieß es, man habe nur auf die “aggressive Vorgehensweise der Polizei” reagiert.
Seit Wochen besetzen Tausende Aktivisten das Bauland für die Pipeline. Es sind mehrheitlich Vertreter der indigenen Bevölkerung. Es gibt mittlerweile Essensräume, Küchen und Schulen auf dem Gelände. Die Besetzung des Territoriums hatte schon im Frühling begonnen.
Die Demonstranten erzielten einen ersten Teilerfolg, als die amerikanische Regierung in der Umgebung des Lake Oahe einen vorläufigen Baustopp verfügte. Die Bauarbeiten auf privatem Grund gehen aber nach wie vor weiter. Die von den Einheimischen “Schwarze Schlange” genannte Pipeline wächst weiter Richtung Südosten.
Für die Ölindustrie hat die 3,8 Milliarden Dollar teure Pipeline, die auch den Missouri überqueren soll, eine große strategische Bedeutung. Der Transport des schwarzen Goldes soll nicht mehr über Lastwagen und Eisenbahn erfolgen und somit deutlich kostengünstiger werden. Die vor Ort lebenden Sioux sowie Umweltaktivisten sehen dagegen ihre Wasserversorgung gefährdet.
Millionen von Menschen sind auf Trinkwasser aus dem Missouri angewiesen. Dieser ist der längste Fluss der USA. Ein Leck in der Pipeline hätte verheerende Folgen. Laut der zuständigen Aufsichtsbehörde kommt es in den USA pro Jahr durchschnittlich zu 300 Pipelineunfällen. Die geplante Route für die Pipeline droht zudem die Gräber der indigenen Vorfahren zu zerstören.
Die Regierung des Bundesstaats North Dakota steht hinter den Anliegen der Ölindustrie und unternimmt alles, um die Demonstranten zu kriminalisieren. Die bekannte Journalistin Amy Goodman wurde von Staatsanwalt Ladd Erickson wegen “Aufruhrs” angeklagt. Sie hatte gefilmt, wie private Sicherheitsleute mit Hunden auf friedliche Demonstranten losgingen.
Die Filmemacherin Deia Schlosberg, die Protestaktionen filmte, war anschließend für zwei Tage in Haft und soll nun wegen “Verschwörung zu Diebstahl und Sachbeschädigung” angeklagt werden. Zuvor war auch schon die bekannte Schauspielerin Shailene Woodley zusammen mit 26 weiteren Personen des Betretens eines privaten Grundstücks wegen verhaftet worden.
online gestellt am 28.10.2016
Polizeiterror gegen friedliche Protectors in Nord Dakota
https://www.facebook.com/dallasgoldtooth/videos/10105868266548603/
Anschauen und im eigenen Verteiler weiterleiten und gegen diesen Polizeiterror sowie den Pipelinebau protestieren.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/live-updates-from-dakota-access-pipeline-protests-day-1/
Live updates from Dakota Access Pipeline protests: ‘It will be a battle here’
- Seattle Times environment reporter Lynda Mapes and Times photographer Alan Berner are on the ground through the end of the week to report on protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline near Bismarck, N.D.
- Hundreds of protesters have joined the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in their effort to block construction of the pipeline they say threatens water supplies and sacred sites.
- American Indian tribes in Washington state on Tuesday called on President Obama to overhaul the way the federal government consults with tribes on fossil-fuel export and other projects. Also on Tuesday, the Obama administration asked for the second time that Energy Transfer Partners stand down on the Dakota Access Pipeline, to no avail.
- Read our primer on what’s going on with the oil pipeline. And here’s what we’re reading about the project and the region’s history.
Protesters pray on the front line of the protests on a highway south of Bismarck, N.D., on Wednesday. (Lynda Mapes / The Seattle Times)
The Rev. Jesse Jackson rides on a horse at the main protester camp on Wednesday in North Dakota. (Alan Berner / The Seattle Times)
A checkpoint Wednesday near the site of pipeline protests in North Dakota. (Alan Berner / The Seattle Times)
A thick fog hangs over Highway 6 while on the way south toward the Standing Rock protest in North Dakota on Wednesday. (Alan Berner / The Seattle Times)Dakota Access pipeline company and Donald Trump have close financial ties
Raw footage of mass arrests at North Dakota pipeline protest – video
online gestellt am 27.10.2016
Hier ein Link, der euch zu einer Online -Petition führt, damit der für die Polizeieinsätze verantwortliche Sheriff K. Kirchmeier seines Amtes enthoben wird. Dieser Sheriff versucht mit aller Gewalt den friedlichen Protest gegen die Dakota Access Oil Pipeline zu kriminalisieren.
—————————————————————————————————-
Bericht Junge Welt: (online gestellt 26.10.2016)
Gewalt gegen Ureinwohner
US-Polizei geht mit Schlagstöcken, Pfefferspray und Hunden gegen Demonstranten an Ölpipeline in North Dakota vor. 83 Verhaftungen. jW-Bericht
Baustelle der Dakota Access Pipeline am 22. Oktober: Demonstranten und Polizei formieren sich
Foto: Photo courtesy Morton County Sheriff’s Office/Handout via REUTERS
|
Die Polizei im US-Bundesstaat North Dakota ist erneut brutal gegen Demonstranten an einer Ölpipelinebaustelle vorgegangen. Etwa 300 Menschen, vor allem Indigene, versammelten sich am Sonnabend, um für den Erhalt heiliger Stätten ihrer Stämme und für sauberes Trinkwasser zu beten. Die Beamten setzten gegen sie Schlagstöcke und Pfefferspray ein, hetzten Hunde auf sie und verhafteten 83 von ihnen. Den Festgenommenen drohen Strafverfahren wegen Übergriffen auf Beamte, Teilnahme an Aufruhr und unbefugten Betretens der Baustelle. Sprecher der Demonstranten wiesen die Vorwürfe zurück und kritisierten das martialische Auftreten der Einsatzkräfte. Der zuständige Sheriff habe sie gegenüber der Presse fälschlich beschuldigt, gewaltbereit und bewaffnet zu sein. In der Nähe der Baustelle befindet sich seit längerer Zeit ein Protestlager, bereits am 10. Oktober waren hier Demonstranten festgenommen worden. Nach einer Polizeiattacke am 3. September hatten in fast allen der 50 US-Bundesstaaten Menschen gegen das Vorhaben und die staatliche Gewalt protestierten (siehe jW vom 13. und vom 19. September).
Der Widerstand richtet sich gegen den Bau einer 1.900 Kilometer langen Rohrleitung, mit der ab 2017 durch Fracking gewonnenes Rohöl von North Dakota, im Norden an der Grenze zu Kanada gelegen, über South Dakota und Iowa bis nach Illinois und von dort über bestehende Pipelines bis an den Golf von Mexiko transportiert werden soll. Dagegen wehren sich vor allem die Standing-Rock-Sioux. Nachdem die Sioux mit Unterstützung von rund 200 Stämmen aus den USA, Kanada und Lateinamerika einen vorläufigen Baustopp für ihr Reservat und die Trinkwassertalsperre Oahe des Missouri River durchsetzen konnten, weitete sich der Widerstand auf das ganze Land aus. Im Zentrum steht dabei die grundsätzliche Ablehnung der durch Fracking forcierten Ausbeutung und Nutzung fossiler Brennstoffe.
Am Donnerstag hatte die Hauptdarstellerin im Oliver-Stone-Film »Snowden«, US-Schauspielerin Shailene Woodley, ihren Protest gegen den Bau der Pipeline verteidigt. Sie war vor zwei Wochen wegen Landfriedensbruch zusammen mit anderen Demonstranten an der Baustelle festgenommen worden. Im Magazin Time schrieb sie: »Ich habe keine Angst und mache mir keine Sorgen. Ich bin dankbar und fasziniert, Seite an Seite mit so vielen friedlichen Kämpfern zu stehen.« In einer Anhörung vor Gericht hatte sie US-Medienberichten zufolge auf nicht schuldig plädiert. Die Schauspielerin wies darauf hin, dass die Ölpipeline das Land und das Wasser von Gebieten der Ureinwohner gefährde und diese Menschen in den USA ohnehin kaum Gehör fänden: »Ich stand in North Dakota Seite an Seite mit den Ureinwohnern Amerikas. Ihr wisst schon, diejenigen, die vor uns hier waren. Und weißt Du was, Amerika? Sie sind immer noch da. Und sie kämpfen immer noch für die gute Sache.« Sie hoffe, dass ihre Festnahme den Blick auf die Sorgen der Ureinwohner lenke und das Wasser in ihren Gebieten geschützt werde. Ihr zweistündiges Video über den Protest und die Festnahme wurde allein auf ihrer Facebook-Seite mehr als fünf Millionen Mal abgerufen.
Die Vertreter der Ureinwohner beklagten am Wochenende erneut, dass die großen US-Medien einen »ununterbrochenen Strom von Desinformation« zu dem Bauvorhaben in Gang gesetzt hätten. So wurde berichtet, die US-Regierung habe den Bau gestoppt. Tatsächlich hatte die Obama-Administration am 10. Oktober lediglich dazu aufgerufen, den Bau der Pipeline zu stoppen. Der Betreiberkonzern solle die Arbeiten am Lake Oahe »freiwillig« ruhen lassen. Zuvor hatte ein Bundesgericht in Washington einen Einspruch von Angehörigen des Standing-Rock-Stammes zurückgewiesen und den Weiterbau der Dakota Access Pipeline genehmigt. Die Sprecher der Sioux kündigten an, ihre Proteste gegen die Pipeline fortzusetzen. Sein Stamm werde erst aufgeben, wenn »unser Land, unsere Bevölkerung, unser Wasser und unsere heiligen Stätten vor dieser zerstörerischen Pipeline geschützt sind«, war Häuptling Dave Archambault II. am 10. Oktober zitiert worden.
———————————————————–
onine gesetzt: 25.10.2016
Great news: On Monday a North Dakota judge refused to authorize the charges against Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman for her reporting on the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Thank you for speaking out against this attack on freedom of the press. In September Goodman and her crew captured footage of pipeline-company security guards using pepper spray and attack dogs on peaceful indigenous protesters. Members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe have been rallying against the pipeline’s construction on tribal lands.
After the charges were dropped Goodman addressed supporters outside the courthouse. “The important role of a journalist is to go to where the silence is…We certainly will continue to cover this struggle,“ she said.1
Unfortunately, others covering the pipeline protests are still facing charges. This crackdown extends beyond journalists to legal observers. “By every evidence,” the Nation noted,2 “North Dakota authorities are waging war against the public’s right to know.”
We’re keeping an eye on what’s happening on the ground in North Dakota and will keep you posted about other ways you can take action.
Thanks for staying with us—
Mike, Candace, Amy and the rest of the Free Press team
freepress.net
P.S. We don’t take a penny from business, government or political parties and have fought to protect the First Amendment for more than a decade. Help fuel our work with a donation of $10 (or more!) today. Thank you!
- “Amy Goodman Speaks After North Dakota Judge Dismisses ‘Riot’ Charges for Covering Pipeline Protest,” Democracy Now!, Oct. 17, 2016: http://act.freepress.net/go/16554?t=4&akid=5827.9875224.mGWqRy
- “North Dakota’s War on the First Amendment Threatens Everyone’s Right to Know,” The Nation, Oct. 18, 2016: https://act.freepress.net/go/16555?t=6&akid=5827.9875224.mGWqRy
CRACKDOWN AT STANDING ROCK FOLLOWS RULING
After a federal appeals court refused to halt construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline, the energy giants are intensifying repression.
https://socialistworker.org/2016/10/17/crackdown-at-standing-rock-follows-ruling
online gesetzt am 24.10.2016: