On Fri., Sept. 9th, it seemed hope had been lost.
Despite security dog attacks on a dozen unarmed people (including a pregnant woman and a child, reminiscent of Bull Connor's infamous attack dogs in Birmingham, AL in 1963), and the firing of weaponized pepper spray into the faces of dozens more Native American water and land protectors (captured and broadcast by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, which continues extensive, ongoing coverage of the situation), and their allies, at the construction site of the Dakota Access [Oil] Pipeline by Energy Transfer Partners employees and subcontractors, a federal judge refused to grant the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (SRST) an emergency injunction against the construction. This, despite Dakota Access Pipelines/Energy Transfer Partners having used a SRST court filing, identifying the locations of ancient tribal burial and other sacred sites, directly in the path of the proposed pipeline, as a roadmap for destruction of those very sacred sites. The company has attempted to make moot SRST claims of sacred cultural sites, by destroying them less than one day after the tribe revealed their location!
(Democracy Now's remarkable frontline coverage included a lengthy interview with LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, SRST tribal historian, on whose land the Sacred Stone Spirit Camp is located. Allard revealed the ironic timing of the security dog and weaponized pepper spray attacks: the 153rd anniversary of a U.S. Army massacre of Sioux near SRST's reservation. Allard's own nine year old grandmother miraculously survived the massacre, despite being shot. In fact, the SRST are the survivors of that massacre. The massacre was a "mistake." The U.S. Army were hunting down the Santee Sioux, but instead massacred 300 SRST members instead, as an apparent matter of convenience.)
No good deed going unpunished, the Morton County, North Dakota Sheriff's Department and prosecuting attorney have filed misdeamenor trespass charges against Goodman, which Democracy Now! has rebutted as a clear attack on freedom of the press. The Green Party presidential and vice presidential candidates have also been charged, with criminal trespass and vandalism charges, for spray painting "I Approve This Message" and "Decolonization" messages on a Dakota Access Pipelines bulldozer. The SRST chairman, Dave Archambault II, and dozens of others, have also been arrested and face charges.
Fortunately and thankfully, however, mere minutes after the judge's horrendous ruling, the Obama administration intervened to pause the oil pipeline's construction, at least within 20 miles of the SRST's drinking water supply -- the Oahe Reservoir on the Missouri River. A joint statement was issued by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Justice, and the Department of the Interior, admitting that significantly more meaningful nation-to-nation consultations with Native American nations like the SRST are in order. The Army Corps of Engineers has pledged to review its environmental assessment of the Dakota Access Pipeline proposal, given the SRST's objections.
The Obama administration's remarkable, unprecedented action followed the questioning of President Obama, by a Malaysian reporter, during his Asian travels. President Obama responded that he would be checking to see how well his administration's agencies were doing on this issue. President Obama and First Lady Obama visited the SRST reservation two years ago, pledging that they would have SRST youths' backs going forward. In fact, the SRST youth initiated the tribe's resistance against the so-called Dakota Access Pipeline. They ran well over a thousand miles, from North Dakota to Washington, D.C. to protest the pipeline, and to protect the Missouri River. On Sept. 9th, just before the Obama administration's intervention, the SRST youth conducted another run, from the reservation, to the North Dakota state capital in Bismarck, tens of miles to the north. SRST chairman Archambault has given full credit to the SRST youth for their leadership and initiation of the tribe's resistance, which now includes a major lawsuit brought by Earthjustice on behalf of the SRST.
This environmental justice victory has been reported widely in the national media. Inside Climate News, winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting (on the aftermath of the Enbridge oil spill in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan), wrote a comprehensive review of the current state of affairs at SRST Reservation. Enbridge Oil of Canada is a major partner in the Dakota Access Pipeline/Energy Transfer Partners scheme.
Among the leadership at the Sacred Stone Camp on the SRST Reservation is the Indigenous Environmental Network, and Honor the Earth. IEN and HTE are longtime allies of Beyond Nuclear, NIRS, and the anti-nuclear movement in the U.S., against radioactive waste dumps targeted at Native lands.
Allies of the SRST's standoff against the Dakota Access [Oil] Pipeline have called for solidarity actions across the country on Tuesday, September 13th. [Fnd the solidarity action nearest you -- or organize one in your town if there isn't one already!]
Calls have also been issued for supplies to be sent to the Sacred Stone and Red Warrior Camps (see the alert by Greenpeace, as well as another by IEN).