by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Dec 16, 2016 | Lobbying, Repression at Home
by Noah Weber
On Sunday, March 7, 1965, roughly 600 African Americans and their allies gathered and marched towards Montgomery, Alabama in order to take a stand and draw attention to the fact that 99% of Selma, Alabama’s registered voters were white, and that the African American community was being denied their legal right to vote. The unarmed men and women who marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge were met by a heavily armed police force and were tear gassed and beaten horrifically. In the end, 17 marchers were hospitalized, and another 50 were treated for injuries caused by the police.
On Sunday, November 20, 2016, more than 400 Native Americans and their allies marched on the Backwater Bridge outside of Cannon Ball, North Dakota. The Water Protectors had been demonstrating peacefully for months in order to preserve sacred burial grounds and protect their only source of clean drinking water from the oil-bearing Dakota Access Pipeline. However, this unarmed march was meant to clear vehicles that had been set up by DAPL to block the Backwater Bridge. They were attempting to clear the road so that emergency medical vehicles could have faster access to the residents and campers at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. After being trapped on the bridge by heavily armed police, the marchers were hosed with water cannons in 23°F temperatures, and shot with rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray, and concussion grenades for more than 7 hours. 26 people were hospitalized, and more than 300 were treated for injuries caused by the police forces.
It is highly likely that neither group of marchers knew the full extent of the violence that they were about to experience as they marched on these bridges for the first time. However, they certainly knew what was in store for them for any subsequent actions. After the first march on Montgomery, the nation was horrified by the images broadcast by media sources, and on March 9, more than 2500 people showed up for the second march on Montgomery. Due to a pending decision, and a restraining order issued by Federal District Court Judge Frank Minis Johnson, the marchers turned around on the Pettus Bridge.
Ultimately, on March 17, Judge Johnson ruled that the civil rights activists’ right to march could not be abridged by the state of Alabama, writing “The law is clear that the right to petition one’s government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups…by marching, even along public highways.” Meanwhile, on March 13th, President Lyndon Johnson met with Alabama Governor George Wallace in an attempt to prevent further violence and harassment from being directed at the civil rights activists. While unsuccessful with Wallace, President Johnson introduced a bill two days later to Congress. That bill became the Voting Rights Act. While it took time for the bill to pass, President Johnson deployed 2000 soldiers of the U.S. Army, 1900 Alabama National Guard troops under federal command, and unknown numbers of FBI and Federal Marshals to protect the demonstrators as they successfully continued their march on March 21.
When I showed up on November 24 to bring supplies and provide medical support at the Oceti Sakowin Camp, there were an estimated 3500 people at camp. When I left at the end of the week, there were roughly 10,000. Dozens of countries, and hundreds of tribes from around the world are expressing outrage and concern over the violence and harassment directed towards the Water Protectors at Standing Rock. These communities are also outraged that the pipeline was originally supposed to pass north of Bismarck, ND, but was rejected as being too dangerous to pass near that overwhelmingly white community’s water source, and instead was relocated to pass through traditional Lakota lands and under their Missouri River water source without any conversation regarding indigenous concerns and opposition to the pipeline.
Governor Jack Dalrymple of North Dakota is escalating his rhetoric towards the safety of the people camped at Standing Rock. He has threatened anyone bringing food and clothing donations to the camps with $1000 fines. This week, he threatened to oust the Water Protectors from their camps in the name of safety, due to winter conditions. However, the Water Protectors are not going to leave, and making someone homeless in winter is unconscionable. Using water cannons on peaceful demonstrators in sub-freezing temperatures shows that safety is not Dalrymple’s top priority. Getting people to vacate the land is his priority.
The Water Protectors are going to continue to march, pray, and peacefully demonstrate, regardless of the violent reactions from DAPL security and police forces. They are doing everything that they can to stand up for their rights in a peaceful manner. They are waiting for action from President Obama. It is time for a sit-down between President Obama and Gov. Dalrymple. It is also time for an immediate and decisive response from the Obama administration to ensure the safety of peacefully assembled citizens and their right to clean water. This means troops standing with the Water Protectors, not opposed to them. President Johnson was not perfect, but he has been judged by this nation, and the world, to have been on the correct side of history on civil rights in the wake of Bloody Sunday. Due to the shared history of abuse and denied rights, despite laws and treaties on their side, it is difficult to see why President Obama praises one group’s actions, but has yet to do anything of substance for the other.
Bloody Sunday
When will troops protect the Water Protectors? So far the only troops acting in such a capacity are the veterans recruited by Wes Clark Jr. My thanks go out to Mr. Clark and his veterans. However, anything short of deploying troops to protect the peacefully assembled demonstrators, in conjunction with pushing a bill through Congress to extend the rights of indigenous communities over the governance of their own land, would be a shameful act by the Obama administration. This is your Pettus Bridge, Mr. President. On which side of this historic bridge do you stand?
Taking the least effective route to enact change is not praiseworthy. A teacher would award a D for such effort.
While the ruling by the Army Corps of Engineers sounds nice, demonstrators are still fighting for Lakota rights on land that is considered to be federally-owned, but was granted to the Lakota “in perpetuity” by the government. The Lakota never relinquished their right to this land. The government took it.
There are still Federal Police and Army Corps vehicles on Lakota land. They are still on the north side of Cantapeta Creek…with the DAPL security forces. I will believe something has changed when Federal forces are standing shoulder-to-shoulder WITH the Standing Rock Water Protectors, indigenous rights have been extended by law, and the pipeline is re-routed or terminated. Until this happens, nothing has changed.
Noah Weber is a nurse and a farmer from Montana. He volunteered as a medic at the Oceti Sakowin Camp at Standing Rock, though most of his time went to ensuring everyone in the medic, healer, midwifery, and warming tents had wood, warmth, and functional stoves.
Featured image: Standing Rock, by Rob Wilson
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Dec 5, 2016 | Obstruction & Occupation
by Indigenous Environmental Network
Cannonball, ND – At approximately 3PM CST a group of about 30 people gathered to create a protective prayer line on the Backwater Bridge, the site of the November 20th attack on peaceful and unarmed water protectors by militarized police. Wesley Clark Jr., an organizer of Veterans Stand with Standing Rock, Kandi Mossett of the Indigenous Environmental Network, and Brenda White Bull who served 20 years in the Marine Corps and is also a direct descendant of Chief Sitting Bull, delivered a message to representatives of the National Guard, the Veterans Association, Tigerswan Private Security, who is hired by DAPL, and North Dakota law enforcement.
Wesley, Kandi, and Brenda walked together across the bridge to have a discussion with representatives on the other side. The purpose of the discussion was to clarify that the delegation of more than 2,000 veterans comes in peace and will remain nonviolent and in prayer during their visit to Standing Rock.
Further discussion was had about resolving tension between Water Protectors and law enforcement and also about the barricade on the bridge, which poses a danger not only to the camps but also the Cannon Ball community as it blocks the fastest route for emergency services. An audio recording of the meeting confirms that North Dakota law enforcement will not be entering the camp.
From December 4th through 7th, 2,000 veterans will descend on Standing Rock to act as a human shield for the water protectors on the front lines of the peaceful protest. The Veterans will also act as protectors of the Oceti Sakowin camp after the Army Corps of Engineers and North Dakota Governor, Jack Dalrymple, have called for its December 5th evacuation.
For Live updates at Standing Rock and the Veterans’ visit, please follow Indigenous Rising Media on Facebook.
Featured image by Spencer Mann, Indigenous Rising Media
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Nov 27, 2016 | Obstruction & Occupation
Featured image: The Oceti Sakowin camp is currently home to thousands of water protectors and allies. (Photo: Reuters)
by Deirdre Fulton / Common Dreams
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Friday informed Indigenous water protectors and their allies that they have nine days to vacate the main Dakota Access Pipeline protest camp—or else face arrest.
“This decision is necessary to protect the general public from the violent confrontation between protestors and law enforcement officials that have occurred in this area, and to prevent death, illness, or serious injury to inhabitants of encampments due to the harsh North Dakota winter conditions,” Col. John Henderson of the Corps said in a letter to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe chairman Dave Archambault II.
The Oceti Sakowin camp, on the banks of the Cannonball River, will be closed Monday, December 5, the letter warned. Any individuals found on Army land north of the river after that date would be considered trespassing and could be prosecuted.
The Corps said it would establish a “free speech zone” south of the Cannonball River on Army lands.
But Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), told the Bismarck Tribune that “there’s not enough land on the south side of the river where many are already camping; and a planned winter camp on 50 acres of reservation land near Cannon Ball is not yet ready, with groundbreaking set for next week.”
What’s more, he noted that “the eviction deadline is the day after more than 2,000 American war veterans are scheduled to arrive at the camp to stand in solidarity with Standing Rock,” the Tribune reports.
Archambault issued a statement in response to the Corps, saying the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe “is deeply disappointed in this decision by the United States, but our resolve to protect our water is stronger than ever.”
“It is both unfortunate and ironic that this announcement comes the day after this country celebrates Thanksgiving—a historic exchange of goodwill between Native Americans and the first immigrants from Europe,” he continued. “Although the news is saddening, it is not at all surprising given the last 500 years of the treatment of our people. We have suffered much, but we still have hope that the President will act on his commitment to close the chapter of broken promises to our people and especially our children.”
Indian Country Today reports:
The notice from the Army Corps comes less than a week after Morton County Sheriff’s deputies sprayed rubber bullets, mace and water on more than 400 people demonstrating at a bridge blockade not far from the camps. Temperatures were below freezing when protectors were repeatedly hosed down by police that Sunday night, November 20. There have also been reports that concussion grenades were fired at protectors. Dozens were hospitalized, including 21-year-old Sophia Wilansky, who may face the amputation of her arm, and Cheree Lynn Soloman, who is fundraising for eye surgery.
“If you were concerned about the safety of the fucking people you would have taken your ass out there and you would’ve cut their fucking hoses,” lamented Kash Jackson, an Army veteran from Michigan. His Facebook LIVE rant was broadcast shortly after the Corps announced its warning to water protectors that anyone choosing to stay on Corps land beyond December 5 would be doing so “at their own risk.”
“You stand firm, Standing Rock,” Jackson continued. “You stand firm right where you’re at. They want to push you off that land. It’s not their land to begin with.”
Meanwhile, IEN said in a statement: “We stand by our relatives of the Oceti Sakowin and reaffirm their territorial rights set in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. If the Corps wants to keep people safe and prevent further harm, then deny the easement, rescind the permit, order a full Environmental Impact Statement, and send Department of Justice observers.”
“This decision by the Army Corps and the United States is short-sighted and dangerous,” the statement read. “We have already seen critical injuries cased by the actions of a militarized law enforcement. We implore President Obama and the White House to take corrective measures and to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline once and for all.”
The group, along with Honor the Earth, the International Youth Council, and the Camp of the Sacred Stones, is planning a news conference for Saturday afternoon, which IEN will live-stream from its Facebook page.
Filmmaker Josh Fox, who has been outspoken in his opposition to the crude oil pipeline, called the Corps’ eviction notice “a major act of aggression against basic rights of peaceful assembly and protest in the U.S. and constitutes a violation of treaties as well as the U.S. constitution’s guaranteed right to protest and assemble.”
“Oceti Sakowin, the main camp for water protectors, is a beautiful self-organizing community,” Fox continued. “It stands as not only the main place for the protest movement to assemble and organize, but it also represents a major leap forward for our combined movements for the environment, Indigenous sovereignty, and real democracy in America. If the Army Corps tears down this protest camp hundreds more will spring up in its place. A crucial alliance between indigenous values, native sovereignty and environmental movements has been forged here. We expect that the Standing Rock movement will find new and creative ways to fight the Dakota Access Pipeline no matter what, and that the Standing Rock movement and its alliances will find many areas of common ground and protest. We will fight fracking. We will fight pipelines.”
This article was originally published at Common Dreams, and re-published at Deep Green Resistance News Service under a Creative Commons license.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Nov 21, 2016 | Obstruction & Occupation, Repression at Home
by Indigenous Environmental Network
Cannon Ball – On November 20th at approximately 6PM CST over 100 Water Protectors from the Oceti Sakowin and Sacred Stone Camps mobilized to a nearby bridge to remove a barricade that was built by the Morton County Sheriff’s Department and the State of North Dakota. This barricade, built after law enforcement raided the 1851 treaty camp, not only restricts North Dakota residents from using the 1806 freely but also puts the community of Cannon Ball, the camps, and the Standing Rock Tribe at risk as emergency services are unable to use that highway.
Water Protectors used a semi-truck to remove two burnt military trucks from the road and were successful at removing one truck from the bridge before police began to attack Water Protectors with tear gas, water canons, mace, rubber bullets, and sound cannons.
At 1:30am CST the Indigenous Rising Media team acquired an update from the Oceti Sakowin Medic team that nearly 200 people were injured, 12 people were hospitalized for head injuries, and one elder went into cardiac arrest at the front lines. At this time, law enforcement was still firing rubber bullets and the water cannon at Water Protectors. About 500 Water protectors gathered at the peak of the non-violent direct action.
The following is a statement from the Indigenous Environmental Network:
“The North Dakota law enforcement are cowards. Those who are hired to protect citizens attacked peaceful water protectors with water cannons in freezing temperatures and targeted their weapons at people’s faces and heads.
“The Morton County Sheriff’s Department, the North Dakota State Patrol, and the Governor of North Dakota are committing crimes against humanity. They are accomplices with the Dakota Access Pipeline LLC and its parent company Energy Transfer Partners in a conspiracy to protect the corporation’s illegal activities.
“Anyone investing and bankrolling these companies are accomplices. If President Obama does nothing to stop this inhumane treatment of this country’s original inhabitants, he will become an accomplice. And there is no doubt that President Elect Donald Trump is already an accomplice as he is invested in DAPL”.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Nov 15, 2016 | Colonialism & Conquest
If treaties are the supreme law of the land, as the U.S. Constitution states, then how is it that treaties can be so easily broken by a government that claims to uphold a respect for the law? An even more unsettling question: how is it that the trail of broken treaties has been able to span generations under an outdated, imperial logic unknown to the majority of the U.S. citizens? The founding of the United States is predicated on this painful contradiction between principles of equality and rule of law on one side, and the colonial appropriation of land from native peoples who have inhabited them for millennia, on the other.
The current resistance against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is inscribed in this contradiction, making evident the non-rule of law when it comes to appropriating native lands.
The history of Standing Rock is marked by the history of colonization predicated on the Doctrine of Discovery. The progressive erosion of its Sioux territory goes hand in hand with the logic of terra nullius, which framed land in the Americas as “empty” in order to justify settler colonization.
The Sioux Nation has historically engaged in sovereign government-to-government relations with the US government. The first treaty in which the two parties engaged as diplomatic equals was the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1851. It was the U.S. government who sought the treaty to allow for safe passage of the influx of settlers travelling west through Sioux territory during the Gold Rush from the east coast to California.
The process of negotiating the Treaty of Fort Laramie followed the colonial settler standard used in contemporary treaty negotiations. While the process was equal in theory to the traditional communal decision-making processes under which many Native Nations operated, the colonial method, which uses elected representatives, heavily favored the interests of the colonial government. Ultimately, the treaty established distinct territories for just under 10 Great Plain tribes. The treaty also permitted settlers to travel on the Platte River Road, achieving the U.S. government’s goal.
The 1851 treaty defined Sioux territory as the land where the DAPL is now being constructed. The territory fell within the western half of modern South Dakota, northwest Nebraska, a portion of northeast Wyoming, and a small part of southeast Montana and southwest North Dakota.
From the very beginning, various parties continuously broke the Treaty of Fort Laramie. Many tribes, unaware of the existence of the treaty, continued to carry out raids on tribes on legally different territories. Furthermore, settlers increasingly trespassed into the treaty territories, disrupting the buffalo hunting grounds of Native Nations. The settlers’ wrongful presence on native land led to various hostile skirmishes and bloody battles in which natives were massacred often without provocation.
But the violation of the Treaty of Fort Laramie didn’t stop there. Over the years, the U.S. government has continued to appropriate Sioux land in an ongoing process of colonization that disregards the treaty. (See map.)
In 1861, the discovery of gold in present-day Montana accentuated the flood of fortune-seekers overrunning Sioux lands in violation of the decade-old Laramie Treaty. Sioux protests to defend their rights and territory were ignored, so the Sioux took matters into their own hands to stop the trespassers. The U.S. responded by sending in a military presence.
Instead of adhering to the terms of the treaty, the U.S. government attempted to negotiate another treaty more preferential to its interests. Treaty making, instead of a diplomatic engagement between two equally powerful sovereign nations had turned into a destructive means of grabbing land and resources from native people; a form of “conquest by law” as per the book by Lindsay G. Robertson.
The result was a second treaty of Fort Laramie signed in 1868. This new treaty shrank the territorial boundaries of the Great Sioux Reservation in exchange for the U.S. federal government’s removal of all existing forts in the Powder River area, among other specifications. Yet it was a flawed treaty from the start. Most importantly, it stipulates that no changes can be made to the legally binding agreement unless ¾ of all adult Sioux males consent. Many members of the Sioux nation, particularly those within the boundaries of the territory signed the treaty. But many more bands residing north of the Bozeman Trail, such as the Hunkpapa and Sihasapa bands, did not. The treaty was not signed by three quarters of all adult Sioux males.
Yet, again, the U.S. government violated the treaty. The second Laramie treaty granted the tribes the right of regulating the entry of persons into their territory. Article II of the 1868 Treaty stipulates that nobody can enter the territory without tribal permission. But time and time again settlers have encroached on Sioux territory.
Some Americans may know that in 1874 the U.S. government sent George Custer with a group of scientists to search for natural resources, especially gold, in the isolated mountain range known today as the Black Hills. The gold they found led to an influx of miners, again in direct violation of the treaty.
Eventually, the U.S. government decided to pursue its strategy of land appropriation without bothering with the pretense of legality. The Sioux learned to be wary of treaties with the U.S. and refused to sign away their land.
In 1877, Congress unilaterally passed an act removing the sacred Black Hills from the Great Sioux Reservation, without the ¾ consent of the Sioux mandated by the Laramie Treaty of 1868. This illegal grab of sacred land brought no legal repercussions to the party that violated the treaty—the U.S. government.
In 1889, Congress again diminished the Great Sioux Reservation with the Dawes Act and Allotment Act, partitioning it into six sections, one of which was the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. This opened up parts of the reservation to outside settlement, even though the native government still controls all reservation lands.
Sioux struggles for water are embedded in such displacements. In 1948, the U.S. government began construction of Oahe Dam, despite resistance from local tribes. Its creation flooded tribal land and forced a quarter of the reservation’s inhabitants to move.
In 1958, a federal court ruled that Lake Oahe was part of the Standing Rock territory according to the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. In this ruling the court said, “Where there is a treaty with Indians which would otherwise restrict the Congress, Congress can abrogate the treaty in order to exercise its sovereign right.” The court openly articulated the self-arrogated right of the U.S. government to go back on treaty obligations with Native Americans to unilaterally exercise its sovereign power.
The U.S. did just that, taking the Lake Oahe land from the Standing Rock tribe through legislation passed by Congress in September 1958 [Public Law 85-915].
Legal abrogation, or repealing legislation, dispenses with any idea of fair treaty making between equals. It undermines native sovereignty, following a racist logic of colonial elimination. It dispenses with numerous prior legal precedents that granted Native Americans some rights, such as the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871, which declared that no treaty obligation with an Indian nation before March 3, 1871 can be “invalidated or impaired.” It puts into question the idea of the “federal Indian trust responsibility,” articulated in the Seminole Nation v. United States case of 1942, which entailed an obligation on the part of the U.S. government to protect tribal treaty rights, land, assets and resources, per the Department of the Interior Indian Affairs branch.
As a federally recognized tribe, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is legally entitled to these obligations. However, as history has shown, U.S. principles and laws do not seem to have the same meaning when it comes to Native Americans.
The United States claim that it can abrogate treaties with Native Americans has been upheld by US courts as legal. Law in our modern eyes carries the weight of legitimacy.
But because something is legal does not make it right. In the case of the Sioux, alongside every other Native American nation, laws and treaties have all too often been used not as a protective shield, or even as a neutral arbitrator, but as a weapon. That weapon is predicated on a racist, colonial history that invalidated native people’s rights to their land, to their sovereignty, to their cultural expression, to their very lives.
Whether it is the gold rush or the oil rush, the U.S government continues even now to invade native land and break treaties. The proposed DAPL would pass under Lake Oahe, the land that was openly, “legally” taken from the Sioux tribe in 1958 by Congress, despite the prior 1868 Treaty that had legally granted the Sioux rights to the land.
Today’s protests at Standing Rock today can only be fully understood in light of this colonial legacy, which from the beginning proclaimed that native lands were empty and that native people, were, in effect, nothing more than the rocks, the trees, the water that they now so valiantly strive to protect.
Let us fight against this narrative, and show through Standing Rock that native tribes are sovereign nations that possess the inherent right to life on their territories. Let us show that Native American lands are not empty, but that proud sovereign peoples live there, alongside the earth, water, rocks and trees, wind and sky, encompassing a vibrant fullness in their long defense of life.
There never was terra nullius. The only emptiness to be found exists in the hollow promises of the United States, in the historic lack of equitable substance in the U.S. legal system.
In that spirit, many U.S. citizens are now, finally, refusing to turn a blind eye to the trail of broken treaties. They stand with Standing Rock, and are petitioning President Obama to honor the treaties (petition here): “The Native nations have upheld their end of the bargain; it is time the U.S. government did the same.”
