Resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) at Standing Rock has gained unprecedented coverage. At the center of the story is a thousand-plus miles long pipeline that would transport some 500,000 barrels of oil per day from North Dakota to Illinois. The pipeline is backed by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners. And It faces a huge line of Indigenous nations who’ve come together to say “No.”
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe opposes the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, because it crosses sacred grounds within the boundaries of the reservation and threatens water sources in the larger region of the Missouri River.
There was no prior consultation or authorization for the pipeline. In fact, the construction of the pipeline is a blatant violation of treaty rights. The territorial and water rights of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe are protected under the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851) and the Sioux Nation Treaty at Fort Laramie (1868)—as well as subsequent treaties.
Indigenous nations across the USA mobilized to protect Standing Rock. There are thousands of people now standing their grounds, including over a hundred Nations from across the Continent. Tara Houska, from the Ojibwa Nation, says this gathering of tribal nations at Standing Rock is unprecedented since Wounded Knee in 1973.
#NoDAPL Peaceful Prayer Demonstration led by the International Indigenous Youth Council at the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation on Sept 25, 2016. Photo: Indigenous Environmental Network
Though it’s making less headlines now, the ongoing pipeline resistance has faced the same brand of repression that other megaprojects face in Guatemala, Peru and elsewhere around the world: with violence and impunity. Most recently, over 20 water defenders were arrested on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to trespassing. Earlier this month, pipeline guards unleashed attack dogs (biting at least 6 people), punched and pepper-sprayed Native American protesters.
Such attacks rarely make it to the media, and when they do the media often ends up feeling some of the legal pressures used against native nations. Democracy Now released video footage of dogs with blood on their teeth, which went viral. As a result, Amy Goodman was charged for criminal trespass. An arrest warrant was issued under the header “North Dakota versus Amy Goodman.” The defense of Native territory was combined with claims that “journalism is not a crime.”
Waves of support emerged everywhere. A coalition of more than 1,200 archeologists, museum directors, and historians from institutions like the Smithsonian and the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries denounced the deliberate destruction of Standing Rock Sioux ancestral burial sites. In Washington DC, hundreds gathered outside President Obama’s final White House Tribal Nations Conference in a rally opposing the North Dakota Pipeline.
Unprecedented mobilization led to unprecedented politics. On September 10, the US federal government temporarily stopped the project. A statement released by three federal agencies said the case “highlighted the need for a serious discussion” about nationwide reforms “with respect to considering tribes’ views on these types of infrastructure projects.”
Dave Archambault, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman, took the case to the United Nations. He denounced the destruction of oil companies and the Sioux determination to protect water and land for unborn generations. The UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, responded by calling on the United States to halt the construction of the pipeline saying it poses a significant risk to drinking water and sacred sites.
“I urge the United States Government to undertake a thorough review of its compliance with international standards regarding the obligation to consult with indigenous peoples and obtain their free and informed consent,” the expert said. “The statutory framework should be amended to include provisions to that effect and it is important that the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Advisory Council on Historic Preservation participate in the review of legislation.”
Many more standing against pipelines
Standing Rock has become emblematic of a much broader battle against predatory development. The invasion of Indigenous territory without prior consultation is unfortunately all too common. The disregard of state treaties and environmental regulations is not an exception, but the norm.
Across the Americas, there are hundreds of nations resisting megaprojects on their lands like Standing Rock. Many of these struggles are taking place now in North America. People know that Native Americans protested the Keystone XL pipeline in Oklahoma. But there are many more pipelines that receive little or no media attention.
In Canada, the Energy East Pipeline would carry 1.1 million barrels of crude per day from Saskatchewan to Ontario and on to Saint John, New Brunswick. The pipeline will secure crude exports to the more profitable markets of Europe, India, China and the U.S. But it threatens the lands of more than 30 First Nations and the drinking water of more than five million Canadians.
Nancy Morrison, 85, of Onigaming and Daryl “Hutchy” Redsky Jr., 7, of Shoal Lake 40 stand together at Kenora’s second Energy East pipeline information session.
There is the Northern Gateway Pipeline, which Canada’s Federal Government conditionally approved in June 2014 without prior consultation. The Yinka Dene Alliance First Nations refused the pipeline permissions to enter its territories. There are eight First Nations, four environmental groups and one union now challenging the pipeline in court. Last June, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the project.
The Unist’ot’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation are continuing to resist the Pacific Trail natural gas pipeline in British Colombia. Coast Salish Peoples on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border are opposing Kinder Morgan’s proposed TransMountain pipeline project. In Minnesota, the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians are fighting against a set of Enbridge pipelines.
There are many other pipeline struggles around the world, including in Peru, where the Wampis are cleaning up oil spills on their own; and Ecuador, where urban youth and ecologists have joined Indigenous communities in defending the Amazon from further oil drilling in the Yasuni.
What is at stake is Indigenous territory coupled with the greater need for healthy land and clean water for posterity. Resisting pipelines is to defend nature from the tentacles of extractive industries that continue to place corporate interests ahead of human rights and needs even as the climate crisis pulls us to the point of no return. Standing Rock is about Indigenous self-determination as much as it is about restoring relations of reciprocity between humans and nature. Without respect to Indigenous nations there will be no reversing of climate change.
The legal precedent of Bagua
Peru may offer inspiration to redefine rights of extraction–Peruvian courts just absolved 52 Indigenous men and women in the well-known case of #Bagua.
Also known as “Baguazo,” the case refers to the 2009 massacre in the Amazon. Hundreds of people from the Awajún and Wampis nations blocked a road in the area called Curva del Diablo (Bagua, Amazonas) to contest oil drilling without prior consultation on their territory. Several weeks of Indigenous resistance led to a powerful standoff with former-Peruvian President Alan Garcia responding with a militarized crackdown. The military opened fire on protesters on the ground and from helicopters in what survivors described as a “rain of bullets.” At least 32 people were killed, including 12 police officers.
Peruvian forces open fire on the Awajun and Wampis. Photo: unknown
The government tried to cover the massacre by claiming that Indigenous protesters had attacked the police, who reacted in self-defense. Yet autopsies showed that the police were killed by gunfire. The Indigenous protesters were only armed with traditional weapons—they had no firearms of any kind. Nonetheless, 52 peoples were charged with homicide and instigating rebellion in what became the largest trial in Peruvian history. Bagua’s indigenous resistance for water and land is told in the award-winning documentary “When Two Worlds Collide.”
Seven years later, the Superior Court of Justice of Amazonas (Peru) absolved the 52 accused on the basis of Indigenous autonomy over territory. The court determined that Indigenous roadblocks were a “reasonable decision- necessary and adequate- as well as proportional” to defend nature and the “physical and biological integrity of their territory which could have been affected by extractive industries without prior consultation.”
The sentence states that it is “evident that the Indigenous Nations Awajún and Wampis have decided to block circulation on the roads (…) in their legitimate right to peaceful expression based on territorial and organizational autonomy and their jurisdictional authority recognized by the Constitution.”
This marks an important precedent. Peruvian courts showed their autonomy in rejecting fabricated accusations against peaceful Indigenous protesters defending nature. This will hopefully show that the defense of nature, like journalism, is not a crime. Most importantly, the court respected the organizational and territorial autonomy of Indigenous Peoples. Indeed, Indigenous Peoples were right to close the road rather than have their rights violated.
In Bagua as in Standing Rock, Indigenous Peoples have the sovereign authority to block roads to protect territory, water, and the well-being of generations to come. It is time that all courts respect such inalienable rights with the same fervor that Indigenous Peoples defend their territories.
The unmonitored use of mercury, such as in illegal alluvial gold mining, often takes place on tribal peoples’ lands. Discriminatory attitudes towards tribal peoples mean that little action is taken to control it.
In Peru, 80% of a Nahua community have tested positive for high levels of mercury poisoning. 63% of those affected are children. Symptoms include anemia and renal failure, and one child has already died displaying symptoms consistent with mercury poisoning.
The Peruvian government has known about the mercury contamination since 2014 but has done little to identify the source. It is possible that other tribal peoples in the area have been affected, including uncontacted peoples.
Indigenous spokesman Reinaldo Rocha Yekuana said: “We are worried about the results of this research. This pollution affects plants, animals, and future generations.”
The Brazilian authorities have known about the mercury contamination since at least the 1980s, yet have failed to put a permanent stop to the illegal gold mining. Little has also been done to treat the affected Indians.
In Venezuela, several tribes including the Yekuana, Yanomami, Piaroa, Hoti and Pemon are also being devastated. 92% of Yekuana women in one region have levels of contamination far exceeding accepted limits.
Survival’s Director, Stephen Corry said: “These governments are sitting on a ticking time bomb. Every week that they fail to act, more and more indigenous peoples are being harmed. When mercury poisoning is identified, the source must be halted immediately and those affected must be treated. The effects will be catastrophic if indigenous peoples’ lands aren’t protected.”
Up to 80% of a recently-contacted tribe in Peru have been poisoned with mercury, raising serious concerns for the future of the tribe. One child has already died displaying symptoms consistent with mercury poisoning.
The source of the Nahua tribe’s poisoning remains a mystery, but experts suspect Peru’s massive Camisea gas project, which opened up the tribe’s land in the 1980s, may be to blame. The project has recently been expanded further into the Nahua’s territory, prompting fierce opposition from the tribe.
Rampant illegal gold mining in the region is another potential source of the mercury poisoning.
Other indigenous communities in the area may also have been affected by mercury contamination, but tests have not been carried out. Some of these communities are uncontacted or extremely isolated. It is understood that the Peruvian Health and Environment Ministries have been aware of the problem since 2014.
AIDESEP, the main indigenous organization in Peru’s Amazon, is lobbying the government to carry out full health checks on the Nahua and other tribes in the area, and to conduct a proper investigation into the cause of the poisoning. A study was conducted by the Ministry of Health in spring 2015, but the results have yet to be published.
Nery Zapata, an indigenous leader, said: “Mercury contamination is extremely damaging to human health because its effects are irreversible. The health department must investigate this, and stop the contamination that is poisoning the indigenous population.”
Survival has also written to the Peruvian Ministries of Health and Culture urging them to publish the results of their study and put an end to the catastrophe.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “The Peruvian authorities have always been pretty indifferent to the problems facing their indigenous communities, and the total neglect they’ve shown in this case just proves it. Had this poisoning taken place in Lima, I don’t expect they would have been quite so casual in their response, or as slow to publish the results of their earlier findings. It’s nothing short of scandalous that they are not doing more to sort out this crisis. It’s also very telling that they are withholding information about it from the public.”
For most Peruvians it was a Sunday like any other; but in the Wampis community of Soledad, it was a historic day. On November 29, the Wampis nation declared the formation of the first Autonomous Indigenous Government in Peru.
Spanning a 1.3 million hectare territory – a region the size of the State of Connecticut – the newly elected government brings together 100 Wampis communities representing some 10,613 people who continue to live a traditional subsistence way of life through hunting, fishing and small scale agriculture.
While the newly-formed government does not seek independence from Peru, its main role is to protect Wampis ancestral territory and promote a sustainable way of life that prioritizes well-being, food security and a healthy harmonious existence with the natural world.
This is no small task in today’s world; but it is nonetheless a necessary one, as Andres Noningo Sesen, Waimaku (Wampis Visionary), explains in a recent email to the New Internationalist. Due to the advance of mining and oil companies, illegal logging and palm oil plantations, the Wampis have found their livelihoods increasingly under threat.
We will still be Peruvian citizens but now we will have our own government responsible for our own territory. This will allow us to defend our forests from the threats of logging, mining, oil and gas and mega dams. As every year goes by these threats grow bigger.
This unity will bring us the political strength we need to explain our vision to the world and to the governments and companies who only see the gold and oil in our rivers and forests. For them, too often we are like a small insect who they want to squash. Any activity planned in our territory that will affect us will now have to be decided by our own government which represents all our communities.
The new Government consists of a President, Vice-President and an 80-member parliament with members elected by each Wampis community through their own local assemblies. Eventually, it will have 102 members. The basis for governance is the Statute of the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampis Nation, the result of a long process that took place over several years with the Wampis nation holding over 50 community meetings and 15 general assemblies to develop and debate the Statute which lays out their vision for the future in all areas of life including religion, spirituality, education, language and recovery of ancestral place names.
The Statute places special emphasis on the rights of women stating,
The Wampis nation will work to achieve true gender equality. The Government will work at all levels to promote a campaign to end all forms of violence against Wampis women… respect for women and unity takes precedence over cultural practices, specifically polygamy which took places in other historical contexts and which today can lead to social conflicts… The Wampis Government will prioritize access to third level education for women in different universities throughout the country.
The Statute also emphasizes the obligations of the Peruvian state to respect the rights and autonomy of indigenous peoples and nations. Amongst other principles, the Statute requires that any activity that could affect Wampis territory must secure the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of the Wampis nation. Specifically, this means that the Government of Peru cannot give out any further concessions that allow oil or mining companies to enter Wampis territory without a prior consultation process.
Currently, the Wampis are in the process of resisting such a concession that was granted, amongst others, to Afrodita S.A. for gold mining activities in a bi-national protected area along the border area with Ecuador. Since 2001, Afrodita has maintained a presence in this part of the Peruvian Amazon and in 2010 had its license suspended in the region of Cordillera del Cóndor due to the sustained resistance of indigenous communities living along the Cenpea and Maraño rivers. Both rivers suffered from severe mercury and cyanide stemming from mining activities in the region.
This, according to the newly elected Pamuk (first President) Wrays Pérez Ramirez, will be the largest challenge for the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampis Nation. The new president told Intercontinental Cry by phone:
We know that it will be difficult to get the National Government to support us and recognize our territory. It will seem unacceptable to the Government to have to consult us regarding any activity that could affect our territory. We know that it is going to be hard work but we are prepared. We are not going to stay silent not least when we have legal backing from national and international legislation regarding our right to self-determination and free, prior and informed consent. It will be difficult, but not impossible.
“The election has not taken place behind the Government’s back,” he adds. “The Governors of Amazonas and Loreto Province were invited to the summit as well as the Minister for Environment, Energy and Mining and the Minister for Culture but none attended. At the local level we have support and will work closely with, amongst others, the mayors of Rio Santiago and Morona who agree with our decision.”
The historic decision of the Wampis nation will be a source of inspiration for indigenous nations throughout Latin America. As a model for sustainable development and the preservation of some of our last remaining forests, it should also inspire world leaders as they meet at the COP21 Climate Summit in Paris this week.
“While the Peruvian government and other governments are in Paris talking about how to protect tropical forests and reduce contamination, we are taking concrete actions in our territory to contribute to this global goal,” says the newly elected Pamuk.
Indigenous communities in Peru occupied 14 oil wells, paralyzing South American energy firm Pluspetrol’s production, in a protest to demand better compensation for the use of their land.
Some 380 members of the Achuar community took control of the facilities in Peru’s northern Amazon region of Loreto Monday, halting the production of some 3,100 barrels of crude oil. Pluspetrol said in a statement that the protesters also seized eight boats on the Tigre River, including two that provided supplies for the company.
Pluspetrol has been operating in Loreto in block 1-AB since 2001 and has been the target of many indigenous protests in the last few years, demanding both compensation for land exploitation and the cleanup of contamination from spilled crude oil.
Carlos Sandi, president of local indigenous and environmentalist group Feconaco, said the community was demanding better compensation for the exploitation of their land, including the installation of an industrial sawmill and the development of a community-run enterprise to help create jobs for the locals in the area.
“They have taken their measures of protest and are waiting for dialogue to resolve this as soon as possible,” Sandi told Reuters.
However, there seems little chance of a dialogue since, according to Pluspetrol, the community should not receive compensation because it is not within the area of direct influence of oil operations.
Its contract on the lot expires in August, while the government has not announced a new bid date for the rights to continue developing on the block.
