Native people fight to stop Dakota pipeline
2016Karen Schraufnagel 2016-09Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 1 →
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VOL. 34, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2016 WWW.SOCIALISTACTION.ORG U.S. $1 / CANADA $2 Karen Schraufnagel is the Socialist Action candidate for vice president of the United States in 2016.
The indigenous-led fight is heating up to stop the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline that has been dev astating sacred native burial grounds.
Resistance continues to grow at the Sacred Stone and Red Warrior camps, undeterred by mace and at tack dogs. Thousands of indigenous brothers and sis ters from tribes all across the country and their many allies are heeding the call to #DefendtheSacred and #KeepItInTheGround because #WaterIsLife.
This is a historic gathering up of the indigenous na tions. Of the 566 federally recognized tribes, more than 150 have been represented in the camps and on the front lines fighting this pipeline. That means more than a quarter of the tribal nations in this coun try are in on this fight. As Lakota activist and Twin Cities resident Coya White Hat-Artichoker said when she visited the camp in early September: “They un derestimate us. They don’t realize that the last time we came together like this, we killed Custer.”
On Sept. 2, a lawyer for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe filed an emergency motion in Federal Court. Dakota Access has repeatedly claimed the pipeline would not violate any sacred sites. A landowner (this particular parcel is not reservation land) and tribal experts filed discovery testimony to the judge deciding whether to grant an injunction against Dakota Access to halt construction.
The discovery testimony pinpointed the archeologi cally unique areas and sacred sites including grave markers. This should have been followed by an offi cial survey by the North Dakota State Historic Pres ervation Office after the Labor Day holiday weekend. Instead, immediately after the filing, bulldozers were at the site digging up the sacred land.
To get to the area, Dakota Access leapfrogged 15 miles from current construction, in a move clearly designed to short circuit injunctive relief. Dave Ar chambault II, Standing Rock tribal chair, stated: “Da kota Access Pipeline and Energy Transfer Partners brazenly used bulldozers to destroy our burial sites, prayer sites and culturally significant artifacts. They did this on a holiday weekend, one day after we filed court papers identifying these sacred sites.”
“These grounds are the resting places of our ances tors. The ancient cairns and stone prayer rings there cannot be replaced. In one day, our sacred land has been turned into hollow ground.”
The Dakota Access Pipeline will cross four states as it transports oil from the Bakken fields (in western Tom Stromme / Bismarck Tribune (Photo) Young protesters rally next to road being constructed to aid in building pipeline near the Standing Rock reservation.
North Dakota) to a distribution center in Illinois. The intended route includes passage under the Missouri River. When the pipeline leaks or spills into this vital waterway, the consequences will be catastrophic for every living thing. Fortunately for all of us, the Stand ing Rock Sioux tribe calls this area home, and have taken it upon themselves to protect our mother earth from her assailants.
In the lapdog capitalist press, the protectors of our land and water are described as “violent” while the profit-hungry, pollution-loving earth destroyers are simply “defending.” But just who and what are the po lice and attack dogs “defending?”
According to Bloomberg’s 2015 profile: “Kelcy War ren is Having Fun in the Oil Bust.” Warren, the found er of Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the Dakota Access Pipeline, has amassed a $7.3 billion personal fortune. Like so many capitalists, his fortune seems to increase with disasters. His main residence is a 23,000 square foot home on 10 acres in Texas. In addition, he owns three ranches (one is over 11,000 acres), a house in Lake Tahoe, and an island off of (continued on page 7, in “Bill McKibben: ‘Mobilize like in WW II’”)
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