The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota are fighting the construction of the $3.7 billion Dakota Access oil pipeline. The Dakota Access Pipeline, a
controversial 1,170-mile project that, if and when it is completed, will
flow in excess of almost 500,000 barrels of crude oil a day from North
Dakota to Illinois. Tribal chairman David Archambault II and many others have been beaten, tasered, assaulted and arrested for standing their ground behind homemade barricades, which block excavating machinery, and police vehicles. The police have been vicious in their liberal use of pepper spray, water cannons, even attack dogs on American Standing Rock protesters who are simply protecting their land.
The tribe has repeatedly sued the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers to stop crews from burrowing beneath the Missouri
River immediately upstream from their land. Support can be sent to
hashtag #NoDAPL for No Dakota Access Pipeline.
Over the weekend, the situation at Standing Rock grew more contentious. On Sunday night, Morton County police sprayed the crowd of about 400 people with tear gas and water as temperatures dipped below freezing. The police have no compassion for those fighting for their homes and the lives of the children and grandchildren. Any American, native or natural born can understand not wanting your land, you family, future generations poisoned by a massive oil project.
In 2015, when the Keystone XL pipeline was being debated, numerous Native American tribes and the Indigenous Environmental Network
organized against it. The pipeline would have stretched 1,179 miles
from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. The Rosebud Sioux, a tribe in South
Dakota, called the proposed pipeline an "act of war"
and set up an encampment where the pipeline was to be constructed. Also
joining in were the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Resources Defense Council, and the Omaha, Dene, Ho-chunk, and Creek Nations, whose lands the pipeline would have traversed. Thankfully, for the Native American Indians obama vetoed the Keystone XL.
On
December 4, 2016 hundreds of military veterans plan to "deploy" to Standing Rock
Indian Reservation in North Dakota to join in protest against the
planned Dakota Access Pipeline. The event, Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, is a call for
veterans to...
"assemble as a peaceful, unarmed militia to defend the
water protectors from assault and intimidation at the hands of the
militarized police force and DAPL private security force."
The organizers hope to
prevent progress on the construction of the pipeline as well as draw
national attention to the fight for Native American Tribes.
