United States: Indigenous people treated like invaders | Land Portal

By: Mary and Jack Wichita, Mason, Wis. 

Date: November 15th 2016

Source: Superior Telegram


We are compelled to share the issues that resonate with us about the current pipeline conflict in North Dakota.


First and foremost, this conflict is about a broken treaty, sacred territory and a giant land grab. The 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty acknowledged that all the land covered by the treaty would forever remain Indian territory. Over subsequent decades, however, the U.S. government violated the treaty by failing to protect the land from private and government encroachment. So, when Energy Transfer Partners argue the Dakota Access Pipeline is being constructed on private property, albeit very close to the reservation, they are wrong. The treaty protected the land that borders the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. The land is sacred. Ancestors are buried on this land. But now graves have been bulldozed and artifacts destroyed. Would you stay quiet if that were done to Arlington National Cemetery? Oil companies have confiscated land, cut down trees, contaminated water supplies and displaced indigenous people throughout the world and are bringing this outrage to the United States.


Second, the conflict is about safe drinking water. The Dakota Access Pipeline would carry about 500,000 barrels of oil per day from North Dakota to Illinois and cross under a large Missouri River reservoir, the source of the tribe's drinking water. Between the year 2000 and present, according to Wikipedia, both large and small oil or gas pipelines spills have occurred at least 593 times. Since 2009, the annual number of significant accidents on oil and petroleum pipelines has shot up by almost 60 percent, according to an analysis of federal data by the Associated Press. The company could have located the pipeline closer to largely white Bismarck, but federal regulators saw it as a potential threat to the city's water supply,


Third, this issue is about the power of the state versus unarmed people exercising their right to protest peacefully. The use of armored vehicles, dogs, pepper spray, rubber bullets, deafening sonar and the dismantling of a bridge over a creek on tribal land is an outrageous use of force.


Camille Seaman, award-winning American photographer, who has spent over a month at the camp, notes in a powerful TED talk, "A line has been drawn in the sand. Let this be the moment that when we no longer live with dirty fossil fuels." We would add, let this be the moment that we recognize First Nation treaties, once and for all, and no longer treat indigenous people as though they are invaders. Defining moments call on us to take a stand. We are standing on the side of the Standing Rock Sioux. If you stand on the same side, we urge you to contact President Obama, who has the power and authority to stop this pipeline, and North Dakota's Gov. Jack Dalrymple to end the overzealous use of force to arrest protesters and journalist


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