Dakota Access Pipeline protesters are seen at the Oceti Sakowin campground near the town of Cannon Ball, North Dakota in an aerial photo provided by the Morton County Sheriff's Department. Morton County Sheriff's Department/Handout via REUTERS
By Terray Sylvester
CANNON BALL, N.D. (Reuters) – More than 2,000 U.S. military veterans plan to form a human shield to protect protesters of a pipeline project near a Native American reservation in North Dakota, organizers said, just ahead of a federal deadline for activists to leave the camp they have been occupying.
It comes as North Dakota law enforcement backed away from a previous plan to cut off supplies to the camp – an idea quickly abandoned after an outcry and with law enforcement’s treatment of Dakota Access Pipeline protesters increasingly under the microscope.
The protesters have spent months rallying against plans to route the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline beneath a lake near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, saying it poses a threat to water resources and sacred Native American sites.
Protesters include various Native American tribes as well as environmentalists and even actors including Shailene Woodley.
State officials issued an order on Monday for activists to vacate the Oceti Sakowin camp, located on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers land near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, citing harsh weather conditions.
The state’s latest decision not to stop cars entering the protest site indicated local officials will not actively enforce Monday’s emergency order to evacuate the camp issued by Governor Jack Dalrymple.
Dalrymple warned on Wednesday that it was “probably not feasible” to reroute the pipeline, but said he had requested a meeting with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council to rebuild a relationship.
“We need to begin now to talk about how we are going to return to a peaceful relationship,” he said on a conference call.
The 1,172-mile (1,885 km) pipeline project, owned by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP <ETP.N>, is mostly complete, except for a segment planned to run under Lake Oahe, a reservoir formed by a dam on the Missouri River.
Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, a contingent of more than 2,000 U.S. military veterans, intends to go to North Dakota by this weekend and form a human wall in front of police, protest organizers said on a Facebook page. Organizers could not immediately be reached for comment.
“I figured this was more important than anything else I could be doing,” Guy Dull Knife, 69, a Vietnam War Army veteran, told Reuters at the main camp.
Dull Knife, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe from the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota, said he has been camping at the protest site for months.
Morton County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Rob Keller said in an email his agency was aware of the veterans’ plans, but would not comment further on how law enforcement will deal with demonstrators.
Former U.S. Marine Michael A. Wood Jr is leading the effort along with Wesley Clark Jr, a writer whose father is retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark.
U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii and a major in the Hawaii Army National Guard, has said on Twitter she will join the protesters on Sunday.
The Army Corps, citing safety concerns, has ordered the evacuation of the primary protest camp by Dec. 5, but said it would not forcibly remove people from the land.
Local law enforcement said on Tuesday they planned a blockade of the camp, but local and state officials later retreated, saying they would only check vehicles for certain prohibited supplies like propane, and possibly issue fines.
Dalrymple on Wednesday said state officials never contemplated forcibly removing protesters and there had been no plans to block food or other supplies from the camp. “That would be a huge mistake from a humanitarian standpoint,” he said on the conference call.
He also warned protesters that while emergency responders will try to reach anyone in need, that would be contingent on weather conditions.
Protesters, who refer to themselves as “water protectors,” have been gearing up for the winter while they await the Army Corps decision on whether to allow Energy Transfer Partners to tunnel under the river. That decision has been delayed twice by the Army Corps.
(Additional reporting by Ernest Scheyder in Houston and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Writing by Ben Klayman; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Matthew Lewis)
This is not their land..the BLM and the government cannot own land and that is in the Constitution…this is reservation land…the government has taken and abused us for decades and it has to stop..we have the right to a clean, pure water supply, we have the right to protect what is ours and we have a right to protest..as for our being violent, it was and is a sit in..the only violence is the US government.
Gail,
Thank you for your support…modern man, those that appeared here in the 1700s have taken and utterly ruined this planet ….look at the chemicals in the sky killing the entire planet, the predatory nature that we supposed humans have become against even each other, ethanol, causing neuro and respiratory illness..government taking lands and calling it is theirs..by law they can only own what is in DC and no more than 10.??? square miles anywhere else. This is another attempt, as in Tx as happened to the Bundy family and the MURDER of LaVoy that was trying to help the Paiute get their lands back from the state of OR which took it unlawfully and then HRC sold the uranium to Russia off it..this is another of their inhuman, stupid and idiotic means of feeling good about what they do. I thank the veterans and if I get funds in to myself, I will be joining my people.
I pray that in the 21st Century we would finally be supportive of the sacred Indian lands. Nooooo we are still ignoring the American Indian and their rights. You know whats worse it’s a company from my own state, Texas, who KNOWS BETTER than to overtake someones territory, for we would NOT stand for it here! Stand up for your rights! God bless
Thank you for your very respectful comment..yes, why to both of your queries.
To take it to a metaphoric and sort of ‘tribal’ perspective, why did they not FIRST talk to the people who LIVE along the area, and hear there concerns, and shove the metal snake far enough away everyone would be happy with? If the pipeline was planned to run through my parents cemetery, or right through a church, that would be unacceptable. So who not TRULY value ‘Religious Freedom’, and have a little respect for these people?
We rounded-up these people two hundred more or less years ago, to get them off of land we White folks wanted, and shoved them all onto reservations in the middle of the God-forsaken desert, despite these people having been in, say, North Carolina, by the sea, in a lifestyle they had adapted to for thousands of years. PLEASE don’t anyone repeat the stupid and bizarrely dishonest comment made by ding-dong Michele Bachmann, in reference to Columbus Day: ” Of course I celebrate Columbus Day. He founded America with God’s help. Nobody was here before him. Without Columbus this entire continent would be an empty piece of land.” 10/10/2016.
Why do we place money over the respect of other’s lives? Why is the religious community not rushing to defend THESE people? TRUE ‘tolerance’ of faith ONLY runs along a two-way street,, and other’s faiths then must be respected and tolerated as well as OURS is. The SAME expectations we want for ourselves, we must be willing to fairly grant to others. There’s NO real “Religious Freedom” at all when ONLY MY religious matters. let them be. The people banished to these Reservations live TERRIBLE lives of poverty and no access to jobs. Native American people face the WORST fate of any American ethnic group, and die, on average, far sooner than the average American. Where at least are the Mormons here? They consider Native Americans to be God’s Chosen People, so could they chime in and support them? Live and let live. We all are stewards of the land we stand on, and will be buried in. I cannot show up at say, Jim Bakker’s home, and announce, “I claim this for me, as mine!” A woman’s arm was shot-off by the police, and God only knows what else has occurred. Does the old crud at the bottom of the earth matter more than human’s lives? I’ll step off y soapbox. Thank you.