We've always "Occupied the Prairie" and We're Not Going Anywhere
PHOTO CREDIT: Young Protectors of the Water, John Clark-Dvorak
Video Interview Clip with LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, Founder Sacred Stone Camp.
8/24/16
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FROM:
Elders and Leaders
Sacred Stone Camp
Cannonball River
BREAKING: Reports Indicate Power/Services Cut off to Camp 6:11 P.M. PST AUG 23. North Dakota State Services Involved, According to Sources.
We've always "Occupied the Prarie" and We're Not Going Anywhere
Stand with Standing Rock and Stop the Billionaire's Water Grab
In Occupying the Prairie: Tensions Rise as Tribes Move to Block a Pipeline by Jack Healy, New York Times, Aug. 23, 2016 we see and hear about Indians in paint on horseback, in "procession" out of their "tepee-dotted camp."
What Jack Healy misses in his over-romanticized and over-sensationalized perspective is basic journalism. His is the version Wall Street wants to hear, cowboys (Energy Transfer Partners) vs. Indians in face paint -- a classic "Western."
While the almost 500 Nations of our indigenous brothers and sisters (over 90 are represented in the Sacred Stones Camp) are proud of the heritage of our peoples, it's important to keep the focus on today and why we are here. This is our land, as defined in our times as the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, a Sovereign Nation.
In fact, what we call the United States is really comprised of Nations, it is a "united" Nations, of relationships formed by diplomacy.
The Greater Sioux Nations predated the United States, so as the newly minted USA acquired more territory agreements were sought in many cases with the existing nations of the Plains and elsewhere. One such Treaty, the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851), matters now.
According to Hollywood, every story needs a conflict. And calling this a "conflict" plays into the hands and the wallets of those who would like to profit from the energy game at other people's expense.
Healy does a disservice to both the Native Nations, and to the investors and companies in the energy field, who rely on good practices to make a profit. Good practices seem hard to come by in North Dakota.
So it's right on all counts to provide basic information from the leadership of Sacred Stone Camp in helping all parties understand what is at stake.
Sacred Stone Camp was begun by youth and by women, as a prayer. It is our prayer, that the waters of the homelands of the Standing Rock Tribe and all the peoples of the Oceti Sakowin, the Seven Council Fires, or "Greater Sioux Nation," remain pure. That includes the Missouri River and it's tributaries, flowing into the Mississippi in the greatest river system within the continental boundaries of the United States.
With over 200 river crossings the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline puts the drinking water supply of a large part of the country at risk. Our prayer is to keep the waters pure for all tribal peoples and all Americans -- farmers in Iowa and Illinois, schoolchildren in South Dakota, and Missouri.
We are Protectors not Protesters. Our camp is a prayer, for our children, our elders and ancestors, and for the creatures, and the land and habitat they depend on, who cannot speak for themselves.
We wish the Army Corps had done their job in protecting federally administered lands, unceded Indian lands, and Tribal lands, relying on science and judgement in protecting Indian culture from construction. Whether by intention or omission, the Army Corps broke federal laws, and didn't do their job.
The state didn't do its job, overstepping jurisdictions and boundaries placing police barricades inside a Sovereign nation's borders, disrespecting treaties, conducting an illegal "occupation" on Indigenous lands in direct counterveillance to most of the provisions of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a document signed by 144 other nations and (later) endorsed by the United States of America and President Obama.
The Governor of North Dakota didn't do his job, when instead of ensuring all parties get to the table on energy and environment, he let negative words and accusations cloud our hearts and judgement, and threaten to divide us.
What is going on here is that thousands of people from across North America have arrived on the Cannonball River to pray for our environment and our cultures together.
We ask people to join us if you feel it in your hearts to do so. We are calm here at Sacred Stone Camp; we are safe and in a safe place; we hold the land in healing and prayer for everyone's benefit.
Protect the environment from being "savaged" by speculators, carpetbagging Texas energy companies owned by lone wolf billionaires.
Don't let them take our public, and our Native lands, and the resources they hold, the water we all depend on, for our future in a changing world and climate.
We invite all peoples and representatives to come to our territories to sit together in honor and respect protection for our lands and waters.
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Note: Dakota Access Pipeline Construction Stopped until Court Hears Case on Aug. 24. Ruling Today --
CONTACT:
Robert Lundahl
RL | A
Public Policy Communications
(415) 205 3481