International Indigenous Human Rights Observers Arriving at Standing Rock

Continental Commission Abya Yala

Indigenous Peoples Peace Initiative

International Indigenous Human Rights Observers Arriving at Standing Rock

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In an independent initiative of the Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of the Great Turtle Island Abya Yala [the Americas] the Continental Commission Abya Yala is mobilizing a team of International Indigenous Human Rights Observers to arrive at Standing Rock, North Dakota by December 4, 2016.  The delegation is planning to arrive at the Oceti Sakowin Camp in advance of the December 5 deadline declared by District Commander John W. Henderson who announced on November 25 that the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) would be "closing the portion of the Corps-managed federal property north of the Cannonball River to all public use and access effective December 5, 2016."

A subsequent statement by the USACE on November 27 clarified that their role in the conflict over the non-permitted drilling operation of the Dakota Access Pipeline on the banks of the Missouri River is as a manager of Federal property, and that as such the USACE has “no plans for forcible removal” of the Oceti Sakowin camp north of the Cannonball River.

The mission of the International Indigenous Human Rights Observers will be to monitor, witness, and report on the developments at the site of the conflict between the Oceti Sakowin Dakota-Nakota-Lakota Nations and the Civil Resistance Camp of Water Defenders at Standing Rock who are facing the complicit and colluding forces of the corporation Dakota Access Pipeline, owned by Energy Transfer Partners and the aligned political and economic interests of the state of North Dakota who are driving the Bakken Oilfields pipeline project.

On November 28^th, North Dakota governor Jack Dalrymple issued an order of “mandatory evacuation of all persons located in the proprietary jurisdiction of the United States Army Corps of Engineers” as referenced in the initial USACE announcement of November 25^th.

In immediate response to the executive order by Gov. Dalrymple, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman, Dave Archambault II called on the Army Corps to reaffirm their position of no forcible removal and denounced the act by the head public office holder of the state of North Dakota stating:

“This state executive order is a menacing action meant to cause fear, and is a blatant attempt by the state and local officials to usurp and circumvent federal authority. The USACE has clearly stated that it does not intend to forcibly remove campers from federal property. The Governor cites harsh weather conditions and the threat to human life. As I have stated previously, the most dangerous thing we can do is force well-situated campers from their shelters and into the cold. If the true concern is for public safety than the Governor should clear the blockade and the county law enforcement should cease all use of flash grenades, high-pressure water cannons in freezing temperatures, dog kennels for temporary human jails, and any harmful weaponry against human beings. This is a clear stretch of state emergency management authority and a further attempt to abuse and humiliate the water protectors. The State has since clarified that they won’t be deploying law enforcement to forcibly remove campers, but we are wary that this executive order will enable further human rights violations.”

In light of these actions by officers and public officials of the local, state, federal and tribal governments, and in full recognition, acknowledgement, and in Defense of the Universal Human Right of Self Determination of the Oceti Sakowin Dakota-Nakota-Lakota Nations and all other Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of the territories involved or impacted by the conflict over the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock, the Continental Commission Abya Yala presents the following clarifications:

The statements given this week by US government public officials, two by the USACE on November 25 and 27, and the order by Gov. Dalrymple on November 28 clearly establish that the purview of their claims to jurisdiction over the “public lands” is a derivative of the proprietary right purportedly ascribed to the US federal government.

In fact, and in law – this proprietary interest of the US Federal Government has not been established as a valid legal right under the principle of the Rule of Law, certainly not one that has been recognized as such by the Oceti Sakowin Dakota-Nakota-Lakota Nations, signatories of the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaties, and all other Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of the territories involved. 

Further to this point, as has been acknowledged by the US Federal Court itself in the case of the Delaware Nation v. Pennsylvania (2004), the court ruled that the issues of the case were beyond the capacity of a US court to deliver justice, calling the case nonjusticiable, although it acknowledged that Indian title appeared to have been extinguished by fraud. This ruling held through the United States courts of appeals and subsequently the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

Not that a hearing before the US Supreme Court would provide any hope for justice on addressing the issue of any “proprietary” interest that the US Federal government may have at Standing Rock or anywhere else on the continent for that matter.  All US property law is based on the 1823 Johnson v. M’Intosh SCOTUS decision which established the colonial Doctrine of Discovery of Christendom as fundamental to all jurisdictions of all US courts, departments of government, and law enforcement officials from county cops to state militia, from state governors to the local dog catcher.

Most recently, this perverted principle of the “Law of the Rulers” (AKA European American settler state constructs of Colonization and White Supremacy) was reaffirmed by the US Supreme Court in the case of City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York (2005), where Judge Ginsberg invoked the perverted and dehumanizing reasoning the Doctrine of Discovery to affirm what amounts to a legaloide form of apartheid as articulated in the 1823 Johnson v. M’Intosh decision, and extrapolated continentally the same year under the guise of the Monroe Doctrine. 

Previously, and as example of the what may be expected of the US Justice Department’s role in defending the cause of justice regarding the issue of easement rights at the drill site of the Dakota Access Pipeline at Lake Oahe on the banks of the Missouri River, in 1954  the U.S. Justice Department submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States the argument that the Tee-Hit-Ton Indians should not receive monetary compensation for a taking of their timber because “the Christian nations of Europe acquired jurisdiction over the lands of heathens and infidels.”

In international context, in 2012 the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, an advisory body to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, made the following recommendation to all member states, advisory bodies, and affiliated organizations of the UN system around the world:

 

“The Permanent Forum recalls the fourth preambular paragraph of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which affirms that all doctrines, policies and practices based on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis of national origin or racial, religious, ethnic or cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust.

Legal and political justification for the dispossession of indigenous peoples from their lands, their disenfranchisement and the abrogation of their rights such as the doctrine of discovery, the doctrine of domination, “conquest”, “discovery”, terra nullius or the Regalian doctrine were adopted by colonizers throughout the world.

While these nefarious doctrines were promoted as the authority for the acquisition of the lands and territories of indigenous peoples, there were broader assumptions implicit in the doctrines, which became the basis for the assertion of authority and control over the lives of indigenous peoples and their lands, territories and resources. Indigenous peoples were constructed as “savages”, “barbarians”, “backward” and “inferior and uncivilized” by the colonizers who used such constructs to subjugate, dominate and exploit indigenous peoples and their lands, territories and resources.

The Permanent Forum calls upon States to repudiate such doctrines as the basis for denying Indigenous Peoples’ human rights.”

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In September of 2016, a Message of Solidarity with Standing Rock delivered on the ground at the Oceti Sakowin Camp by the Continental Commission Abya Yala to the traditional and tribal leadership of the Dakota-Nakota-Lakota Nations, Signatories of the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaties, and all other Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of the territories involved.  An extract of that statement:  

Continental Commission Abya Yala: Message of Solidarity to Standing Rock

It deserves noting, that while Dr. Martinez called for the establishment of a distinct international body back in 1999 to address treaty disputes between Nations of Indigenous Peoples of Mother Earth and the Government States of the UN system, that was nine years before the UN itself adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) which now has unequivocally proclaimed Indigenous Peoples as “Equal to all other peoples…”

As Peoples, equal to all other peoples, our treaties are also equal to all other treaties and thus our traditional systems of International Law, from Jurisgenesis to Jurisprudence, from Jurisdiction to Judgment, must also be integrated without prejudice into the design, implementation, and evaluation systems of contemporary international law. This principle of Equality as Peoples which was not in place as official criteria for evaluation during the Treaty Study by Dr. Martinez, now mandates that the UN treaty study itself be updated and revised appropriately.

For example, in the case of the Dakota Access Pipeline, the public narrative has emphasized that because the project does not cross the Medicine Line (aka the US-Canada International Border), there is no need for review under relevant procedures by the US state department and the executive office of the president. This narrative is flawed, in that the violations of International Law on the Traditional Territories of the Oceti Sakowin as referenced in the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty which the Dakota Access pipeline is the latest example of criminal conspiracy and US government collusion are prima facia evidence for a hearing before a competent international forum as Dr. Martinez recommended in 1999. The borders of the Treaty Territories have been violated, once again.

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The full statement of Solidarity to Standing Rock by the Continental Commission Abya Yala will be presented at the next session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in 2017 at UN headquarters in New York, along with a report on the December 4, 2016 visit to Standing Rock by the team of the International Indigenous Human Rights Observers, with mandate under the Continental Commission Abya Yala of the Great Turtle Island. 

Conclusion:

The overarching interests of all parties involved in the conflict at Standing Rock in material and spiritual dimension, in both symmetry and diversity in terms of the cultural constituencies and cosmetric world views engaged, all invoke the universal goal of World Peace.  As was said by the Lakota Holy People, this world of peace begins within, it is an emanation of our shared human reality at the planetary level, not an expression of any deforming and dehumanizing racist doctrine. The goal of world peace lies as a seed in each human heart.

We are called to provide the necessary sustenance for that individual seed of world of peace to be nurtured, protected, and if necessary defended.  This will be our legacy to the future generations.  And as was very clearly stated by representatives of the Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples who participated in the Global Indigenous Preparatory Conference in Alta, Norway 2013 we cannot expect to have peace on earth if we are not at peace with Mother Earth.

To be at peace with Mother Earth requires that human society achieve equilibrium and homeostasis with the natural world. This culture of equilibrium also begins within each of our hearts and souls, in our homes and communities, and is communicated constantly by the ebb and flow of the Sacred Spirit of Water, M’ni Wiconi – In Atzintli, In Nemililiztli.

Therefore, we call upon President Obama and all jurisdictions of the US Government from Federal, to State and Tribal Councils to reaffirm a shared commitment to these Principles of World Peace, to immediately and permanently deny the easement for the Oahe crossing and to rescind all DAPL permits. We call for President Obama act and intervene in order to walk back and rescind the two recent directives by the USACE and the order of evacuation by Gov. Dalrymple by December 4, 2016 in order to allow our team of International Indigenous Human Rights Observers of the Continental Commission Abya Yala to visit our relatives of the Oceti Sakowin, review and assess the issues presented in this communique in a prayerful, respectful and purposeful manner, and accordingly follow through in the full and effective exercise of our fundamental Human Rights of Self Determination as Original Nations of  Mother Earth. 

The TIME is NOW.


Tupac Enrique Acosta, Yaotachcauh

Tlahtokan Nahuacalli

TONATIERRA

Continental Commission Abya Yala

TONATIERRA

Secretariat

tonal@tonatierra.org

www.tonatierra.org

In Affirmation of the Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth

NAHUACALLI

Embassy of Indigenous Peoples

www.nahuacalli.org

#WorldWaterOne

www.www.www
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Links:
Framework of Dominance
UN Preliminary Study on the Doctrine of Discovery

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Architectures of the States and the
Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth

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YouTube:

Standing Rock: The Prayer Felt Around the World
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Arizona Republic Sunday November 27, 2016

Raise my Heart at Standing Rock

Arizonans Marches Against the DAPL Pipleine

Though the pressing issue of water safety and contamination were key points for a majority of protesters, many spoke of history, including the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, and discovery doctrines that have deep roots in the conflict.

"This is as much about the soul of the United States as it is about water," said Tupac Enrique Acosta, vice chairman for the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples, a non-profit that aims to preserve and promote the uniqueness and sovereignty of Native Americans.

"Our people are showing courage and humanity," he said. "We're challenging the Master's Narrative that began on October 12th 1492."

“Standing Rock is America’s last chance to save it’s soul.”