URGENT ACTION PROTEST in SOLIDARITY with STANDING ROCK

Indigenous Peoples Against the Trans Pacific Partnerhip

PRESS RELEASE

Friday November 18, 2016
Contact: Tupac Enrique Acosta (602) 466-8367
chantlaca@tonatierra.org

URGENT ACTION PROTEST in SOLIDARITY with
STANDING ROCK

Phoenix, AZ - Today for the second time this week, a coalition of organizations of Indigenous Peoples, environmental groups, and concerned constituents will gather in a protest of Solidarity with Standing Rock at the offices of the US Army Corps of Engineers in Phoenix.

SOLIDARITY WITH STANDING ROCK

Friday November 18, 2016
US Army Corps of Engineers
3636 N. Central Avenue Phoenix, AZ
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM

On Monday November 14th, Assistant secretary of the army Jo-Ellen Darcy cited the history of “repeated dispossessions” of the Great Sioux Nation in a letter to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and the pipeline company. She wrote that the corps wanted to begin talks with the tribe about “potential conditions in an easement” that would allow the pipeline to cross the Missouri river but lessen the risks of a spill.

“While these discussions and analysis are ongoing, construction on or under Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe cannot occur because the Army has not made a final decision on whether to grant an easement,” the letter concludes.

Yet in spite of this directive from the Corps of Engineers, reports from the Oceti Sakowin Camp at Standing Rock have brought forward evidence that Energy Transfer Partners, the parent corporation of the Dakota Access Pipeline have transported and installed the drilling equipment needed to tunnel under the Missouri River onto the drill pad already constructed and fully militarized on the banks of Lake Oahe.

The Oceti Sakowin Camp have been protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline as an eminent threat to the main water supply of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, as well as for the negative impact on the water supply of 18 million downriver constituencies of the Missouri River, which eventually flows into the Mississippi.

An early proposal called for the pipeline to cross the Missouri River north of Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, a town that is 90 percent "white". According to the Bismarck Tribune, the route was rejected because of a potential threat to Bismarck’s water supply. The pipeline was then rerouted to pass under the Missouri River, at Lake Oahe, right at the doorstep of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation.

The pipeline has already desecrated sacred sites and burial grounds of the Indigenous Peoples, which are supposed to be protected under federal law.

On Tuesday November 15th, Arizona Congressman Raul Gijalva and 21 Members of Congress, sent a letter to President Obama urging that the federal government deny the easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross Lake Oahe, deploy observers to ensure water protectors and journalists are safe and their rights are upheld, and urge the state of North Dakota to stand down from its escalation of the use of force.

"The actions of DAPL this week at the drill pad at Standing Rock, along with the criminal acts of collusion by the corporate cartel of investors and supporting paramilitary forces, which includes US president elect Trump, must be denounced as a blatant act of Corporate Riot, in violation of the well being and public order of peace and friendship which is mandated by Treaty Law to be the foundation for our international relationships as Original Nations of the Dakota Territories."

Tupac Enrique Acosta, Izkaloteka

Indigenous Peoples Against the Trans Pacific Partnerhip 

###
Links:

The Corporate Riot of Energy Transfer Partners (AKA DakotaAccess Pipeline DAPL) at Standing Rock:
A CRIME IN PROGRESS 

*************

The Rape of Mother Earth: DAPL - A Crime in Progess
 *******

A Concept of Indian Title by Leroy Littlebear (1982)
If justice and fairness are underlying goals of today’s government and court system, then the concepts and the philosophy of Indian people should certainly be taken into consideration and given as much weight as British concepts and philosophy.  But if justice and fairness are not underlying goals, then we should stop covering ourselves with a false aura of sacredness and bring out things in the open, so everybody knows where they stand.  In other words, if we cannot be bothered with justice and fairness, we should, at least, be truthful.