STANDING ROCK PROTEST CAMP ENDS IN FLAMES
‘We go in peace, but this fight is not over’
Months after a protest of the Dakota Access oil pipeline swelled into a movement that drew thousands of people and national attention across America, the demonstrators that remained Wednesday faced a looming deadline to evacuate or face arrest.
Even before the evacuation deadline, imposed last week by North Dakota’s governor, the main protest camp had already turned into a muddy pit, the ground soggy with melted snow.
Some of the remaining protesters set fire to a building that was serving as the main entrance to the area. Other fires were also started at the former camp.
North Dakota Indian Affairs Director Scott Davis said protesters also strung barbed wire across the opening to the encampment.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers set a 2 p.m. deadline Wednesday for protesters to leave the camp that’s on federal land near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.
Highway Patrol Lt. Tom Iverson says authorities didn’t plan to negotiate after 4 p.m. But he said authorities were not necessarily going to go in after that time to make arrests.
At least 150 people marched out of camp ahead of the deadline, but others have said they did not plan to leave on their own.
A large group of protesters exchanged hugs and goodbyes after marching out of the camp. The group sang songs and prayed as they walked along a highway and over a bridge atop the Cannonball River. On two occasions they had to clear the road to make room for ambulances.
A bus from the United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, along with four vans and a truck towing a trailer from the Standing Rock Episcopal Church, were waiting to transport the protesters. The state arranged for the bus to bring campers to a transition centre in Bismarck.
Raymond King Fisher, a protester from Seattle, was one of the leaders of the march. He called it a difficult and emotional day. He ended the parade by saying, “We go in peace, but this fight is not over.”
The evacuation was the latest confrontation in a bitter fight over a crude-oil pipeline, a standoff on a desolate prairie that drew movie stars, military veterans and investment bankers to an unlikely front line. The tribe has argued that a stretch of the US$3.8 billion pipeline threatens its water supply, crosses burial grounds and violates treaties between Native Americans and the federal government.
President Donald Trump has supported the project and ultimately cleared the way for it. He signed an order aimed at expediting the pipeline’s approval before his administration approved final permits needed to complete it. The move came as Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II arrived in Washington ahead of a scheduled White House meeting, leading him to say: “I think that I was set up.”
A federal judge has left open the possibility of further court intervention, and the company behind the pipeline has said that oil could flow within 30 days.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued notices earlier this month saying it was closing federal property in the area that it managed due to “the likely event of flooding in the area,” stating that protest camps were located in a flood-prone spot.
Following that, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed an executive order last week ordering a mandatory evacuation of people in what he called an “unlawful occupation.” In his order, Burgum wrote that the areas being occupied are in areas that “routinely experience spring flooding and are historically subject to flash flooding,” adding that unseasonably warm temperatures have hastened the potential for flooding.
People who visited and lived at the camps vowed to continue to fight, with one saying this month that despite the decision to allow the pipeline to proceed, “this hasn’t been all for nothing.” Others who gathered at the camps said they would not leave, even in the face of the eviction order.
One member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe said that he expected some people would “take a stand both against the pipeline and for indigenous rights,” saying he was concerned that “something may go awry and some people may get hurt.”