With winter coming, protesters steel for one last stand in pipeline dispute
Many say they’ll keep up the fight no matter what
CANNONBALL, N.D. — Lee Plenty Wolf knows the government wants him to clear out of the snowbound tepee where he stokes the fire, sings traditional Oglala songs and sleeps alongside a pair of women from France and California who came to protest an oil pipeline in the stinging cold. But he and thousands of protesters are vowing to make what maybe their last stand at Standing Rock.
The orders to evacuate the sprawling protest camp on this frozen prairie just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation came down last week from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the North Dakota governor’s office. After four months of prayer marches and clashes with law enforcement officials who responded with tear gas and water cannons, the protesters now have until Monday to leave.
The government said it would not forcibly remove anyone but could cite people for trespassing or other offenses.
“I ain’t going nowhere,” Plenty Wolf said one night as he cradled a buffalo-hide drum and reflected on grievances that run deeper than groundwater among Native Americans here. “We’re getting tired of being pushed for 500 years. They’ve been taking, taking, taking, and enough is enough.”
The Standing Rock Sioux’s concerns about an oil spill just upriver from their water source has resonated with environmentalist and clean-water groups across the country, and dozens have rallied to support the tribes. Climate-change activists who fought the Keystone XL pipeline also have joined the protests. “Keep it in the ground” is a rallying cry on banners.
Even as violent confrontations erupted in fields and along creeks and about 600 people were arrested, crews kept digging and burying the pipeline. Its 1,170-mile path from the oil fields of North Dakota to Southern Illinois is nearly complete.
Since September, the Obama administration has blocked construction on a critical section where the pipeline would burrow underneath a dammed section of the Missouri River that tribes say sits near sacred burial sites.
Dave Archambault II, the Standing Rock Sioux chairman, has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations of civil rights violations.
He criticized officers for using rubber bullets and sprays of freezing water against what he called peaceful “water protectors.”
Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier of Morton County dismissed the claims.
“I reject it all,” he said. “The protesters are forcing police and us into taking action. They’re committing criminal activities.”
He said protesters had used sling shots to attack officers and thrown rocks and bottles.
Veterans’ groups were hoping to bring 2,000 Native and non-Native veterans to Standing Rock over the weekend.
At the camp, children sledded down the icy hills and horses cantered through the snow, and as night fell and people clustered around campfires, Laurie Running Hawk made her way to a small camp by the river. In the distance were the sounds of Native men drumming and singing, and the sight of tall floodlights marking the path of the pipeline.
Running Hawk grew up on the Standing Rock Reservation.
“I’m here,” she said. “You’re not going to kick me out. This is my land.”