Dakota protest ranks grow
Veterans, urging peace, converge on camp of oil project opponents
OCETI SAKOWIN CAMP, N.D. Tasheena Cloud said Saturday that she and the hundreds of other veterans who have been filing into this protest camp near the Dakota Access pipeline will remain peaceful when they put themselves between law enforcement officers and passionate demonstrators in coming days.
But she said she has no idea how police and the North Dakota National Guard will respond.
“I don’t know what to expect,” she said. “I just know I’ll put myself in harm’s way.”
In the snowy prairies of North Dakota, the Oceti Sakowin Camp has become the longest-running protest in modern history, as thousands of American Indians and environmentalists seek to halt completion of the 1,172-mile pipeline.
In the coming days, the demonstrators will be aided by military veterans who have come to give occupiers a respite and call attention to what they say are human rights violations committed by local law enforcement. Demonstrators have described being attacked by security dogs, sprayed with tear gas, shot with rubber bullets and blasted by water cannons.
Police officials have defended their tactics but promised to keeping the veterans’ demonstrations peaceful.
“A lot of people are coming here expecting to see a confrontation,” Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney told reporters Saturday,