Indigenous people’s win over oil firm is landmark
Court ruling to close the Dakota Access pipeline, after tribe’s campaign, could intensify a conflict
LADONNA BRAVE BULL ALLARD grins broadly as she contemplates the significance of the victory that she and other members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe have just secured.
The tribe began a bitter battle against an oil company and the US federal government in 2016, when the Dakota Access pipeline was built on their doorstep, threatening their water supply. Four years on, a United States court has ruled in favour of the tribe and ordered the pipeline to close within 30 days.
Ms Allard is aware of just how momentous an occasion this is. It is not often that a Native American tribe with scant resources defeats a major oil company, not least one which has the backing of the US president.
For the tribal elder, the court’s ruling is recognition of her people’s sovereignty over land which was stolen from them centuries ago.
“People had forgotten that indigenous people live on this land,” she says.
“We became invisible. But we’ve always been here – and I’m not invisible anymore.”
It is a sentiment shared by Native American activists across the US at the moment, in a week in which they have witnessed some of their biggest legislative victories in decades.
Following the ruling on the Dakota Access pipeline, last Thursday the US Supreme Court declared that much of eastern Oklahoma belongs to Native Americans. In the landmark ruling, America’s highest court said that it would “hold the government to its word” in recognising centuries-old treaties that granted the Muscogee (Creek) Nation a reservation.
A spokesman for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation praised the ruling for honouring a “sacred promise”, and said it would allow the tribe to maintain its “established sovereignty” in the area.
The decision could have farreaching implications for the people who live on the stretch of land, which includes most of Tulsa, and has thrown into sharp relief America’s history of broken promises and poor treatment of its indigenous groups.
To add to the moment, after years of demands for the Washington Redskins
American football team to scrap its offensive name, the team appears poised to do just that. Pressure is now growing on other sports teams to reconsider their own names and mascots.
Thee developments pose the question: has America experienced a profound shift in its stance on indigenous rights? Back in North Dakota, Ms Allard certainly feels the Standing Rock Tribe are part of a broader push for a public reckoning over America’s past, drawing parallels between her tribe’s activism and the Black Lives Matter movement. “It’s all about the same thing; equality and justice,” she says.
Ms Allard’s own battle over tribal sovereignty began in 2016, when
Energy Transfer Partners, an oil company headed up by a major donor to Donald Trump, began constructing a pipeline a stone’s throw from her home and the cemetery that held her husband and son. She set up a camp along the construction workers’ path, on land she says is sacred to her tribe.
Thousands of activists moved to the camp to show their support and it made headlines when footage showed workers setting attack dogs on the demonstrators who obstructed the pipeline’s path. Following a public outcry, the project was blocked by President Barack Obama. But within days of entering office, President Trump reversed Obama’s order and allowed the pipeline to proceed.
Mike Faith, chairman of the Standing Rock Tribe, said the group’s biggest concern was that the pipeline, which was sited less than a mile from the reservation, could contaminate their water supply. “What if we had an oil spill,” he asked. “The only ones who get to monitor that are the oil company.”
In his ruling this week, Judge James
Boasberg agreed that the pipeline posed a risk to the tribe and declared that the US government had violated federal environmental law in allowing it to proceed.
Judge Boasberg acknowledged the significant financial toll the pipeline’s closure would have but he said the potential harm that it posed left him no alternative.
“There’s no doubt about it, this was a historic vindication of the tribe’s position and testament to their perseverance against very long odds,” said Jan Hasselman, the tribe’s lawyer.
Doug Crow Ghost, Standing Rock’s water director, said he was “ecstatic” with the court ruling but warned that the battle continues. “Right now we know we’re on the fourth inning of a baseball game,” he said. “There are still more battles to fight because it’s not just about money, it’s about politics. It’s about the President of the United States. That’s what we’re fighting here; big money and bad politics.”
Sarah Krakoff, an expert on American Indian law, said the Oklahoma ruling set a “very important precedent” for other tribes and their boundaries.
What do the next few years look like? Ms Allard’s response was emphatic: “War”.