Standoff at Standing Rock

Defend Native American Protesters!

Marxism vs. Environmentalism

The ongoing protest encampment on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota has been described as the largest gathering of Native American tribes since the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, where Colonel George Armstrong Custer met his deserved end. Thousands of people, including from 280 tribes, have gathered to protest the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The protests have also drawn activists, environmentalists and bourgeois politicians looking for a photo op.

Protesters have faced racist arrogance and brutality from the capitalist state and goons for the pipeline company, Energy Transfer Partners. On September 3, security guards attacked protesters with dogs and pepper spray; six demonstrators were bitten by dogs. The state has hit seven protesters with reckless endangerment charges for having attached themselves to pipeline construction equipment; they face up to five years in prison. Over 60 other people have been charged with misdemeanors (including Democracy Now! journalist Amy Goodman, charged with trespassing for reporting on the September 3 attack on protesters).

On September 8, North Dakota governor Jack Dalrymple activated the National Guard to back up the state troopers by manning roadblocks, with 100 more guardsmen on standby. One protester, who had driven to Standing Rock from California with his wife after they saw the brutality on September 3, described to WV one of the ominous roadblocks. There were 10-15 National Guardsmen with a large military truck and “the highway was blocked with several concrete road barriers forming a narrow s-shaped path” where cars were waved through at a crawl after being forced to a complete stop. He said it looked as if “they were expecting civil war or something.” Drop all the charges against the Standing Rock protesters! National Guard out!

The pipeline, to carry oil from the Bakken shale formation to Illinois where it would link up with other pipelines, is to pass under a dammed section of the Missouri River known as Lake Oahe half a mile upstream of the Standing Rock reservation. On September 9, just minutes after a federal district court judge refused to grant an injunction requested by the Standing Rock Sioux to halt construction on the pipeline, the federal government moved to defuse the situation. It announced that the Army Corps of Engineers would hold off on issuing permits to dig on federal land bordering or under Lake Oahe. On September 16, a three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals panel granted a temporary administrative injunction halting work on the pipeline for 20 miles either side of Lake Oahe. On the same day, the Corps of Engineers granted the tribes a permit to allow demonstrations on federal lands managed by the agency. (read on)