The Oceti Sakowin Camp | Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images Its been an eventful few days at the Standing Rock Reservation. On Sunday, December 4, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that it would be denying an easement underneath Lake Oahe adjacent to the reservation for the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, which is being built to carry oil from the Bakken Oil Fields to a major oil storage hub in Patoka, Illinois. The local Standing Rock Sioux Tribe opposes the easement, which they say threatens not only their water supply but also their sovereignty as a people.
The Army Corps announcement came as thousands of veterans, led by actvist Wes Clark, Jr., and others, were arriving at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the Cannonball River. Their intent was to form a human shield between Native activists and the local police, who have been using objectively harsh force against the protesters. Until the Corps made its announcement, many in the camp were concerned that police would attempt to enforce a looming December 5 deadline for activists to vacate the camp or face eviction.
Almost as soon as the Corps made its announcement, the pipeline builders - Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics Partners - announced that they would be proceeding without an easement, presumably figuring that theyd lose less in fines for violating the law than they would in lost profits from the many-months delay that a full environmental study of the pipeline route would cost - not to mention $1.4 billion in financing that will only drop once the pipelines way across the lake is clear.
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On Wednesday morning, New York Daily News journalist Shaun King sent an email out to his subscribers including a message from an energy industry executive who had asked King to withhold his name and the name of his employer. That message said, in part,
Standing Rock is horrific even for an industry known for setting the bar low. Now is not the time to lay down and take the Army Corps of Engineers decision yesterday as a full victory. I'd like to go further and plead that you use your incredible reach through your articles, social media activism and the Boycott to ask people to push even harder than they have before.
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That anonymous executive went on to characterize Energy Transfer Partners as especially combative, saying The CEO of Energy Transfer (the company leading the pipeline's construction) is known even among [an] industry of generally unlikeable people to be a blood-sucking [anatomical expletive deleted]. His company routinely finds any loophole it can and minimizes the social engagement necessary to get pipelines approved. He suggested that the companys worst-case scenario was simply waiting for swift reversal of the Corps decision after Inauguration Day.
As that news was swirling through the camp and across the internet, a cold front and dangerous storm swept down on the Dakotas, bringing life-threatening low temperatures to the camp and forcing a partial evacuation.
Its a developing story, in other words, and well be keeping track as best we can. In the meantime, here are ten photos that ably sum up the last few days along the Cannonball River in North Dakota.
December 3:
As veterans and other supporters converge on Oceti Sakowin Camp, an art project conceived by Standing Rock Sioux artist Cannupa Hunska Luger deploys shields to protect activists from the polices rubber bullets; the shelds are mirrored, in the words of one participant, so that they have to see themselves firing at us.
Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images
December 4
In mid-day, after a morning of increasing numbers of supporters arriving at the camp and mounting preparation for the anticipated December 5 eviction deadline, news of the Army Corps decision spread through the camp.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
A friend at Standing Rock - who prefers not to be identified -texted me at around 5:30 pm Dakota time, saying Wonderful day in many ways, bigger victories than just the Corps.
Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
A few hours later she added A good day. Lots of singing and drumming all around.
Fireworks fill the night sky above Oceti Sakowin Camp on December 4. | Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images
December 5
On Monday, at the nearby Prairie Knights Casino, a group of veterans led by Wes Clark, Jr. - son and namesake of the former NATO Supreme Commander and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate - made a remarkable gesture when his group knelt before Leonard Crow Dog, Faith Spotted Eagle, Ivan Looking Horse, and other Native elders and asked forgiveness for historic wrongs. Clark said, in part,
Many of us, me particularly, are from the units that have hurt you over the many years. We came. We fought you. We took your land. We signed treaties that we broke. We stole minerals from your sacred hills. We blasted the faces of our presidents onto your sacred mountain. When we took still more land and then we took your children and then we tried to make your language and we tried to eliminate your language that God gave you, and the Creator gave you. We didn't respect you, we polluted your Earth, we've hurt you in so many ways but we've come to say that we are sorry. We are at your service and we beg for your forgiveness.
Wes Clark Jr. leads a contingent of veterans asking for forgiveness for historic wrongs. | Photo: Tina Malia
Crow Dog offered forgiveness to the group, reminding them that we do not own the land; the land owns us.
Ten miles north at Oceti Sakowin Camp, the land was making that poin
