THE images of the protest camp at Standing Rock were reminiscent of scenes in the 19th century of proud native Americans wearing beautiful feathered headdresses opposing settlers on horseback. For months tribespeople, environmental activists and veterans endured often freezing temperatures at the Oceti Sakowin and two other camps around 40 miles south of Bismarck, North Dakota, to protest against the construction of the last part of the Dakota Access pipeline, which they say threatens the Standing Rock Sioux’s water supply and their sacred sites. On December 4th, they scored an unexpected victory when the Army Corps of Engineers, a federal agency, announced that it would deny Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), the developer of the pipeline, a permit to cross the Missouri river. Thousands of protesters cheered and chanted to cries of Mni Wiconi, or water is life.
ETP is furious about the corps’s decision, which it claims was “just the latest in a series of overt and transparent political actions by an administration which has abandoned the rule of law in favour of currying...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2gg3z6d
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