As DAPL Protesters Brace for Winter, Feds Say No Evictions From Encampment
As protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline continue—as well as signs of solidarity—federal officials say they are not going to throw out protesters from an encampment where water protectors are ready to face increasing chilly temperatures to stop the four-state, fossil fuel project.
“We’re not leaving until we defeat this big black snake,” Cody Hall, a spokesman for the Oceti Sakowin Camp and member of South Dakota’s Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, said of Energy Transfer Partners’ pipeline to the Associated Press.
That camp is an overflow from the Sacred Stone Camp, which swelled as more and more protesters joined the resistance.
“Oceti Sakowin,” as Sarah Jaffe explained, “is the name for the Seven Council Fires, the political structure of what is known as the Great Sioux Nation.” She described it as a “breathtaking sight” where “f[]lags from well over 200 Native nations and international supporters line the driveway into the camp, flapping in the high plains wind.”
However, it’s on land claimed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the corps says the protestors don’t have a permit to stay there. Still, as Forum News reported, it “has taken a hands-off approach as it tries to balance protesters’ First Amendment rights[…] not to mention the rights of the rancher who has a grazing lease on the land and could be on the hook for any damage done to it.”
“We don’t have the physical ability to go out and evict people—it gives the appearance of not protecting free speech,” AP reports corps spokeswoman Eileen Williamson as saying. “Our hands are really tied.”
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