The US Army Corps of Engineers and the North Dakota governor issue 10 day notices to Oceti Sakowin camp
This program is being recorded on November 29, 2016, less than a week before a December 5 deadline set by the Army Corps of Engineers as well as the Governor of North Dakota to vacate the several thousand inhabitants of Oceti Sakowin the most significant camp of the water protectors at Standing Rock.
The Standing Rock protests began in the Spring of 2016 in reaction to the construction of Energy Transfer corporation’s Dakota Access pipeline. It is designed to carry oil extracted by fracking.
The pipeline would run from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota to southern Illinois, crossing beneath the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, as well as part of Lake Oahe near the Standing Rock Indian reservation.
In spite of media silence or outright lies the camps gained recognition, material support and visits by indigenous peoples from across the world as well as environmentalists and quite a few well known celebrities.
Amazingly such divers and fluid populations continue to form close unity over the principle of non violence, that water is life and a resurgence of the recognition of indigenous sovereignty.
One day after the eviction notice from the Army Corps of Engineers was received a press conference was held in the Oceti Sakowin camp. I took the audio from two of several films that were streamed live to social media. Behind the makeshift outdoor table for the conference you can see the huge, several thousand people strong camp, stretching far towards the surrounding mountains.
You will hear seven different voices from youth to elder from activist to spiritual leader. The wind is blowing, surveillance drones are overhead even the sound of a helicopter makes it at one time a little hard to understand. But please stay with it.
As I’m recording this on November 29 groups from across the country are now traveling to Standing Rock for support, and as witnesses – including a group of 1,500 veterans who had made their travel plans weeks ago and refused to back off. They want to be human shields.
But whatever will happen on eviction date the dreams and hopes and opinions of those whose voices you will hear now will not be extinguished.
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