Police State Viciousness Against Native American Water Protectors

by Stephen Lendman

On Thursday, militarized police, National Park Service Rangers, Bureau of Indian Affairs law enforcers, and National Guard troops using armored vehicles removed remaining Standing Rock Sioux Tribe members and supporters from their Oceti Sakowin encampment.

Dozens of arrests were made, the operation an example of police state viciousness.

Indigenous Environmental Network executive director Tom Goldtooth issued a statement, saying: 

"We are appalled by today's forced evacuations of indigenous people at the Camp at Standing Rock, they are a violent and unnecessary infringement on the constitutional right of water protectors to peacefully protest and exercise their freedom of speech." 

"It hinders the camp cleanup process and creates confusion and chaos that puts the Missouri River at risk of pollution from construction and camping debris.
 
"Today's expulsion is a continuation of a centuries old practice, where the US Government forcefully removes Indigenous people from our lands and territories." 

"We urge supporters of the water protectors to continue to resist this travesty by organizing mass mobilizations, distributed actions, speaking out against the violations of the Treaty rights of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Seven Council Fires of the Great Sioux Nation, and continuing to source up the capacity for litigation and grassroots organizing against the Dakota Access pipeline.
 
"Our hearts are not defeated. The closing of the camp is not the end of a movement or fight, it is a new beginning. They cannot extinguish the fire that Standing Rock started. It burns within each of us." 

"We will rise, we will resist, and we will thrive. We are sending loving thoughts to the water protectors along the banks of the Cannonball River, today. May everyone be as safe as can be. #noDAPL"

The struggle to prevent contamination of ancestral land and water continues in court, upcoming hearing scheduled.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

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