In a whimsical sidestep in the Dakota pipeline saga, as the protesters were driven back, their places were taken – by buffalo. HuffPo reports:
“The only reason we are moving back is because they are armed with batons, tear gas, riot gear, weapons, rubber bullets,” the activist says. “That’s what it takes for them to push us back. They carry weapons just because they’re scared.”
As he begins a sentence saying, “This land means everything,” he abruptly shouts, “Look at all those buffalo!” as the camera pans to the herd. He can also be heard shouting, “Tatanka,” a word referring to the American bison in the Lakota language. (American bison are commonly called “buffalo” colloquially, though they are technically not true buffalos.)
Some outlets have characterized the bison as coming out of “nowhere.” But journalist Ryan Redhawk, who runs the Facebook page Standing Rock Rising, told The Huffington Post that witnesses said the animals were previously fenced in and people involved in the protest efforts let them out. Sacheen Seitcham of the Westcoast Women Warrior Society told HuffPost that someone appeared to be herding them, but she didn’t know who.
It has wonderful symbolic value for the protesters, particularly the Indians; no doubt it just pissed off the company workers and law enforcement who have to deal with another source of encumberment and danger.
In other news, the above HuffPo article also references a Reuters article on a claim by American Indians that it’s all their land anyways:
Native American protesters on Monday occupied privately owned land in North Dakota in the path of the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline, claiming they were the land’s rightful owners under an 1851 treaty with the U.S. government.
The move is significant because the company building the 1,100-mile (1,886-km) oil pipeline, Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP, has bought tracts of land and relied on eminent domain to clear a route for the line across four states from North Dakota to Illinois. …
Protesters on Monday said the land in question was theirs under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, which was signed by eight tribes and the U.S. government. Over the last century, tribes have challenged this treaty and others like it in court for not being honored or for taking their land.
“We have never ceded this land. If Dakota Access Pipeline can go through and claim eminent domain on landowners and Native peoples on their own land, then we as sovereign nations can then declare eminent domain on our own aboriginal homeland,” Joye Braun of the Indigenous Environmental Network said in a prepared statement.
Given the shameful manner in which treaties here (and in Canada!) have been abrogated over the years, I can only hope they win this claim. It’s not clear if this is an actual suit in court or not.
