Standing Rock Water Protectors Served with Eviction Notices of Trespass Effective Feb. 22, 2017
Article by Brenda Norrell
Native American women and grandmothers, and their allies, camped along the Cannon Ball River in North Dakota are sending an urgent plea for help, after an eviction notice was served for Feb. 22, 2017.
"We are surrounded,” one of the women said in a video just released. Heavily armed police and federal agents have surrounded the camp, after the BIA served eviction notices to be enforced on Feb. 22.
"We need help."
"We need everyone to come here and stand with us," one woman said. Heavily armed militarized police continued to arrive today.
Watch video statement of women:
LaDonna Allard, who owns the land where the original camp, Sacred Stone Camp, is located, was also served with an eviction notice.
American Indian Movement Cofounder Dennis Banks, at the camp, urged people to come and stand with them.
Dennis Banks said, "We are going to be gathering in peaceful prayer."
Banks said if there is any violence it will be under the direction of the U.S. government.
Watch his video statement:
Cheyenne River Lakota Chairman Harold Frazier said the federal government does not care about Treaty rights.
Frazier urged Pipe Carriers and Sun Dancers to come now to the Cheyenne River Camp along the Cannon Ball River, just over the hill from where Oceti Sakowin was, where as many as 10,000 water protectors have camped at one time.
Frazier said Oceti Sakowin, now being cleaned, was an act of defiance.
“We are proud of that.”
"We know what is at stake, that this water is life, we have to do what we can to protect it. We need to be here, on the ground, to show them, that we are not going to stand for it.
Read more of his statement, and watch the video statement:
Since April, more than 700 water protectors have been arrested in defense of the Missouri River, from the crude oil pipeline of Dakota Access Pipeline. Unarmed water protectors were shot with rubber bullets, tear gassed, shot with water cannons in freezing temperatures, and beaten by militarized police under the direction of Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier.
Native American elderly were arrested in ceremony, and strip-searched, housed in chain link dog kennels on concrete floors, after Morton County wrote numbers on their arms was done to the Nazis.
Copyright Brenda Norrell
