Law enforcement officers unrolled miles of concertina wire around the base of Turtle Island, where Missouri River tributary water laps against the shore and around the top of the bluff that constitutes the island. Photo courtesy Ryan Vizzions
Army announces shut-down of access to spirit camp
Tribe summons public to pressure Obama
By Talli Nauman
Native Sun News Today
Health & Environment Editor
nativesunnews.today FT. YATES, N.D. –– The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and allies summoned public pressure on U.S. President Barack Obama to halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline on Nov. 25, when the Army Corps of Engineers announced plans to close access to the Oceti Sakowin spirit camp sheltering thousands of pipeline resisters. “We ask that everyone who can appeal to President Obama and the Army Corps of Engineers to consider the future of our people and rescind all permits, and deny the easement to cross the Missouri River just north of our reservation and straight through our treaty lands,” Tribal Chair Dave Archambault II said in a written statement. The tribe received a letter from the Army announcing the closure of all lands under its jurisdiction north of the Cannonball River beginning Dec. 5, due to inability to assure public safety near the place where the Obama Administration has suspended pipeline permitting in accord with the tribe’s lawsuit to stop the project. “I am closing the portion of the Corps-managed federal property north of the Cannonball River to all public use and access effective Dec. 5, 2016,” Army Col. John Henderson wrote in a letter to Archambault. “This decision is necessary to protect the general public from the violent confrontations between protesters and law enforcement officials that have occurred in this area, and to prevent death, illness, or serious injury to inhabitants of encampments due to the harsh North Dakota winter conditions,” he said. He submitted the letter in the aftermath of a Nov. 20-21 police put-down of pipeline resisters from the camp that resulted in at least 300 injuries, more than in any other confrontation since August, when North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple called out the National Guard to suppress civil disobedience.
Read the rest of the story on the Native Sun News Today website: Army announces shut-down of access to spirit camp (Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@gmail.com) Copyright permission Native Sun News
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