Lakota People Call for Hunger Strike re: Water April 1-3

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The Lakota Hunger Strike for Sacred Water Protection In Solidarity with Bella Bella

Written by a group of Lakota tribal members including Kyanne Dillabaugh, Debra White Plume and Karen Ducheneaux

On the Cheyenne River Homelands in 1868 Ft Laramie Treaty Territory many Lakota families will join the children of Bella Bella, Canada in a two-day hunger strike as a statement of sacred water protection. Please join the families of Hohoju Lakota elder Candace Ducheneaux and Oglala Lakotas familes of Autumn Two Bulls, Olowan Martinez, Andrew Iron Shell as well as other families and youth who also be engaging in a hunger strike April 1-3, that coincides with Enbridge hearings on the Bella Bella reserve.

The Lakota Hunger Strike recognizes that the sacred water in the Boreal Forest of Alberta, Canada (which provides 80% of the world’s fresh drinking water) as the gift of life. “Mni wicozani” (through water there is life) is Lakota spiritual way of life. Under the Boreal Forest is where the tarsands oil lies. Mining corporations use, waste, and contaminate an enormous, irreplaceable amount of pure drinking water creating the worlds’ greatest ecological manmade disaster in the extraction of tarsands oils.

According to their statement: “The students and staff of Bella Bella Community School stand in opposition to the proposed Enbridge Pipeline that would bring supertankers filled with oil along the coast of the Great Bear Rainforest, jeopardizing the environment upon which we rely for sustenance, both physical and spiritual. We will be engaged in a 48-hour hunger strike from April 1st at 4 pm to April 3rd at 4 pm. This coincides with the Enbridge hearings in our community.” (Bella Bella is north of Vancouver, Canada).
Statement of the Lakota Hunger Strike,

To protect Mother Earth and drinking water sources for the coming generations and all of life, we must take action. We have seriously contemplated this action and have made prayers. It is our guidance to engage with Bella Bella in a 48-hour Hunger Strike to send our message to the world. All we have to give as the two legged is our suffering for Mother Earth and sacred water protection; that is what we do. To go without food for 48 hours is very serious, many youth are involved and relatives will join to support their children.

The Enbridge and Keystone XL Oil Pipelines, the supertankers, the heavy hauls carrying equipment and the tarsands oil mine are all connected. The mines are as big as the state of Florida. Mankind cannot re-create the biodiversity that took centuries to form. This multibillion dollar business enterprise is creating ecological damage that can never be repaired. The Lakota Hunger Strike opposes the tarsands oil mine and the Keystone XL oil pipeline planned to cross our Treaty Territory.

The Bella Bella community opposes Enbridge Oil Pipeline and supertankers coming through their territory. Together we send our voice to the world that this manmade disaster must be stopped. Sacred water must not be destroyed. There are substitutes for gas and oil, but there is no substitute for drinking water.

The “Protect Our Sacred Water Rally” in Eagle Butte, South Dakota on Sunday April 1, 2012 will begin at 11am. After the Rally there will be a caravan to the campsite, where a sacred fire will be lit and burn until the Hunger Strike is over. We will begin with prayers and the individuals will be taken to tipis where they will stay until they break their fast at 6pm (CST) on Tuesday April 3, in conjunction with the children of Bella Bella (4pm PST). Oglala Lakota Tokala Warrior Society will guard the Lakota Hunger Strike camp. Supporters please bring tents, bedrolls, and groceries to add to the support camp’s kitchen. Also please bring your own dishes as the campers are discouraging the use of disposable dishes.
If you would like to join or help please contact Karen Ducheneaux (605) 733-2148, Autumn Two Bulls (605) 441-7369 or (605) 867-1572, Terrell Iron Shell (605) 455-1192, and Jackie Dunn (605) 200-2027.

Reprinted with permission.

Letter to County Commissioners re: Keystone XL

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Dear Commissioner,

Scattered out across Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas, there are dozens of huge lime green TransCanada trucks, headed our way.   Loaded with pipe and heavy equipment, they weigh over 200,000 pounds each.  They are taking their time as they meander across the country, cutting through Indian reservations and county roads in order to avoid costly weigh stations.  Some are heading for the six Oklahoma counties where the most toxic and dangerous pipeline on earth will be installed.  Some will go straight through to Texas.

TransCanada has gone to great lengths to avoid any potential liability for the havoc they intend to wreak on our counties, our state and our region.

Why didn’t they just run their pipeline across their on country?  Because the people of Canada understood how toxic this tarsand oil really is, and they knew TransCanada’s poor safety record.  The Canadian people said “No”, so they decided to bring their pipeline right down through the middle of Indian country.

You’ve probably been told that TransCanada is going to pay a lot of ad valorem taxes.  The amount of taxes they will pay will be small in comparison to the damage they will do to our roads and bridges,  not to mention our underground water.

You have probably been told that this is just another pipeline.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Tarsand oil is too sluggish to move smoothly through the pipe on it own, so it will be heated.  There has never, in the history of our planet, been a pipeline that big carrying hot oil laced with benzine and arsenic.

I urge you to look at the easements TransCanada pressured your friends and neighbors into signing.  Unless your friends are very wealthy and spent a great deal of money on attorneys, the easements leave TransCanada blame free.  When that pipeline leaks (and it will leak sooner or later) your county, your state and your constituents will be left holding the bag.

Perhaps you think you are off the hook because the pipeline does not come through your county.  That doesn’t mean that TransCanada’s Trojan trucks won’t cut through your county, tearing up your roads and bridges.

I urge you to strictly enforce all existing weight limits on county roads and bridges, and to decrease those limits where appropriate to keep TransCanada’s truck from doing permanent and irreparable damage to our roads and bridges.

I am attaching a link to a brief video where three Texas landowners talk about how TransCanada trespassed on their land and pressured them into signing easements they didn’t want to sign:

Click on the title:  “Texas Landowners Fight Keystone XL Pipeline”

The third speaker on this video is a pipefitter/mechanic/welder named Mike Hawthorne.  Mike explains:

It’s a dangerous pipeline.  This is a tarsand under high pressure and high temperatures, and I know what sandblasting does to metal.  It’s gonna eat is up, and it’s gonna eat it up pretty fast.

This pipeline can leak 1.7 million gallons of tarsand oil per day without triggering any alert system.  Eventually, it will leak into our Arbuckle-Simpson Aquifer.

Thank you for your careful consideration of this important matter.

Sincerely,

(Your name goes here)

Address

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Native Americans Thrown in Jail for Standing Up to Keystone

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March 6, 2012

Thousands of tribal members and environmentalists from across the USA who are fighting to prevent the pollution and devastation of the Keystone XL pipeline suffered a huge blow in South Dakota yesterday, but also won a great court battle in Texas.

At least five members of the Lakota tribe were arrested yesterday by their own tribal police for attempting to stop TransCanada, a foreign corporation, from bringing its heavy equipment onto their tribal lands. It is a sad day for our country when the rights of foreign corporations trump the rights of Native Peoples who have lived here for thousands of years.

Simultaneously, the primarily Caucasian Oklahoma state legislature has begun to work towards legislation which they hope will prevent Indian tribes from participating in the debate about environmental issues.    Tribal rights were created by treaties between the USA and the various tribes, and treaties trump state law.  The fact that the contemplated law would probably be unconstitutional doesn’t seem to deter the Oklahoma state legislature with moving forward in their efforts to stifle efforts by the tribes to protect their soil, their water  and their ancestors’ graves from a foreign invasion by TransCanada and its Keystone XL pipeline.

But in Texas, the people fared much better against the mogul.  A farmer named Julia Trigg Crawford who had challenged the right of a foreign company to forcibly take her land via imminent domain won her case.

By Kenny Mitchell kmitchell@news-journal.com

As the operator of her family’s farm in Lamar County, Crawford sought the restraining order in response to TransCanada’s attempts to take the land through eminent domain, and because of concerns the pipeline will damage Caddo Indian antiquities in its path.

This is a huge victory for tribes and environmentalists across the country who are determined to stop the Keystone XL pipeline from bulldozing through our cultural sites, our archeological sites, our historic structures and our ancestors’ graves.