Author: sparki

Groups Announce Global Call to Action in Solidarity with Dakota Pipeline Resistance

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no daplPRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 2, 2016

Groups Announce Global Call to Action in Solidarity with Dakota Pipeline Resistance

International protests targeting financiers, other companies to run September 3-17

CONTACT:

Krystal Two Bulls, (406) 740-1508, RedWarriorCamp@gmail.com

Cody Hall: 605-220-2531

Nick Katkevich, 401-559-6218, nick@fangtogether.org

Photos and News: NoDaplSolidarity.org

Cannon Ball, N.D.– The Red Warrior Camp, in partnership with the Camp of the Sacred Stones issued an official Call to Action Wednesday for allies from around the world to stand ?in solidarity with the groups by joining the NoDAPL Global Weeks of Solidarity Actions from September 3 – 17.

The groups call on supporters to organize protest actions at Citigroup, TD Bank, and the Japan-based Mizuho Bank locations to highlight the companies’ financing of the $3.7 billion Dakota Access Pipeline. If built, the new pipeline is expected to deliver 570,000 gallons of crude oil across 1,172 miles across North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois, where it will link to infrastructure able to transport the oil to the Gulf of Mexico.

According to the Call to Action:

“Water is a necessity for all life. Water is life. Now is the time for all people from all walks of life to join together to stop the desecration and destruction of water, land and life! Please join our Indigenous led movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline by planning or joining an action near you!”

The need for clean water is also at the heart of a legal challenge against the Army Corps of Engineers, brought by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe with representation from Earthjustice and filed on July 27, 2016. The lawsuit alleges that the Corps’ approval of the permit that allows the oil company to dig the pipeline under the Missouri River just upstream of the reservation and the Tribe’s drinking water supply violates the Clean Water Act and other federal laws. An injunction that would stop construction while legal challenges are heard is expected by September 9.

The groups also launched a new website that includes a map of protest actions planned, news and updates: NoDaplSolidarity.org.

Find NoDaplSolidarity on social Media: facebook.com/RedWarriorCamp and @RedWarriorCamp on Twitter.

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Statement of Solidarity with the Red Warrior and Sacred Stone Camps in North Dakota

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dakota_access_pipelineStatement of Solidarity with the Red Warrior and Sacred Stone Camps in North Dakota

Pittsburgh, PA: Rising Tide North America released this statement in solidarity with the continuing resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota:

“For months, the Standing Rock Sioux nation and Indigenous communities from across the continent against have captured the imagination of the world with a bold stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline and the energy companies, the politicians and police that are determined to build it. The actions of literally thousands have delayed the pipeline’s construction and brought its construction to a standstill.

The Dakota Access Pipeline is a 1,170-mile long oil pipeline that originates in the Bakken oilfields of western North Dakota. It will carry 470,000 barrels of crude a day to Pakota, Illinois where it will link with other pipelines and be carried to refineries around the country. If built, the pipeline will be a cultural and environmental threat to the Standing Rock Sioux. The pipeline crosses the nation’s traditional hunting, fishing and burial territory as well as directly crossing under the Missouri River, the Sioux’s main source of water.

Police have responded with heavy handed arrests of Indigenous activists and removed free access to the Red Warrior and Sacred Stone camps near the pipeline construction site. Politicians in North Dakota have declared a state of emergency to discredit the protest camps. Corporations seeking to profit from the pipeline have filed civil litigation against hundreds of protesters to silence the dissent of communities facing a future of poisoned land, water and air.

We believe that the extraction of fossil fuels like Bakken oil, and the expansion of pipelines and other transportation infrastructure, is a dangerous threat to our communities, our wild places and the climate. We further believe that these practices gravely threaten the health, safety and traditional land rights of Indigenous communities.

If we are determined to prevent the pursuit of extreme energy from destroying our communities, natural systems and climate, then peaceful, but confrontational, protests like the Red Warrior and Sacred Stone camps are necessary actions for change.

For over a decade, there has been an unprecedented show of unity from environmental and social justice communities for those fighting for justice and ecology and this time is no different. There is not an inch of daylight between us and those blocking construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota. We stand with them as we’ve stood with those fighting mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia, those that fought the Keystone XL Pipeline from Alberta to Texas, those challenging fighting fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure across this country and those that continue to fight for Indigenous rights.

We stand in solidarity with those who stand up for us all.

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Oklahoma “Glitter’ Activists Found Not Guilty!

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okOklahoma “Glitter’ Activists Found Not Guilty!

Reposted from Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance

Judge Phillipa James announced today a Not Guilty Verdict in regards to last month’s Disorderly Conduct trial of local environmental activists Moriah Stephenson and Stefan Warner. Stephenson and Warner were arrested nearly two and a half years earlier when glitter spilled off of a Hunger Games-themed banner that the activists hung in the open-to-the-public atrium of the Devon Energy building. The glittery banner read, “The Odds Are Never in Our Favor.”

At their trial, Stephenson and Warner explained that the banner was intended to highlight the disproportionate ways in which oil and gas development occurs. Stephenson explained, “Our intent was to highlight that the odds are never in our favor, our being the people’s favor.” Stephenson explained that oil and gas development disenfranchises communities of color and low-income, rural communities, a practice commonly referred to as environmental racism. Stephenson told the courtroom, “The purpose of the demonstration was to raise awareness about Devon Energy’s involvement in tar sands extraction and the environmentally racist nature of tar sands extraction.” Warner contributed that the large tax incentives that oil and gas corporations receive have exacerbated our current economic crisis in Oklahoma. Additionally, oil and gas corporations gain wealth from hydraulic fracturing, while homeowners are forced to pay for earthquake damage that results from the disposal of fracking wastewater.

The activists’ lawyer argued that Stephenson and Warner’s actions were a form of protected free speech. Judge Philipa James found that Warner and Stephenson were both engaged in political protest and that the evidence presented by both the defense and the City of Oklahoma City established that there was no “public alarm” caused by the protest activity.

For interviews or questions, contact: Moriah Stephenson (405) 283-6140

Rising Tide North America Solidarity Delegation to the Philippines Begins!

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philippines_typhoon2This week, Rising Tiders from Portland and Seattle traveled to the Philippines on a solidarity mission to visit Indigenous communities in Mindanao on the frontlines of climate destruction, capitalism and imperialism.

They will be traveling in Kidapawan, currently in a state of calamity due to a crippling drought and the recent site of a massacre in which farmers and indigenous folk were fired upon after setting up a street blockade to demand that inaccessible government food rations be distributed.

And then traveling to Davao for two human rights conferences: the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines general assembly, and the International Conference on Peoples’ Rights in the Philippines.

As the group has said:

“We believe that joining our allies on this trip to the Philippines is the most important way we can show our solidarity with this People of Color led movement in the United States, and our allies in the Global South. In fact it is the thing we have been repeatedly asked to do by our BAYAN kasamas.”

Historically conditioned as a colonial experiment and geographically located in the rapidly changing climate of the Global South, the Philippines stands as a frontline nation against political and environmental repression.  As international mining companies seek to drive communities off their ancestral mineral-rich land, the Philippine Armed Forces uses its monopoly on violence to enforce this destructive logic of capital accumulation, while escalating deforestation is wiping out ecosystems, poisoning water sources, and removing natural sources of carbon sequestration.

Meanwhile, though the country is hardly industrialized enough to be a major contributor to climate change, it bears some of the worst effects, such as increased risk from sea level rise and massive typhoons.  Yet despite it all, the Filipino people rise up and resist.  Now is the time for uncompromising solidarity with our allies in the Philippines fighting for their right to life, dignity, and a world in which we all can live.

Transnational solidarity is an important step in fighting the root causes of climate change. Furthermore, ensuring that our allies in the Philippines fighting for their right to life, dignity, and a world in which we all can live are given support and solidarity from the Global North.

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