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fatehbaz · 4 years

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This is worse than is being reported, and there is more history between the governor and Pine Ridge that isn’t being reported.

State of South Dakota in early 2019: Lakota people need to shut up and sit down, we’re building a major fossil fuel pipeline in your neighborhood, and we’re introducing terrifying state legislation that would imprison or severely punish anyone who protests against it.

State of South Dakota in late 2019, after their legislation failed and the Oglala Lakota leadership unanimously voted to ban Governor Noem got from Pine Ridge: Lol, we’re sorry about that. Please come join us for “dialogue.”

State of South Dakota in early 2020, after the US revived the Keystone XL pipeline and Alberta invested over $6 billion in the pipeline, as Oglala Lakota and Cheyenne River communities protested outside state institutions buildings: LMAO Gothca! Lakota people need to shut up and sit down, we just revived the project and we’re building a major fossil fuel pipeline in your neighborhood, starting immediately! Except this time there’s also a pandemic, and we reintroduced and successfully passed the terrifying state legislation that will now imprison or severely punish anyone who protests against it.

Now, as of 8 May 2020, Governor Noem sent a letter to the leaders of Oglala Lakota and Cheyenne River communities, “demanding” that they immediately removed highway checkpoints that the tribes installed on reservation land in order to limit travel and protect themselves from covid/coronavirus. Noem immediate threatened legal action. (Worth noting that Badlands National Park, the Black Hills, the site of the Wounded Knee massacre, and Six Grandfathers - “Mount Rushmore” - all sit near Pine Ridge, and there are typically large amounts of tourists and travelers commuting through the Pine Ridge area. Maybe not great during pandemic? And of course, that tourism money doesn’t seem to be shared with Pine Ridge or used to help improve infrastructure in the food desert of the region.)

From March 2020:

Media publishing stories about this current (May 2020) confrontation about highway checkpoints between Governor Noem and the Oglala Lakota people have completely failed to mention some very important details of the relationship over the past year.

(1) Before the project was suspended in the US in 2012, the Keystone XL pipeline was going to be built near Pine Ridge (the pipeline will mostly be constructed in eastern Montana and western South Dakota), which many Lakota were vocal about opposing.

(2) In March 2019, Noem abandoned the Oglala Lakota and Pine Ridge people during catastrophic local spring flooding which cut off access to schools, healthcare, and food resources.

(3) In May 2019, the Oglala leadership unanimously voted to ban Governor Noem from entering Pine Ridge over her enthusiastic support of state legislation partially advised by fossil fuel company interests which would severely punish and criminalize protesting against fossil fuel pipelines. The legislation is referred to as “riot-boosting legislation,” which criminalizes the act of even supporting or “urging” protests.

(4) In October 2019, a judge struck down South Dakota’s draconian anti-protesting legislation, after which Noem and South Dakota state institutions implied that they would to be nicer to Pine Ridge.

(5) In November 2019, the South Dakota state tribal relations secretary refused to answer whether or not the governor and state legislature would make another attempt to introduce more riot-boosting/anti-protesting legislation.

(6) In December 2019, the South Dakota Water Management Board continued to discuss issuing water access permits to Keystone XL pipeline developers, despite Keystone XL having been a defunct project since 2012. Why???

(7) In January 2020, several Lakota communities pointedly refused to attend or participate in South Dakota’s formal “State of the Tribes” event hosted by Noem, and instead they held their own “Great Sioux Nation Address.” At about the same time, the South Dakota Water Management Board issued a couple more water access permits to Keystone XL. Again, why, if the pipeline project has been defunct???

(8) SURPRISE: Less than a week later, also in January 2020, the US presidential administration fully revived the Keystone XL pipeline, announcing construction would begin almost immediately.

(9) ANOTHER SURPRISE: Once again in January 2020, and again less than a week after the US announced the revival of Keystone XL, Governor Noem reintroduced the severe anti-protesting/riot-boosting state legislation which targets Native organizers/demonstraters.

(10) In February 2020, the South Dakota state legislature passed the extreme anti-protesting laws as multiple Native groups demonstrated at the capitol and across he state.

(11) In March 2020, in the midst of pandemic and quarantines, the Keystone XL pipeline began construction at the Montana-Saskatchewan border as the nearby Fort Belknap Indian Community declared a state of emergency, partially in response to the influx of pipeline workers moving into the area.

(12) In April 2020, Keystone XL begins staffing workers camps in Montana in South Dakota.

(13) In May 2020, Governor Noem is now threatening Native communities over checkpoints on tribal/reservation land.

Here are some headlines in chronological order:

March 2019:

May 2019:

October 2019:

November 2019:

January 2020:

A week later, in January 2020:

A week after that, also in January 2020:

KEYSTONE XL IS BACK

6 DAYS LATER, January 2020:

Well, would you look at that?

February 2020:

Here’s what those riot-boosting laws do:

Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma -- a state that, like North Dakota, is greatly dependent on the fossil-fuel industry -- introduced legislation to make sure nothing like the Standing Rock protests happened there. In 2017, Governor Mary Fallin signed a law that imposed a felony charge and a minimum $10,000 fine on anyone who enters pipeline property to “impede or inhibit operations of the facility.” If they successfully “impede or inhibit operations,” the charge is $100,000 or ten years in jail. […] But Oklahoma’s new trespassing law also holds liable “anyone who compensates, remunerates or provides consideration to someone who causes damage while trespassing,” according to Public Radio Tulsa. The wording is almost deliberately vague, easily covering organizations and environmental groups that might even be only tangentially related to the person charged with trespassing. And a provision in the bill states that just an arrest -- not a conviction -- is enough to trigger that liability.

Other states quickly followed Oklahoma. After Louisiana passed its own version of the bill, police arrested 15 protesters with the L'Eau Est la Vie camp, charging them with interfering with construction of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline, yet another ETP project. South Dakota introduced bills that not only impose civil penalties on anyone who “directs, advises, encourages, or solicits other persons participating” in protest riots, but also establish an extra fund to pay for the costs of policing pipeline construction. And in Texas,under House Bill 3557, damaging oil and gas facilities that are under construction would be criminalized as a third-degree felony, which carries up to ten years of jail time. Protesters who “impair or interrupt” operations could be imprisoned for two years. [...] It’s no coincidence that so many states introduced similar legislation at the same time. The American Legislative Exchange Council is a coalition of conservative lawmakers and private business interests who work hand in hand to churn out model bills for legislators to copy and introduce in their home states. This way, Republican-controlled states can quickly and easily pass business-friendly legislation [...]. [Source: Luke Darby. “Red States are Criminalizing Speech to Wage War on Environmental Activists.” GQ (7 June 2019).]

“The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe feels it’s a constitutional experiment that was wrong,” Bald Eagle said. “Because they couldn’t create criminals, they’re trying to make civil penalties in a constitutional experiment that is also wrong.” […] [Source: The Dickinson Press. “Riot boosting bill goes to South Dakota House floor.” 12 February 2020.]

March 2020:

May 2020:

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