For downloadable PDF of this statement including photos click here.

On the night of November 20, 2016, over 400 Water Protectors gathered on a bridge near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, United States and were violently dispersed by police forces in the name of the corporate-owned Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The security forces were in riot gear and used water cannons, concussion grenades, rubber bullets, tear gas and sound cannons against the Water Protectors, who were weaponless and praying, singing and seeking to create access to and through the bridge in order to ensure connection to a nearby town for supplies, support and health care.

In this horrific incident, police forces indiscriminately aimed water cannons at everyone on the site, and targeted people's heads and legs with their bullets. Tear gas was also used against the Water Protectors.  Around 300 were injured and 26 had to be hospitalized, including one arm amputation case, one for cardiac arrest, and another for seizures. Because of the near-freezing temperature in the area, the water from the cannons used by the police caused early signs of hypothermia. Police also illegally detained 16 protesters one day after the incident.

Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, has continued construction of the USD 3.7 billion project despite a request from the US government to temporarily cease construction. The US Army Corps of Engineers, with capacity to implement this request into order, has in fact done nothing to stop ETP from continuing construction. The 1,170-mile pipeline will threaten the water supplies and waterways, and continue to desecrate Native American burial grounds and sacred sites. ETP has already landgrabbed from private US landowners as well as Native Americans in the course of construction. At least 500 activists and supporters have been slapped with trumped-up charges for resisting the project.

The International Indigenous Peoples' Movement for Self Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL), the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP), and the International Organization for Self Determination and Equality (IOSDE) condemn in the strongest possible terms this violent dispersal of Water Protectors by government security forces. Instead of protecting its own people against plunder, environmental degradation and human rights violations, the US government has chosen to side with big corporations such as ETP. It has done nothing to uphold its international obligations to protect human rights, and its continued support of the DPAL construction clearly shows its bias to protect corporate interests and outright disregard of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and other oppressed groups not only in its own country but in the whole world.

We from the IPMSDL, AIPP and IOSDE strongly reiterate our solidarity with the Sioux peoples in their fight  against corporate encroachment, plunder and militarization of their ancestral lands. We continue to stand with the Standing Rock Sioux peoples and all Indigenous Peoples in the world in our common struggle for self determination, the defense of our lands, territories and resources, and the protection of our cultural heritage. Global attention and actions are urgently needed to resolve the historical injustices committed against Indigenous Peoples, which is the source of many of the conflicts around the world.


Reference:

Ms. Beverly Longid
Global Coordinator, IPMSDL, [email protected], [email protected]

Ms. Joan Carling
Secretary General, AIPP, [email protected]

Ms. India Reed Bowers
Director, IOSDE, [email protected]

Dear IOSDE friends and colleagues,

IOSDE, via its director, is on the International Coordinating Committee (ICC) of the International Indigenous Peoples' Movement for Self Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL). We work collectively for justice, rights fulfillment and equality.

Please make note of these horrific events, do what you can to help, and share the news in solidarity. The wars against the people(s) of this world we all live in must be brought to an end, for the full and due return of access to life, health, peace and healing.

Press release and link below:

International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self Determination and Liberation - Friday, November 11, 2016

The International Indigenous Peoples' Movement for Self Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL) condemns in the strongest possible terms the ongoing attacks against the indigenous Santal people and Bengali farmers in Bangladesh by government security forces and private gunmen. To date, these continuing attacks have resulted in 3 deaths and 30 injured. 1,200 families have been forcibly displaced as a result of these actions.

On the morning of November 6, 2016, Bangladeshi police and local gunmen hired by the Rangpur Sugar Mills Authority attacked thousands of indigenous Santal and Bengali peoples in the Shahebgan Bagda farm of Rangpur Sugar Mills in Gaibanda district in Bangladesh. This bloody attack was an effort by the Bangladeshi government and greedy corporations to forcibly evict the Santals from their ancestral lands. 2 died and 30 were injured while another 3 were illegally arrested.

Later that evening government forces and private goons set fire to the houses of the Santals and Bengalis and shot to death another Santal, forcing 1,200 families to flee from their ancestral lands. Unconfirmed reports say another four (4) people were killed by the police and their bodies are being held in the Bagda farm. Following these incidents the Bangladeshi police then slapped more than 400 Santals and Bengalis with trumped-up charges.

Since 2014 the indigenous Santals and Bengali farmers have been demanding the return of over 700 hectares of their ancestral lands from the government and the Rangpur Sugar Mills Authority. The Santals and Bengalis accused the government and the company of violating the previous agreement they had made, wherein the Indigenous Peoples will allow only sugarcane to be planted on their ancestral lands. On July 2016 the indigenous Santals and Bengali farmers occupied over 40 hectares of land and built makeshift homes and a school. This makeshift community was also attacked by government security forces that same month by government forces in an effort to evict the Santals and the Bengali.

These continuing attacks and the refusal of the government and the Rangpur Sugar Mills to honor past agreements with the Santal peoples is a gross violation of the rights of Indigenous Peoples to determine the development of their ancestral lands. IPMSDL strongly demands that the government cease and desist further attacks on the Santal people and Bengali farmers and honor previous agreements made with Indigenous Peoples, and their ancestral lands be immediately returned. Furthermore, we demand that all trumped up charges against the Santal people and Bengali farmers be dropped immediately, and that the government immediately arrest State security forces and hired gunmen responsible for the bloody attacks.

The IPMSDL stands united with the Santal people of Bangladesh in the fight to reclaim and defend their ancestral territories, and we are one with the Santal people in condemning these vicious attacks by the Bangladeshi government on the right of the Santals to self determination.

/ref# s1623/mark

Photo from the Dhaka Tribune.

US government and private pipeline security militarization against the water protectors on the traditional territory of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
Rob Wilson Photography, https://www.facebook.com/rob.wilson.142892

The Red Owl Legal Collective has sent a Divestment Letter to Den Norske Bank – DNB (The Bank of Norway), in serious and urgent request that DNB divest from the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) due to, among other things, grave human, indigenous and environmental rights violations of the pipeline project and construction.

Link to the letter can be found here.

The letter's heading is DNB Divestment from the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Fulfillment of the Human Rights of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their Supporters. It was sent to DNB today (Nov. 8) electronically and will be hand-delivered tomorrow (Nov. 9) in person in Norway.

Red Owl Legal Collective, with the support of the National Lawyer's Guild, is the on-the-ground, direct support legal team at the Standing Rock encampment in North Dakota, where the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and its supporters, also known as water protectors, having been standing against the pipeline for several months, facing ongoing, historical, current and intensely increasing conditions of rights violations due to the pipeline construction and pending usage.

The letter has been compiled and written for the Red Owl Legal Collective by:

Michelle Cook, J.D.
SJD Candidate, University of Arizona, Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy
Program
Red Owl Legal Collective Member

India Reed Bowers
BA Cultural Anthropology, Brown University, United States
LLM International law of human rights & criminal justice, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Founder & Director, International Organization for Self-Determination and Equality (IOSDE)

Andrew B. Reid, JD, LLM
Adjunct Professor, International and Human Rights Law of Indigenous Peoples University of Denver Sturm College of Law

Please share widely with your contacts, networks and media.