Water protectors battling the Dakota Access Pipeline are taking their increasingly urgent fight directly to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, making a final push for the Obama administration to reject the pipeline's permit before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
"This is a time for drawing together the many threads of our resistance—to fossil fuels, yes, but also and just as importantly to widespread hatred."
—Bill McKibbenTrump has invested in the pipeline company and denies climate change, promising to reinvigorate the coal, oil, and gas industries and strip away environmental regulations.
On Tuesday, supporters of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will demonstrate and march at Army Corps offices across the country, along with over 200 solidarity actions planned around the world.
"[T]he election last Tuesday made this Tuesday's demonstrations in support of Standing Rock even more important," wrote environmentalist Bill McKibben.
"We'll be gathering in nearly 200 cities worldwide to demand that the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Obama Administration, do their jobs and reject the Dakota Access Pipeline's final permit."
McKibben and Indigenous Environmental Network's Dallas Goldtooth put out the call for Indigenous people and allies to join in the Tuesday demonstrations:
"We don't know if we can make President Obama act—so far he's been noncommittal and vague. And we don't know if Trump would simply overturn his actions if he took them. But we do know that now more than ever we have to stand by our allies, and make our battles loud and public," McKibben continued:
The ugly side of the American psyche that's propelled Trump to the presidency is nothing new to Indigenous people. It's nothing new to people of color, to immigrants, to the vulnerable and the marginalized. This is a time for drawing together the many threads of our resistance—to fossil fuels, yes, but also and just as importantly to widespread hatred.
Solidarity with Indigenous leadership—in Standing Rock and beyond—is more important today, not less. The original inhabitants of this continent have been pepper-sprayed and shot with rubber bullets, maced and attacked by guard dogs, all for peacefully standing up for their sovereign rights, and for the world around us. If we can't rally in support of them—well, that would be shameful.
Ahead of the day of action, water protectors in North Dakota on Monday marched through the state capital, chanting: "Mni wiconi! Water is life!"
