A large gathering of tribal leaders met on July 4th to declare their opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline.
While Americans were celebrating the War on Terror, a growing surveillance and police state, the failed Drug War, mass incarceration, a legacy of colonization, and other American pastimes, tribal leaders and chiefs in North America used Independence Day to officially oppose the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.
The project is a nearly completed 1,700-mile pipeline carrying toxic tar sands from Alberta, Canada to Houston and other Gulf Coast refineries before being primarily exported overseas. The pipeline would carry 830,000 barrels of diluted bitumen per day. It has been delayed and rerouted over environmental concerns and resistance from citizens losing their land through eminent domain.
While gathering in the Black Hills of South Dakota, the Tribal leaders of the Great Sioux Nation, the Ponca Nation in Nebraska and Oklahoma, and the Blackfoot confederacy met with a delegation of Chiefs from First Nations across Canada. Each of these nations’ land will be affected by the completion of the Keystone XL.
The leaders of these sovereign nations met in support of the Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion and announced a new “cross-border” alliance to stop the Keystone XL pipeline. The addition of the new tribes and first nations brings the count to over 130 first nations and Tribes who have signed the treaty declaring an opposition of four different pipelines. These pipelines include TransCanada’s Keystone XL, Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline through Minnesota, Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Expansion through British Columbia and TransCanada’s Energy East.
“If you don’t think we’re nations, if you think we’re isolated remnants of a bygone era, just watch us exercise our sovereign right to protect our land and our people by stopping these pipeline abominations from threatening our water and our very future,” said Casey Camp-Horinek on behalf of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma. “Today is not just about our independence as Nations, but also everyone’s much needed independence from the shackles of oil, and especially Keystone’s dirty tar sands oil.”
Last month a state judge in South Dakota affirmed a previous decision made by the Public Utilities Commission which approved of the pipeline construction crossing state lines. On Friday, ABC News reported that opponents of the pipeline may still appeal that decision.
First Nations leaders also met in Alberta, Canada to sign The Grizzly: A Treaty of Cooperation, Cultural Revitalization and Restoration, an Indigenous Treaty aimed at combating the delisting of the grizzly of Greater Yellowstone from the Endangered Species Act. The treaty was started by the Piikani Nation in Alberta and now has over 130 signatory First Nations and Tribes from across the continent. Crow Creek Sioux Tribe Chairman Brandon Sazue stated that the Great Sioux Nation and allied tribes would “fight to the end some of President Trump’s most grotesque actions, including illegally ramming through the Dakota Access Pipeline, trying to raise Keystone XL pipeline from the dead and just recently, trying to get away with delisting our sacred Grizzly bear from the Endangered Species List.”
It was President Trump, after all, who immediately taking office signed two executive orders which approved of the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL Pipeline. Despite major opposition to these projects during the fall of 2016, the indigenous communities and nations seem to be one of the last remaining sources for opposition to these potentially environmentally destructive projects. This is because our First Nations and Tribes are still connected to the planet. We have not lost the powerful relationship to the planet, the elements, and all life, that so many people have relinquished in their pursuit of the modern world. Indigenous nations and resistance efforts around the world need the support of all those who value the health of this planet and the people it houses.
Derrick Broze is an investigative journalist and liberty activist. He is the Lead Investigative Reporter for ActivistPost.com and the founder of the TheConsciousResistance.com. Follow him on Twitter. Derrick is the author of three books: The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality and Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion, Vol. 1 and Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion, Vol. 2
Derrick is available for interviews. Please contact [email protected]
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Great article! Thanks.
Of course such alternative celebration of US Independence Day is not being reported at all by the ZioNa*i-controlled – Wezztern MSM or Al-Jaz**ra!
Anway, it’s great news about the spirit of revival and the unity of the Indigenous Native American-Canada’s First Nation Peoples’ movements/nations against all these evil environmental disasters on their land and also, the usual ZioNazi’s MO; to continue stealing the Indigenous peoples’ sacred land; by hiding behind these oil/tar sand pipeline projects.
Indigenous Hawaiians should also unite with these Native American-Canada’s First Nation Peoples’ movements because such environmental disasters and the robbery of their Hawaii sacred land, by
these ZioNaz*s; especially the mega multinational corporate farming/hotels are increasing; and many Indigenous Hawaiians are being made homeless.
Thus, they need Indigenous reservations too in Hawaii.
Whether his motivation were racist or altruistic, the foreign alien, alias Barrack Hussein Obama´s attempt to interrupt the destructive, XL pipeline was one of his few “decent” acts while fraudulently occupying the POTUS slot.
Houston, TX, the HQ of George H.W. Bush´s international, NAZI-Saudi subterfuge.
We know which ZioNAZI is really behind 9-11!
See – Isra*l was prime force behind 9/11 attacks: American scholar,
By Kevin Barrett on November 23, 2015!
Apparently none of these anti-jobs people work for a living?? And they don’t drive cars and trucks? Anyway they’re a day late and a dollar short and thank God and Donald Trump these pipelines get approved and built so America can be an energy success in spite of this crowd. Markets are always correct. It’s those that think otherwise, like these people, that aren’t.