Tag: poison

Might And Money Win Again 

As pipelines leak, and Bakken soil is poisoned, North Dakota politicians snuggle closer to oil tycoons

By C.S. Hagen
FARGO
– The collusion between might and money historically has been the beginning of the end for countless empires. 

From China’s Shang Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago to the American Revolutionary War against a corrupt monarchy, when power marries money, downfall always follows.  

North Dakota government’s collusion with private corporations is “so expansive that there does not appear to be a sense in the general public where there is anything wrong with this,” Barry Nelson of the North Dakota Human Rights Coalition said. 

It was the same when ancient China’s King Zhou Xin created a pond filled with wine to float on, or when King George III raised taxes on the colonies to fill royal coffers. Both leaders, at the pinnacle of empire, decided not to listen to what was right, but to what they thought was profitable. 

No ethics committees or commissions exist within the Peace Garden State. Instead, the North Dakota Century Code leaves ethical decisions up to the individual.

“The resolution of ethical problems must rest largely in the individual conscience… to resist influences that may bias a member’s independent judgment,” North Dakota legislation reports. 

Today, the Dakota Access Pipeline is leaking, and the Bakken earth is poisoned. Politicians are welcoming slick-talking oil tycoons like conquering heroes. Despite a United Nations condemnation of state militarized tactics in March, little, if anything, has changed in the Peace Garden State. Hundreds the 761 activists arrested during the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy still await trial, adding to the approximately $38 million the state has already spent militarizing local police and quelling the disquiet outside of Standing Rock. And while litigation continues, it’s business as usual for state politicians. 

On April 19 Valley News Live “Point of View” Anchor Chris Berg posted pictures of Congressman Kevin Cramer R-ND, ceremoniously giving Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren the pen President Trump used to sign the DAPL executive order. Additionally, Berg thanked Warren online for traveling to the Peace Garden State, and asked Governor Doug Burgum – not for the first time – if the state would accept a fat check from the CEO of Energy Transfer Partners. 

Pictures of Rep. Kevin Cramer presenting Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren with pen President Trump used to sign the DAPL executive order – photo listed on POVnow Facebook page

It is a move many suggest is similar to the age of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency collusion with the federal government. Warren continues to offer to pay in full the state’s expenditures used in militarizing police and cracking down on Standing Rock and the No DAPL movement. 

So far, the offer has not been rejected by state politicians.

North Dakota will receive up to $15 million in federal funding for costs incurred during the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy, according to Governor Burgum’s office. 

“We’re committed to pursuing all avenues available to hold the federal government responsible and ensure that North Dakota taxpayers alone don’t bear the enormous costs of law enforcement and other resources expended on the protests,” Burgum said. 

Rep. Kevin Cramer and Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren – photo posted on POVnow Facebook page

Burgum also sent a letter to President Trump stating that the federal government is significantly responsible for costs due to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ failure to enforce regulations. 

“Ethically, it has all the appearances – it has a smell to it – it seems to be undue influence of one industry, one company, on federal and state governments, and you want to believe the government is there to make sure all sides of the issue are addressed,” Nelson said.  

During the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy, the state was not looking out for all sides of the dispute, rather to assist oil industry’s agenda, Nelson said. 

“It’s one thing when it feels like collusion between a government official, in this case Kevin Cramer, and a corporate head of a private industry, in this case a pipeline company, if the general public feels all of this was perfectly justified, then what is considered right and wrong anymore? It makes you step back. The North Dakota Human Rights Coalition believes that this kind of collusion between private industry and government is wrong. Good cannot come out of this. 

“It speaks so much about power and money against the people.” 

Bakken earth is poisoned, according an April 27, 2016 study released by Duke University, funded by the National Science Foundation, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, and published in the Environmental Science & Technology magazine. The study shows that accidental wastewater spills from “unconventional oil production in North Dakota have caused widespread water and soil contamination.” 

Much of the poisons come from brine, or saltwater used in frakking, and is non-biodegradable. 

More than 9,700 wells have been drilled in the Bakken region of North Dakota in the past decade, which led to more than 3,900 brine spills, primarily from faulty pipes, the report states.

The water studied in some spill sites was unsafe to drink, the study reported.

High levels of ammonium, selenium, lead, and salts have been found in the soil; streams have been polluted by wastewater, which contain contaminants, according to the study. Soil along spill sites has also been contaminated with radium, a radioactive element.

“Many smaller spills have also occurred on tribal lands, and as far as we know, no one is monitoring them,” Avner Vengosh, a researcher and a professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences at Duke University said. “People who live on the reservations are being left to wonder how it might affect their land, water, health and way of life.”

The spills are primarily coming from pipelines in the Bakken area, he said. The spill areas have not affected reservoirs for human drinking water, but some are close. Everyone shudders when news of an oil spill breaks headlines; brine spills are far more frightening, he said.

“Nature cannot heal from inorganic brine spills,” Vengosh said. “The contaminants are going to stay. You can dilute and over time this will help, but the actual concentration will remain.”

In other words, areas where the brine spills have occurred in the Bakken region must be completely removed and disposed of. Radiation, which could spread by wild animals, is another concern that is difficult to control.

“And the more wells you drill, the more spills you have,” Vengosh said..

The narrative spun by the state has assumed that the need for militarized security was because of out-of-state environmental terrorists who chose to stake their claim here, Nelson said. “So no responsibility is placed on bad decisions made by the state legislators, that the company violated laws and did things that were illegal. None of that is laid at their doorstep. All is on the doorstep of people coming from around the country, and locally from Standing Rock. 

“It’s blaming the rape victim that they got raped.”

Additionally, the 1,100-mile-long Dakota Access Pipeline, made from “sterner stuff” according to politicians and engineers, and with Russian steel, according to DeSmog, has already leaked 84 gallons in South Dakota. A storage tank outside of Keene, North Dakota spilled 25,620 gallons when an operator overfilled the tank, according to North Dakota Department of Health. 

Both spills took investigators a month to announce the mishaps to the public.

“This spills serves as a reminder that it is not a matter of if a pipeline spills, it’s a matter of when a pipeline spills,” Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network said. “The fact that this occurred before Dakota Access even becomes operational is all the more concerning. We fear more spills will come to bear, which is an all too frequent situation with Energy Transfer Partners pipeline projects. As such, eyes of the world are watching and will keep Dakota Access and Energy Transfer Partners accountable.”

Although most of the world thinks Standing Rock’s movement is dead, remnants remain. For months, Facebook statuses reported former Dakota Access Pipeline activists, or water protectors, felt lost after the February closing of the camps outside Standing Rock. Dozens of cases have been thrown out of court, but not all. 

Some water protectors are still wandering. Others have found new causes defending water at Flint, Michigan, Dresden, Ohio, and against the Piñon Pipeline in New Mexico. Activists have also set up the Four Band Great Sioux Nation Camp on Standing Rock land.

The movement against big oil, for native rights and clean water, has spurred at least fifteen new camps to life around the country, according to Rev. Karen Van Fossan, a minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship & Church of Bismarck-Mandan. 

A “Stand with Standing Rock” banner hangs outside her church, a congregation that has been in Bismarck for 65 years. During the controversy her church and church members housed at least 250 activists. The stance her church takes on the issue has created controversy in Bismarck she said, but is also a blessing in disguise. 

“Some of us who are white, and haven’t experienced racism in any kind of real way, have now had some glimpse of what that experience might be like,” Fossan said. 

“In my experience, the water protector movement has given us in North Dakota an opportunity to face some pretty harsh realities about racism in our state. I sometimes hear it said that race relations are more strained now than they have been in some time, and people of color who I know tell me actually, the racism has been there. 

“Now it is just that all of us are taking the opportunity to look at it and contend with it.” 

State support of big business has trampled indigenous rights, but has given the state a unique opportunity for change. 

“I have been increasingly concerned about the role of many governmental entities, locally and statewide, promoting the interests of business and painfully ignoring other voices,” Fossan, who is also a writer, said. 

“Even while I’m deeply disturbed by the executive order to push the pipeline through against the very clear voices of Standing Rock and many other native nations, I do see that here locally in Bismarck and Mandan, we continue to have an opportunity like we haven’t had in a long time to look at the reality of life in our communities, and the reality of racism. Not just personal visible racism that many indigenous people and people of color in our communities experience regularly, but the systems themselves are already rolling along in ways that at best ignore indigenous voices and at worst push a pipeline through, and manifest in the arrests of hundreds of people.”

Battle of Two Chiefs

Morton County Sheriff’s Department Kyle Kirchmeier vs. Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault II

By C.S. Hagen
MANDAN, ND
– Two North Dakotan chiefs are pitted, one against the other.

One chief, Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, has laws, politicians, the North Dakota National Guard, taxpayers’ money, and a third chief from the private sector, Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, with all the powers money can buy, on his side.

The other, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault II, uses prayer, donations, federal treaties, and thousands of volunteers from native tribes and concerned citizens across the world to fight the pipeline’s continuation.

One chief uses the law’s full force: police in riot gear, automatic weapons, handcuffs, and calls the Dakota Access Pipeline demonstrations, which have continued in earnest and unabated since early August, dangerous. The other chief calls for prayer, civil disobedience, smokes a ceremonial peace pipe, and calls his people, including those from nearly 300 different tribes, water protectors.

One chief lives in Mandan, making USD 78,000 a year; the other sometimes resides in a canvas tipi on land that once belonged to the Great Sioux Nation.

One chief arrested the other. In fact, Archambault was among the first activists to be arrested on August 12, 2016, according to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department. But to Archambault, the fight against Dakota Access Pipeline is just.

“Our tribe has opposed the Dakota Access pipeline since we first learned about it in 2014,” Archambault said in a press conference. “I believe this movement is organic, and has a life on its own. It is not about race, not about hate. It’s about unity.”

For 500 years, Archambault said, Native Americans have suffered from defeat, prejudice, and broken treaties. One day, the pipeline will not only poison the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, but the millions who depend on the Missouri River for water – human, fauna, and flora.

“And yet we’re the ones who continue to pay the costs,” Archambault said.

Buffalo drinking from pond near the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline - by C.S. Hagen

Buffalo drinking from pond near the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline – photo by C.S. Hagen

The costs including but not limited to the pipeline tearing up native burial sites, poisoning land and waters on its journey south toward Nederland, Texas, in the same state where the third chief resides in 23,000-square-foot-home on 10 acres of land. The real costs to the personal freedoms of at least 69 activists arrested, some of whom are banned from returning to protest areas. Misdemeanor offenses of trespassing are now becoming felony charges of criminal mischief, according to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department. Some of those arrested, activists said, are being stalled, and temporarily denied their rights to counsel.

“The biggest concern that we had about those situations, was holding someone on a no-bond hold for three days on a misdemeanor, that seems irrational,” Standing Rock Sioux Tribe camp attorney Angela Bibens said. “The situation is that people are being targeted, people’s relatives are being targeted. Are people’s rights being violated? There is definitely a case for that.”

Sara Long, a citizen journalist, was arrested for trespassing on Sunday. She had her phone confiscated, was abused verbally, and law enforcement threatened to have her phone unlocked with software, Bibens said.

“You have to have a warrant to get into someone’s phone,” Bibens said. “That is a clear case of someone’s rights being violated. All charges against Long were eventually dropped, and Long did receive her cellular phone back, Bibens said.

“People are being arrested indiscriminately. They are trying to target leadership, trying to determine who is in charge. There is a certain amount of panic that is detectable within law enforcement. They’re not accustomed to what they’re seeing, a large, peaceful group of Native Americans – everybody’s here in Standing Rock.”

Bibens was denied one-on-one access to activists in the county jail, she said, and has to speak to them through glass and by telephones, which may be recorded, she said. Licensed to practice in Colorado, and currently with the National Lawyers Guild, it is legal for out-of-state attorneys to be denied the right to practice in another state, but the current situation with 69 arrests is overwhelming, not only for her, but for Morton County.

Some are being appointed court attorneys, and she is attempting to recruit local lawyers to step in.

Additionally, activists have reported seeing military research and surveillance drones, claiming the drones have blocked reception to the Standing Rock camp areas, and that Facebook is blocking some activists’ videos and statements. Bibens is monitoring the claims, she said.

Not long after the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s petition for an injunction against Dakota Access failed, President Obama’s Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a statement recommending Dakota Access LLC was no longer authorized to work on the U.S. Corps of Engineers’ lands. On Friday, the Washington D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals officially backed the President’s recommendation, halting all work on the Dakota Access Pipeline within 20 miles on either side of Lake Oahe along the Missouri River. The news was joyous to some, considered an annoyance to others. With a legal score of one-to-one for both chiefs, some expected the tension – like a ticking time bomb – would be defused.

Instead, tensions grew.

Law enforcement began arresting activists, native spokespeople, and media personnel, by the busloads. Misdemeanor criminal trespass charges have been filed against Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Red Warrior spokesman Cody Hall, at least two other journalists, and third-party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein, as well as her running mate, Ajamu Baraka.

American horse while chained to a Dakota Access excavator - online sources

Dale “Happi” Americanhorse Jr. while chained to a Dakota Access excavator – online sources

“The Morton County State’s Attorney’s office will pursue felony charges against the protestors who attached themselves to equipment due to the seriousness of the crime,” Kirchmeier said. “The Dakota Access Pipeline has shown good faith in the legal process by removing their equipment from their worksites… But rather than respect this, a small element of the protest group has decided to go and find DAPL equipment and sites wherever they are and interrupt their work that the pipeline has legal right to conduct.”

“This is an unacceptable violation of freedom of the press,” Goodman said in a statement. “I was doing my job by covering pipeline guards unleashing dogs and pepper spray on Native American protestors.”

Long, who is a resident of Cannon Ball, said on her Facebook page that she was incarcerated for 28 hours and charged with criminal trespass.

“They are trying to silence us, again and again, by violating our rights,” Long said on her Facebook page.

“It was not known at the time that Ms. Goodman was a media representative,” Kirchmeier said. “Part of the investigation process is to review all evidence. This included video taken from the protest site. Persons identified on the video were arrested.”

All activists arrested, excluding one female prisoner who had an outstanding warrant from Nebraska, have been released on bail, Kirchmeier reported. Olowan Sara Martinez was charged with criminal trespass on a Dakota Access Pipeline worksite, and has outstanding warrants of terroristic threats, a class-4 felony, among other misdemeanor charges from Nebraska. Nebraska officials have 10 days to take custody of Martinez, according to Morton County Sheriff’s Department.

Kirchmeier denied any accusations that the department was targeting media personnel, spokespeople, or medics.

“There are numerous outside groups, some invited and some not,” Kirchmeier said. “They are participating and are suspected to be causing issues. While they may have come in support of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, they are also pushing their own agenda.”

North Dakota National Guard blockading Highway 1806 - photo by Annie Gao

North Dakota National Guard blockading Highway 1806 – photo by Annie Gao

Many activists feel local and state law enforcement, and now the North Dakota National Guard, are acting as the protectors of big oil interests. While native interests rarely make national or international headlines, and their opinions on matters are rarely heard, these ingredients add to the distrust shared by nearly all Native Americans toward the federal and local governments, activists said. Throw in a pinch of big oil campaign funding for North Dakota politicians, a little private investing, and the final result resembles an agenda the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and its supporters are not comfortable with.

The third chief, Warren, vowed to his employees to complete the 1,172-mile pipeline on time. The pipeline, if built, will “safely move American oil to American markets,” Warren stated in an internal memo to Energy Transfer employees. “It will reduce our dependence on oil from unstable regions of the world and drive down the cost of petroleum products for American industry and consumers.”

DAPL excavation equipment and "scar" or trench made for the pipeline - photo by C.S. Hagen

DAPL excavation equipment and “scar” or trench made for the pipeline – photo by C.S. Hagen

An interesting and profitable venture, analysts say, especially in light of the fact that Congress agreed to lift the nation’s 40-year-old ban on oil exports in 2015. Fourth quarter 2015 the United States exported 4.8 million barrels per day to 136 countries, including Canada, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Mexico, and Colombia, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“It’s entirely fair to highlight Energy Transfer Partner’s ambitions when it comes to exporting hydrocarbons from North America to the highest bidder, and to tie that to a recent lifting of embargo,” Hugh MacMillan, a senior research for the Food & Water Watch said.

Senator Heidi Heitkamp D-N.D., helped lead the efforts on behalf of oil companies for increased exports of liquefied gas and crude oil, according to Heitkamp’s website. Heitkamp, along with Senator Lisa Murkowski R-AK, wrote the Heitkamp-Murkowski Bipartisan Bill to lift the ban on oil exports in 2015.

Enbridge Inc., an investor of the Dakota Access Pipeline, stated in its 2015 annual report that “We see continued opportunities to expand and extend our pipeline systems to help meet North America’s energy needs and contribute to energy security, as well as build connectivity to coastal markets than enable exports.”

No matter what country Dakota crude from the Bakken region might end up, Warren petitioned employees to contact “elected representatives – all of them – to tell them how important this project is to your livelihood.”

Work on the pipeline is approximately 60 percent complete, Warren stated.

“Our corporate mindset has long been to keep our head down and do our work,” Warren’s memo stated. “We respect the constitutional right of all assembled in North Dakota to voice their opinions for or against projects like ours. However, threats and attacks on our employees, their families and our contractors as well as the destruction of equipment and encroachment on private property must not be tolerated.”

The day of the attack dogs photograph, activists defending themselves - photo provided by Morton County Sheriff's Department

The day of the attack dogs – photo provided by Morton County Sheriff’s Department

Frost Kennels

According to Archambault, activists did not instigate the violence on September 3.

“They provoked everything that happened,” Archambault said in a press conference.

Bob Frost, owner and president of Ohio-based Frost Kennels, said his employees were at the Dakota Access Pipeline site on September 3.

“We went out there to do a job and we did it,” Frost said. Personally, Frost supports the continuation of the Dakota Access Pipeline, and said when activists held a protest in Louisville, Ohio last weekend, he received death threats. Activists also attempted to break into an employee’s home, Frost said. Police arrived and the activists scattered; no one was arrested. Frost also reported that activists were burning Dakota Access Pipeline bridges in the Cannon Ball area, but Morton County Sheriff’s Department stated they received no such reports.

sidebarFrost’s company didn’t have time to prepare properly on September 3, and they “were ambushed,” he said. The plan was to use pronged collars and 20-foot leashes, but he decided to go early to the construction site after he received a call from the company who employed Frost Kennels, a company he refused to name.

Upon arrival, Frost found activists tearing down fences, throwing themselves under excavation machinery, and threatening his dogs and employees, Frost said.

“So we just said f*ck it, and got our dogs, and tried to make a bridge between them and the workers. We did not go out to attack people, but they knocked down a fence and entered private property. I tell you what, if someone came on to my own yard, I’d have the right to shoot them, that’s the law.”

As to the angry online reactions to pictures of Frost Kennels dogs with bloodied jaws, Frost said the blood could not have come from human beings.

“Dogs aren’t trained to be social around 20 people, especially with that riot mentality,” Frost said. “But if a dog bites you, the blood is gone within 30 seconds, because they lick their lips and it’s gone.” The blood, Frost said, came from his dogs being struck by activists.

Despite the threats Frost has received, he said he offered activists food last weekend during their protest against his company. “I offered to give them all food, but they didn’t want it,” he said. “And hey, I’m not racist. My wife is 50 percent Native American, my kids are card carrying tribal members, and my best friend is a black guy sitting right here beside me.”

At least eight activists, including a young woman were injured, some with dog bites, and one child suffered a rash after being hit in the face with mace, according to Bibens.

“As far as that picture of that child being bit, I feel bad for whoever it was,” Frost said. “First because any child who is bit I feel for, but also I feel bad for the parents who brought their children there in the first place.”

Morton County Sheriff’s Department has not filed charges against Frost or his employees yet, but initiated a joint task force on Tuesday comprised of the Morton and Mercer County Sheriff’s departments, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to investigate all sides involved. The North Dakota Private Investigation and Security Board is also investigating whether Frost Kennels was properly licensed or registered to work in the state.

“It is important we give this incident a thorough examination,” Kirchmeier said. “DAPL private security officers with dogs were at the worksite. Protesters broke through a fence and entered the site… Seven individuals have been identified and charged with criminal trespass for their involvement in the protest that day.

“The investigation could lead to charges on both sides.”

Deputies did not know about the use of dogs until receiving a 911 call from security personnel, Kirchmeier said.

Rumors that G4S, one of the world’s leading security companies headquartered in Great Britain, has been hired to provide security staff to Dakota Access Pipeline, are false, according to the company’s communication director Monica Garcia. Garcia said that no G4S personnel were on site on September 3, and that the company has no K9 units in North Dakota yet, and that G4S has had no engagements with activists involved with the Dakota Access Pipeline.

“The incident that occurred near Cannon Ball, North Dakota on Saturday, September 3rd involved other security providers, not G4S,” Garcia said. “We are not providing services to that entity [Dakota Access Pipeline or Energy Transfer Partners].”

The security company goes by many nicknames such as the “Chaos Company” in an April 2014 article for Vanity Fair, and as “spy for hire” in Tim Shorrock’s 2009 book Spies for Hire. Historically, G4S is hired by companies and governments to enter dangerous situations such as Nigeria, Israel, Colombia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now, according to media outlets around the world, into western North Dakota.

The company and its subsidiaries are allegedly involved in controversies including immigrant-detainee labor in prisons, crimes against humanity in Israel, misconduct in child custodial institutions, police telephone data manipulation, and its employment of terrorist Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in an Orlando gay nightclub in June 2016, according to Reuters.

horse-in-corral-at-big-camp

A Native American horse inside corral at Big Camp – photo by C.S. Hagen

Winter is Coming

Inside the three camps set up outside Cannon Ball, some activists are winterizing. Solar panels are being used to produce electricity. Sturdier, wooden structures are replacing tents. Woodstoves are being prepared for larger tents that will surround Big Camp’s Sacred Circle. Ceremonies last long into the night, and modern bands have also been performing on the weekends.

Direct Action classes at Big Camp - by C.S. Hagen

Direct Action classes at Big Camp – photo by C.S. Hagen

Although the tension on both sides of the Dakota Access Pipeline may be nearing a breaking point, meetings between the two chiefs, Kirchmeier and Archambault, have “been numerous,” according to Kirchmeier. Morale, for both chiefs, and on both sides of the issue, are high. Big Camp, nestled into a gentle curve of the Missouri River, has expanded. Medic tents have doubled. Classes for children, for activist awareness, for wilderness survival are now being taught to anyone wanting to attend. Jewelers are displaying their wares. Long lines orderly wait for free t-shirts with protect water slogans printed on site. Donations in the forms of clothing, meats, eggs, water, are pouring in. Porta potties are kept clean as possible.

Rock star Neil Young produced a new song and video entitled Indian Givers for the Dakota Access Pipeline protest, according to Rolling Stone magazine.

There’s a battle raging on the sacred land, our brothers and sisters have to take a stand, the song starts off.

Young makes reference to “big money” being the “Indian givers” for plowing an oil pipeline through land rightfully belonging to Native Americans, and sings about Dale “Happi” American Horse Jr., the 26-year-old Sicangu-Oglala Lakota activist who was featured in HPR story entitled “Can’t Drink Oil,” on September 15.

Saw Happy locked to the big machine

They had to cut him loose and you know what that means

That’s when Happy went to jail

Behind big money justice always fails

– part of the lyrics for Neil Young’s song Indian Givers

Kirchmeier realizes the issues will not be resolved anytime soon.

“The morale of our law enforcement personnel is good,” Kirchmeier said. “We have tremendous support from law enforcement agencies across North Dakota.”

A total of 595 people from 51 departments and agencies have assisted, Kirchmeier said. Thirteen counties in North Dakota have provided 144 officers, 11 cities in North Dakota have provided 130 officers, and another 127 officers have been recruited locally.

Medic tent outside of Red Warriors Camp - photo by C.S. Hagen

Medic tent outside of Red Warriors Camp – photo by C.S. Hagen

“Tribal leaders have indicated to law enforcement they want a peaceful protest,” Kirchmeier said. “However, not all protesters have been peaceful. Aggression and actions to incite fear or intimidation are not peaceful activities. Protesters do not have the right to disrupt traffic, close the road, trespass on private property or disrupt other legal activities. They do not have the right to incite fear in the traveling public, local land owners, workers, first responders, or law enforcement.”

Additionally, camps south of the Cannon Ball River will soon be granted a temporary Special Use Permit, which requires a USD 100,000 performance bond, and USD 5,000,000 in insurance, Kirchmeier said. If the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe signs the permit, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will countersign and the permit will be valid for 30 days.

Winter is coming, and all chiefs are preparing. One is doubling down on arrests and following the law. The other chief is also using legal maneuvers, and an indomitable spirit Native Americans have not seen since the Battle of the Greasy Grass, 140 years ago. The third chief, perhaps, is grinding his teeth in frustration at the setbacks.

“We have a connection to Mother Earth,” Archambault said. “And it goes to the center of the earth and goes up to into the universe. We are still here, and the reason why we are here is because of our prayers.

“It is all good.”

Activists from South America posing at Big Camp, near Cannon Ball, ND - photo by C.S. Hagen

Activists from South America posing at Big Camp, near Cannon Ball, ND – photo by C.S. Hagen

Water and Oil Do Not Mix

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe begins its fight against Dakota Access Pipeline, activists arrested, governor declares emergency state

By C.S. Hagen
CANNON BALL, ND – The Bakken Pipeline began quietly, leaving few footprints along its legal trail straight into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ lap. Shortly after the 1,172-mile project was green-lighted, protests erupted in western North Dakota. Arrests and lawsuits, calls for peace and threats of violence, followed.

On Friday, North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple issued an emergency situation due to civil unrest, according to Morton County Sheriff’s Department, and Morton County Commissioners extended the declaration on Monday.

The protest along the pipeline’s route less than one mile from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation of North Dakota and South Dakota, started on August 10 when tribesmen blocked an access point for Dakota Access, LLC construction crews, effectively forcing workers to leave the area. A total of thirteen arrests were made, but the activists’ war cry did not change – water and oil do not mix.

Within a week the activists’ numbers grew from 200 to more than 2,000 people coming from across the United States and Canada, activists said.

Dakota Access Pipeline - Spirit of Cherry Valley Horses 8-15-2016 1971

Dakota Access Pipeline activists on horseback, Spirit of Cherry Valley – wet plate by Shane Balkowitsch

On August 15, Dakota Access LLC moved equipment and employees back to the construction route. A hole was cut into a fence, allowing access to more than 50 activists, leading to accounts of broken machinery windows and an assault on a private security worker, according to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department.

Activists on horseback charged police, forcing them to retreat from their line, according to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department. More arrests were made. As of Monday, a total of 29 activists, including Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, or the Hunkpapa Oyate, had been arrested, according to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department. Of those arrested, 26 were charged for disorderly conduct, and three were charged with criminal trespass. All have since been released.

A standoff between activists and law enforcement ensued.

Police and Highway Patrol guarding their line at the Dakota Access Pipeline Police - photo by Shane Balkowitsch

Law enforcement guarding their line at the Dakota Access Pipeline – wet plate by Shane Balkowitsch

Divergent movie series heroine Shailene Woodley during a protest in Bismarck, ND - courtesy of online sources

Divergent movie series heroine Shailene Woodley during a protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline in Bismarck, ND – courtesy of online sources

The outcry against big oil attracted Hollywood movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio’s attention, and on August 11 brought Divergent movie series heroine Shailene Woodley to join the protesters.

“The spirits are there, the people are there,” activist Margaret Landin said. “They are empowering each other.”

Tensions are brewing. While Archambault calls demonstrators to peace, Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier fears for safety.

Black Land Rovers with tinted windows are parked nearby, watching, activists report. Authorities began investigating two incidents of laser strikes against aircraft conducting surveillance on the protesting encampment, according to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department. The strikes allegedly occurred on August 17 and Sunday, temporarily blinding one pilot, and is considered a federal crime leading to a fine or imprisonment for up to five years or both if convicted.

Six miles south of Mandan, State Highway Patrol troopers closed Highway 1806 to traffic. Cellular phone services have been terminated to the area, activists report. Local parks, campgrounds, boat ramps, and fishing areas have been shut down. Work on the pipeline has been halted. Rumors that construction workers had discovered old Native American burial grounds were not verified.

“We’re trying to provide a line, a safe line for the pipeline people to enter and to go and do their legal work,” Kirchmeier said. “And they were preparing to throw pipe bombs at our line, M-80s, fireworks, things of that nature to disrupt us.

“That, in itself, makes it an unlawful protest. In that area people are compromising the private land down there, and they’re compromising the equipment that is down there.”

Online threats have also been made on social media against the lives of law enforcement officials in the area, according to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department. “We take these comments very seriously,” Kirchmeier said. “We have to take these comments very seriously to protect not only officers’ safety, but residents who live in the area along with those participating in the protest activities. The threats are very concerning.”

Dalrymple’s declaration of an emergency situation was also instituted by fear.

“The State of North Dakota remains committed to protecting citizens’ rights to lawfully assemble and protest, but the unfortunate fact remains that unlawful acts associated with the protest near Cannon Ball have led to serious public safety concerns and property damage,” Dalrymple said in a press release on Friday . “This emergency declaration simply allows us to bring greater resources to bear if needed to help local officials address any further public safety concerns.”

Declaring an emergency situation also allows for the coordinated and effective effort of “appropriate government departments” to minimize the impact of the emergency, according to the executive order issued by Dalrymple. Rumors the National Guard had been called in for support were not verified at press time.

Senator Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., stressed the importance of protecting the rights of all parties involved, and that she would continue to meet with anyone wanting to discuss the issues.

“As North Dakota continues to reduce its reliance on moving crude by rail, producers will keep looking to pipelines as an important part of our energy infrastructure – both for our state and the nation,” Heitkamp said.

“Just as with any infrastructure project, we need to make sure the Dakota Access Pipeline is thoroughly vetted, reviewed, and if approved has the proper safeguards in place. It’s critical that as federal agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers review energy infrastructure projects, they follow all applicable environmental requirements, and respect treaty rights and as well as the need for proper consultation with tribal nations.”

Activists and law enforcement - photos by Shane Balkowitsch

Cherry Creek singers with drum and law enforcement – Corey Carson of Elevate Studios, Bismarck

Dr. Sarah Jumping Eagle was among the first people arrested at the encampment. She was released on bail. Jumping Eagle is a mother of three, and a pediatrician at a hospital in Standing Rock.

Dr. Sarah Jumping Eagle

Dr. Sarah Jumping Eagle

“It’s very frustrating seeing the actions by the state, they’re the ones escalating this and spreading misinformation,” Jumping Eagle said. “They’re using falsehoods to find ways to escalate their own agenda.

“Historically, they would hype up in the newspaper, hype up the local people, hype up the police forces, so that basically the Army could come in. That’s the history of the United States. There is no incentive for them to take it down a notch, there’s a financial incentive to make it appear our camp is potentially violent or threatening.

“Yes, we are protesting and protecting the land,” Jumping Eagle said. “But people are doing that in the manner that is consistent with our beliefs.”

On Monday, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the International Indian Treaty Council appealed to the United Nations for assistance, according to media outlet Indian Country.

“We specifically request that the United States Government impose an immediate moratorium on all pipeline construction until the Treaty Rights and Human Rights of the Standing Rock Tribe can be ensured and their free, prior and informed consent is obtained,” Archambault and the Treaty Council said in their petition to the United Nations.

 

The Seventh Generation

Landin joins the protest traveling from her home in Bismarck every other day. Families with infants, the young and the elderly, Native Americans, and people from all races and cultures have gathered in the Dakota prairie. Citizens are donating food, sleeping bags, outdoor chairs, drinking and washing water, Landin said, and she has not seen or heard of pipe bombs or weapons, in fact, protest organizers do not allow weapons, drugs, or alcohol on to the encampment grounds, she said.

“It is an amazing thing to see,” Landin said. “I literally tear-ed up, there are so many people there to support, and it doesn’t even matter your race.”

No firearms, no alcohol, no cameras allowed, photographer and ambrotypist Shane Balkowitsch said. He traveled from Bismarck to photograph the encampment using the wet plate photography technique, a painstaking process where exposures must be quickly developed in a dark room on scene. Balkowitsch was one of the first to photographers on the scene, he said, and he joined the protest to support the friends he met during his recent work on a photography project for for the Historical Society of North Dakota called “Northern Plains Native Americans: A Modern Wet Plate Perspective.”

“I saw no weapons, no pushing,” Balkowitsch said. “It was a civil and peaceful protest. They are very adamant, very dedicated to this obviously, but being dedicated to something is not a bad thing.

“I was treated with hugs.”

Longtime activist Winona Laduke may ride horseback at Stanley Rock, where the thousands camped at Camp of the Sacred Stone are attracting more support every day. Since nearby highways have been blocked, activists are leading supporters into the area on foot. “They’re trying to put the squeeze on this tribe by blocking the highway to their casino and to the protest. And it has backfired on themselves,” Laduke said.

The ‘squeeze’ is not working.

As the executive director of the Native American environmental group Honor the Earth, and twice Ralph Nader’s Green Party vice presidential candidate, Laduke traveled from her home at White Earth Reservation in Minnesota and stayed two days at the encampment. Friday night during a rainstorm, more than 800 people ate dinner at the tribe’s Prairie Knights Casino, Laduke said. “It’s having a booming business. And this talk about pipe bombs is just not true. They’re using [smoking] pipes. I even brought my pipe down there. There are no bombs, no weapons.”

Activists at the Dakota Access Pipeline - by Police guarding their line at the Dakota Access Pipeline Police - photo by Shane Balkowitsch

Speaker giving talk to activists, or protectors, at the Dakota Access Pipeline – wet plate by Shane Balkowitsch

Laduke spent her birthday at the encampment, among the rolling prairie hills where she could imagine the buffalo that once roamed freely. Nestled against the Missouri River – the mother river – Laduke said it was the best birthday present she could have hoped for.

Winona Laduke

Winona Laduke

“I picked sage, sat in my tipi, and joined in with about 40 people younger than me,” Laduke said. “That is a pretty good birthday present to myself.”

Landin noticed a difference in the protesters, a difference that invokes an ancient prophecy.

“It is the youth,” Landin said. “The youth are really standing up and speaking out. They are a different generation. They are the Seventh Generation.”

The Seventh Generation, descendants of those forced into reservations approximately 140 years ago, are supposed to set rights to wrongs, Landin said. The principle is more than legend or prophecy; it is recorded in the Iroquois Great Law of Peace.

Besides being involved in the protest, young activists, or protectors as activists call themselves, participated in a relay footrace from western North Dakota to Washington DC called “Run for Our Water” earlier in 2016, and then joined protests before the US Supreme Court and at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

 

The Pipeline

Despite Standing Rock Sioux objections, the Bakken Pipeline, officially known as the Dakota Access Pipeline, began in May 2016, and if finished will snake through the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois, where it will join up with a second 774-mile pipeline to Nederland, Texas. More than 570,000 barrels of Bakken crude oil will pass through the pipeline per day after it is finished third quarter 2016, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Oil Pipeline - Grand Forks Herald

Oil Pipeline – Grand Forks Herald

The Dakota Access LLC pipeline, which is a joint venture between Enbridge Energy Partners LP and Marathon Petroleum Corporation, would also span 200 water crossings, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Commission, and in North Dakota alone would pass through 33 historical and archeological sites. Initially, the pipeline was to run north of Bismarck, but because it proved to be a potential threat to Bismarck’s wellhead source water protection areas, the route was cancelled and relocated to its current course, less than a mile from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe reservation, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

According to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers employee, who for the sake of his job wished to remain anonymous, a safe oil pipeline does not exist. Erosion by time, plate tectonics, natural disasters, shoddy workmanship or faulty parts, and cutting corners to fill big oil coffers are part of any pipeline recipe.

Since 2010, more than 3,300 incidents of crude oil and liquefied natural gas leaks or ruptures have occurred in pipelines within the United States, according to the Center for Effective Government. The incidents have killed 80 people, injured 389, and have created $2.8 billion in damages, not to mention the lingering effect on humans, and the release of toxic chemicals into soil, waterways, and air. Nearly one third of the spills since 2010 came from pipelines carrying crude oil, as the Dakota Access Pipeline plans to carry.

In 2010, the first year after the Keystone pipeline was completed, 35 leaks were discovered, according to Earthjustice, an environmental law organization.

Dave Archambault II

Dave Archambault II

In a statement from Archambault on August 16, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said the issue is not only a Lakota or Dakota issue, but it is a human issue.

“I am here to advise anyone that will listen that the Dakota Access Pipeline project is harmful,” Archambault said. “It will not be just harmful to my people but its intent and construction will harm the water in the Missouri River, which is one of the cleanest and safest river tributaries left in the Unit States. To poison the water is to poison the substance of life. Everything that moves must have water.

“How can we talk about and knowingly poison water?”

 

Legal Warriors

On July 27, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe represented by Earthjustice filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers claiming that the project violated the “National Historic Preservation Act” by endangering river waters and by authorizing the construction of the pipeline underneath Lake Oahe, a dammed section of the Missouri River, approximately half a mile upstream from the tribe’s reservation. In the lawsuit, the tribe sought an injunction against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in addition to a full inspection of compliance, and a declaration that the corps’ authorizations for the pipeline were in violation of the reservation’s rights according to the two Treaties of Fort Laramie in 1851 and 1868.

Activists at the Dakota Access Pipeline - Police guarding their line at the Dakota Access Pipeline Police - photo by Shane Balkowitsch

Gathering crowd at the Dakota Access Pipeline  – wet plate by Shane Balkowitsch

“The current proposed route across Lake Oahe a half of a mile upstream of the tribe’s reservation boundary, where any leak or spill from the pipeline would flow into the reservation,” the lawsuit said. “The tribe and its members have been deeply concerned about the potential impacts of the Lake Oahe crossing since its inception.”

The tribe, according to the lawsuit, relies on the lake for drinking water for thousands of people, and for irrigation, fishing, recreation, and for cultural and religious practices. “An oil spill from the pipeline into Lake Oahe would cause an economic, public health and welfare, and cultural crisis of the greatest magnitude,” according to lawsuit documents.

Fearing bodily injury to Dakota Access LLC employees and contractors, the oil company struck back, filing restraining orders on August 15 and seeking monetary damages against members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.

Meanwhile, other issues are piling up for Dakota Access LLC.

On July 20 Enbridge Energy Partners LLP was ordered by the Justice Department and the EPA to pay $177 million for its responsibility in the 2010 Michigan Tar Sands Spill. Enbridge spent six years and more than one billion dollars in cleanup efforts, but the area was not restored, according to media outlet Bold Nebraska.

After spending millions, and wasting years battling for approval of a Bakken crude oil pipeline across Minnesota, Enbridge Energy Partners LLP switched gears, joining with Marathon Petroleum Corporation to run a different pipeline, the Dakota Access Pipeline, through North Dakota, a state that is far less strict on environmental issues than Minnesota. The Minnesota Sandpiper pipeline has been put on the back burner until 2019, according to Enbridge, and analysts predict the project will never be resurrected.

In Iowa where work on the pipeline is underway, three fires erupted causing heavy damage to equipment and causing an estimated $1 million in damages. Investigators suspect arson, according to Jasper County Sheriff John Halferty.

In October 2015, three Iowa farmers sued Dakota Access LLC and the Iowa Utilities Board in an attempt to prevent the use of eminent domain on their properties to construct the pipeline.

Dakota Access LLC personnel did not return telephone calls by press time.

 

More Dirty Blankets

Tribal leaders claim the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not discuss the pipeline project adequately.

“The tribe has never been able to participate meaningfully in assessing the significance of sites that are potentially affected by the project,” the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe lawsuit stated.

The Standing Rock Tribal Historic Preservation Office received a generic letter from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers seeking consultation on February 12, 2015 pertaining to bore hole testing, according to the lawsuit documents.

Tribal leaders objected, but received no response until September 16, 2015, when a second letter stated the consultation process ended on January 18, 2015, according to lawsuit documents. Again, tribal leaders objected, demanding joint consultation and a class III survey in conjunction with tribal archeologists.

Camp of the Sacred Stone at Cannon Ball, ND - Police guarding their line at the Dakota Access Pipeline Police - photo by Shane Balkowitsch

Camp of the Sacred Stone at Cannon Ball, ND – wet plate by Shane Balkowitsch

Instead of addressing concerns, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ next step was to publish a draft environmental assessment that did not include a single mention of the potential impacts of the pipeline project to the tribe, according to lawsuit documents.

Not until February 2016 did the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Colonel John Henderson begin discussions with Standing Rock Sioux tribal leaders. Several visits were made, at which point tribal archeologists showed military personnel shards of bone and pottery that had been pushed from the ground by burrowing moles.

On April 22, 2016, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ response was to make the formal finding that “no historic properties were affected,” according to lawsuit documents.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers disagreed, stating that investigators followed procedure.

“The Corps conducted formal government-to-government consultation with tribal representative via meetings; site visits; distribution of pertinent information; conference calls, and emails in order to inform tribal governments and private members, and to better understand their concerns.

“All information received during the … process was considered during the Corps decision-making process. Ultimately, the District made a ‘No Historic Properties Affected’ determination.”

Historically, British and American governments have deceived Native Americans by many means, through trick, by trade, and according to some, with biological warfare.

In 1763, a British captain gave smallpox-infested blankets to Ottawa Native American warriors. The account is documented in the journal of William Trent, a local trader who had close dealings with British soldiers.

“Out of our regard for them, we gave them two blankets and a handkerchief out of the smallpox hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect,” Trent wrote in his journal on June 24, 1763.

Carl Waldman’s Atlas of North American Indian described the same instance, but in a different light. “… Captain Simeon Ecuyer had bought time by sending smallpox-infected blankets and handkerchiefs to the Indians surrounding the fort – which started an epidemic among them.”

Historians estimate three-quarters of the Native American population in the Ottawa area died from smallpox outbreaks after taking the blankets, according to media outlet Indian Country. Many agree that germs annihilated Native Americans, and not the “white man with guns.”

An unsubstantiated instance allegedly occurred in June 1837 when the U.S. Army began to dispense trade blankets to Mandan tribal people at Fort Clark along the Missouri River in North Dakota, according to the History News Network. The blankets were said to have come from a military smallpox infirmary in St. Louis, and brought upriver aboard the steamboat St. Peter’s. When the Native Americans showed symptoms of the disease, fort doctors allegedly told them to scatter and seek sanctuary with healthy relatives.

No matter how disease was introduced to the Mandan tribe in 1837, more than 100,000 Mandan Native Americans died from smallpox pandemic between 1836 and 1840, according to historians.

Closer to home, the events from Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota during 1890 and the 1970s have further exacerbated mistrust between the U.S. government and the Lakota people. In 1890, Sitting Bull, a holy man and leader of the Lakota, was killed during the Ghost Dance movement at Wounded Knee. Later that year the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry surrounded another band of Ghost Dancers slaughtering 150 Lakota tribesmen.

"The Grand River at Sitting Bull's Cabin" on Grand River, about 100 yards from where Sitting Bull was gunned down. The Grand River is a tributary of the Missouri River - photo by Shane Balkowitsch

“The Grand River at Sitting Bull’s Cabin” about 100 yards from where Sitting Bull was gunned down. The Grand River is a tributary of the Missouri River – wet plate by Shane Balkowitsch taken on July 9, 2016 accompanied by Ernie LaPoint great grandson of Sitting Bull

In 1970, the American Indian Movement known as AIM occupied the Wounded Knee holy site, sparking a 71-day siege by federal agents. Two Native Americans were killed, and one federal officer was paralyzed during altercations. In 1975, AIM activists killed two FBI agents during the “Pine Ridge Shootout.”

Additionally, in 1944, the Pick-Sloan Plan for flood control of the Missouri River gave the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers the authority to build 107 dams, effectively forcing the relocation of nearly 1,000 Native American families. Later in 1946, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction on the Fort Randall Dam in South Dakota, which in turn flooded 22,091 acres of Yankton Sioux land and forced 136 families to move elsewhere. According to online reports when the tribes affected informed the Department of Interior, government officials told them to start looking for new homes.

Again, in 1948, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction of the Oahe Dam, near to the demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline today. The project destroyed 90 percent of the timberland on the Standing Rock Sioux and the Cheyenne River Sioux reservations, and is known by some as the most destructive public works project in US history.

In 1959, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began work on the Big Bend Dam in South Dakota, on lands belonging to the Crow Creek Sioux and the Lower Brule Sioux. The project took away 21,026 acres of Sioux land, and flooded the town of Lower Brule. In 1960, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers filed a condemnation suit against the Crow Creek Sioux and the Lower Brule Sioux to obtain the land. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was allowed to take title of the land.

For more than 130 years in the Black Hills, South Dakota, gold miners, and in recent history the Homestake Mine, poisoned river waters with sulfur, mercury, aluminum, cadmium, copper, iron, selenium, lead, and arsenic through Native American, private, state, and federal lands, according to a 2005 report filed by the United States Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, United States Department of Interior, Fish and Wildlife Services, and the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks. The aftereffects of a century of gold and lead mining are toxic to flora and fauna, according to the report. Starting in 2005, efforts were being made to restore the areas affected along the Whitewood Creek, the Belle Fourche, and the Cheyenne rivers, and the Homestake Mining Company of California, Inc. ceased mining and production in 2001.

Whitewood Creek flows into the Belle Fourche River, which flows into the Cheyenne River, which flows into the Missouri River at Oahe Reservoir, according to the report.

“Whitewood Creek is an example of gross environmental degradation tacitly condoned by public apathy…” the report stated. “Once pollutants were no longer discharged, the ecosystem repaired itself, a tribute to its resilience… this story has not reached its conclusion… and the potential for future problems with heavy toxicity are real.”

The poisoning, swallowing, and destruction of Native American lands not only forced tribesmen to move, it crippled their way of life, their hunting and fishing grounds, their chance to sow crops on once fertile soil, their spiritual practices pertaining to ancient burial grounds, and further impoverished those living on reservations, government reports and activists said.

With such a historical pattern of deception and at times brute force, it is little wonder why Native Americans distrust anything government officials say, activists said.

Dakota Access Pipeline activists - Police guarding their line at the Dakota Access Pipeline Police - photo by Shane Balkowitsch

Dakota Access Pipeline activists gathering – wet plate by Shane Balkowitsch

“Native people including the Lakota, have no experience with the United States keeping its word, or that of corporations keeping their words,” Laduke said. “It is time for people to start keeping their words. They have a treaty right to that water.

“Corporations have more rights than people and eco-systems,” Laduke said. “These corporations need to be challenged. I am not afraid of them, and we all should not be afraid of corporations. They need to be put in their place.”

Although Jumping Eagle has charges hovering over her head, she is not daunted.

Jumping Eagle, an Oglala Sioux who married into the Standing Rock tribe, lives and works there, and she did not plan on getting arrested. A court date has been set, but she is not daunted. Instead, she plans to create hand-washing stations at the encampment.

“This is not something I take lightly, I keep it in mind, but I want to be able to protect the land and water. This is a crucial time. For too long we’ve allowed corporations to be more important than people. The company and the police are protecting the interests of an oil company directly violating the rights of people. We’ve already suffered enough. The fact that they want to place the pipe just north of our community when we are already dealing with so many other issues that could threaten our drinking water, and put us into a situation like Flint, and people will have to buy water? Is not right.

Activists on horseback and along their line - photos by Shane Balkowitsch

Activists on horseback and along their line – Corey Carson of Elevate Studios, Bismarck

“They think they can do whatever they want,” Jumping Eagle said. Not only is she active against Dakota Access Pipeline, she has also worked on other environmental issues ranging from new North Dakota Health Council regulations permitting the increased storage of oilfield waste – radioactive materials and chemicals – to fighting local uranium mines. “They think we are expendable or without a voice, without a choice. Going across Standing Rock land is against the treaty. But people don’t want to think about it. People want to trust their officials. The arguments they make are just trying to reassure themselves.”

Despite the deck being heavily stacked against her and her family, her tribe, and anyone living near or depending on the Missouri River or its tributaries for sustenance, Jumping Eagle remains hopeful that one day, things will change.

“Our concerns are never going to change.”

Plight of the Twin Paragon Sisters

By C.S. Hagen 

TIENTSIN, CHINA – Ligu and Chungu never lingered at market, like other girls their age, hoping to get noticed.  When the Zhang sisters grew hungry, they tightened their clothes.  Too poor to have their feet bound, they contended themselves with helping mama embroider lotus shoes and trinkets for copper pennies.  During a time of near anarchy, as the Qing Dynasty succumbed to Sun Yat-sen’s Republic in 1911, Tientsin’s streets teemed with gangsters, prostitutes, foreign merchants, and revolutionaries, but the Zhang sisters held true to their family’s Confucian values, keeping the “door wind” (门风), or bad reputation, at bay.

The Zhang sisters, Ligu (丽姑), the eldest, and Chungu (春姑), stayed home, as virtuous young girls under the Confucian order.  They adhered to the “four virtues,” practicing proper speech and jealously guarding their chastity; they worked diligently, and strived for modesty.  Their family was among Tientsin’s poorest classes living in the Heping hutongs, but they didn’t complain even when their father, a rickshaw puller, couldn’t earn enough to put rice on the table.

A painting done by C.S. Hagen in 1987

A maobi painting done by C.S. Hagen in 1987

Innocent of the prostitutes and gangsters around them, the Zhang sisters blossomed into young teenagers, catching the eye of a local wealthy mawang, or pimp, Dai Fuyou (戴富有).  Dai was more than a pimp, however; he was a “white ant,” a trafficker of young girls sold, tricked, or kidnapped then forced into the prostitution trade, known in Tientsin as the Land of Broken Moons.

Dai schemed.  He plotted how to tempt the Zhang sisters into his “wolf’s lair,” according to a November 20, 2013 documentary broadcasted by China Central Television Network (CCTV12), and didn’t find an opening until baba, Zhang Shaoting (张绍庭), lost his rickshaw.

And then Dai set his trap.

The Twin Paragon Sisters (双烈女案) case is documented in part through an unnatural death records book dating to the Ming Dynasty. The book is thick, revealing more than 36,000 women who met grisly ends in attempts to keep their chastity, and reads, according to CCTV12, like a “King of Hell’s Death List.”

The Zhang sisters’ case is also known as one of Tientsin’s “Eight Strange Cases of the Republic.”

 

Baba

Every time Zhang Shaoting found a little fortune, disaster followed. Much like Old Testament Job. The two men could have been bosom buddies.

In the late 1890s, Zhang, at 19-years-old, fled his hometown of Nanpi in Hebei Province and took refuge in Tientsin’s Old Xikai District, a 4,000-acre strip west of the old “Celestial City” under French control. (Present day Xikai Catholic Church, Isetan, and Binjiang Road area).  He found gainful employment in a ceramics shop, worked hard, and won the shopkeeper’s daughter’s hand in marriage.  He was a cautious fellow, submissive, sometimes talkative, according to Nanpi Government reports. Being raised as a devout Buddhist, he was careful to protect his family’s “door wind.”

Lao Xikai Church, or St. Joseph's Catholic Church, in the Lao Xikai area - Tianjin Archives Museum

Lao Xikai Church, or St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, in the Lao Xikai area – Tianjin Archives Museum

When Ligu was one-years-old, the first disaster struck.

In June 1900 approximately 120,000 Righteous and Harmonious Fists mauled Tientsin, declaring war on colonial foreign powers of the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Germany, Russia, Hungary, Italy, and the United States in what came to be known as the Boxer Rising.  Supposedly impervious to bullets through magic charms pasted on their chests and Plum Flower Boxing, the Boxers attacked embassies in Peking, beheaded missionaries across the provinces, slaughtered opium dealers at the port cities, and joined forces with Qing Dynasty Imperial troops to sack the Tientsin Foreign Settlement, an area along Tientsin’s Hai River given to the eight foreign powers through the Unfair Treaties of 1860.

Read more about Boxers here.

Read more about the Boxers’ Red Lantern Society here.

The Eight Allied Nations’ response was harsh.  Naval cannons aboard the H.M.S. Terrible and H.M.S. Fame flattened Tientsin’s ancient walls and city, including the ceramics shop in which Zhang worked. Jin Lao, the proprietor, died days after the siege, leaving Jin Shi, his wife, and young daughter stranded.

An uneducated man, Zhang turned to the rickshaw. Grueling work in Tientsin’s hot summers and bitter winters.  Lacking money to purchase the vehicle, Zhang was forced to rent.  Costs weren’t cheap, according to Michael T.W. Tsin in a book called Nation, Governance, and Modernity in China: Canton 1900-1927.

The rickshaw puller taking a break - Virtual Shanghai

The rickshaw puller taking a break – Virtual Shanghai

“Most companies charged a daily deposit of C$5 [five Chinese dollars] plus a rental fee of about C$1 for each rickshaw.  The amount was paid by the contractor, who assumed full responsibility for the vehicles.  A puller had to pay the contractor a commission for his service, in addition to the cost of leasing the rickshaw.”

In Tientsin, contractors formed guilds to protect their interests, and zealously guarded their rickshaws and fiefdoms on which they moved people and goods.

“The transport workers and the guilds that controlled them, with a history of more than 200 years, were among the oldest and most important participants in the making of the Tianjin [Tientsin] working class,” according to Gail Hershatter in her book The Workers of Tianjin, 1900-1949.

“Tianjin [Tientsin] lived by trade: it was the meeting point of five rivers, an important juncture on the Grand Canal, the loading point for sea shipment of goods from North and Northwest China, the entry point for foreign imports and Shanghai goods, and the major northern station of two railroad lines,”

Freight haulers, rickshaw pullers, and three-wheeled carts all worked for the highly organized guilds frequently fighting each other for turf.  Tientsin’s guilds were among the most feared and despised organizations, according to Hershatter.

A puller, such as Zhang Shaoting, was usually charged 60 Chinese cents per shift, which varied from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., or from 2 p.m. until midnight.  Naturally, rickshaw pullers labored at the bottom of Tientsin’s social order, and were affiliated with Dark Drifters, hunhunr, and gangs, such as the Qing Bang and the Green Gang.

“Carters, boatmen, innkeepers, transport workers, brokers – even if innocent, they deserve to be killed,” was a common Tientsin folk rhyme in the early 20th century.

The copper cash strings Zhang brought home were hardly enough for three mouths, and when Chungu was born three years after her elder sister, mama turned to embroidery to make ends meet.  Later, she also gave birth to a boy, ensuring the family’s name, but forcing her husband to work longer hours, deteriorating his health.

In the spring of 1916, Zhang’s rickshaw was stolen while he napped.  A rickshaw in those days would take a year’s wages to pay for, and Zhang, now nearing 40, became desperate.

Wang Baoshan (王宝山), a Dark Drifter lackey of Dai Fuyou, hurried to his “elder brother” with the news, according to CCTV12.  When Dai heard of Zhang’s plight, he sprang his trap.  He knew all he needed about the Zhang family, after all, they did not live far away; they were practically neighbors.

Read more about Dark Drifters here.

“Give your daughters in marriage to my two sons, and I will more than settle your score for the stolen rickshaw,” Dai said, according to CCTV12 and Xinhua News. “I can have the marriage contract written up immediately.”

Seeing no way out of his predicament, Zhang agreed, and hurried home with the good news.  His daughters were to be wed to wealthy landowners. The Zhang’s family fortune had taken a good turn.

True to his word, Dai soon brought the marriage contract, but found excuses not to sign. “What’s the hurry?  We’re all one family now.  Listen up, I can do you one better.  Since your daughters are now my daughters, and my sons your sons, and because you are not wealthy, why not let your daughters live in my mansion?  They will be treated like my own blood, or my name is not Dai.”

Once again, Zhang agreed, and Ligu and Chungu, filial daughters, left with Dai to live in his mansion.

 

The Wolf’s Den

Not long after the Zhang sisters arrived, Dai hired a middle-aged woman to teach the sisters how to sing crude songs, fit only for a teahouse brothel.  Daily, men came to listen to the lessons, and Ligu noticed the men speaking excitedly to each other in hushed tones.

In the Qing Dynasty’s twilight years, teahouses were community centers, nests for gossip and news, but were also podiums for talented artisans, courtesans, and prostitutes to tell stories, recite poetry, sing songs, and tempt possible lovers.  Such establishments were hounded by the so-called “mosquito press,” local tabloids who rated the performances, and gave helpful “tips” to anyone wanting to enjoy the “Flower World,” more appropriately known as the Land of Broken Moons.  The comings and goings of strange men and heavily painted women at Dai’s mansion increased Ligu’s fears she and her sister had been tricked, according to CCTV12 and Tianjin Museum Archives.

Early one morning Ligu and her sister fled Dai’s mansion, returning home.  Ligu found baba sick, too weak for work, but when he heard the news, he was livid.

When Dai discovered his sons’ fiancées had ran away, he too was angry.  Having such tasty meat so close to his lips could not be forgotten, according to CCTV12.  But Dai had laid his trap, and was not deterred.  Having in his hands the original unsigned marriage contract, he made a counterfeit document, with all parties’ signatures, and promptly sued Zhang for breach of marriage contract in the Zhili Province Supreme Court.

Upon seeing the signed forged document, and recognizing a man of means, court officials wasted no time in siding with Dai, and ordered the Zhang sisters to return home with Dai to be married to his sons.  Dai’s lackey Wang and his two sons also testified the marriage document was authentic, according to CCTV12.

“Dragons breed dragons; a phoenix gives birth to a phoenix. A mouse’s son can dig a hole,” CCTV12 reported, meaning Dai’s sons were as wicked as their father.

Zhang, barely strong enough to walk, spewed blood across the courtroom floor after a coughing fit.

“Zhang’s sudden loss, followed by the elation from arranging his daughters’ marriages, and then the consequent anger at being cheated was too much for Zhang to bear,” CCTV12 reported.

“He became deathly sick and died two days later,” the Xinhua News and online records from the Tianjin Museum Archives reported.

 

Suicide

After nearly 100 years, a memorial stone dedicated to the Zhang sisters still bears their tragic story.  The massive stone was spared the ravages of war and the Cultural Revolution, CCTV12 reported, because a former viceroy of three northeast provinces, Xu Shichang (徐世昌), wrote the story, and a famous politician and calligrapher, Hua Shikui (华世奎), painted the characters.

The Twin Paragon Sisters memorial stone still standing in Tianjin's Zhongshan Park - online sources

The Twin Paragon Sisters memorial stone still standing in Tianjin’s Zhongshan Park – online sources

The Zhang sisters were distraught, characters in the stone read.  No one could help them.  Their father was dead; their mother was a simple seamstress.

With Tientsin law on their side, lackey Wang and Dai’s two sons pounded on the Zhang family door, demanding that the sisters report to the Dai household the next morning.  If not, both would be sold to a brothel, CCTV12 reported, which was a fate the sisters already suspected.

All night long the Zhang sisters cried to the heavens and to the earth, with no response, the memorial stone read.  Nearing dawn on March 17, 1916, Ligu, who was 17-years-old, turned to her 14-year-old sister.

“The life of a whore is no life for us,” Ligu said.  “It is better we die than to let the door winds befoul the Zhang family name.”

Choking on her tears, Chungu agreed.

Ligu procured three packs of red phosphorus matches from under the bed.  One by one, she cut the tips off and placed the match heads into a pile.  She poured two cups of kerosene and dumped the match heads into the cups, creating a powerful poison.

“You must drink this.”  Ligu handed her younger sister a cup.  “The fate of a whore is worse than these few minutes of discomfort.  If we must die then that is our fate, but we must not ever slight the Zhang family’s name.”

Ligu drank down the poisonous concoction.  Chungu hesitated.

“I heard those who commit suicide will go to hell and be tortured,” Chungu said.

“Do not be afraid,” Ligu said. “Even in death we will leave behind our innocent bodies.”

Chungu raised the cup to her lips, obeying her big sister and crying as she gulped kerosene and match heads down.

A picture broadcasted by CCTV12 about the Zhang sisters before their suicide pact

A picture broadcasted by CCTV12 portraying the Zhang sisters before their suicide pact.

Pain didn’t set in for two minutes, the memorial stone read, and then the sisters’ stomachs began to roil.  Both fell to the ground, screaming in pain, waking mama and neighbors who hurried to discover the commotion.

Mama urged the girls to drink water.  Both refused.  Ligu convulsed.  Blood leaked from her eyes and mouth.  And then she lay still.

“Even in death, we will leave behind our innocent bodies,” neighbors reported Chungu said.  And then, with a final, weak cry, Chungu followed her elder sister into the afterlife.

 

The Aftermath

The Zhang sisters’ tragic story spread like wildfire through Tientsin, alerting young and old, rich and poor, alike.  Thousands took to the streets in protest of the court’s decision.

News of their double suicide soon reached the ears of Xu Shichang, a future Nationalist president during the Warlord Era, and Hua Shikai, a Tientsin native, and former military minister for Qing Dynasty princes.  After the revolution in 1911, Hua retired to Tientsin, bought a house in the Italian district, and became a renowned calligrapher.

One of the four famous ministers of the late Qing Dynasty, Zhang Zhidong (张之洞), also heard of the Zhang sisters’ suicide pact, and was moved, not only because they shared the same surname and hometown, but because of the girls’ adherence to Confucian principals in a time when most Tientsin natives could not afford to.

Hua, Xu, and Zhang Zhidong publicly damned the Tientsin courts, and demanded Dai’s arrest, according to Tianjin Museum Archives.  The fragile Nationalist government, in only its fifth year since the revolution, grew fearful of unrest.  All attempts to arrest Dai failed; the white ant escaped.  Protesting crowds grew larger.

Paragon Sisters group pic

Before the third day after death, when the spirits return to collect monies for heaven, Yang Yide (杨以德), the Zhili Province police minister, scripted province-wide arrest warrants for Dai, and tried to appease the populace by collecting monies from local merchants and gentry for a proper burial, according to the Tianjin Museum Archives.

Yang Yide (杨以德)

Yang Yide (杨以德)

“Funerals, like weddings, could be a ruinous expense,” Hershatter wrote in her book The Workers of Tianjin, 1900-1949.  “Families went into debt to buy burial clothes and to rent a burial plot for the deceased… ; to do otherwise would violate the codes of filial piety and invite bad luck and the scathing judgment of the neighbors.”

When the burial day arrived, more than a thousand people joined the funeral parade.  Musicians were hired.  Professional criers wailed at the parade’s tail.  Soldiers in full military regalia cleared the streets.  Relatives from Nanpi, now known as Dongguang County, made the journey, and the largest, most extravagant coffins were hoisted by eight pallbearers each.  The funeral parade started in the western part of old Tientsin, circled the city, and ended on present day Xiguan Avenue.  The sisters were laid to rest inside a Female Paragon Temple, or temples for strong women.

Before 1911, Female Paragon Temples, Lienv Ci (烈女祠), were reserved primarily for female martyrs defending piety and chastity.  Tientsin’s Paragon Temple at one time housed more than thirty graves, including the Zhang sisters, and held sixty-one tablets honoring those who died while defending their innocence.

On May 4, 1919, the wife of the future  first premier of communist China, Deng Yingchao, declared women’s equality across China, consequently abolishing thousands of years of feudalism and Confucian thought.  Tientsin’s Paragon Temple was destroyed to make room for a movie theater soon after the declaration, according to the Tianjin Museum Archives.  A hutong sprouted around the theater, and became known as the Female Paragon Temple Hutong (烈女祠胡同).  Most, if not all of the hutong, is now gone.

According to the Tianjin Museum Archives, the Zhang sisters’ remains and their headstones were relocated to Nanpi before the theater was constructed.  Monies left over from police collections were used to provide for widow Jin and their brother, who also returned to Nanpi under Zhang Zhidong’s protection.

In later years, the Zhang sisters’ tragedy was featured in numerous Peking operas and plays across the nation.  The stone monument telling the sisters’ story sits in Tianjin’s Zhongshan Park, protected under a small, grey-roofed pavilion to this day.  How the stone survived Tientsin’s  warlords and revolutions isn’t important.  Its facade has smoothed with time; the characters are chipped, and difficult to read, but it remains as an affirmation that goodness, sometimes, is stronger than evil.

Hua's house

 

Chuanyechang wood plaque, characters written by Hua Shikai - online sources

Chuanyechang Bazaar on Binjiang Road wood plaque, characters written by Hua Shikai – online sources

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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