Five Lakota Arrested for Forming Blockade on Pine Ridge Reservation

7 March 2012

Five Lako­ta were arrest­ed Mon­day evening in Wan­blee, South Dako­ta when they formed a block­ade to halt a con­voy of trucks going through the Pine Ridge Indi­an Reser­va­tion.

At issue was there were two trucks that appeared to be haul­ing pipes through the reser­va­tion on their way to Cana­da. The new trucks that were deliv­ered in Texas from South Korea were car­ry­ing pipes used for tar sands pipeline. Totran Trans­porta­tion Ser­vices, Inc., a Cana­di­an com­pa­ny appar­ent­ly want­ed to avoid pay­ing the state of South Dako­ta $50,000 per truck or $100,000 to use its state high­ways. Instead Totran Trans­porta­tion thought they would use the roads on the reser­va­tion. Some 75 Lako­ta thought oth­er­wise.

The two trucks marked “over­size load” on them had in its con­voy sev­er­al pick up vehi­cles that were first spot­ted on the reser­va­tion in the late after­noon.

Once alert­ed about the con­voy and its where­abouts, Alex and Debra White Plume decid­ed to go and stop it. They were joined by oth­ers who formed a human block­ade.

The human block­age halt­ed the trucks. The White Plumes were told by the truck­ers that they had cor­po­rate author­i­ty to uti­lize the BIA roads.

“There are actu­al­ly a num­ber of laws that should pro­tect Indi­an tribes from those who cite cor­po­rate author­i­ty,”

said Char­lotte Black Elk, a well known attor­ney activist from Man­der­son, South Dako­ta.

“I told them nice­ly we did not want any trou­ble,”

Alex White Plume told the Native News Net­work late Mon­day night.

“But we were deter­mined not to let them use our roads. The chief of police for the tribe told me that he was told that the FBI was pre­pared to arrest me and pick me up and take me to jail in two white vans.”

White Plume and his wife, Debra and three oth­ers were arrest­ed and charged with dis­or­der­ly con­duct and tak­en to jail in Kyle, South Dako­ta. The oth­ers arrest­ed were: Sam Long Black Cat, Andrew Iron­shells and Ter­rel Iron­shells. Sev­er­al reports on social media report­ed that Tom Poor Bear, vice pres­i­dent of the Oglala Sioux Tribe was arrest­ed. This proved to be not true.

The five arrest­ed were released on the per­son­al recog­ni­zance bond.

“I was the voice for my grand­chil­dren,”

said an exhaust­ed Debra White Plume from home after being released from jail. White Plume was arrest­ed last sum­mer in front of the White House while protest­ing the Key­stone XL pipeline.

The Oglala Nation and all Amer­i­can Indi­an tribes in South Dako­ta have adamant­ly opposed the Key­stone XL pipeline that was rout­ed through the Pine Ridge and Rose­bud Indi­an Reser­va­tions that would cross the Oglala Sioux Rur­al Water Sup­ply Sys­tem in two places.

Late Mon­day, it was report­ed the Eagle Butte Indi­an trib­al coun­cil met to decide to form a human block­ade on their reser­va­tions if the Tro­tran con­voy attempts to come through their reser­va­tion which is north of the Pine Ridge Indi­an Reser­va­tion.