Oglala Nationals Roadblock Oil Pipeline Trucks On Pine Ridge Rez

March 5th, 2012, every­one had their ear to the new moc­casin tele­graph. Social net­works, tele­phones, and word of mouth net­works were abuzz with reports of Oglala Lako­ta Nation­als pre­vent­ing oil pipeline mate­ri­als, des­tined for Cana­di­an Tar sands and/or Key­stone XL infra­struc­ture locales or some unknown des­ti­na­tion, from being trans­port­ed across the Pine Ridge Reservation’s Treaty ter­ri­to­ry. Infor­ma­tion trav­elled to Debra and Alex White Plume (Owe Aku, Inc. “Bring Back the Way) and Olowan Mar­tinez that semi-trucks loaded with enor­mous oil pipeline com­po­nents were set to cross Oglala ter­ri­to­ry some­time dur­ing the after­noon on March 5th, 2012; “We did not know where the equip­ment was going, but we knew that these trucks were too huge, too heavy, and too dan­ger­ous to pass our roads. We thought the equip­ment may be going to the Tarsands oil mine, or oth­er oil mines in Cana­da,” Debra White Plume explained.

A call went out via dig­i­tal media and oth­er sources for all able bod­ied and will­ing par­tic­i­pants to mobi­lize and report to Wan­blee, South Dako­ta, for an impromp­tu gath­er­ing of scores of activists ready to block the road with their bod­ies to pre­vent semi-trucks and pipeline com­po­nents from cross­ing Oglala Ter­ri­to­ry. With­in min­utes the con­fronta­tion hap­pened as sev­er­al State and Trib­al police offi­cers and oth­er offi­cials respond­ed to the tense scene. Oglala Trib­al police arrived imme­di­ate­ly with one Sergeant telling the road-block­ers that the South Dako­ta High­way Patrol was parked a few miles down the road at the bor­der between Oglala Coun­try and the State of South Dako­ta but that the SD High­way Patrol would not pro­ceed onto the reser­va­tion. Notably, this Sergeant also advised those present that the FBI (Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion) was en route to the reser­va­tion in two vans from Rapid City, SD. How­ev­er, at the con­clu­sion of the day there were no signs of such FBI pres­ence.

The Texas semi-trucks, trans­port­ing 1.25 Mil­lion-dol­lar “Treater Ves­sels” used in oil, gas and ele­ment sep­a­ra­tion, were stopped in their tracks as they approached the human road­block. The human road­block that fea­tured two Lako­ta grand­moth­ers: Ren­abelle Bad Cob Stand­ing Bear (in her wheel­chair) and Marie Ran­dal (in her 90s). The dri­vers were ques­tioned by those form­ing the block­ade as to why they were cross­ing Oglala lands. One of the dri­vers respond­ed that they did not know they were cross­ing Indi­an land, only that they were fol­low­ing com­pa­ny direc­tives regard­ing their assigned routes and that their Cana­di­an Cor­po­ra­tion had received this par­tic­u­lar route infor­ma­tion as a result of a part­ner­ship with the State of South Dako­ta, whose elect­ed offi­cials have always sup­port­ed the Key­stone XL pipeline. This infor­ma­tion prompt­ed Tom Poor Bear (Vice Pres­i­dent of the Oglala Lako­ta Nation) to phone South Dako­ta State offi­cials in Pierre, SD, inquir­ing as to the nature and ori­gin of the route of the stopped truck­ers. South Dako­ta affirmed to Oglala Vice Pres­i­dent Tom Poor Bear that indeed the State was involved with plan­ning such route, osten­si­bly with­out con­sult­ing the Oglala Lako­ta Nation. The heavy-haul­ing trucks were alleged­ly cut­ting through Oglala coun­try in attempts to avoid a $50,000.00 per-truck-fee to pass through using State of South Dako­ta road­ways.

Dur­ing the road­block, police ordered all those form­ing the road block to dis­perse. This com­mand was heed­ed by most except those will­ing to sac­ri­fice per­son­al free­doms to make their state­ments against big oil and the con­tin­ued mind­less con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of moth­er earth. The fol­low­ing indi­vid­u­als were ulti­mate­ly arrest­ed by Pine Ridge author­i­ties for fail­ing to obey com­mands: Debra White Plume, Alex White Plume, Sam Long Black Cat, Andrew Iron Shell, and Tyrel Iron Shell. The arrests were not with­out effect as the semi-trucks and their pay­loads were rerout­ed and escort­ed off by sev­er­al Oglala sen­tries.

The pro­tec­tors of the earth, all those present who suc­ceed­ed in mak­ing a bold state­ment were backed by stand­ing res­o­lu­tions adopt­ed by the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Coun­cil incor­po­rat­ing the terms of the Moth­er Earth Accord. Addi­tion­al­ly, those stand­ing res­o­lu­tions for­bid any for­mal inter­ac­tion with Tran­sCana­da and/or Key­stone XL or oth­er oil pipelines mak­ing over­tures to the Oglala Lako­ta Nation and oth­er landown­ers through­out the cen­ter of Tur­tle Island (North Amer­i­ca).

Las­tre­alin­di­ans was able to catch up with Olowan Sara Mar­tinez and Debra White Plume to piece togeth­er the days hap­pen­ing for our read­ers’ ben­e­fit. Olowan Sara Mar­tinez recalled the stead­fast man­ner in which the mod­ern war­riors of the Oglala Lako­ta respond­ed “it’s clear that our peo­ple will stand by each oth­er when our land is threat­ened”, said Mar­tinez.

Debra White Plume of Owe Aku, Inc. summed up the peo­ples’ sen­ti­ment when she said “It is always good to see that we’re still Indige­nous. We will nev­er stop car­ing for moth­er earth. When the call went out ask­ing for help, the response was imme­di­ate. Peo­ple from the com­mu­ni­ty of Wan­blee – [a major tra­di­tion­al strong­hold dur­ing the ten­sion and vio­lent filled 1970s between the fed­er­al­ly backed goon squads and the Amer­i­can Indi­an Move­ment backed tra­di­tion­als *con­text pro­vid­ed by Las­tre­alin­di­ans ] poured out in num­bers offer­ing huge pots of soup, cof­fee, and oth­er pro­vi­sions for any­one will­ing to take a stand. The peo­ple will always help each oth­er.”

Las­tre­alin­di­ans was advised that since Oglala Pres­i­dent Steele is cur­rent­ly in Wash­ing­ton, DC on offi­cial busi­ness, Oglala Vice Pres­i­dent, Tom Poor Bear, is call­ing a meet­ing of the Trib­al Coun­cil, today March, 6, 2012, to address the road­block cir­cum­stances and any future occur­rences of this sort. The Oglala Trib­al Coun­cil and In-house attor­neys are draft­ing leg­is­la­tion to pro­hib­it heavy trucks from com­ing onto the reser­va­tion as this writ­ing hap­pens; “It does not mat­ter what trucks are car­ry­ing, if they are this big and heavy they are too dan­ger­ous for our roads”, Debra White Plume reit­er­at­ed. Last­ly, the Oglala Trib­al Coun­cil will con­sid­er leg­is­la­tion pro­hibit­ing any ves­sels or equip­ment to be used in Tarsands oil devel­op­ment from cross­ing Oglala Ter­ri­to­ry.