US veterans rush to help Dakota pipeline protesters
US military veterans have joined pipeline protests in North Dakota, following the US Army’s decision to close the area where protesters have been camping for months.
Hundreds of veterans arrived at the Oceti Sakowin Camp near the small town of Cannon Ball on Friday, to help Native American protesters and activists in their continued movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).
More than 2,100 veterans have signed up on a Facebook page to form a human shield in order to protect the protesters at the camp, which is on lands belonging to the US Army Corps of Engineers.
The Army has warned that it would close the camp and force out the more than 1,000 people, who have been staying there in the region’s freezing cold temperatures.
Colonel John Henderson, district commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, wrote in a letter to the Standing Rock’s leader that the decision to empty the camp was to protect the public from violent confrontations between law enforcement and protesters, as well as increasingly harsh winter conditions.
Wesley Clark Jr, son of retired US Army General Wesley Clark, told local authorities on Friday that up to 3,500 veterans were likely to join the protest.
Calling on the volunteered veterans to attend the protests peacefully, organizers of the “Veterans for Standing Rock” said they would not tolerate violence.
“Bring body armor, gas masks, earplugs AND shooting mufflers (we may be facing a sound cannon) but no drugs, alcohol or weapons,” said one post on the Facebook page.
In one of the fiercest encounters, over 300 people had to be treated for hypothermia after police soaked them by water cannons at night in late November.
The Standing Rock Sioux and many other Native American tribes are seeking to reroute the project because it would harm their drinking water and sacred sites.
However, pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners claims that the 1,885-km pipeline is the safest way to bring Bakken shale oil from North Dakota to oil refineries in the US Gulf Coast.
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