Environment | Opinion

Dave Archambault: Stopping the desecration of our Mother Earth

Monday, August 29, 2016

Dave Archambault II, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe addresses supporters outside of the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., on August 24, 2016. Photo by Indianz.Com

Demonstrations a cry to stop desecration of Mother Earth
By Dave Archambault
Chairman, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
For the Native Sun News
nsweekly.com

The United States via the Army Corps of Engineers is in the midst of moving ahead with an oil pipeline that officials are claiming is not potentially harmful to the Standing Rock Sioux Nation. I am here to advise anyone that will listen, that the Dakota Access Pipeline is harmful. It will not be just harmful to my people but its intent and construction will harm the water in the Missouri River, which is the only clean and safe river tributary left in the United States.

We been told by the officials that there will be breaches in the pipe line but they claim the situations are generally never really bad. This is unacceptable.

Our Mother Earth is sacred. All things evolve and work together. 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?

I’ve been told and taught that it is our responsibility to stand for our relatives, the ones that crawl, the ones that fly, the ones that burrow, the ones that swim, the ones that flower. These relatives cannot speak for themselves. Who will speak for them? We have to speak for those who are not here – our ancestors, for those children who are not yet born. Our ancestors left sacred sites for us. We have to speak for them. Children not yet born will not live without water. We have to speak for them.

Several of our Lakota and Dakota relatives have had visions and dreams. They have been visited in a spiritual sense and have been told and told that there is a black poisonous snake trying to come among us. Our relatives have said this.