The Backwater Bridge near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, remains closed until further notice after authorities said it was set afire on October 27, 2016. Photo courtesy Morton County Sheriff's Department
Albert Bender, an attorney and citizen of the Cherokee Nation, accuses authorities in North Dakota of committing war crimes against people who are resisting the Dakota Access Pipeline:
War crimes are being committed against Native Americans by the Morton County Sheriff’s department in North Dakota. President Obama must take action. I am receiving word that demonstrators are being hooded; there are reports of waterboarding; there are reports of young Native females arrested without cause and strip searched. These are human rights violations that are reminiscent of the atrocities committed by U.S. military forces in Iraq at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003. Even as I write this column I am receiving information that the Standing Rock water protectors are under a vicious, brutal attack by county law enforcement. The water protectors are standing their ground in this face of this hideous, racist assault by these police. This can only end in tragedy. Where is President Obama? A couple of days ago, the Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Harold Frazier, met with Obama in Los Angeles on the pipeline issue. Obama made little response on the matter. For the President not to respond makes him morally complicit in any tragedy that takes place. He is duty bound to take action when U.S. citizens are being subjected to war crimes on U.S. soil. Native Americans are American citizens, a fact he seems to have forgotten. As for Hillary Clinton, she has been disgracefully mute on the pipeline issue.Read More:
Albert Bender: War crimes on the Northern Plains: #NoDAPL (People's World 10/28)
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