As many as 2,000 veterans planning to join the Dakota Access pipeline protest Monday have been advised to bring body armor and gas masks in anticipation of a conflict with local officers, identified as the “enemy.”
In an “operations order” posted online, Veterans Stand for Standing Rock said the “opposing forces” include the Morton County Sheriff’s Department and other “state police agencies and private security contractors.”
“Enemy has rubber/plastic bullets, CS gas, pepper spray and an LRAD sound cannon,” the 11-page order said. “They will be limited in their violence against us by US and international human rights laws, a national press presence and observers from the US Congress.”
The organization has raised over $726,000 on a crowdfunding website to send an estimated 2,000 veterans to support the Standing Rock Sioux, which is trying to stop the 1,172-mile, four-state pipeline that runs at its nearest point a half-mile from the reservation.
At the same time, the order urges those participating not to bring weapons and to respect the tribe’s call for non-violent protest, saying “we are there to put our bodies on the line, no matter the physical cost, in complete non-violence to provide a clear representation to all Americans where evil resides.”
Local law enforcement has clashed repeatedly with hundreds of activists, some of whom have ignored the tribe’s call for peaceful protest and set fires, thrown rocks, and hurled Molotov cocktails at officers trying to remove them from private construction sites and public roads.
Craig Stevens, spokesman for the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now, said that 60 percent of the pipeline workers are also veterans, as are many local deputies, police and members of the North Dakota National Guard.
“It’s important to remember that there are veterans on both sides of this issue,” said Mr. Stevens, whose group supports the pipeline.
“We respect the service of all veterans, yet the notion that some would descend upon Cannon Ball as self-purported ’human shields’ is both unnerving and unnecessary,” he said. “Protesters have had, and taken, the ongoing opportunity to protest for several months. Only when protesters have broken the law have they been arrested or asked to disperse.”
Morton County sheriff’s spokesman Rob Keller said state and local officers have steered clear of the protest camps located on federal land, confronting protesters only when they converge on private property and block highways, roads and bridges.
The North Dakota Veterans Coordinating Council is slated to hold a press conference Thursday to discuss the involvement of veterans in the protest.
A snowstorm that swept this week through southern North Dakota has prompted some activists to leave the camps and could chill the number of veterans who participate in the Dec. 4-7 event.
The order warns veterans to be prepared for freezing temperatures at the protest site while indicating that stopping the Dakota Access pipeline represents only one element of the group’s mission.
“Our desired end-state is to create an uproar in the country over the failure to honor our treaty obligations, and to halt construction of new projects in the gas and oil industry,” the order said.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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