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| Members of the clergy join protesters against the Dakota Access oil pipeline in southern North Dakota near Cannon Ball on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016, to draw attention to the concerns of the Standing Rock Sioux and push elected officials to call for a halt to construction. The tribe says the $3.8 billion, four-state pipeline threatens its drinking water and cultural sites. |
CANNON BALL,
N.D. (AP) -- Hundreds of clergy of various faiths joined protests
Thursday against the Dakota Access oil pipeline in southern North
Dakota, singing hymns, marching and ceremonially burning a copy of a
600-year-old document.
The interfaith event
was organized to draw attention to the concerns of the Standing Rock
Sioux and push elected officials to call for a halt to construction of
the $3.8 billion pipeline that's to carry North Dakota oil through South
Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois. The tribe believes the
pipeline that will skirt its reservation threatens its drinking water
and cultural sites.
The pipeline "is a
textbook case of marginalizing minority communities in the drive to
increase fossil fuel supplies," the Rev. Peter Morales, president of the
Unitarian Universalist Association, said in a statement. Morales' group
sent more than 30 clergy to the event.
More
than 500 clergy from around the world gathered with protesters on
Thursday at a campfire at the main protest camp to burn a copy of a
religious document from the 1400s sanctioning the taking of land from
indigenous peoples. About 200 people then sang hymns while they marched
to a bridge that was the site of a recent clash between protesters and
law officers. Some held signs that read, "Clergy for Standing Rock."
"It's
amazing the spirituality going around this place," said Joe Gangone,
who came with an Episcopalian church group from South Dakota's Rosebud
Sioux Reservation.
The Rev. Tet Gallardo, a Unitarian Universalist minister from the Philippines, said she was "moved to come" to the gathering.
"Water is the subject of concern also in the Philippines," she said. "How can this happen to people who are so faithful to God?"
The
group sang and prayed while gathered in a semicircle at the
still-closed bridge while law officers monitored from vehicles at a
barricade on the other side, from surrounding hillsides and from a
helicopter flying overhead.
John Floberg, an
Episcopalian minister from the Standing Rock Reservation who organized
the event, called for "peaceful, prayerful, nonviolent and lawful
activity here." There were no immediate confrontations between group
members and authorities, and no arrests, Morton County sheriff's
spokesman Rob Keller said.
Later Thursday, 14
protesters were arrested in the judicial wing of the Capitol in
Bismarck. Highway Patrol Lt. Tom Iverson said the protesters, who were
singing hymns, faced disorderly conduct charges for refusing to leave
the building.
The demonstrators were singing
hymns Thursday afternoon in the judicial wing of the Capitol. Highway
Patrol Lt. Tom Iverson says they face disorderly conduct charges for
refusing to leave when asked.
Their protest
followed an interfaith day of prayer in the southern part of the state
near the small town of Cannon Ball. Hundreds of clergy sang hymns and
marched near the route of the pipeline.
Members
of the Standing Rock Sioux have demonstrated against the pipeline for
months, saying they fear it could harm drinking water and construction
could damage sacred sites.
Opponents of the
pipeline project have been camped near the route in southern North
Dakota for months in an effort to stop construction. Clashes between
protesters and police have resulted in more than 400 arrests since
August.
The most recent incident came
Wednesday, when law officers in riot gear used pepper spray to deter
dozens of protesters who tried to cross a frigid stream to access
property owned by the pipeline developer. Two people were arrested.
About 140 people were arrested on the property last week in a law
enforcement operation that cleared the encampment that protesters had
established on the land.
Texas-based developer
Energy Transfer Partners has said the 1,200-mile pipeline is largely
complete outside of the area in south central North Dakota where it will
go under Lake Oahe, a large Missouri River reservoir and the source of
the tribe's drinking water. The federal government in September ordered a
temporary halt to construction on Army Corps of Engineers land around
and beneath the lake while the agency reviews its permitting of the
project. There's no timetable for a decision.
