Reminder: The #NoDAPL Protesters in Camp Are No Longer Standing With Standing Rock

Today is the deadline, set by both the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Governor Doug Burgum, for the #NoDAPL protesters to move out of the illegal Oceti Sakowin camp.

At 2:00pm everyone is to be off the Corps land where the camp was established months ago. Some of the protesters are vowing to resist efforts to move them. I’m told the protesters will be given every “out” possible to leave peacefully. The state has a program in place to give anyone wishing to leave peacefully ahead of the deadline a hotel room voucher, food and other supplies, as well as a bus ticket home.

Conditions in the camp are filthy, as I wrote yesterday, the result of thousands of people camping in the middle of a field with little in the way of responsible sanitation services. The cops who will eventually go into the camps are receiving hazmat training. Meanwhile, the protesters are setting fires.

It’s not clear when the cops will be going in. Leadership will be assessing the situation on an hour-by-hour basis with the hopes of avoiding a major conflict.

But as all this builds up, we should remember that any resistance at the camp is not sanctioned by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. These activists are no longer “standing with Standing Rock.”

[mks_pullquote align=”right” width=”300″ size=”24″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]I hope, when the media reports on the inevitable confrontation between law enforcement officials and protesters, that the tribe’s stance on these holdouts is a part of the story.[/mks_pullquote]

That’s a fact I’m not seeing mentioned much in the intensifying media coverage of this situation.

“I’m asking them to go,” Standing Rock Chairman David Archambault said of the protesters back in December. In January he would call the situation in the protest camps “ugly.”

“I am so frustrated…go home,” a member of the Standing Rock Tribal Council said during a January meeting.

It’s not just the state and the federal government which has ordered the camps cleared. The Standing Rock Tribal Council also issued a resolution on January 22nd ordering the evacuation of the camps.

Standing Rock has not given up their fight against the pipeline, but they’ve asked that the issue be pursued through the courts and political process rather than the protest camps.

I hope, when the media reports on the inevitable confrontation between law enforcement officials and protesters, that the tribe’s stance on these holdouts is a part of the story.

I also hope that nobody – be they protester or law enforcement – gets hurt.