The U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers has noti­fied the Stand­ing Rock Sioux that, effec­tive Decem­ber 5, pub­lic access to fed­er­al­ly man­aged lands north of the Can­non­ball Riv­er in Mor­ton Coun­ty N.D., which includes the Oceti Sakowin camp — land on which thou­sands of peo­ple are cur­rent­ly camp­ing in protest of the Dako­ta Access Pipeline — will be closed. This is one day after the antic­i­pat­ed arrival on Decem­ber 4 of as many as 2,000 mil­i­tary ser­vice vet­er­ans who plan to stand in peace­ful sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Sioux.

The Oceti Sakowin camp on the morn­ing of Novem­ber 15. (Dr. Adri­enne Keene / Twitter)

In a let­ter that Army Corps Dis­trict Com­man­der Col. John W. Hen­der­son sent to Stand­ing Rock Sioux Trib­al Chair­man Dave Archam­bault II, Hen­der­son wrote:

Any per­son found to be on the Corps’ lands north of the Can­non­ball Riv­er after Decem­ber 5, 2016, will be con­sid­ered tres­pass­ing and may be sub­ject to pros­e­cu­tion under fed­er­al, state and local laws. Fur­ther­more, any per­son who choos­es to stay on these Corps’ lands north of the Can­non­ball Riv­er does so at their own risk, and assumes any and all cor­re­spond­ing lia­bil­i­ties for their unlaw­ful pres­ence and occu­pa­tion of such lands.

In his let­ter, the first page of which is embed­ded below, Hen­der­son says he made the deci­sion in order ​“to pro­tect the gen­er­al pub­lic from the vio­lent con­fronta­tions between pro­tes­tors and law enforce­ment offi­cials that have occurred in this area, and to pre­vent death, ill­ness, or seri­ous injury to inhab­i­tants of encamp­ments due to the harsh North Dako­ta win­ter con­di­tions.” His let­ter was accom­pa­nied by a map which marked the des­ig­nat­ed ​“Free Speech Area” where the First Amend­ment would be honored.

A recent con­fronta­tion with law enforce­ment on the Back­wa­ter Bridge injured hun­dreds of peo­ple, includ­ing one young woman who may have to have her arm ampu­tat­ed. Many oth­ers were sprayed with fire hoses in below freez­ing tem­per­a­tures and treat­ed for hypothermia.

On Fri­day after­noon, Archam­bault II respond­ed with the fol­low­ing state­ment:

Today we were noti­fied by the U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers that on Decem­ber 5th, they will close all lands north of the Can­non­ball Riv­er, which is where Oceti Sakowin camp is locat­ed. The let­ter states that the lands will be closed to pub­lic access for safe­ty con­cerns, and that they will allow for a ​“free speech zone” south of the Can­non­ball Riv­er on Army Corps lands. Our Tribe is deeply dis­ap­point­ed in this deci­sion by the Unit­ed States, but our resolve to pro­tect our water is stronger than ever. We ask that all every­one who can appeal to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and the Army Corps of Engi­neers to con­sid­er the future of our peo­ple and rescind all per­mits and deny the ease­ment to cross the Mis­souri Riv­er just north of our Reser­va­tion and straight through our treaty lands. When Dako­ta Access Pipeline chose this route, they did not con­sid­er our strong oppo­si­tion. Our con­cerns were clear­ly artic­u­lat­ed direct­ly to them in a meet­ing on Sept. 30, 2014. We have released that audio record­ing from our coun­cil meet­ing where DAPL and the ND Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion came to us with this route. We ask that the Unit­ed States stop the pipeline and move it out­side our treaty lands. It is both unfor­tu­nate and iron­ic that this announce­ment comes the day after this coun­try cel­e­brates Thanks­giv­ing — a his­toric exchange of good­will between Native Amer­i­cans and the first immi­grants from Europe. Although the news is sad­den­ing, it is not at all sur­pris­ing giv­en the last 500 years of the treat­ment of our peo­ple. We have suf­fered much, but we still have hope that the Pres­i­dent will act on his com­mit­ment to close the chap­ter of bro­ken promis­es to our peo­ple and espe­cial­ly our chil­dren.