Mem­bers of trib­al com­mu­ni­ties from around the world have joined in activism led by the Stand­ing Rock Sioux Tribe. A Sami group from Nor­way was the lat­est to arrive on Fri­day. This resis­tance cam­paign, many say, has emerged as part of a greater glob­al cri­sis — a unit­ed strug­gle in which indige­nous lands, resources, and peo­ple are per­pet­u­al­ly threat­ened by cor­po­ra­tions and gov­ern­ments often using mil­i­tary force. Inte­gral to this shared nar­ra­tive is the rou­tine ignor­ing of treaties.

When oppo­si­tion to the Dako­ta Access pipeline gal­va­nized the sup­port of hun­dreds of U.S. tribes, it became an unprece­dent­ed show of Indi­an Coun­try uni­ty and resolve.

In their con­tin­ued strug­gle, the Lako­ta Sioux are advanc­ing an Indige­nous agen­da that calls for gov­ern­ments to acknowl­edge the unique and inher­ent rights of First Peoples.

While Indige­nous Peo­ples reflect only about 5 per­cent of the world’s pop­u­la­tion, they rep­re­sent rough­ly 15 per­cent of the glob­al poor. With the excep­tion of major­i­ty pop­u­la­tions in places like Bolivia and Guatemala, Indige­nous Peo­ples are typ­i­cal­ly the minor­i­ty in their respec­tive countries.

But they have land. And their trib­al ter­ri­to­ries are among the health­i­est ecosys­tems on the plan­et — and under con­stant threat from min­ing, log­ging, and dam and oil development.

“There is a tremen­dous aware­ness from Indige­nous Peo­ples regard­ing what’s hap­pen­ing at Stand­ing Rock,” said Elsa Stam­atopoulou, direc­tor of the Indige­nous Peo­ples’ Rights Pro­gram at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty. ​“The Native Amer­i­cans there are strug­gling and are con­nect­ed to the whole world and a sol­i­dar­i­ty of rights.”

Lack of sov­er­eign­ty is the biggest prob­lem con­fronting Indige­nous Peo­ples world­wide. And the fact that Indige­nous Peo­ples are hav­ing a moment in the ances­tral ter­ri­to­ry of the Great Sioux Nation is both sym­bol­ic and his­tor­i­cal­ly relevant.

“Wound­ed Knee! This is where our move­ment all start­ed,” said Stam­atopoulou. The human rights expert became the first chief of the sec­re­tari­at of the Unit­ed Nations Per­ma­nent Forum on Indige­nous Issues in 2003.

She recount­ed the 1973 occu­pa­tion at Wound­ed Knee, South Dako­ta, on the Pine Ridge Indi­an Reser­va­tion about 330 miles south of Stand­ing Rock. The intense 71-day stand­off led by the Amer­i­can Indi­an Move­ment (AIM) was a call to end inter­nal cor­rup­tion on the reser­va­tion and to expose the U.S. government’s fail­ure to uphold its treaty oblig­a­tions. AIM activists took their case to the Unit­ed Nations, but the UN failed to observe the Oglala Sioux as sov­er­eign. Accord­ing to Stam­atopoulou, this rejec­tion began a decades-long process by Indige­nous Peo­ples world­wide to demand recog­ni­tion of their rights as self-deter­mined nations with­in nations.

Mem­bers of the Amer­i­can Indi­an Move­ment dur­ing Woud­ed Knee occu­pa­tion in 1973. (Pho­to: Clyde Bel­le­court / janet​walsh​.com)

Today on the Dako­ta prairie, the images cap­tured from the ongo­ing occu­pa­tion near Stand­ing Rock are not unlike scenes depict­ed from Wound­ed Knee more than 40 years ago.

Although con­struc­tion of the Dako­ta Access pipeline is at a par­tial legal impasse, ten­sion keeps build­ing. An increased mil­i­ta­rized response to the activism has dom­i­nat­ed the demon­stra­tions. Both sides have accused the oth­er of using coer­cive mea­sures. Law enforce­ment claim prayer pro­test­ers are armed.

What’s reflect­ed is a pow­er strug­gle over resource extrac­tion and ener­gy projects most often linked to devel­op­ing countries.

On Wednes­day, armored vehi­cles rolled onto the North Dako­ta prairie in response to a group of peo­ple gath­ered to protest the pipeline. At one point, police in riot gear aimed their guns at the demon­stra­tors. Mor­ton Coun­ty Sher­iff Kyle Kirch­meier defend­ed the action, alleg­ing a pro­test­er on horse­back had charged at an offi­cer. The ten­sion, streamed live on Face­book, has since been viewed more than a mil­lion times. Twen­ty-one peo­ple were arrest­ed that day, and, accord­ing to the sheriff’s depart­ment, the total num­ber of arrests has reached near­ly 100 since the protests first began.

Progress of the glob­al Indige­nous rights move­ment has been cel­e­brat­ed, but slow. Details behind the dan­gers linked to defend­ing lands and nat­ur­al resources are only start­ing to enter Amer­i­can news feeds.

Accord­ing to a recent study by the non­prof­it Glob­al Wit­ness, near­ly two-thirds of the 185 activists mur­dered last year — a rate of rough­ly three deaths a week— were Indige­nous activists. The study also found that among the dead­liest places in which to defend the Earth are the Philip­pines, Colom­bia, and Brazil.

In Hon­duras, promi­nent envi­ron­men­tal­ist Berta Cáceres was mur­dered last March. The 44-year-old moth­er and non­prof­it orga­niz­er was shot dead in her home. Her last days were marked with dan­ger and threats: give up the fight against the Agua Zarca Dam, or else.

“For those of us who are in the strug­gle, it’s seen as a crime to fight for Indige­nous rights, to defend ter­ri­to­ry, to demand any sort of jus­tice,” explained Cáceres back in January.

I had spent time with Cáceres weeks before her assas­si­na­tion. She intro­duced me to the Lenca com­mu­ni­ty that had been fight­ing for years to pro­tect the Gual­car­que Riv­er from multi­na­tion­al dam development.

The bat­tle was one Cáceres referred to sim­ply as ​“the struggle.”

“So then the strug­gle… well, that brings repres­sion and that brings threats, and I think that affects every ele­ment of our dai­ly lives,” she said.

In ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, images of Cáceres start­ed turn­ing up at the cen­ter of the Sacred Stone Camp, the main site where hun­dreds of peo­ple have gath­ered since April to oppose the Dako­ta Access pipeline.

In recent weeks, Indige­nous Peo­ples from around the world have jour­neyed to the windswept plains of North Dako­ta to stake flags in the ground along with those of trib­al nations from across the U.S.

A del­e­ga­tion from the Sarayaku tribe in the Ecuado­ran Ama­zon arrived at the encamp­ment bear­ing gifts. Trib­al leader Fran­co Viteri offered Stand­ing Rock’s trib­al chair­man, Dave Archam­bault II, a tra­di­tion­al head­dress that he wore dur­ing talks held inside a teepee.

“We are here to glob­al­ize the resis­tance to oil,” Viteri said.

The Sarayaku have fought and won against oil devel­op­ment on their own ances­tral lands before. The vis­i­tors said their jour­ney to Stand­ing Rock was meant to lend strength to the over­all Indige­nous movement.

“The world needs us right now,” said Sarayaku del­e­gate Nina Gualin­ga. ​“The sta­tis­tics say we are 4 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion, but we are pro­tect­ing more than 80 per­cent of the world’s biodiversity.”

Com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­er Alice Math­ew, an Indige­nous woman from Malaysia, was among the first to ampli­fy Stand­ing Rock’s strug­gle on an inter­na­tion­al scale. At a Sep­tem­ber 7 town hall meet­ing in Laos, she ded­i­cat­ed her one exchange with Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to ask him direct­ly about the Dako­ta Access pipeline.

“I want­ed to do some­thing — like in sol­i­dar­i­ty for Stand­ing Rock,” Math­ew said in a Skype inter­view from Indonesia.

She said the protests near the reser­va­tion remind­ed her of a sit­u­a­tion near her home com­mu­ni­ty of Kota Kin­a­balu on the Malaysian island of Bor­neo. There, the Indige­nous Dusun peo­ple are fight­ing the Kaid­u­an Dam. The devel­op­ment would pro­vide water and pow­er to near­by cities while dis­plac­ing as many as 2,000 Dusun from their six vil­lages. Just as the Lako­ta Sioux have claimed they weren’t prop­er­ly con­sult­ed about the pipeline, the Dusun say they also weren’t ade­quate­ly informed about the dam. Mean­while, they’re insist­ing that an envi­ron­men­tal assess­ment take place, a step advo­cates of Stand­ing Rock have called for as well.

“Their needs are being put last,” said Math­ew. ​“It’s like all the devel­op­ment of all the peo­ple are at the expense of Indige­nous People’s rights.”

It’s why Math­ew said she chose to ask Pres­i­dent Oba­ma how he would ensure that drink­ing water is pro­tect­ed for Stand­ing Rock. Until that point, Oba­ma had been silent on the issue.

“I’d have to go back to my staff and find out how are we doing on this one,” replied the president.

Two days lat­er, it appeared that the pres­i­dent had con­sult­ed with his staff. On Sep­tem­ber 9, the Oba­ma Admin­is­tra­tion inter­vened in a fed­er­al court rul­ing. A sec­tion of pipeline con­struc­tion along the Mis­souri Riv­er was paused.

Stalled Dako­ta Access con­struc­tion on High­way 6 in Mor­ton Coun­ty, North Dako­ta. (Pho­to: Jen­ni Monet)

Accord­ing to Dako­ta Access, the $3.8 bil­lion project is more than 60 per­cent com­plete. Mean­while, the Stand­ing Rock Sioux Tribe con­tin­ues its suit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers for per­mit­ting the project in the first place. Among the tribe’s com­plaints is that the pipeline could envi­ron­men­tal­ly dam­age ances­tral lands. While the pipeline does not cross the reser­va­tion, it would bur­row 92 feet below Stand­ing Rock’s pri­ma­ry water sup­ply, the Mis­souri Riv­er, which sits less than a mile north of the trib­al bound­ary. Addi­tion­al­ly, the tribe claims that cer­e­mo­ni­al prayer sites and bur­ial grounds have already been desecrated.

On Sep­tem­ber 20, the Stand­ing Rock Sioux Tribe took its fight to stop con­struc­tion of the pipeline to the Unit­ed Nations Human Rights Coun­cil in Gene­va, Switzerland.

Trib­al Chair­man Dave Archam­bault II addressed the 49-mem­ber coun­cil in tra­di­tion­al head­dress and a char­coal gray suit. A bead­ed Lako­ta medal­lion hung from his neck. In his two-minute tes­ti­mo­ny, Archam­bault asked the human rights body to join Stand­ing Rock in stop­ping the pipeline in its path.

“The oil com­pa­nies have failed, and the gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed States, have failed to respect our sov­er­eign rights,” Archam­bault read from his statement.

The chair­man spoke dur­ing the UNHRC’s reg­u­lar ses­sion on Indige­nous rights. The forum fea­tured tes­ti­mo­ny from more than two dozen rep­re­sen­ta­tives from around the world — places like the Philip­pines, Ukraine, Sudan, and Brazil.

There was a uni­fy­ing theme: direct encroach­ment on their indige­nous lands and lives by cor­po­ra­tions and governments.

“To see tribes from all over the world who are hav­ing the same expe­ri­ences — it was pow­er­ful to see that we aren’t alone in our strug­gle,” Archam­bault said.

With its appear­ance at the Unit­ed Nations, the Stand­ing Rock Sioux Tribe is appeal­ing to rights under the UN Dec­la­ra­tion on the Rights of Indige­nous Peo­ples (UNDRIP). The human rights doc­u­ment is a cul­mi­na­tion of Indige­nous rights and advo­ca­cy more than 25 years in the mak­ing. A cor­ner­stone to the UNDRIP is the gov­ern­ment oblig­a­tion of ​“free pri­or and informed con­sent.” Ref­er­ence to this con­sul­ta­tion process is repeat­ed sev­er­al times in the UNDRIP and is at the cen­ter of griev­ances made by the Stand­ing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Of course, con­sul­ta­tion and con­sent are dif­fer­ent ideas.

And while the U.S. gov­ern­ment under­stands that mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tions must take place with trib­al lead­ers, the State Depart­ment points out there is no impli­ca­tion that ​“the agree­ment of those lead­ers” must hap­pen before such actions as ener­gy devel­op­ment can occur.

In this way, for all its empow­er­ing lan­guage about rights for Indige­nous Peo­ples, gov­ern­ments have for some time brushed off the UNDRIP as noth­ing more than a sym­bol­ic or aspi­ra­tional idea. What­ev­er action stems from the human rights agen­da is not legal­ly binding.

So while action at the UN may not solve Stand­ing Rock’s legal case or even prompt the Oba­ma Admin­is­tra­tion to take direct action to per­ma­nent­ly stop the Dako­ta Access pipeline, there is agree­ment that the more this glob­al stage is used to assert Indige­nous rights, the bet­ter Indige­nous Peo­ples are for it.

It’s an impor­tant source of influ­ence and con­text, accord­ing to Chair­man Archam­bault. ​“If it’s work­ing with the admin­is­tra­tion, with Con­gress, with oth­er nations, we have to con­tin­ue to look at dif­fer­ent approach­es to reach our end goal,” Archam­bault said.

“We’re doing every­thing we can to height­en awareness.”

(“Stand­ing Rock Joins the World’s Indige­nous Fight­ing for Land and Life” was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in Yes! Mag­a­zine and is repost­ed on Rur­al Amer­i­ca In These Times in accor­dance with their shar­ing pol­i­cy.)