All is not well among demonstrators at the Standing Rock protest camps a native American and former protester wrote on her FaceBook page Monday, The Washington Times reported.
Native Americans who want to protect their water from the oil of the Dakota Access Pipeline are complaining that white protesters’ behavior could be already tainting it.
“Need to get something off my chest that I witnessed and found very disturbing in my brief time there that I believe many others have started to speak up about as well. White people colonizing the camps,” Alicia Smith wrote in a November 14 post.
Charging that the white protesters from all over the country are treating the anti-Dakota Access Pipeline demonstration like a “Burning Man-style festival for hippies,” Smith said the non-locals are “coming in, taking food, clothing etc and occupying space without any desire to participate in camp maintenance and without respect of tribal protocols.”
She added, “These people are treating it like it is Burning Man or The Rainbow Gathering and I even witnessed several wandering in and out of camps comparing it to those festivals.”
Additionally, according to Vice.com, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II cited his concerns about sanitation issues brought about by outsiders who are “digging pits” in the ground of the camps “out there for their human waste.”
“That’s a flood zone,” said Mr. Archambault, referring to camps on federal land along the Cannonball River. “So when the floodwaters come up, that waste is going to be contaminating the water. We’re no different than the oil company, if we’re fighting for water. What’s going to happen when people leave? Who has to clean it up? Who has to refurbish it? It’s going to be us, the people who live here.”