Protesters attempting to stop the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline received bad news on Saturday. The Sioux Tribal council officially called on all protesters encamped in its North Dakota reservation to clear out, Reuters reported.
The tribal council’s resolution, which called to dismantle the three protest camps, did not include a measure on where to move the 600 protesters.
The Standing Rock tribe has been asking protesters to go home since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreed to an environmental review last December of the $3.8 billion pipeline that would move oil from North Dakota through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois.
“The pipeline fight has moved beyond the camps and our strategy must evolve with the process,” Standing Rock Tribal Chairman David Archambault II said in a statement Saturday.
The statement comes almost one week after law enforcement clashed with protesters near the pipeline construction site.
Some activists Saturday at the Women’s March in Washington claim that Archambault “sold out.” One speaker from the Indigenous Women Rise group told the crowd, “David Archambault sold out Standing rock for $30 million, which is less than 30 cents a person.”
She added, “Bitumen, when it hits water, you cannot smell or taste it, but it will cause the bone marrow, it will kill the children and at the end, it creates death. This is what fighting the Dakota pipeline looks like. Stand up for your rights and stand up for your future.”
“Our network respects the decision of the Cannon Ball district and the tribal council of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe,” Tom Goldtooth, the executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network told Reuters. “Vacating the camp does not mean abandoning the resistance.”
