Buffalo Stands with Standing Rock
• Demonstration Defends Right to Safe Water and Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Buffalo Stands with Standing Rock
Demonstration Defends Right to Safe Water
and Rights of Indigenous Peoples
About 125 people rallied and marched in Buffalo October 10, defending the right to safe water and standing up for the rights of indigenous peoples. A diverse crowd brought together local Seneca members along with the many opposing fracking, the Northern Access pipeline here in New York State, anti-war activists and others. All stood up to say, Water Is Life and must be protected. You Can't Drink Oil, Defend Treaty Rights, Defend Indigenous Peoples Defending Mother Earth, said a few of the many signs. All united in saying Mother Earth must be protected and the rights of Indigenous Peoples defended. They are at the forefront of defending our Mother and opposing the destruction of the oil and war monopolies, backed by the government — not only with piopelies but with war itself,
The focus of the rally was defending the struggle at Standing Rock, where the Standing Rock Sioux and more than 280 bands are standing firm in defending the right to safe water and their treaty rights, which the government and oil monopolies are not respecting. The indegenous peoples are standing for their right to be, which is being supported across the country and worldwide. At Standing Rock they are being joined by farmers, whose land is being confiscated to build the pipeline, and many other people from across the country and Canada, organizing to protect safe water for millions. They are blocking the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), in North Dakota. The DAPL would endanger the right to safe water for millions by crossing both the Missouri River and Lake Oahe — with experience showing it is not a matter of if there will be an oil spill, but when. A camp of thousands has been organized at Standing Rock and preparaitons are being made to stay the winter to ensure DAPL is not built — and the stand of resistance remains firm and is spread far and wide. Already dozens of demonstrations in support, like Buffalo's, are occuring across the country and worldwide. Despite numerous attacks by paid mercenaries and police, the peoples at Standing Rock persist.
Demonstrators also took the stand to demand an end to Columbus Day, which marks the terrorism and destruction Columbus, and others sent by the British and Spanish colonizers— imposed on highly developed indigenous peoples already living here in the Americas. Instead it must become Indiginous Peoples Day, to celebrate the vital contributions they have made to the world's peoples and, as Standing Rock shows, continue to make. These include different ways of governing, and different relations among humans and nature, including designating women as keepers of the land for generations to come.
After holding a rally and press conference at the Army Corps of Engineers on Niagara Street, to demand the Corps block building of the DAPL, the demonstrators marched down Niagara to Ferry and then over to Unity Island for a potluck. At the rally and along the way, many honked in support and stopped to get leaflets explaining the Standing Rock struggle. The spirit from a united action for a just cause filled everyone present and no doubt will persist as the struggle for the rights of Indigenous peoples, of Mother Earth and the rights of all grows and strengthens.
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