On October 27 police unleashed a wave of brutality on Native American “water protectors” attempting to block pipeline construction. Some 300 highly militarized police with armored vehicles and riot gear joined with 80 North Dakota National Guardsmen and 150 DAPL employees attacked with pepper spray, Tasers, sound cannons, bean bag rounds and rubber bullets.

More than 40 protesters were injured and suffered welts and broken bones, most likely from bean bags. These are classified as “non-lethal” weapons, but are bags filled with pebble-like particles shot from guns, that are known to inflict these (and worse) injuries.

Some 141 were arrested and charged with a list of alleged crimes, from inciting to riot to trespassing on private property. Red Fawn Fallis was charged with attempted murder, for firing three shots at the police – a complete fabrication that even the racist local sheriff says didn’t happen.

What the police were up to was demonstrated by another incident that day, when a man with an assault rifle tried to infiltrate the protest. He was chased down by water protectors, and finally arrested by Bureau of Indian Affairs police. Documents he had on him and in his truck show that he was a DAPL employee.

Protesters said it was likely he was trying to enter the protests to fire shots, giving the police pretext to escalate their attack. In other words, he was an agent provocateur.

Tara Houska, the national campaigns director for the Native group Honor the Earth, had this to say on Democracy Now!: there were police walking around everywhere with assault rifles. Directly across from us there was a policeman with his rifle trained on us…. There were police officers filming, laughing as human beings were being attacked. It was a nightmarish scene.”

Once in jail the prisoners were subject to further humiliation, including having numbers written on their arms, recalling the tattoos the Nazis put on their concentration camp inmates. Then they were strip-searched.

Ironically, on the same day, seven right-wing protesters who participated in a 41-day armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge were acquitted of firearms charges and conspiracy to impede federal workers. They took over the wildlife refuge to demand that it be disbanded and that the federal lands it was on be turned over to them for their commercial use.

Non-violent Native Americans protecting their native lands and water are attacked while armed right-wingers that stage an armed assault on government land are set free.

The “trespassing” charges stem from the ownership claims by the pipeline company to lands that were originally stolen from the Sioux. These lands near their reservation are held sacred by the Sioux, and include Native burial grounds, some of which have already been bulldozed.

Imagine the hue and cry if Christian cemeteries were bulldozed to make room for a dirty oil pipeline!

The background for the protest that was attacked stemmed from a court overturning an earlier court decision blocking DAPL from construction 20 miles on each side of the Missouri River where an underground portion of the pipeline is scheduled to be constructed. This first ruling came after the White House, seeking to diffuse the protests, ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers, which had originally approved the pipeline and its under-river portion, would review that decision. The administration also asked the company not to continue construction 20 miles on either side while that review was underway.

One court made that suggestion into law, but then another court overruled it. Rejecting Obama’s suggestion, the company started in on that land. That was were the protest occurred.

A few days after the October 27 attack Obama made a statement, saying that the review by the Army Corps of Engineers would include a possible rerouting of the pipeline. In addition, he promised that the concerns of Native Americans would be part of the review, and they would be consulted.

Rerouting the pipeline is dubious, to put it mildly. The pipeline would have to go under the river someplace. It has already been rerouted once, from near Bismarck, North Dakota, the state capital, to its present projected route. Bismarck sits on the banks of the Missouri. The 92-percent white city objected. Their reason was that their water supply, which comes from the river, would be polluted by any oil spill.

So a new route was found. Let it go under the river next to a Native American reservation was the idea. That the river is the source of the reservation’s water supply be damned! Those Indians have no political clout, so they can be ridden roughshod over! But they didn’t count on the massive response as around 200 tribes from the U.S. and Canada rose up to oppose it.

A few days after Obama’s statement, another demonstration was held. Police used pepper spray and tear gas against the non-violent protesters. At least two Native American water protectors were shot by “non-lethal” projectiles. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ordered the police to arrest the protesters and to destroy a bridge that they had constructed over a creek to protect a sacred burial ground being destroyed by pipeline construction.

And the Army Corps of Engineers are to be trusted with reviewing the pipeline?

Meanwhile the Standing Rock encampment continues to gain much support. First of all, from the North American tribes. One result has been long-standing animosities between the Sioux and other Native Americans and Canadian First Nations have been overcome, and a new solidarity has emerged which bodes well for this and future struggles.

Many other organizations have stood with Standing Rock, from Black Lives Matter, the major environmental groups, to Palestinian Youth and many more, and the list keeps growing. Celebrities including famous actors have joined in.

Conspicuously on the other side, opposing the protests and supporting the pipeline have been the misleaders of the major trade union federation, the AFL-CIO. They have taken direction from the North American Building Trades Unions (NABTU) and Big Oil.

The NABTU president said of those who oppose the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure, “There is no way to satisfy them…no way for them to recognize that if we don’t want to lose our place in the world as the economic superpower, then we have to have this infrastructure.” (emphasis added)

Countering the AFL-CIO tops are a growing number of unions opposing the DAPL, although still a minority. Among them are the Amalgamated Transit Union, Communication Workers of America, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Service Employees International Union and the United Electrical Workers. In addition, union locals have joined in, and there are planned protests in solidarity with Standing Rock being organized by rank and file workers.

I plan to attend one of these latter protests in Oakland on November 10.

The AFL-CIO tops are leading the unions in exactly the wrong direction. If unions don’t stop thinking of their narrow and parochial interests and dues base, and join in with all who struggle against every form of oppression and exploitation engendered by capitalism, they are doomed.

The company building the Dakota Access Pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, said on the day of the U.S. elections, that it would start construction of the pipeline under the Missouri River in two weeks, even though the Army Corps of Engineers has not granted a permit. Trump says he will remove all regulations concerning the production of coal and other fossil fuels, and supports fracking. He says that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by China. The DAPL will transport oil extracted by fracking. Hillary Clinton is known for championing fracking around the world, and has been silent on the struggle against DAPL. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, has supported the struggle including by going to Standing Rock to participate.

Barry Sheppard