Veterans Throw Support Behind Standing Rock Protesters After Trump Signs Dakota Access Pipeline Memo
January 31, 2017
Veterans Stand launched a fundraising drive on GoFundMe last week to support a network of protesters camped out near Cannon Ball, North Dakota. It seeks to raise $500,000 to buy supplies for campers, provide car rides for volunteers and create a rapid response ability. It has raised about $19,000 in two days.
Marine Corps veteran Nesky Hernandez, center, carries his pack after arriving with fellow veterans at the Oceti Sakowin camp where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline in Cannon Ball, N.D., Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016.(AP Photo/David Goldman)
A U.S. military veterans group announced new efforts to support the Standing Rock Native American tribe and protesters who oppose completion of the Dakota Access pipeline, just days after President Donald Trump took action to move the project forward.
Those efforts include developing the capability to deploy thousands of veteran volunteers to Standing Rock, potentially putting the White House in a politically difficult position. They come as tensions have escalated between protesters and law officers in recent weeks.
Veterans Stand launched a fundraising drive on GoFundMe last week to support a network of protesters camped out near Cannon Ball, North Dakota. It seeks to raise $500,000 to buy supplies for campers, provide car rides for volunteers and create a rapid response ability. It has raised about $19,000 in two days.
“The 4,000 could have easily turned into 20,000, because that’s how we’re trained to operate.”-Anthony Diggs, communications director, Veterans Stand
“We stand in unity with our brothers and sisters in Standing Rock (and beyond) and our community is ready to mobilize,” the group said on the GoFundMe page.
About 4,000 veterans traveled to the reservation in North Dakota last month to support the protest by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, environmentalists and other activists, according to figures provided by Veterans Stand.
The Standing Rock Sioux oppose completion of Energy Transfer Partners‘ Dakota Access pipeline because it would pass beneath a source for the tribe’s drinking water and construction would disrupt sacred land, they say.