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Tribal leaders: Bring the flags home
by TALLI NAUMAN | Native Sun News Today
PIERRE – The swift passage of Gov. Kristi Noem’s last-minute legislative bills aimed at unloading South Dakota’s looming financial burden for hazardous pipeline construction provoked an avalanche March 11 of tribal government refusals to fly native nations flags at the State Capitol.
Her bills SB 189 and SB 190 address anticipated legal expenses of conflict over potential megaproject construction by shifting them to the shoulders of corporate promoters and tribal constituents. All nine tribes that share boundaries with the state have declared opposition to the pipeline construction.
Noem announced her plan to permanently display the flags of South Dakota’s nine tribal nations in the State Capitol Rotunda during a celebration of State-Tribal Relations Day here on Feb. 27.
“South Dakota has a unique opportunity for a new beginning between the state and tribal governments,” she said. “Bringing tribal flags to the Rotunda is a sign that we are unified and working together to create policies for the next generation.”
However, tribal members testified at the subsequent committee hearing on her legislative measures that she didn’t consult the tribes on them, and the tribes have not given consent to applying them in unceded 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty territory reserved for the original inhabitants of South Dakota under the U.S. Constitution.
On the annual State-Tribal Relations Day, Noem declared, “I want our Rotunda to be a place that represents the culture of South Dakota, and we can’t do that without the symbols of all nine tribes. May this be a sign to all that South Dakota is united, that we have common ground, and that we truly embrace the meaning of the word Dakota. We are allies,” she said.
Meanwhile, she and her team had spent thousands of hours huddled with private infrastructure boosters and law enforcement strategists whose policing details would receive funding from the investors in the event of dissidence expected to get in the way of development, the hearing-goers complained.
“…his tribe ‘expected a new dawn but instead saw a retreat to the past,’ Adding, ‘Unity and trust can only work through honest engagement.’ “
Crow Creek Sioux Tribal Chair Lester Thompson Jr. shunned the flag inclusion plan. After attending the hearing and learning the result, he announced, “The Flag of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe will not be displayed in the South Dakota State Capitol until Gov. Kristi Noem and the Legislature respect our people, shared history, and traditions.”
In a written release, he said the intent of the bills is to “suppress the right to speak out against the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline, limiting our right to free speech and assembly in protection of our water and land.”
The Alberta-based TransCanada Corp. is seeking permits to finish building the Keystone XL Pipeline through Nebraska, South Dakota and Montana, in order to reach the tar-sands crude-oil mines of the Athabascan ancestral lands and slurry diluted bitumen, or dilbit, from there to the refineries and export facilities on the Mexican Gulf Coast of Texas.
Lawsuits by indigenous and environmental interest convinced a federal judge to suspend construction at least until further environmental studies can be undertaken and considered.
The Noem Administration contends that the measures do not deny First Amendment rights. They only add civil liabilities to criminal penalties for people convicted of felony riot under 2018 legislation to beef up protection for pipeline projects and other developments.
Thompson charged that Noem “deliberately omitted tribal nations from any consultation or discussions over these bills. Instead, she held private sessions with TransCanada and a multitude of other stakeholders including state legislators.”
His tribe had “high expectations for Gov. Noem to continue building our relationship with the state, after all she is the first governor in decades to come from Congress where she directly worked with the nine tribes that share the geography with South Dakota on sovereignty issues,” he said.
“Our high expectations have been met with disappointment and disrespect,” he lamented, adding, “It is said that an eagle taff must be straight to show strength. It is clear now that the eagle staff currently displayed in the State Capitol has become bent under the burden of continual attacks.
“Our flag will be proudly flown where it is respected, and it is my hope that someday the state will earn that respect from our tribe and all the tribes native to this land,” he concluded.
Lower Brule Sioux Tribal Chair Boyd Gourneau delivered a separate proclamation, stating, “After absolute disregard in the drafting and introduction of SB 189 1nd 190, I have decided that the flag that was to be displayed in the Rotunda will now be gifted to our community’s most staunch water protectors.”
He bequeathed the flag to Danny S. Grassrope “to represent us in the effort to protect our environment.”
Oglala Sioux Tribal President Julian Bear Runner revoked what he called Noem’s “goodwill gesture of flying our tribal national flags in her rotunda.”
He told the media “he met personally with Gov. Noem on more than one occasion and not once did she mention these bills, which will place the Oglala Sioux Tribe under serious duress and put at risk our most basic rights to clean drinking water and a healthy ecosystem.
“The purpose of these bills is to punish anyone who opposes the agenda of outside oil conglomerates like TransCanada,” he opined. Their effects will be to violate the Constitutional rights of South Dakotans and Americans as well as the treaty rights of the Oglala nationals,” he said.
“I have personally suffered negative impacts to my reputation and peace of mind as a result of outside oil conglomerates. I was charged with riot and criminal trespass for standing in peace and prayer on Sioux nation treaty land fighting big oil,” he recalled.
“In order for there to be a conciliation between the State of South Dakota and the Oglala Sioux Tribe there must be a truth telling,” he said. “There has not been a truth telling in this case.
“The Oglala Sioux Tribe, as the host and landlord, extends permission and greetings to all proud South Dakotans who love these lands, who want to raise their families here in our homelands,” he continued. “You now understand why we fight so hard to protect this place. All of us protect what we love.”
Bear Runner said the flag represents “a commitment to protect Mother Earth, to respect the interdependent relationship we have with what westerners call natural resources. The Oglala are committed to compelling all human beings into creating economic models regenerative, renewable and sustainable in nature.
“It is for viruses to destroy their hosts. This is not a civilized way to be. Until our Free, Prior and Informed Consent is obtained with respect to the Keystone XL Pipeline we will not allow our flag to fly in the governor’s rotunda,” he concluded.
Yankton Sioux Tribal Vice Chair Jason Cooke responded, “The Ihanktonwan Nation stands in unity with the Crow Creek Sioux and Oglala Sioux tribes in refusing to have the tribe’s flag flown in the South Dakota State Capitol.”
He noted that the flag of the Ihanktonwan Nation flew in unity with those of tribes from across the world over the Oceti Sakowin camp in the 2016-2017 “peaceful protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline,” construction, which the tribes are still suing over in court..
“Like the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe and all tribes that share a common geography and citizenry with the State of South Dakota, the Yankton Sioux Tribe had great hope in Gov. Kristi Noem to strengthen our relationship,” he said.
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chair Harold Frazier added his tribe “stands in support of our relatives and says do not place our flag in your capitol until such a time as that place becomes our capitol.”
“We were extremely encouraged” when Noem selected former Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Tribal Chair David Flute as secretary of the state Department of Tribal Relations, he said, recalling that Flute “stood at Standing Rock in unity with all the tribes.”
He said his tribe “expected a new dawn but instead saw a retreat to the past,” Adding, “Unity and trust can only work through honest engagement.”
The governor hosted State-Tribal Relations Day “knowing she was about to introduce two bills, through a Suspension of Rules, that would dramatically impact the tribes and their members,” he said. “At the event, Gov. Noem mentioned unity and a desire to build on our mutual relationship but not one word or discussion of these bills.
“In the over 6,000 hours the governor claims to have spent drafting these poorly written laws, not one minute, nor one second was given to hear, seek concerns, advice, or ideas from any of the nine tribes located within the boundaries of the state,” he continued. “The unity the governor speaks of is between her and TransCanada.
“As such, until the state government of South Dakota rescinds these authoritarian laws, SB 189 and SB 190, and respects the rights of all citizens of South Dakota to peacefully assemble and express free speech, the flag of the Yankton Sioux Tribe cannot fly in the State Capitol,” he concluded.
On March 15, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chair Harold Frazier added his tribe “stands in support of our relatives and says do not place our flag in your capitol until such a time as that place becomes our capitol.
Addressing Noem, he said. “As governor, you have made decisions which have proven that you do not represent people of the Sioux Nation, nor do you protect the people’s constitutional and natural rights. Within our treaty territories, which the state is constitutionally bound to uphold as the supreme law of the land, you have supported and welcomed the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and have created legislation to restrict individual rights to free and unregulated speech.
Your decision to fly tribal flags was done without our consent and without consultation. Your assumption that something will be done because you said it would does not transcend outside of your party or state employees, he noted.
This story was originally published on Native Sun News Today. Read the original article on Tribal leaders raising their flags in protest. Contact the author, Talli Nauman, at talli.nauman@gmail.com