Posted: April 28, 2008 by: Stephanie Woodard
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| Photo courtesy Pokey Weddell -- On the morning of April 22, Charles Mix County police arrested 15 Yankton Sioux tribal members for blocking construction of a hog farm on privately held land within the reservation boundaries. |
MARTY, S.D. - On the morning of April 22, Charles Mix County police arrested 15 Yankton Sioux tribal members, including adult men and women, and teens as young as 16, for blocking construction of a hog farm on privately held land within the reservation boundaries. By afternoon, bail had been set at $500 each, and the tribe had secured their release, said Frances Hart, Ihanktowan Dakota, secretary of the Yankton Sioux Tribal Business and Claims Committee, an elected group.
The arrests came on top of 23 tickets the South Dakota Highway Patrol issued to tribal members the week before when they obstructed construction equipment traveling toward the proposed farm via a BIA-owned road.
The protests began April 14 - the day the tribe approved a resolution to exclude Longview Farms, an Iowa firm. The company reportedly has the necessary permits to produce 70,000 pigs a year at the site, though the permissions appear to have been obtained in a manner that blindsided the tribe. On April 15, a tribal judge upheld the exclusion order.
The number of protesters has ranged from 50 to 150, according to Gary Drapeau, Ihanktowan Dakota, a member of the Business and Claims Committee. A tipi has been set up on tribal land as a permanent protest camp.
All of the citations and arrests took place along a BIA road, where county and state police don't have jurisdiction, according to tribal lawyer Charles Abourezk.
''In 1994, the county transferred the road to the BIA,'' explained Drapeau, adding that when the BIA's Aberdeen office clarifies ownership, the citations and arrests will likely be dismissed.
Whether BIA jurisdiction over the road keeps the farm's builders off the site is unclear. Hart said that on the afternoon of April 15, cement trucks were observed using back roads to bypass the BIA route.
Environmental effects
Hog farms typically generate vast amounts of air, land and water pollution, according to many sources, including the nonprofit Humane Farming Association. Places near the planned site that could be affected include the towns of Marty and Wagner, two Sun Dance grounds, five sweat lodges, homes, churches, a cathedral, a Head Start center, schools, hospitals, the tribe's casino-hotel, the tribal hall, a college, and much more, according to Drapeau.
''The farm site is near Seven Mile Creek, which empties into the Missouri River a few miles away, and two wetlands. We also sit on the Ogallala Aquifer, a major water source for the Plains,'' Drapeau added.
''In all of creation, they couldn't have picked a worse spot,'' according to Faith Spotted Eagle, Ihanktowan Dakota.
''What environmental regulations are they running from in Iowa?'' asked Ellsworth Chytka, Ihanktowan Dakota. ''Do they have rules there protecting quality of life? Don't Indians deserve the same?''
Safeguarding the waters of the United States is a responsibility of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, so Spotted Eagle asked it to consider getting involved. This could kick off a search for historic and traditional cultural properties that must be preserved.
Police response
The protests have been described as peaceful by many sources, including Mitch Krebs, press secretary for South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds. Nevertheless, on April 15, the police chief of Charles Mix County, where the reservation is located, requested state officers, Krebs said.
By April 16, 50 officers, each in separate cars, had arrived - reportedly more than are normally on patrol at any one time in the state. A former police commissioner went on television to ask who was watching over the rest of South Dakota.
''Sending 50 cars and lining them up at the site was about intimidation,'' Chytka said. ''There are plenty of non-Native protests around South Dakota - about abortion, missile silos, high fuel costs - but you don't see all that police presence.''
Both Krebs and U.S. Attorney Marty Jackley denied that race was a factor. Jackley claimed that from his office's perspective, protests by non-Indian groups would garner the same response.
''Federal, state and local authorities have been in communication to maintain order.''
Abourezk disagreed. ''It was an attempt to provoke the protesters.''
However, they didn't rise to the bait, Spotted Eagle said. ''I am so proud of our people. Our elders told us to be good relatives, and we were.''
Back in the day
This is not the first time the county and state have overreacted to peaceful protest by Yanktons. In May 2002, construction workers building bathrooms for a state recreation area struck an ancient burial ground. Artifacts and the remains of two children and a woman in a shell-embroidered cape were unearthed. Yankton families sat in to stop construction until the situation could be resolved in court. Again, armed officers were called in, creating a frightening face-off.
Two films with documentary footage of the pig farm vigil can be seen on YouTube (search for ''Yankton Sioux''). One opens with two young Indian boys walking down ''a lonely road'' to join the protesters. ''Just like back in the day,'' the older one says. ''Which, by the way, was a Wednesday.''
That sly joke aside, the films may remind viewers of South Dakota's history of racially charged confrontations, including the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre and the Wounded Knee siege and FBI shootings of the 1970s. Inequities continue to this day. In a report issued in 2000, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission tallied uninvestigated murders of Natives in South Dakota, arrest and sentencing disparities, reservation unemployment rates as high as 85 percent and more.
In a radio address, William Janklow, South Dakota's governor at the time, called the report ''garbage,'' while claiming he hadn't read it.
Yanktons are not strangers to this animosity.
''The Yanktons had an early treaty,'' Abourezk said. ''They've had a tough fight since 1858.''
An unlikely coalition
In this context, the pig farm has created unexpected alliances. White area residents and citizens from around the state joined tribal members in expressing antipathy for the farm at a public meeting in Wagner April 21.
''White people thanked us for protesting,'' Spotted Eagle said. ''This isn't an Indian-versus-white issue. It's a common-people issue - all of us protecting our children and their future.''
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