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More than 400 environment, human rights and other social organizations from more than 50 countries sent a letter Wednesday to the financial institutions bankrolling the contentious Dakota Access pipeline demanding that they pull support for the project that has sparked a militarized crackdown on the historic Indigenous-led resistance fighting to block the pipeline’s completion.
The open letter calls on the CEOs of the 17 banks lending a total of US$2.5 billion to Dakota Access LLC, the subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners developing the pipeline, to immediately stop releasing the loan and demand the company halt all construction until a ruling is reached on the project.
The letter, endorsed by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe who have spearheaded resistance at the Sacred Stone Camp for months, tells the CEOs that organizations are “closely watching how the banks providing financial support to the project are acting on the ever-worsening situation on the ground.”
The signatories argued that the banks have a responsibility to meet basic standards of due diligence, including with respect to Indigenous rights and their consent to projects affecting their traditional lands.
“It is for us inexplicable that the clear and longstanding opposition to the project by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, as well as widely documented gross violations of Native land titles, threats to water sources and the desecration of burial grounds have not been identified early on as reasons for participating banks to not provide funding for this project,” reads the letter, noting that construction has already desecrated sacred Native American burial grounds in the pipeline’s path.
“Native American opponents to the project have emphasized throughout that the DAPL struggle is about larger Native liberation, self-determination and survival at the hands of colonial corporations and compliant government actors,” the letter continues.
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Signatories on the letter include 350.org, Friends of the Earth, Food and Water Watch, Global Witness, Greenpeace, the National Lawyers Guild, and dozens more.
The letter comes as mounting resistance against the Dakota Access pipeline, which has brought together over 200 Indigenous groups and sparked solidarity protests across the United States and internationally, has turned its sights on putting pressure on the big banks financing the project to cut their support in light of the violations of human rights and Indigenous sovereignty.
Citibank, the leader of the credit agreement, has come under particular fire in recent weeks. Other big names on the list include Wells Fargo and Canada’s TD Bank.
Another bank on the list, DNB, the largest bank in Norway, recently announced that it sold its assets in the Dakota Access pipeline after mounting public pressure to divest. The bank also has suggested it is reevaluating its loan for the project, which amounts to 10 percent of the total US$2.5 billion price tag. If it acts on the demands of the new letter, it could pressure other banks to follow suite.
The resistance against the Dakota Access pipeline, which cuts through unceded North American treaty lands, was launched in April by the Standing Rock Sioux to protect water and cultural sites.
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An increasingly harsh crackdown on the movement — which, led by self-described water protectors, has grown to thousands-strong demonstrations with support from hundreds of Indigenous groups and other organizations — has raised international alarm in recent weeks.
Police, private security forces and the National Guard have used dogs, tasers, mace, rubber bullets, water cannons and other tactics and military equipment to repress the protesters. Authorities have arrested and seriously injured hundreds of people, including a young protester whose arm was maimed by a concussion grenade.
North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple has called for the occupations blocking the pipeline to be evacuated by Dec. 5, but claimed that there are no plans for forcible removal. Dalrymple said Wednesday that he has requested a meeting with the Standing Rock Sioux to rebuild shattered relations.
The US$3.8 billion, 1,172-mile pipeline would transport 500,000 barrels of crude every day from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota south to Illinois en route to gulf terminals.
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