Representatives of several tribal nations demonstrate in August 2016 in Bismarck against the Dakota Access Pipeline. (Kyle Martin/For the North Dakota Monitor)
A Lakota organizer said in a video deposition played to jurors Monday that the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe led the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, not Greenpeace.
Nick Tilsen, an Oglala Sioux Tribe citizen and activist, called the notion that Greenpeace orchestrated the protests “paternalistic.”
“I think that people underestimate the complexity and the sophistication of tribal nations,” Tilsen said.
Tilsen’s deposition was the latest testimony heard by the nine-person jury in the marathon trial between pipeline developer Energy Transfer and Greenpeace.
Energy Transfer claims Greenpeace secretly aided and abetted destructive and violent behavior by protesters during the demonstrations, which took place in south central North Dakota near the Standing Rock Reservation in 2016 and 2017. It also claims that Greenpeace orchestrated a misinformation campaign to defame the company, leading a group of banks to back out of financing the project. Energy Transfer seeks roughly $300 million from the environmental organization.
Greenpeace denies Energy Transfer’s allegations. The group says it has never condoned violence, and only played a supporting role during the protests.
Tilsen said he got involved in the protests before Greenpeace. He was invited to join the cause by former Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault and his sister, Jodi Archambault, he said.
“They called me and said, ‘Hey, we need your help at Standing Rock,’” Tilsen said.
Standing Rock has long opposed the Dakota Access Pipeline, stating the project poses a pollution threat, infringes on tribal sovereignty and has disrupted sacred cultural sites.
It was Standing Rock leadership that laid the groundwork for the protests against the pipeline’s construction in 2016, Tilsen said.
He said organizers later invited Greenpeace to support the camps, including by providing supplies and nonviolent direct action training. Tilsen said he only felt comfortable reaching out to Greenpeace because a friend of his, Cy Wagoner, worked there.
He said since Wagoner is from the Navajo nation, he trusted that Greenpeace would respect Standing Rock’s leadership of the camps.
Indigenous communities are often reluctant to invite outside nonprofits to help with Native rights issues, Tilsen added. He said they often don’t understand Native nations’ unique relationship with the U.S. government.
Greenpeace wasn’t a big part of the protests, Tilsen said.
“To be honest, most of the tribal nations didn’t know who Greenpeace was,” he said.
Countless other groups — including representatives from more than 300 Native nations — came to the protest camps in solidarity with Standing Rock, said Tilsen.
“Quite frankly, our list of allies was hundreds,” he said.
Tilsen said he was involved in several protest actions against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 and 2017, including those that involved marching on the pipeline easement, jumping in front of equipment and using lockboxes — also known as “sleeping dragons” — to disable construction machinery.
None of the protest actions were coordinated by Greenpeace, he said.
Tilsen said he never saw or endorsed any destruction of property or acts of violence toward construction workers or law enforcement. He also pushed back on the assertion that any of the protest activities he participated in qualified as trespassing.
The pipeline passes through land recognized as belonging to the Sioux Nation under treaties signed by the U.S. government in 1851 and 1868. The U.S. government later annexed that land in violation of those treaties.
Tilsen asked how Lakota citizens could be trespassing on land that was unlawfully taken from them.
“This is the conundrum we find ourselves in,” he said.
Employees of Greenpeace said during video depositions played last week that the environmental organization brought 20 to 30 lockboxes to the camps.
Tilsen said while he saw many lockboxes during protests, he wasn’t sure where any of them came from. He also said he never heard anyone from Greenpeace tell demonstrators to use the devices.
Tilsen said that David Khoury, an employee for Greenpeace, helped identify potential sites for protest actions. Tilsen added that while Wagoner — another Greenpeace employee — didn’t plan protest activities, he trained people on how to conduct them.
The trial, which is before Southwest Central Judicial District Judge James Gion, is expected to last roughly four more weeks.
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