[News] G4S Admits It Guards Dakota Pipeline as Protesters Get Attacked

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/G4S-Admits-It-Guards-Dakota-Pipeline-as-Protesters-Get-Attacked-20160906-0036.html 



  G4S Admits It Guards Dakota Pipeline as Protesters Get Attacked

September 6, 2016

G4S, a U.K.-based security multinational, admitted to having personnel 
deployed at “remote sites” where Native Americans are defending their 
lands from the planned US$3.8-million Dakota Access pipeline that they 
say would pollute the drinking water of millions.

The actions have brought together over 200 tribes in solidarity and 
faced a heavy offensive by private security companies and state officers 
deployed under a state of emergency.

The security company has been under fire for providing services to 
Israeli prisons and settlements 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/BDS-Victory-Worlds-Largest-Security-Firm-to-Exit-Israel-20160310-0056.html>, 
expanding across the Middle East including Afghanistan and Iraq and 
operating juvenile detention centers and handling deportations from the 
U.S.

In an email to teleSUR, G4S Communications Director Monica Lewman-Garcia 
wrote, “G4S Secure Solutions is providing fewer than 10 security 
officers, assigned to remote sites, providing limited short-term unarmed 
patrol services.”

G4S recently published a new job opening for an armed custom protection 
security officer in Mandan, North Dakota—next to the campsites—which was 
reposted on Facebook by Lakota Sioux Tribe member Olowaan Plain.

Lewman-Garcia said that “there are other names” of security companies 
but failed to name any others. She would not answer other questions and 
was not available to speak by phone.

Organizers told teleSUR that 10-Code LLC, a local veteran-run company, 
is also providing security, but they were not able to be reached.

A direct action to stop construction on Saturday ended in security 
deploying dogs 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Security-Forces-Attack-Dakota-Pipeline-Protesters-with-Dogs-20160903-0024.html>, 
who bit six people including a pregnant woman and a child. The private 
security forces also maced 30 people, activists said. G4S officers “were 
not present and not involved at the location where the incident 
occurred,” wrote Lewman-Garcia.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which set up the Sacred Stone Camp 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Sioux-Nation-Rallies-Against-Environmentally-Damaging-Pipeline-20160409-0028.html> 
in April, was denied a request 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Judge-Halts-Parts-of-Dakota-Pipeline-But-Not-on-Standing-Rock-20160906-0032.html> 
for a temporary restraining order against the companies behind the 
pipeline Tuesday. It filed the request after construction workers 
bulldozed “burial sites, prayer sites and culturally significant 
artifacts," said tribal chairman David Archambault II in a press statement.

Over 200 tribes and First Nations and over 100 organizations and 
businesses, including an Ohio mosque, have signed statements of 
solidarity with the protests, which are said to be the largest Native 
American mobilization in almost 150 years.

The state has mobilized armed patrols and requested the help of federal 
officials following an emergency declaration 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/North-Dakota-Pipeline-Protesters-Hit-With-Emergency-Declaration-20160819-0024.html> 
and a state of emergency 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Authorities-Remove-Water-Supply-to-Dakota-Pipeline-Protest-Site-20160823-0002.html>, 
justified by claims of “hundreds of criminal acts” and “outside 
agitators,” according to North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple—a claim 
that protesters deny.

The state homeland security director also pulled out state-owned water 
and medical services to punish "unlawful" protesters and ensure 
"equipment is secure.”

The FBI has also been sent to investigate “laser strikes” against a 
surveillance aircraft circling the camp. Morton County Sheriff Kyle 
Kirchmeier said the planes were there to ensure public safety, but 
people at the site said they were used to disrupt cell phone signals. 
Occupiers also complained about limited freedom of movement, with armed 
military checkpoints restricting entrance to the camps.

Meanwhile, the Red Warrior Camp has been continuing its direct actions 
at construction sites, which led the Army Corps of Engineers to support 
Tuesday’s temporary halt to some construction work on the basis of 
“ensuring peace.”

Two week-long solidarity protests 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Indigenous-and-Latino-Activists-Take-Dakota-Protests-to-Dallas-20160902-0034.html> 
have started across the country, targeting other companies benefiting 
from the pipeline, like Citibank and TD Securities.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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