[[link removed]]

INDIAN FIGHTING TODAY: GIBSON, DUNN AND CRUTCHER  
[[link removed]]


 

Winona LaDuke
October 19, 2024
High Plains Reader
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ There’s a long list of law firms who specialize in modern day
Indian fighting. It’s usually to do with tribal jurisdiction over
water, land, or children, all pretty basic for the survival of a
people. _

,

 

The business of Indian Hating is a lucrative one. It’s historically
been designed to dehumanize Native people so that it’s easier to
take their land. ‘Kill the Indian, save the man,” manifest
destiny, and “merciless Indian savages” are all phrases which
underscore the deep hatred of the American Empire for Indigenous
peoples. After all, this is our land, _indakiingimin_, the very land
to which we belong., And to make America, it’s important to steal
it.

That’s pretty much history — a lot of theft: land, cultural items
and people. And where possible, the laws themselves. It starts with
hating and expands to war. Welcome to the modern Indian Wars. Some of
them are in the courtroom.

There’s a long list of law firms who specialize in modern day Indian
fighting. It’s usually to do with tribal jurisdiction over water,
land, or children, all pretty basic for the survival of a people. Most
of those law firms have other clients like real estate or title
insurance folks, mining companies, oil companies, county governments
and the like who want to have access to more Indian land or people.
Those interests need a modern cavalry; that’s some lawyers.

Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher is a big shot law firm for fighting Indians.
That’s sort of their practice. These days, they are the attorneys
for Energy Transfer in a $300 million case known as a Strategic
Lawsuit Against Public Participation
[[link removed]] (or SLAPP suit),
intended to stop Greenpeace, the international environmental network,
from supporting Indigenous peoples. Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher appear
to want to stop Indigenous peoples from protecting their lands. And
while they are at it, scare away any allies to protect those lands.

It’s called a SLAPP suit. SLAPP lawsuits are more typically targeted
at journalists and human rights defenders. They are meant to shut down
anyone who opposes the corporation which sues. Thirty-two states have
passed regulations discouraging these lawsuits, not only because they
deter basic civil rights, but also because they waste a lot of time in
the court. North Dakota is not among those 32 states.

Filed originally in 2019, Energy Transfer (ET) accuses Greenpeace of
criminal behavior — trespassing, vandalism, arson, as well as the
harassment and assault of construction workers — to stop the Dakota
Access pipeline. Energy Transfer basically holds Greenpeace
responsible for most of what happened at Standing Rock.

That’s rather surprising, since many of us were there, and frankly
had no idea Greenpeace was in the camp. As a matter of fact, ET
contends Greenpeace orchestrated a campaign that ultimately convinced
the federal government to halt construction of DAPL for roughly five
months. A lot of us wrote letters to the federal government and the
Army Corps of Engineers and Greenpeace didn’t even give us pencils.

It is likely that Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher isn’t just interested in
Greenpeace; they are actually interested in diminishing tribal
sovereignty, and tribal rights. Let me explain.

SUPREME COURT AND ICWA

Remember the U.S. Supreme Court case on the Indian Child Welfare Act
[[link removed]]? The Brackeens, in Haaland v.
Brackeen (one of three lawsuits where no Native foster parents wanted
to adopt Native children) hadGibson, Dunn and Crutcher represent them
for free. That’s right, pro bono.

The case, if it prevailed, would have gutted the Indian Child Welfare
Act. That’s a hard fought for law to protect Native communities.

Mother Jones Magazine explains why pro bono made sense to the firm:
“Taking a financial loss litigating a family law case is a small
investment toward advancing the interests of the rest of the firm’s
clients in diminishing the last, tenuous pockets of tribal
sovereignty…. make no mistake that it is a business decision. All
the ‘everyone deserves a lawyer’ rhetoric doesn’t play here —
the firm is taking on a pro bono case for a family with seemingly no
injuries as part of a broad attack on tribal rights.”

“One of the things that tribes need to continue to exist is their
children,” says Shannon Smith, executive director of the Indian
Child Welfare Act Law Center
[[link removed]], which
provides legal services for Native families. “Things just don’t
exist if you don’t have kids.”

Ultimately, in a narrow margin, the Supreme Court affirmed the Indian
Child Welfare Act, and ruled against the Brackeens, dashing Gibson,
Dunn and Crutcher’s hopes. They have other battles.

Welcome to the modern-day Indian Wars.

CHEVRON IN ECUADOR

The Cofan are a water people who travel and live upon the Aguarico
River in what’s called Ecuador. Because of American oil companies,
they live in the oil wasteland.

Texaco began operating the Lago Agrio
[[link removed]] oil
fields in the 1960s. By the 1990s, millions of gallons of crude oil
had been spilled throughout the region. Toxic waste from drilling and
refining was stored in unprotected pits, toxifying the soil and
contaminating water supplies.

There were 30,000 plaintiffs in a case against oil producers, mostly
Native. The case took almost 18 years to resolve, but in 2011 an
Ecuadorian court ruled against Chevron, which now owned Texaco,
ordering it to pay $18 billion. While that figure was later reduced to
$9.5 billion, it still represented one of the largest judgments ever
against an oil company. Rather than pay up, Chevron, the $200 billion
company, refused to clean up and instead removed its assets from the
country.

Enter Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher.

The attorney for the Ecuadorian Native people was a man named Steven
Donziger. None of Donziger’s original 30,000 Ecuadorian clients —
suffering and dying from cancers and other diseases that many believe
are related to the oil contamination —have received a penny since
the original lawsuit was filed in 1993.

The Ecuadorian court awarded $l8 million to the people of the river.
Then it was halved. Three years after it all stopped in New York.
Here’s what happened: Chevron’s attorneys, Gibson, Dunn and
Crutcher, argued successfully that Steven Donziger had secured the
$9.2 billion judgment by corrupt means. The lawyers argued that
Donziger violated U.S. federal laws prohibiting attempted extortion,
wire fraud, money laundering, witness tampering, and obstruction of
justice, as well as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. That was in
2014. Then the state of New York arrested and disbarred the lawyer,
Steven Donziger.

The river, the water, is still full of oil. And the people are sick.
But Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher won.

Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher will be at the front lines of the Indian
Wars in North Dakota. Looks like they hope to discredit Greenpeace,
make them pay $300 million and be sure that no one says a peep about
that dirty oil pipeline.

Greenpeace’s attorney Everett Jack told Southwest District Court
Judge James Gion that “Greenpeace cannot be responsible for the
entire protest without evidence.” Jack said only six people working
for Greenpeace ever attended the demonstrations.

Greenpeace is a big fish in the environmental world.

But Lakota lands, waters and jurisdiction are a bigger fish. We will
see how the case rolls out in Morton County, but ultimately Gibson,
Dunn and Crutcher has proven to have a larger agenda for Indian
Country. The last Indian Wars were dirty wars. The new Indian Wars are
as well.

_Winona LaDuke is special projects coordinator with Akiing, the
Anishinaabe Community Development organization in Niizhingwakokang,
Minnesota, and founder of Winona’s Hemp and Heritage Farm. Visit its
website at winonashemp.com._

_High Plains Reader is the Fargo region's independent news, arts and
entertainment newsweekly. HPR hits stands the Third Thursday of every
month and is available free of charge. In its 28th year, the Reader
is the go-to source for news, in depth journalism reports, music,
theatre, arts, food, beer, wine and culture in Fargo, West Fargo and
Moorhead. HPR also has the region's most complete and accurate events
calendar. Read more here at hpr1.com [[link removed]] and follow
us on Twitter at @hprfm._

* Native Americans
[[link removed]]
* water rights
[[link removed]]
* Land rights
[[link removed]]
* native rights
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]