SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Native Leaders Formally Forgive Veterans in Emotional Ceremony
"We didn't respect you, we polluted your Earth, we've hurt you in so many ways but we've come to say that we are sorry. We are at your service and we beg for your forgiveness," said veteran Wesley Clark, Jr.
Dec 06, 2016
Native American tribal leaders conducted a forgiveness ceremony with U.S. veterans on Monday night, in an emotional event that also honored the Standing Rock Sioux's victory against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) over the weekend.
Chief Leonard Crow Dog, a well-known spiritual leader and member of the Sicangu Lakota tribe, formally forgave Wesley Clark, Jr. after the son of former NATO commander Wesley Clark, Sr. led a group of veterans in a speech pledging the veterans' service to the tribes and acknowledging the U.S. military's longstanding history of violating Indigenous rights.
Watch the ceremony below:
Clark said:
Many of us, me particularly, are from the units that have hurt you over the many years. We came. We fought you. We took your land. We signed treaties that we broke. We stole minerals from your sacred hills. We blasted the faces of our presidents onto your sacred mountain. When we took still more land and then we took your children and then we tried to make your language and we tried to eliminate your language that God gave you, and the Creator gave you. We didn't respect you, we polluted your Earth, we've hurt you in so many ways but we've come to say that we are sorry. We are at your service and we beg for your forgiveness.
The veterans knelt in front of the tribal leader, who then placed his hand on Clark's bowed head. He offered forgiveness and urged world peace, saying, "We will take a step. We are Lakota Sovereign Nation. We were the nation, and we're still a nation. We have a language to speak. We have preserved the caretaker position. We do not own the land, the land owns us."
Speaking to the tentative victory over DAPL, Standing Rock Sioux spokeswoman Phyllis Young, who also took part in the forgiveness ceremony, cautioned, "The black snake has never stopped and if they didn't stop at desecrating our graves of our ancestors, they'll stop at nothing. So there will be a motion filed by the Energy Transfer today to continue the pipeline...We are a peaceful movement, but we may have to make a move to protect our territory."
The ceremony took place at the Four Prairie Knights Casino & Resort on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation near Fort Yates, North Dakota. For months, Native American water protectors have waged a peaceful resistance against the construction of the 1,172-mile oil pipeline that they say threatens their access to clean water and violates treaty rights and tribal sovereignty.
Thousands of veterans deployed to the protest camps over the weekend to protect the Standing Rock Sioux and its supporters from escalating police violence.
Will Griffin, a Veterans for Peace activist and former U.S. Army paratrooper who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote in an op-ed for Common Dreams in October that after two wars, fighting for Standing Rock was "the first time I served the American people."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Nadia Prupis
Nadia Prupis is a former Common Dreams staff writer. She wrote on media policy for Truthout.org and has been published in New America Media and AlterNet. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a BA in English in 2008.
Native American tribal leaders conducted a forgiveness ceremony with U.S. veterans on Monday night, in an emotional event that also honored the Standing Rock Sioux's victory against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) over the weekend.
Chief Leonard Crow Dog, a well-known spiritual leader and member of the Sicangu Lakota tribe, formally forgave Wesley Clark, Jr. after the son of former NATO commander Wesley Clark, Sr. led a group of veterans in a speech pledging the veterans' service to the tribes and acknowledging the U.S. military's longstanding history of violating Indigenous rights.
Watch the ceremony below:
Clark said:
Many of us, me particularly, are from the units that have hurt you over the many years. We came. We fought you. We took your land. We signed treaties that we broke. We stole minerals from your sacred hills. We blasted the faces of our presidents onto your sacred mountain. When we took still more land and then we took your children and then we tried to make your language and we tried to eliminate your language that God gave you, and the Creator gave you. We didn't respect you, we polluted your Earth, we've hurt you in so many ways but we've come to say that we are sorry. We are at your service and we beg for your forgiveness.
The veterans knelt in front of the tribal leader, who then placed his hand on Clark's bowed head. He offered forgiveness and urged world peace, saying, "We will take a step. We are Lakota Sovereign Nation. We were the nation, and we're still a nation. We have a language to speak. We have preserved the caretaker position. We do not own the land, the land owns us."
Speaking to the tentative victory over DAPL, Standing Rock Sioux spokeswoman Phyllis Young, who also took part in the forgiveness ceremony, cautioned, "The black snake has never stopped and if they didn't stop at desecrating our graves of our ancestors, they'll stop at nothing. So there will be a motion filed by the Energy Transfer today to continue the pipeline...We are a peaceful movement, but we may have to make a move to protect our territory."
The ceremony took place at the Four Prairie Knights Casino & Resort on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation near Fort Yates, North Dakota. For months, Native American water protectors have waged a peaceful resistance against the construction of the 1,172-mile oil pipeline that they say threatens their access to clean water and violates treaty rights and tribal sovereignty.
Thousands of veterans deployed to the protest camps over the weekend to protect the Standing Rock Sioux and its supporters from escalating police violence.
Will Griffin, a Veterans for Peace activist and former U.S. Army paratrooper who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote in an op-ed for Common Dreams in October that after two wars, fighting for Standing Rock was "the first time I served the American people."
Nadia Prupis
Nadia Prupis is a former Common Dreams staff writer. She wrote on media policy for Truthout.org and has been published in New America Media and AlterNet. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a BA in English in 2008.
Native American tribal leaders conducted a forgiveness ceremony with U.S. veterans on Monday night, in an emotional event that also honored the Standing Rock Sioux's victory against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) over the weekend.
Chief Leonard Crow Dog, a well-known spiritual leader and member of the Sicangu Lakota tribe, formally forgave Wesley Clark, Jr. after the son of former NATO commander Wesley Clark, Sr. led a group of veterans in a speech pledging the veterans' service to the tribes and acknowledging the U.S. military's longstanding history of violating Indigenous rights.
Watch the ceremony below:
Clark said:
Many of us, me particularly, are from the units that have hurt you over the many years. We came. We fought you. We took your land. We signed treaties that we broke. We stole minerals from your sacred hills. We blasted the faces of our presidents onto your sacred mountain. When we took still more land and then we took your children and then we tried to make your language and we tried to eliminate your language that God gave you, and the Creator gave you. We didn't respect you, we polluted your Earth, we've hurt you in so many ways but we've come to say that we are sorry. We are at your service and we beg for your forgiveness.
The veterans knelt in front of the tribal leader, who then placed his hand on Clark's bowed head. He offered forgiveness and urged world peace, saying, "We will take a step. We are Lakota Sovereign Nation. We were the nation, and we're still a nation. We have a language to speak. We have preserved the caretaker position. We do not own the land, the land owns us."
Speaking to the tentative victory over DAPL, Standing Rock Sioux spokeswoman Phyllis Young, who also took part in the forgiveness ceremony, cautioned, "The black snake has never stopped and if they didn't stop at desecrating our graves of our ancestors, they'll stop at nothing. So there will be a motion filed by the Energy Transfer today to continue the pipeline...We are a peaceful movement, but we may have to make a move to protect our territory."
The ceremony took place at the Four Prairie Knights Casino & Resort on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation near Fort Yates, North Dakota. For months, Native American water protectors have waged a peaceful resistance against the construction of the 1,172-mile oil pipeline that they say threatens their access to clean water and violates treaty rights and tribal sovereignty.
Thousands of veterans deployed to the protest camps over the weekend to protect the Standing Rock Sioux and its supporters from escalating police violence.
Will Griffin, a Veterans for Peace activist and former U.S. Army paratrooper who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote in an op-ed for Common Dreams in October that after two wars, fighting for Standing Rock was "the first time I served the American people."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.