United for Peace and Justice, a national antiwar coalition since 2003, supports the tribes gathered to protect the Missouri River from illegal pipeline construction in North Dakota.

We call on President Obama to intervene on behalf of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to close down the pipeline:

• The location of the pipeline was moved because white people to the north feared contamination of their water sources;

• The pipeline project has been illegally broken up into many small projects to avoid the mandated environmental reviews that a pipeline project of this magnitude requires;

• After more than two centuries of broken treaties, tribal sovereignty needs to be placed front and center in the struggle for environmental justice.

The Dakota Access Pipeline would contribute 50 million tons of CO2/year – equivalent of 10 million cars or 15 coal plants.

The pipeline is backed by a “complex network of dozens of shady oil companies and banks.”

The pipeline is slated to run from North Dakota to Illinois, passing through Iowa farm country where it is also encountering opposition.

Destruction of sacred cultural sites and the environment by big oil interests and greedy banks, and unwarranted use of force against nonviolent protesters, are also forms of violence and war that must end.

Water is life! 

–The Coordinating Committee of UFPJ