OST Council opposes Mount Rushmore fireworks in unanimous vote

PINE RIDGE – The Oglala Sioux Tribal Council has voted unanimously to oppose a planned July 3 fireworks celebration and presidential visit at Mount Rushmore, citing drought driven wildfire danger, treaty violations and ongoing federal actions that tribal leaders say continue to harm the Great Sioux Nation.

In Resolution 26 55, passed June 9, the council urged the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service to cancel the event, warning that fireworks during current drought conditions pose “a high risk of wild fires that could endanger the lives and property of tourists and local citizens (including tribal members), the Sacred Black Hills and all sacred sites,” according to the resolution.

The council also objected to holding a presidential fireworks event during the nation’s 250th anniversary, saying the celebration would take place on land taken from the Sioux under the 1877 Act. The resolution states that the Act promised “all aid necessary for civilization” as part of the quid pro quo for the confiscation of 55 million acres of Sioux treaty and aboriginal title territory — aid the tribe says has never been fulfilled.

Tribal leaders listed several additional reasons for opposing the event, including federal budget cuts affecting reservation communities and what they described as a pattern of destructive federal undertakings in Sioux treaty territory. The resolution cites the Keystone XL Pipeline, Dewey Burdock and Craven Canyon uranium projects, the Dakota Access Pipeline and the U.S. Air Force Sentinel Project as examples of actions that “have destroyed Sioux sacred sites and cultural resources.”

The council further criticized the “misappropriation of Sioux Winters Doctrine water rights” in the Missouri River system, saying the federal government and investor owned utilities benefit from hydropower generated on mainstem dams “without payment of any compensation to the Sioux tribes.” It also condemned the treatment of Native people by federal immigration authorities, referencing “the mistreatment by ICE that members of the Great Sioux Nation, and other Indian nations and tribes [experienced] at Minneapolis, Minnesota.”

Oglala Sioux Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out signed the resolution, which affirms that the tribe’s longstanding position on Sioux land claims, including Dockets 74 and 148 78, remains unchanged.

The National Park Service has not yet announced whether it will alter or cancel the planned July 3 event. Fireworks at Mount Rushmore were halted for more than a decade after the 2010 display sparked multiple wildfires in the surrounding forest.

(Contact Ernestine Anunkasan Hopa at editor@nativesunnews.today)

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