Friday, April 16
A reporter from the Associated Press (AP) came to interview camp members.
No major newspapers in South Dakota (or nationally) had reported on the
camp prior to this visit.

Monday, April 19:
Kern and Kaufman met for one and a half hours with Bob Mercer, South Dakota
governor Janklow's press secretary. They asked for Janklow's perspective on
the Mitigation Act, which provides for the transfer of 200,000 acres of land
along the Missouri River to the state of
South Dakota, instead of to the Great Sioux Nation. The land was promised
to the Sioux (Lakota) Nation under the treaties of Fort Laramie in 1851 to
1852.

Throughout the conversation, Mercer tried to describe the conflict in terms
of the state of South Dakota versus the Army Corps of Engineers (which
manages the land in question) and down-river states like Missouri. When
Kaufman and Kern brought up several times the principle of honoring the
treaties the U.S. government made with the tribes, Mercer responded that all
non-Indians would have to move if the government honored all the
treaties it had made with the tribes.

Kern then went to the Federal Building in Pierre to see if Senator Tom
Daschle has an office there (He doesn't.) While she was there, she
stopped in at the FBI to see if CPT could set up an appointment. D. Joseph
Weir, an agent there, said a meeting wasn't necessary. He
said the FBI has no intention of intervening in the La Framboise Island
vigil unless people from outside attack the encampment. He, like
Mercer earlier, expressed the opinion that the Oceti Sakonwin encampment
would fold in November when the weather got cold. Another man in the office
said that in the event of the Army Corps of Engineers wanting to evacuate
the camp, he hoped "they would have better sense" than to bring in the FBI
to assist in the evacuation.

Wednesday, April 21:
Representatives of the Northern District Conference (NDC--Mennonite) and
the Freeman, SD, newspaper visited the camp. The camp cook was impressed by
the quality of the homemade sausage that one of the women had brought.
Another member of the group told the organizers of the camp how much the NDC
people appreciated and supported the camp's nonviolent witness.

In the evening, Kern and Kaufman participated in a meeting during
which the security needs of the camp were discussed. They volunteered to
participate in the 10pm-2am and 2am-6am watches. Because of an incident in
which a strange man in a car followed Kaufman as she walked home from town,
organizers of the campment asked people always to walk in pairs.

Friday, April 23:
Paul and Laurel Neufeld Weaver and their two children
from Worthington, MN, visited the camp. The Neufeld Weavers worked with MCC
in Mexico for five years, and were interested in the many connections they
saw between land confiscation and indigenous rights issues in Mexico and
South Dakota. Laurel Neufeld Weaver had participated in Mexican indigenous
sweat lodges and noted the many similarities between ceremonies there and
among the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota people.

CPTers provided a cake honoring the one month anniversary of the
encampment on April 22.

Saturday, April 24:
Members of the team went to the house of a Pierre resident for showers.
While they were there, the resident told them about how many people in
Pierre live in fear of Governor Janklow, because of his tendency to exact
retribution on people who criticize him. Since many people in Pierre work
for the state government or for agencies that receive state funding,
Governor
Janklow has the power to impose harsh consequences on critics.

When asked whether she thought the average South Dakotan saw the Mitigation
Act as a conflict between the state and the Army Corps of Engineers or the
state and the tribes of the Great Sioux Nation, the
resident said most people knew it was a conflict with the tribes.

In the evening, a ceremony was held honoring the seven Oglala men
who had set up the Oceti Sakonwin encampment on March 22, deciding at that
time to make it a permanent vigil instead of the one day demonstration that
had been planned. Each of the men (or a stand-in) received eagle feathers.
Residents of the Cheyenne River reservation who had undertaken a two-day
ride to La Framboise Island were also honored.

Sunday, April 26:
A reporter from Minneapolis interviewed the team. He
said he had suffered reprisals from Janklow and the federal government
after he had reported human rights violations on the Rosebud reservation.
His house (on the reservation at that time) was shot at, and he and his
wife were charged with welfare fraud because they had been on food stamps at
the time. After they had gone deeply into debt to defend themselves in
federal court, the government presented no material backing up the fraud
charges at the trial and the charges were dismissed.