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Last Thursday, 14 people were arrested during protests. On Friday, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux, Dave Archambault, was arrested along with five others. And on Monday, at least 10 were taken into custody. The charges range from disorderly conduct for blocking access to the site to pushing back on a police line. Developers on Thursday said they were halting construction until a federal court hearing next week. But this isn't just about the threat to Native American grave sites. Setting aside that it is hard to imagine that the pipeline would be going ahead if it were to cut through the graves of white people, the pipeline is also in clear violation of the Treaty of Fort Laramie, signed in 1868 between the United States and various Native American tribes and nations, including the Standing Rock Sioux. That document guarantees land, sovereignty, and hunting rights, and promises that the territory will "be closed to all whites."

The facts of this injustice are clear. The question now is whether Clinton will weigh in.

None of this is to overlook the role that President Barack Obama could still play.

Another agreement and promise has been broken, Mr. President. Where are you?

And speaking of elected officials, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who has long claimed to be of North American indigenous parentage, has a distinct opportunity to prove that she is at last with us -- that she shares in those revered and honorable Native American traditions of solidarity and resistance.

But she cannot prove this if she stays quiet on this issue. The senator could utilize her influential platform to stand with Native Americans in opposition to this treaty violation and the desecration of burial grounds. We can only hope that she chooses to do so.

In the meantime, Native Americans and our non-Native American allies will continue to protest the pipeline that may very well, sooner or later, fail and poison the water as these pipelines too often do. Chelsey Luger, Lakota from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, told me she believes that it is not a question of if, but when this pipeline will cause a spill, adding that she hopes Clinton will speak up, and soon.

"If Hillary Clinton were to at the very least make a statement of support for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, it would be a much needed display of affirmative support for the health and well-being of Native (Americans) across the United States," Luger said. "We need her support, and we'd prefer it now as a preventative action than later as a reaction to crisis."

If candidate Clinton does nothing to address this issue yet continues into November promising Native Americans that she is our champion, then her words will be nothing but false promises -- just more bombast, more white lies to Indians.

But if she voices her opposition to the pipeline, if she proves to us that she is a woman of her word, then that would send a message that while Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump talks, she acts.

First, though, she has to act. You're up, Mrs. Clinton.

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Hillary Clinton must speak up over pipeline (Opinion ...