DNB, the largest bank in Norway, has just sold its assets in the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Reports are unclear on the extent and nature of these assets (or maybe I just don’t know how to translate financialese). However, by all accounts the assets dumped by the bank are substantial.
Further, DNB is now considering the withdrawal of its loans to the project as well, which would leave a major gap in the project’s financing.
A first crack in the banking wall, DNB’s move is a direct result of steadfast resistance to the invading pipeline by the besieged Standing Rock Sioux and their allies, and escalating public pressure on the banks to divest from it.
The stakes are incalculable: on one side, billions of dollars in profits, on the other side, survival.
Contact information for the CEOs of DAPL and other Bakken pipeline-complicit banks is here. If you bank with one of them, how about letting them know you might not?
Canadian writer and documentary-maker Michael Riordon writes/
directs/produces books and articles, audio, video and film documentaries, plays for radio and stage.
A primary goal of his work is to recover voices and stories of people who have been silenced or marginalized, written out of the official version: First Nations (aboriginal) youth, Mozambican farmers, inmates in Canadian prisons, traditional healers in Fiji, queer folk across Canada, Guatemalan labour activists.
Michael also leads courses, workshops and seminars for community organizations, trade unions, schools, colleges and universities.
Michael Riordon 