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Tribal leader Harold Frazier says the tribes would “not apologize for being a safe island in a sea of uncertainty and death.”
Sioux tribes in the US state of South Dakota refuse to remove the coronavirus checkpoints they established on the roads that pass through their lands.
Governor Kristi Noem wrote to several tribal leaders last week saying that the checkpoints were illegal.
But Sioux say they are the only way to make sure the virus does not enter their reserves.
They say their limited health care facilities could not cope with an outbreak.
Currently, people can only access essential business reserves if they have not traveled from a Covid-19 access point.
They must also complete a health questionnaire before doing so.
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Ms. Noem threatens to take the two tribes, the Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes, to federal court if they fail to comply.
In a letter sent to her representatives on Friday, she demanded the removal of the checkpoints.
“Checkpoints on state and US highways are not legal, and if they do not go down, the state will bring the matter to federal court, as Governor Noem noted in her letter Friday,” her senior adviser and policy director, Maggie Seidel said in an email sent to the local newspaper Argus Leader on Sunday.
Tribes are destined to obtain permission from state authorities if they wish to close or restrict travel within their reserves.
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Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe President Harold Frazier issued a statement in response to the governor on Friday, saying: “We will not apologize for being a safe island in a sea of uncertainty and death.”
“It continues to interfere with our efforts to do what science and facts dictate seriously undermines our ability to protect everyone on the reservation,” he added.
Oglala Sioux President Julian Bear Runner says Ms. Noem’s decision “threatened the sovereign interest of the Oglala people.”
“Due to the lack of judgment in planning preventive measures in response to the current pandemic, Covid-19, the Oglala Sioux tribe has taken reasonable and necessary measures to protect the health and safety of our tribal members and our other residents of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, “says the Argus leader, as quoted.
Frazier says the main purpose of the checkpoints is to monitor and try to track down the virus. “We want to make sure that people who come from ‘hot spots’ or highly infected areas, we ask them to go through our land,” he told CNN.
“With the lack of resources that we have medically, this is our best tool that we have at the moment to try to prevent [the spread of Covid-19]”he added.
He says the stocks are ill-equipped to deal with a coronavirus outbreak, with the closest critical care facility three hours away.
The Cheyenne River Sioux tribe only operates an eight-bed facility in the reserve and not an intensive care unit for the 12,000 people living in the reserve, he adds.
There is no order to stay home
South Dakota is one of the few states in the US. USA That they have not issued orders to stay home to their residents.
There were 198 cases of Covid-19 among Native Americans in the state as of Sunday, according to figures from the state health department cited by CNN. The state has more than 3,500 confirmed cases and at least 34 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The United States has the highest number of virus deaths and cases in the world, but it also has one of the largest populations and widespread testing.
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