[News] 'RCMP off Wet'suwet'en land': Solidarity grows for land defenders

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/wet-land-solidarity-grows-land-defenders-200214163301407.html
'RCMP
off Wet'suwet'en land': Solidarity grows for land defenders
by Jillian Kestler-D'Amours - February 14, 2020
------------------------------

*Montreal, Canada* - Canada is facing a national crisis.

That was how Sophia Sidarous, a young Indigenous organiser and member of
Metepenagiag First Nation in New Brunswick, described the feeling this
week, as people across Canada came out to support members of the
Wet'suwet'en Nation who were forced off their traditional lands.
More:

   - Canada police begin clearing Wet'suwet'en land defender camps
   <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/canada-police-clearing-wet-land-defender-camps-200206201913348.html?utm_source=website&utm_medium=article_page&utm_campaign=read_more_links>
   - Interactive: Nations Divided: Mapping Canada's pipeline battle
   <https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2019/nations-divided-mapping-canadas-pipeline/index.html?utm_source=website&utm_medium=article_page&utm_campaign=read_more_links>
   - A year after RCMP's violent raid, Wet'suwet'en people fear repeat
   <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/year-rcmp-violent-raid-wet-people-fear-repeat-200107134353922.html?utm_source=website&utm_medium=article_page&utm_campaign=read_more_links>

Sidarous was among about two dozen people who occupied the Ottawa office of
Canada's minister of justice and attorney general, David Lametti, on Monday
in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en land defenders opposed to a pipeline
project on their territory in northern British Columbia (BC).

"We just wanted to remind him ... that he has certain obligations to
fulfil," Sidarous told Al Jazeera in a phone interview, "including
upholding human rights ... [and] upholding a nation-to-nation relationship,
which does not mean you have to bulldoze people over in order to get a
project in."

Federal police (RCMP) officers earlier this month evicted members of the
Wet'suwet'en Nation
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/canada-police-clearing-wet-land-defender-camps-200206201913348.html>
from their traditional territories, where they had set up camps to try to
stop construction on the Coastal GasLink project.

[image: Wet’suwet’en - Canada]

Supporters of the Wet'suwet'en nation, who oppose the construction of the
Coastal GasLink pipeline, protest outside the provincial headquarters of
the RCMP in Surrey, BC [Jesse Winter/Reuters]

The Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs, who hold authority over 22,000sq
kilometres (8,494sq miles) of land, said they never consented to the 670km
(416-mile) pipeline, which will cut across that area to transport natural
gas from northeast BC to a terminal near the town of Kitimat.

The BC Supreme Court in December granted Coastal GasLink an injunction to
continue building the pipeline and the company said it has reached
agreements with 20 First Nations band councils along the route. The
province also says the project has the necessary permits to move forward.
"This project is proceeding and the rule of law needs to prevail in BC,"
Premier John Horgan said last month.

The hereditary chiefs argue that the band councils only hold limited
authority over what happens on reserves, the First Nations communities
established under Canada's Indian Act, while they hold decision-making
power over the nation's traditional territory. The Supreme Court of Canada
ruled in 1997 that the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs never ceded authority
over their lands.

What you do to one Indigenous person or one Indigenous nation affects all
Indigenous peoples across Canada, across Turtle Island [North America] and
across the world.

Sophia Sidarous, member of Metepenagiag First Nation

More than two dozen Wet'suwet'en land defenders and their supporters were
arrested, APTN reported, in separate RCMP raids on a forestry road where
camps and blockades had been erected to impede construction on the pipeline.

"When we see elders being disrespected by foreign entities like pipeline
companies and when we see the Canadian government not respecting Indigenous
peoples' rights, well that doesn't really fly with us," said Sidarous.
"What you do to one Indigenous person or one Indigenous nation affects all
Indigenous peoples across Canada, across Turtle Island [North America] and
across the world."
Solidarity actions

Sidarous is one of many Indigenous people across Canada who have organised
actions in solidarity with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs and land
defenders.

Rallies, sit-ins and blockades have been organised in provinces from coast
to coast to demand that RCMP officers leave Wet'suwet'en territory and that
both the federal and BC provincial governments respect Indigenous
sovereignty and rights.

In BC, people blocked access to the Port of Vancouver late last week and
police arrested 43 people on Monday when they refused to clear the area.
Traffic has also been temporarily halted in downtown Vancouver and on a
bridge leading into the city, while Indigenous peoples and their supporters
also blocked access into the provincial legislature in Victoria on Tuesday.

Natalie Knight, a Yurok and Navajo organiser based in Vancouver, was among
dozens of people who occupied the office of BC Attorney General David Eby
on Thursday morning.

Knight told Al Jazeera in a telephone interview from the sit-in that people
were calling on Eby to respect Wet'suwet'en law and uphold the principles
of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
(UNDRIP), among other demands.

[image: Wet’suwet’en - Canada]

Supporters of the Wet'suwet'en nation protest by blocking a road outside
the provincial headquarters of the RCMP in Surrey, BC [Jesse
Winter/Reuters]

Passed into law in BC in November 2019, UNDRIP states that Indigenous
peoples should have "free, prior and informed consent" on matters that
affect their rights, including resource development projects like the
Coastal GasLink.

"This moment is a moment to take action and express our dissent," said
Knight.

She said many people have rallied around the Wet'suwet'en because their
struggle touches on deeper issues such as Indigenous land rights and
sovereignty, and continuing colonialism in Canada. "People are really
coming together, and community is being built in an incredible way on the
streets," she added.
Railways blocked

Major railways have been blocked in solidarity with the Wet'suwet'en, as
well.

On Thursday afternoon, Via Rail Canada - the country's passenger rail
company - announced it was cancelling service along its network "effective
immediately and until further notice". Via Rail operates more than 500
trains per week across 12,500km (7,767 miles), the company says.

Service had been suspended along the popular Toronto-Montreal line as a
result of a blockade in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory in Ontario. More than
250 trains and over 42,000 passengers had been affected, CBC News reported
earlier this week, while industry experts said millions of dollars have
been lost due to the stoppage.

Similar blockades also were erected in northern BC and in Manitoba, a
province in central Canada.

The Gidimt'en Access Point, a blockade and camp erected by members of the
Wet'suwet'en Nation's Gidimt'en clan, welcomed the news of the Via Rail
shutdown on Thursday. "Canada is officially shutting down! We are so
grateful for all the actions of solidarity," the group wrote on Facebook.
"Keep up the pressure! We want the RCMP and CGL off our yintah [land]! We
will not stop until they are."

South of Montreal in the province of Quebec, a Canadian Pacific Railway
line has also been forced to stop operating after people from the Kahnawake
Mohawk First Nation set up a blockade on their territory in solidarity with
the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs and land defenders.

On Thursday morning, four people huddled around a fire next to the
Kahnawake blockade. A plastic chair sat atop a large pile of snow set on
the train tracks behind them. "RCMP OFF Wet'suwet'en LAND" read a cardboard
sign leaning up against a snowbank next to the bright red flag of the
Mohawk Warrior Society. "NO PIPELINE!" read another.

[image: Canada - Wet’suwet’en]

Signs from Kahnawake, a Mohawk First Nation, where people have set up a
blockade [Jillian Kestler D'Amours/Al Jazeera]

People at the blockade did not answer Al Jazeera's requests for comment.
"We're fighting so they can live in a country with free people and clean
water. We're fighting for life," James Nolan, who was at the site this
week, told The Montreal Gazette newspaper.

In the nearby town of Delson, Quebec, a railway station on the affected
line was empty on Thursday. "Service interrupted due to a protest near the
train tracks," read a message in French displayed on a screen on the train
platform.

"It's incredibly inspiring and powerful to watch because this is the
greatest display of sovereignty since Standing Rock," said Catie Galbraith,
19, referring to the Indigenous-led movement in opposition to the Dakota
Access Pipeline project in the United States.

"It feels as though we have reached a turning point, that Indigenous
peoples are more powerful than we've ever been and we're fighting back in a
way that's more effective than it's ever been. It just feels like we're on
the verge of a real shift."

Galbraith, a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and co-chair of the
Indigenous Student Alliance at McGill University in Montreal, helped
organise a sit-in last Friday and a demonstration on Monday at Canadian
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's constituency office in the city.

About 30 people participated in the sit-in, she said, while a few hundred
people took part in the demonstration. "There was just kind of a feeling of
having to do something," Galbraith told Al Jazeera.

People were especially moved to act because a member of the Indigenous
community at McGill was arrested at one of the Wet'suwet'en camps. "It hit
very close to home," she added.
'Not standing down'

On Wednesday, Horgan, the BC premier, criticised the recent Wet'suwet'en
solidarity rally in Victoria. "It was unacceptable to me and I know it's
unacceptable to a vast majority of British Columbians," said Horgan about
the participants who blocked staff from entering the provincial legislature.

"Peaceful demonstration is fundamental to our success as a democracy, but
to have a group of people say to others, 'You are not legitimate. You are
not allowed in here. You are somehow a sell-out to the values of
Canadians,' is just plain wrong," he said.

Late on Thursday, the BC Supreme Court issued an injunction giving the
authorities the power to arrest anyone impeding the work of the legislature
or blocking access to the buildings. People will be picketing BC government
offices on Friday to show continued support for the Wet'suwet'en.

[image: Wet’suwet’en - Canada]

Supporters of the Wet'suwet'en nation protest outside the provincial
headquarters of the RCMP in Surrey, BC [Jesse Winter/Reuters]

Trudeau addressed the demonstrations this week, saying that while he
respected peoples' right to protest peacefully, Canada "is also a country
of the rule of law".

"We need to make sure those laws are respected. That is why I am
encouraging all parties to dialogue to resolve this as quickly as
possible," the prime minister, who had promised to make reconciliation with
Indigenous peoples a top priority, told reporters.

Meanwhile, federal Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller on Thursday
offered to meet some of the protest leaders if they promised to discontinue
their railway blockades.

But Knight said she and others were undeterred as their demands had not
been met. "In the same spirit of the [Wet'suwet'en] hereditary chiefs not
standing down, not being bullied by the RCMP … we will do the same in the
streets here in Vancouver. We are not standing down."
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