[News] Canada: police clear rail blockade by Indigenous anti-pipeline activists - Wet’suwet’en blockades will continue

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/24/canada-police-indigenous-anti-pipeline-activists-rail-blockade 



  Canada: police clear rail blockade by Indigenous anti-pipeline activists

*Several members of the Tyendinaga Mohawk nation arrested in growing 
political crisis for Justin Trudeau *

Leyland Cecco - February 24, 2020
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Police in Canada <https://www.theguardian.com/world/canada> have removed 
Indigenous activists from a railway line in Ontario, where a two-week 
protest against a contentious natural gas pipeline has blocked train 
traffic and fueled a growing political crisis for prime minister Justin 
Trudeau.

Ten members of the Tyendinaga Mohawk nation were arrested on Monday when 
officers moved in to lift the blockade which had been erected in support 
of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/14/wetsuweten-coastal-gaslink-pipeline-allies> 
in British Columbia who are fighting a 416-mile pipeline through their 
traditional territory.

Ontario provincial police had warned the activists that they had until 
midnight Sunday to leave the area, or face arrest and charges.

Wet’suwet’en activists opposing the C$6.6bn (US$4.98bn) Coastal GasLink 
pipeline were forced to leave a remote camp 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/10/canada-protest-indigenous-wetsuweten-pipeline> 
which had been blocking construction on 10 February. But secondary 
protests sprang up across the country 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/14/wetsuweten-coastal-gaslink-pipeline-allies> 
as demonstrators blocked railways, government buildings and ports.

Canadian National, which owns the rail line, won an injunction to clear 
the blockade near the city of Belleville, Ontario, in early February. 
But police, wary of violent standoffs in the 1990s with Indigenous 
groups, had so far been unwilling to forcefully remove the demonstrators.

Shortly after sunrise on Monday morning, however, dozens of officers 
descended on the blockade. Police barred media from the operation, but 
the confrontation was broadcast on a Facebook live broadcast.

Tyendinaga Mohawk activists heckled a phalanx of police officers, 
telling them they were standing on Indigenous land and had no authority.

ADD Officers warned that people standing near the rail line were in 
violation of the injunction and faced imminent arrest. Moments later, 
dozens of officers tackled a number of protestors, forcing them to the 
ground and cuffing their hands with zip-ties.

“Stay back,” police shouted to the remaining demonstrators. The two 
sides remained in a tense standoff until members of the Tyendinaga 
Mohawk nation received orders from community leaders to back away.

The blockade of rail lines through Tyendinaga Mohawk territory has 
crippled much of Canada’s freight and commuter rail traffic, and the 
string of protests have been blamed for 1,400 layoffs at Canada’s main 
rail companies, propane shortages in eastern Canada 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/canada> and economic hardship for 
farmers.

The protests have piled pressure on Trudeau, who came to power promising 
reconciliation with Canada’s First Nations, but has supported the 
country’s fossil fuels industry.

Trudeau at first called for “dialogue and mutual respect 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/18/justin-trudeau-canadian-rail-blockade-dialogue-indigenous-pipeline-protest>” 
but by Friday, his patience had worn thin, and he bluntly told the 
protestors: “the barricades need to come down now.”

Wet’suwet’en hereditary Chief Woos has said he expects blockades and 
protests will continue throughout the country until the RCMP and 
pipeline workers leave Wet’suwet’en territory. Only once these 
conditions are met, the chiefs will be willing to meet with federal and 
provincial leaders.

Over the weekend, two new rail blockades were established in Saskatoon 
and Vancouver.

-- 
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