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| Militarized Royal Mounted Canadian Police Are Dispossessing the Wet’suwet’en People of Their Land to Clear the Path for a Pipeline |
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Dear Relatives,
Below you will find the latest update from our Wet'suwet'en relatives.
Right now there are world wide actions demanding TC Energy and Coastal GasLink leave Wet'suwet'en sovereign territory.
Among the steps you can take consider moving your money to a credit union if you do business with any of the banks funding TC Energy's Indigenous land grabs provided by our allies at the Rainforest Action Network.
Keep reading for more ways to stand with the Wet'suwet'en.
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VIDEO: Raid on Unist'ot'en Village @KM 66
Credit: Michael Toledano, Melissa Cox (Mutual Aid Media), Grace Burke
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On December 31, 2019, BC Supreme Court Justice Marguerite Church extended Coastal GasLink’s injunction order from an interim injunction to an interlocutory injunction. Members of the Wet’suwet’en nation have been stewarding and protecting their traditional territories from the destruction of multiple pipelines, including Coastal GasLink’s (CGL) liquified natural gas (LNG) pipeline.
Hereditary Chiefs of all five Wet’suwet’en clans rejected Church’s decision, which criminalizes Anuk ‘nu’at’en (Wet’suwet’en law), and issued and enforced an eviction of CGL’s workers from the territory January 4, 2020. [Watch the eviction video].
On February 6, 2020, heavily militarized raids by Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) were launched in Wet’suwet’en Territory. These miliarized operations deployed dozens of RCMP along with tactical teams armed with assault rifles, snipers, helicopters and canine units. As of February 14th, 4 violent raids have taken place in camps and villages where Wet’suwet’en people and their supporters have been monitoring and blocking traffic associated with the Coastal GasLink Pipeline (CGL).
Among the raided camps was the Unist’ot’en Village, the longest standing Wet’suwet’en Village in the pipeline’s path. [Watch the Unist’ot’en Village raid video].
The forcible removal of Wet’suwet'en people and their supporters on behalf of the CGL project, part of the largest fracking project in Canadian history, has sparked nation-wide unrest leading to the closures of highways, railways, ports and government offices throughout the country. Twenty-eight people have been arrested in Wet’suwet’en Territory thus far, with dozens of arrests occurring elsewhere in the country. [Watch a recap video of 3 of the raids].
The Wet’suwet’en Nation has never signed a treaty or sold or surrendered their land to Canada and claims jurisdiction of 22,000 square kilometers, an area the size of New Jersey. The landmark 1997 Delgamuukw v British Columbia case affirmed Aboriginal title to unceded land. Wet’suwet'en people have been continuously policed for the past 13 months; the first 3 months of policing cost $3.6 million CAD.
This is not the first time the RCMP have violently raided camps on Wet’suwet’en territory. On January 7, 2019, militarized police who were deployed with authority to use “lethal overwatch” breached the gate at Gidimt’en Checkpoint and arrested 14 Land defenders including Molly Wickham, a Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief. [Watch the 2019 raid video].
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VIDEO: Roundup of Raids on Gidimt’en Territory @KM 27, 39, and 44.
Credit: Jesse Freeston, Bunker Films/Mutual Aid Media, and MacKenzie Keir Knight |
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International Solidarity: All out for Wet'suwet'en.
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VIDEO: Raid on Gidimt’en Territory @KM 44
Credit: MacKenzie Keir Knight |
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VIDEO: Raid on Gidimt’en Territory @KM 39
Credit: Bunker Films/Mutual Aid Media |
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VIDEO: Raid on Gidimt’en Territory @KM 27
Credit: Bunker Films/Mutual Aid Media |
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VIDEO: Canada is Ready to Kill Us
Credit: Denzel Sutherland-Wilson |
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Message from Molly Wickham
I SEE YOU! I see your struggle and love you! Keep going---we're close! We are closer than we ever have been! Every morning I wake up expecting to hear the helicopters buzzing toward our territories carrying militarized RCMP with tactical weapons. The RCMP have not left Wet'suwet'en territory!!! They are continuing with their oppression despite having tactical teams out of sight. We are experiencing heavy surveillance and oppression.
I see the Indigenous youth in so called Victoria and Vancouver, the Gitxsan, the Haudenosaunee, and all the supporters from coast to coast. I SEE YOU! I see your struggle and love you!
Keep going---we're close! We are closer than we ever have been!
#standupfightback
#reconciliationisdead
#shutdowncanada
#wetsuwetenstrong"
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Lady Chainsaw, a Cree land defender, remains in jail for upholding Wet'suwet'en law and protecting Unist'ot'en territory. She will remain in police custody until a court appearance on February 21, 2020.
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| Guardian: Canada police prepared to shoot indigenous activists, documents show |
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Narwhal: Industry, government pushed to abolish Aboriginal title at issue in Wet’suwet’en stand-off, docs reveal
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The Tyee: One year after RCMP raid, tensions rise as Wet’suwet’en evict pipeline company
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Ricochet: Untangling the ‘rule of law’ in the Coastal GasLink pipeline standoff
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| FOLLOW Unist'ot'en Village |
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| FOLLOW Gidimt'en Checkpoint |
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| *All video footage rights reserved. Press should contact [email protected] for permission to use footage. Organizations have consent to use footage. |
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Established in 1990, The Indigenous Environmental Network is an international environmental justice nonprofit that works with tribal grassroots organizations to build the capacity of Indigenous communities. IEN’s activities include empowering Indigenous communities and tribal governments to develop mechanisms to protect our sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, the health of both our people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities.
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