Indigenous Peoples Fight for the
Affirmation of Sovereignty
Crown Drops Charges Against Wet'suwet'en Land Defenders
On April 15, the Crown dropped contempt charges against
14
Indigenous people, citing a lack of evidence. The 14 were arrested at a
blockade on January 7 by heavily armed RCMP officers in an act of state
terror. They were accused of failing to obey a court injunction granted
to Coastal GasLink (CGL) in December 2018 so that it could
build a pipeline on Wet'suwet'en traditional territory. BC Court
Justice Marguerite Church agreed to vacate the charges.
Molly Wickham, a spokesperson for those arrested,
pointed out that
the threat of jail time and fines "are things we should not have to
experience as Indigenous peoples holding up our own laws on our own
territory."
CGL claims that it has agreements with 20 First Nations,
including a
number in Wet'suwet'en territory, to enable the building of the 670
km-long pipeline through their territory, that would take fracked
natural gas from northeastern BC to Kitimat on the coast. This suggests
that CGL has conducted itself lawfully and followed procedure.
However, these agreements are between elected band council chiefs and
representatives of private corporations. The jurisdiction of the band
council chiefs is strictly limited to the so-called crown lands
designated as "reserves" under the Indian Act.
This represents a very small portion of the 22,000 square kilometres of
Wet'suwet'en territory. It
is the hereditary Chiefs of the Five Houses who have the authority to
act on behalf of the Wet'suwet'en and it is they who have opposed the
building of the CGL pipeline which will traverse twenty-eight per cent
of their territory. They have repeatedly pointed out that Wet'suwet'en
not Canadian law has jurisdiction over Wet'suwet'en territory.
They also point out that Canada, or any other entity, must honour these
traditional laws and jurisdiction. Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs have
also expressed their opposition to the pipeline on the basis that it
will cause damage to the environment, diminish the salmon stock and
undermine the means of livelihood of the Wet'suwet'en people.
The court injunction against the Wet'suwet'en land
defenders, which
remains in place, is based on CGL, with the help of the Canadian
government, trying to sidestep the key issue of who has jurisdiction on
Wet'suwet'en Territory in order to push the pipeline through.
Government agreements with the elected chiefs and councils are aimed at
splitting and dividing the Indigenous peoples, criminalizing their
defence of their right to self-determination and, when that fails,
embroiling them in legal battles to deplete their financial resources
and force them to surrender their lands and resources. This is the
modus operandi of the Canadian state today no matter which cartel party
is in
government at either federal or provincial levels.
The Canadian people from coast to coast to coast held
demonstrations
and rallies to support the Wet'suwet'en blockade and denounced the
RCMP's assault and arrest of the 14 land defenders on January 7. They
will continue to stand with the Wet'suwet'en people and all Indigenous
peoples fighting for hereditary, constitutional and treaty rights
against the colonial relations the Canadian state seeks to perpetuate.
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number 14 - April 20, 2019
Article Link:
Indigenous Peoples Fight for the
Affirmation of Sovereignty: Crown Drops Charges Against Wet'suwet'en Land Defenders
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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