(This photo is by Amber Bracken, who was arrested by the RCMP for reporting on this story)
Scholar Strike Canada expresses solidarity with the Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs, and all those aligned with them, who are facing violence and dispossession by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Coastal GasLink (CGL). The Wet’suwet’en and their allies are protecting their yintah (traditional lands) against the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Coastal Gaslink (CGL) and the Provincial government’s invasions of unceded Wet’suwet’en territory. On Nov 18th and 19th, 32 people were arrested during brutal militarized RCMP raids on Gidim’ten Territory. Wet’suweten people were violently removed from their own lands to pave the way for the fracking industry. These government and corporate sponsored military actions are taking place in the midst of unprecedented climate induced floods, storms and a provincial state of emergency. CGL, backed by the federal and provincial governments, is using the RCMP to force their interests onto Wet’suwet’en lands. This is an affront to First Nations sovereignty and a violation of Indigenous law and Canadian law - a 1997 Supreme Court decision recognized the Wet’suwet’en title to their land and their constitutional right to control their own land and resources. The militarized incursion and arrest of Wet’suwete’en people on their own territory is also a transgression of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). This recent spate of colonial violence is the same genocidal violence that has been going on for 500 years. Political policing enforcing the interests of the rich to destroy this planet and dispossess Indigenous people from their land.
Just before her arrest, Sleydo’ Molly Wickham, a Gidimt’en Clan member said: “The Wet’suwet’en people, under the governance of their Hereditary Chiefs, are standing in the way of the largest fracking project in Canadian history. Our medicines, our berries, our food, the animals, our water, our culture, our homes are all here since time immemorial. We will never abandon our children to live in a world with no clean water. We uphold our ancestral responsibilities. There will be no pipelines on Wet'suwet'en territory.”
Please sign and circulate this Open Letter in support of Wet'suwet'en land defenders by by Academics Against the Invasion of Wet’suwet’en Territory. The letter was written by Susan Blight, Glen Coulthard, Shiri Pasternak, Anna Zalik and other colleagues. You can add your name and affiliation to the letter on this google form.
Because google form does not permit hyperlinks, the letter is also visible with some informational hyperlinks (but without signatories) at this link.
Also please Donate to Gidimt’en Legal Defense Fund.
For latest updates:
Gidimt’en Checkpoint Facebook page