Well,
all I can say, looking back 52 years to when I first looked into the lives of
Canada’s indigenous people, is that although the publicity accorded them today
is immensely greater than then (when they were hardly ever mentioned in the press)
but that in many essential ways things have not changed that much.
In 1968 they were just emerging from
many decades of deterioration. A few were going to high schools, a tiny handful
made it to university: Their leaders, who had maintained a stubborn, heroic
resistance during many decades of shabby treatment, needed education so that they could confront
the huge organized power of the federal government. One of their problems was
that their need for the Euro-eentred
education clashed with their primary need, which was to re-discover pride in
their indigenous heritage.
They have been working on that ever
since, and that aim is largely achieved. But unfortunately their treatment by
the Euro law administered by the Canadian government has not moved exponentially.
Take a gander at this situation, described
today by the Defenders of the Land, the Truth Campaign and the Idle No
More networks:
In
December 1997, the Supreme Court of Canada issued the Delgamuukw-Gisday’way
decision, which recognized the authority of the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs
over Wet’suwet’en Territory. Despite that Supreme Court court decision the
federal and B.C. governments have approved the Coastal Gaslink pipeline, a 670 km
pipeline from Dawson Creek to the LNG Canada export terminal near Kitimat. It
is a project of TC Energy based in Calgary…..As a consequence, today the Unist’ot’en face the
possibility that the full violence of the Canadian state will be brought to
bear against them.
Get that: “…the full violence of the Canadian state will
be brought to bear against them.” .And they ain’t kiddin’.Later in their
document the .Defenders write:
When they (the Wet’suwet’en people) enforced
their own laws and required that industry seek Free, Prior, and Informed
Consent for development on their lands, they faced a brutal display of
militaristic police violence and an ongoing police occupation of their
territories. We have all learned ….that RCMP… are prepared to kill unarmed
Wet’suwet’en people if they continue to uphold their laws.
Already, our newly militarized police are being
mobilized to uphold developments that ignore ancient rights and enforce
injunctions airily granted by various courts. Already,
bulldozers have smashed into unceded Wet’suwet’en lands, making an unholy mess
of them.
The defenders, in their document
issued today, say that people all over Turtle Island have begun to hold rallies
in defense of the hereditary rights of people who have occupied these unceded
lands since time immemorial, by protesting Canada’s illegal encroachment
on Wet’suwet’en land. The message of the
rally organizers is clear:
“Indigenous law is the law of the land on unceded
territories, and traditional title-holders have the right to refuse access to
their lands. Disregarding this ancient law in order to further expand fossil
fuel production during a time of extreme climate crisis is irresponsible and
unacceptable. Agents of the corporate state will face resistance if they
continue to pursue resource colonialism during this climate emergency”.
I hope everyone in Canada takes notice of this warning
from people who are unfortunately facing the full militarized might of the
Canadian government violence machine. Let’s just repeat that warning:
Disregarding this ancient law in order to further expand
fossil fuel production during a time of extreme climate crisis is irresponsible
and unacceptable.
Somewhere or other our
society seems to have got itself screwed up. Here we are with our many
universities and civilized agencies,
threatening, and not only threatening, but actually unleashing violence against
unarmed people who are defending land that our Supreme Court has recognized as
belonging to them, while our agents of destruction smash through their lands in
bulldozers, to make way for pipelines to carry energy needed by our society for
something or other. In this case, it appears it is needed beeause the owners
want to sell it for a huge profit abroad.
Unfortunately the British Columbia government, having
not long ago officially recognized the United Nations Declaration of the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and declared it part of the law of the land, a
declaration that provides that industry must have “free, prior, and informed
consent” for any development being proposed for indigenous lands, has
nevertheless collaborated in the invasion of the Wet’suwet’en lands by the
builders of the pipeline, and of the use of governmental violence used against
the peaceful protesters.
This is an argument that is likely to be played out
across Canada in future years: the need for “free, prior and informed consent”
given by indigenous people who lie in the path of any development, seems likely
to clash with the Euro laws under which most projects are built. Indigenous
leaders have said that they do not take from the UNDRIP formula that it gives
them a veto over all development. At best though, it does give them the right to
be consulted in advance, and to have arrived at a conclusion, hopefully a
conclusion agreed with the developers, as to he conditions on which any work is
done, or on where such work may be done.
And remember this: even if it does mean that they have
the right to refuse projects, this would be no more than a mild form of payback
for the indignities that were imposed on their people as the Europeans invaded
Canada, and pushed the native people aside brutally, because they stood in the
way of cutting down their forests, digging up their lands, robbing them of
their heritage, and finally gathering most of them into small plots of land
known as reserves, most of them on land so poor that thousands of them starved
for want of any meaningful way to make a living.
Anyone wishing to support the Wet’suwet’en fight can
contact the following:
E-Mail
Communications Contact: info@IdleNoMore.ca
Sylvia McAdam,
Idle No More Organizer, Cell: (306) 281-8158
Kanahus Manuel,
Defenders of the Land, Spokesperson, Cell: (250) 852-3924
Russ Diabo, Truth
Campaign, Spokesperson, Cell: (613) 296-0110
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