Solidarity with Wet’suwet’en Indigenous Land Defenders

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Willie Dunn – I Pity the Country

You’re listening to Back in the USSR on CFRU 93.3 FM in Guelph.  I am Siegfried, and this is stolen native land.  I’d like to take this time tonight to express my solidarity with the indigenous land defenders of sovereign Wet’suwet’en traditional territory in the region known by the colonial name of British Columbia, as they face down an act of war, an armed invasion, perpetrated against their nation by the Government of Canada.

Last week I discussed the act of war perpetrated by the American Empire against the sovereign nation of Iran, this week I’ll be discussing an act of war much closer to home, but no less egregious in that it is an imperialist action that targets a sovereign people and their way of life for destruction.  While the Iranian military was able to strike back against American bases in Iraq last week with missiles and, for the time being at least, deter the United States from further aggression, the Canadian colonial state looks set to mount a full-scale invasion of sovereign indigenous land in northern B.C.  The Wet’suwet’en land defenders are currently facing an imminent assault by the RCMP that would clear the way for a liquefied natural gas pipeline to be built across their land without their consent.  Just as the United States and its brazen refusal to withdraw its troops from the sovereign country of Iraq, after the entire Iraqi parliament voted unanimously to expel them, constitutes a flagrant violation of the principle of self-determination, so does the RCMP’s threatened invasion of unceded indigenous land.

The people of the Wet’suwet’en indigenous nation never signed treaties with the British Empire or with the Canadian Government after 1867.  They never signed away any of their territory or rights.  They effectively remain a sovereign nation and in 1997 the Supreme Court of Canada recognized this fact, ruling that aboriginal land ownership had never been given up across the Wet’suwet’en’s 22,000 km sq of territory.  But that landmark court decision in favor of their traditional rights on their land didn’t stop the fossil fuel industry from trampling on everything that the Wet’suwet’en held dear in the name of profit.

In December 2018 the Wet’suwet’en people set up the Gidimt’en checkpoint to block construction of the proposed 670 km Coastal GasLink pipeline (CGL) across their territory, thereby exercising their right as a sovereign people to deny access to something that would damage their land and way of life.

On January 7, 2019 the RCMP committed its first large-scale act of aggression against the Wet’suwet’en when heavily armed officers raided the Gidimt’en checkpoint and arrested 14 indigenous land defenders.  The police established a “media exclusion zone”, blocking reporters from accessing the area and covering this hostile action which led to large-scale protests across Canada.

On December 20, 2019, leaked internal RCMP documents published by the Guardian revealed that police were prepared to use lethal force against indigenous land defenders in the Gidimt’en raid earlier that year: “The RCMP commanders also instructed officers to ‘use as much violence toward the gate as you want’.  The RCMP were prepared to arrest children and grandparents: ‘no exception, everyone will be arrested in the injunction area’.”

On January 4, 2020, House Chiefs representing all five of the Wet’suwet’en clans exercised their sovereign rights in evicting Coastal GasLink (CGL) employees from Unist’ot’en and Gidimt’en territories.  An eviction letter stated that workers were not to return to the territory without the consent of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs. 

On January 7, just last week, Coastal GasLink posted an injunction order giving the land defenders 72 hours to clear the way to its work site and allow access.  The RCMP began mobilizing in the area to enforce the injunction.  The land defenders put out a call for solidarity actions and demonstrations across Canada.

On January 9, the United Nations called for the immediate withdraw of the RCMP from Wet’suwet’en territory and for a complete suspension of work on the Coastal GasLink pipeline until “free, prior and informed consent” is obtained from the Wet’suwet’en people.  The RCMP has declared a no-fly zone over Wet’suwet’en territory, set up an "exclusion zone" at 27km and are blocking media, Wet'suwet'en people, and food from getting up to the territory.

This is where things stand now.  There were rallies in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en all across Canada last week, with indigenous peoples and their allies organizing to stop this illegal colonial invasion of sovereign native land.  I myself participated in one of these rallies in downtown Guelph, just yesterday on January 12.  I wish more people had shown up, but we still managed to shut shit down and make our voices heard.  But there’s so much more that needs to be done, and time is running out.  This is the interview that the Real News Network conducted with indigenous activist Kanahus Manuel on January 10, emphasizing the truth that this flagrant aggression by the RCMP against Wet’suwet’en is part of Canada’s long colonial legacy.

TRNN – Canada’s Cops Were Ready to Shoot Indigenous Anti-Pipeline Activists

Willie Dunn – The Ballad of Crowfoot

Comrades and friends, as you know, settler-colonialism in Canada is something that I’ve discussed and made a deliberate point of discussing with my students in China whenever I’ve taught ESL there.  I’ve talked about Louis Riel and the North-West Rebellion, I’ve talked about the Oka Crisis, and I’ve talked about Wet’suwet’en.  And let me tell you, it’s not hard for young students in an ancient country that suffered under colonialism for 100 years, from the Opium Wars in the 1840s until the final victory of the Chinese communists in 1949, to understand what the indigenous peoples of this land are going through.  Some Canadian ESL teachers go abroad full of kitschy stories about maple syrup and hockey and might as well be propagandists for the Canadian Government, but I’m not like that.  I talk about the real history and the current reality in this country.  I show my students things that are not pretty about this country.  And I talk to them about two extremely important English words that not enough Canadians know or understand: “self-determination” and “internationalism”.  Self-determination concerns the right of every people and nation to determine their own destinies free from colonialism, empire or capitalist globalization.  Internationalism is the solidarity of different peoples across borders to support one another in the fight for liberation from colonialism, capitalism and empire.  And I want to emphasize to the settlers who stand in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en that what we are engaged in is internationalist solidarity, because the Wet’suwet’en are themselves a sovereign nation that refuses to submit to the colonial dictates of the Government of Canada and the multi-national corporations whose interests it is protecting when it sends out the RCMP to beat up, arrest or shoot indigenous land defenders.  The Wet’suwet’en might not have an army or a state, but ultimately, they are as sovereign as the Iraqis or the Iranians, and their self-determination must be respected and defended.  Self-determination and internationalism.  Two very, very, important words that are very, very important to understand.  This is an invasion that we are fighting to stop when we go out into the streets to protest and demonstrate in support of indigenous land defenders struggling to end the ongoing colonial genocide against their people and nations.  The Canadian Government might speak of reconciliation, but there can be no reconciliation without self-determination and a complete and total end to colonial rule across Turtle Island, so-called North America, and the Land of the Condor, so-called South America – where indigenous peoples from Bolivia to Brazil to Colombia to Guatemala are fighting for their lives and sovereignty in the face of outright fascism in many cases.  And I’m not even going to talk about how climate change ties into this, I think most people listening to this show already grasp that kind of stuff, but pardon me if I doubt that so many of you truly understand concepts like self-determination and internationalism.  Like me, you grew up in a racist settler-colonial society built on genocide and, like me, you took so many things for granted.  And it’s a long and hard road to unlearn all the bullshit you’ve been fed, let me tell you.

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