For the Wet’suwet’en, latest RCMP raid confirms that reconciliation is ‘dead’

 

Another raid, more arrests and yet another Wet’suwet’en distress call spreading across social media jarred me out of my daily routine last Wednesday. Within hours I’d be on the road, driving through the night to bear witness to the RCMP’s latest armed incursion onto unceded Wet’suwet’en territory.

Gidimt’en Checkpoint in so-called northern B.C. is a former ancestral Wet’suwet’en village site, now turned into a reclamation camp by land defenders opposing the multi-billion dollar Coastal GasLink liquified natural gas (LNG) pipeline project. On that quiet spring morning, its unsuspecting occupants were once again stormed by an army of RCMP officers — members of the Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) unit created to police Indigenous resistance to resource extraction projects.

I live over 1,000 kilometers away, but the remote location means not many journalists can get up there to cover these raids, and police have been known to use violence and even lie in these situations. Something with which I, sadly, have first hand experience. The presence of media matters, we act as a public witness to document what happens and hold everyone accountable.

“They (Canada and CGL) don’t care about the land. All they care about is the money,” says Chief Gisday’wa. “We don’t want the money. We want our land. Once we pollute this river that’ll be it. Everything down the line… our fish will be gone, once our fish are gone our wildlife will be gone. And once they’re gone, we’ll be right behind them.”

So, I dropped everything and scrambled to get there. All I knew was that 14 RCMP C-IRG vehicles had pulled up carrying over a dozen officers with a warrant to search the premises.  (more...)

For the Wet’suwet’en, latest RCMP raid confirms that reconciliation is ‘dead’