Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’moks speaks about the C-IRG at War Resisters’ International conference in the UK
On Friday June 16, Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’moks spoke in London, United Kingdom at the “Antimilitarist Roots: Nonviolent resistance for a world in crisis” conference organized by War Resisters’ International.
Among the comments he made there during his speech:
“We’re fighting a multi-billion-dollar project. Coastal GasLink pipeline which is owned by TC Energy and funded by the Royal Bank of Canada.
It’s rather difficult to say Royal Bank of Canada when it is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who come at us by the hundreds militarized. They created an arm of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to deal with us, it’s called C-IRG. The Community-Industry Response Group is strictly to protect industry.
I’m here in London. I want to challenge the word royal. Is it royal to annihilate people. Is it royal to arrest people? Is it royal to come to our doors with axes and chainsaws?
Video of RCMP C-IRG militarized raid.
Is it royal to burn down our homes? Is it royal to arrest us, remove us from our land, incarcerate us and lay charges on us?
They put labels on us. Extremists. Violent protesters. We’re none of that. We’re simply Wet’suwet’en. When they arrest us. Remove us from the land. Put us in jail. Charge us. Put restrictions on us. They are trying to intimidate, and it doesn’t work, it really doesn’t.
When they come us at us with armed force. They get armed personnel carriers, helicopters, attack dogs, snipers, that means they are afraid. They are afraid of you for using your voice and telling your truth.
They are doing it again, [Canada] wants that seat on the United Nations Security Council. Again, we’ll fight it because where is our security in the so-called country of Canada?
They pay special units. $50 million into the [C-IRG] budget, they just put another $36 million. And they think that’s going to scare us off.
Free, prior and informed consent is needed [for this pipeline] through the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. They have not done that yet. Their idea of free, prior and informed consent is simply sending in militarized with weapons.
Here we are in 2023 facing militarized police.
How could a country [like Canada] be called democratic when the people themselves who are supposed to lead the country are silenced and faced with violence and militarized forces?
This country that everybody looks to as a free, open and democratic and welcoming country, that should be challenged. It should be challenged by everybody.”
For updates on the Wet’suwet’en struggle against the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline, please see Gidimt’en Checkpoint on Twitter.
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