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ExxonMobil withdraws from fracking project near Puerto Wilches, Canadian partner expresses disappointment

By
Brent Patterson
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On June 28, 2022, PBI-Canada met with a PBI-Colombia accompanied CREDHOS convened meeting of social leaders in Puerto Wilches and heard their determination to stop fracking and to defend life, water and territory.

Their concerns included the Platero fracking pilot project backed by the Canadian company Sintana Energy Inc.

This pilot project was one of two that were to happen near their community.

Now, Blu Radio reports: “The US oil company Exxon Mobil notified Sintana Energy Inc. of the suspension of a joint operating contract (JOA) it had with the subsidiary Patriot Energy Oil and Gas Inc., in Colombia.”

The article also notes: “The notice also states that Exxon Mobil will withdraw from the contract with the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) after obtaining approvals [signed in June 2021] from the national government. The company specifies that both the JOA and the contract with the ANH belong to a block of 17,465 hectares known as VMM-37 that is located in Puerto Wilches, in Santander.”

El Heraldo adds: “The international oil company is withdrawing from the operation of the fracking pilot called Platero with the company Patriot Energy Oil and Gas Inc, a subsidiary of Sintana. The measure will be effective as of May 31, 2023.”

Platero was to take place on Block VMM-37.

Sintana Energy Chief Executive Officer Doug Manner says: “We are disappointed that our VMM-37 partner for more than a decade, ExxonMobil, has voluntarily chosen to withdraw from both the JOA and Contract. Management has engaged legal and technical advisors for assistance in addressing this unexpected change of events”.

The company’s media release also notes: “The Company fully reserves its rights under the contracts governing VMM-37 and applicable laws and regulations.”

Another media release from Sintana Energy dated April 16, 2021, also confirms that VMM-37 refers to the “Project Platero” fracking pilot project and that Sintana’s wholly-owned subsidiary Patriot “holds an undivided 30% non-operated participation interest in a Contract for Exploration and Production for Block VMM-37.”

Sintana describes itself as: “a Canadian crude oil and natural gas (‘hydrocarbons”) exploration and development company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (“TSXV”).” It also notes that it has an office at “82 Richmond Street East, Suite 201, Toronto, Ontario M5C 1P1.”

The Platero fracking pilot project proposal was first submitted to the Colombian National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) on March 17, 2021.

The ANH gave its provisional approval of that proposal on March 31, 2021.

The application for the Platero project was then filed with the National Environmental Licensing Authority (ANLA) on February 15, 2022.

Threats against environmental defenders opposed to fracking

In 2019, the State Council, Colombia’s high court for administrative law issues, allowed for fracking pilot projects.

Following that decision there has been a rise in threats and violence against anti-fracking activists in Puerto Wilches.

On a PBI-Canada organized webinar in April 2021, Morales stated: “When we became a problem for the oil companies, those interested in promoting fracking and its economic benefits, they started to threaten, stigmatize, and silence us.”

Mongabay also reports: “The ACLF [the Colombia Free of Fracking Alliance] recorded 20 cases in the first four months of 2022, mostly targeting young women.”

We welcome the news of ExxonMobil withdrawing from the Platero project particularly given the threats faced by environmental defenders.

Letter signed by land defenders and 50+ organizations calling for the abolition of the C-IRG delivered to the Prime Minister’s Office

By
Brent Patterson
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Peace Brigades International-Canada helped to organize a mobilization in Ottawa today to help amplify the release of this letter calling for an end to violence against land defenders by the RCMP community-industry response group (C-IRG).

The gathering was held outside the Prime Minister’s Office.

The letter says: “We call on the Province of British Columbia, the provincial Ministry of Public Safety and the Solicitor General, the federal Ministry of Public Safety and Prime Minister’s Office, and RCMP ‘E’ Division to immediately disband the C-IRG.”

It explains: “The Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) was formed by the RCMP in 2017 in response to anticipated Indigenous resistance to industrial resource operations in the province of British Columbia (BC), specifically the Coastal Gaslink and Trans Mountain pipelines. C-IRG’s operations have since expanded past the energy industry to forestry and hydro operations.”

It then adds: “We submit that there is no set of reforms that would make it acceptable for Canada to have a paramilitary force designed specifically to manage the assertion of inherent and constitutionally protected Indigenous rights in the face of unwanted development. The C-IRG should not exist, and it needs to be disbanded entirely.”

And the letter highlights that the people who have been unlawfully arrested, detained and assaulted by the C-IRG “were exercising protected rights to protest non-consensual corporate extraction and pipeline construction activities on the basis that these corporate activities cause irremediable damage to Indigenous, environmental, and community rights.”

The speakers at the mobilization included human rights lawyer Shivangi Misra and Fairy Creek frontline activist Kyla Wills (via recorded message).

Among the signatories of the letter: Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’moks, Gidimt’en Checkpoint spokesperson Sleydo’, Tiny House Warriors, Autonomous Sinixt, Indigenous Climate Action, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, 350.org, Greenpeace Canada, Idle No More, Rights Action, Keepers of Water, MiningWatch Canada, and Community Peacemaker Teams.

The letter and complete list of 50+ signatories can be read here.

Secwepemc land defender Kanahus Manuel, criminalized for her resistance to TMX pipeline, in court on April 17-18

By
Brent Patterson
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Secwepemc land defender Kanahus Manuel is in court this week facing charges in relation to her resistance to the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline now being built on unceded Secwepemc territory without free, prior and informed consent.

From her social media posts at @KanahusFreedom, we see her write:

April 17

– “Tiny House Warriors/ Trans Mountain pipeline TRIAL DAY 1: 3 crown witnesses testified against me today with over 100+ years of joined experience with the RCMP. The RCMP have become the oil mercenaries for #TransMountain pipeline.”

– “The crown witnesses they put on trial so far have a combined 70+ years with the RCMP before they became oil mercenaries for #canada!”

– “The amount of financial resources TMX and government of #canada spend to criminalize me and other Indigenous land defenders! #stopTMX”

– “Peter Haring former RCMP now top TMX security is here @ Kamloops court to lead the crowns witnesses in trial against me. My sister @Snutetkwe had to leave since her court conditions state no direct or indirect contact with Peter Haring for other bogus politically-motivated charge.”

April 15

– “This is linked to the 2-day trial I am forced into on Monday 17 and Tuesday 18, they arrested me at canada/us international border for a new breach of bail warrant, I heard about new warrant while at World Peace and Prayer Day with Chief Arvol Looking Horse.”

– “Land Back is real. Me and my family have been taking land back and asserting our Secwepemc title and rights to our Unceded Secwepemc Lands and we are being criminalized for doing Land Back! I am now having to face a 2-day trial for this breach of conditions.”

July 5, 2022

– “I was in Florida in ceremony when the crown 🇨🇦 issued an endorsed warrant for an Aug 31, 2021 breach of conditions related to TMX pipeline charge (under appeal). Why did they wait until I was 5000+ km away and 11 months later to issue this warrant?”

– “I was arrested at the Canada-US border for this TMX pipeline warrant.”

Legal support fund

To contribute to the legal fund for Kanahus Manuel click here. That appeal says: “Kanahus is forced into a 2-day trial at Kamloops Court House on April 17th & 18th, 2023, please contribute to support the hardships that come with fighting for her lands and territories.”

C-IRG ON SECWEPEMC TERRITORY

Molly Murphy has written in Briarpatch magazine: “According to [John] Brewer [the Gold Commander of the RCMP community-industry response group], the C-IRG has been deployed at Fairy Creek, where forest defenders are protecting ancient and sacred old-growth trees; on Wet’suwet’en territory, where land defenders are blocking the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline; at fish farms, where Indigenous activists have camped out to protect wild salmon populations; at the Site C hydroelectric dam, which local Indigenous Nations have opposed because it violates Treaty 8; and on Coast Salish territory at Burnaby Mountain and on Secwepemc territory, where land defenders are resisting the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.”

On April 29, 2022, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination wrote to Canada’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva. That letter says: “The information received [by the Committee] specifies in particular that the Tiny House Warriors, a group of Secwepemc women, have been the target of surveillance and intimidation, and that numerous Secwepemc and Wet’suwet’en peaceful land defenders have been victims of violent evictions and arbitrary detentions by the RCMP, the CIRG and private security personnel in several occasions since the Committee’s letter to the State party, dated 24 November 2020.”

In January 2023, CBC reported that the C-IRG has spent $3,535,542.00 on enforcement in relation to the Trans Mountain pipeline.

APTN has also reported: “Unlike on Wet’suwet’en territory or Fairy Creek, the C-IRG hasn’t conducted full-on raids for Trans Mountain. But that doesn’t mean it’s been ruled out. Force has been contemplated, but “police believe this could escalate the situation,” according to internal B.C. government memos from November 2021 obtained through FOI [Freedom of Information].”

Kanahus Manuel says: “The RCMP are just in a colonial occupation of our lands. Instead of dealing with the real underlying issues, the fundamental issues around land and jurisdiction, they want to continue to just handcuff us.”

PBI-Canada is part of the Abolish C-IRG coalition, a grouping of land defenders, frontline activists, professors, lawyers, students, settler allies and non-governmental organizations. For more on this new coalition, click here.

PBI-Canada webinar on frontline experiences with RCMP C-IRG violence

By
Brent Patterson
-

On April 16, PBI-Canada hosted a webinar that highlighted community experiences with violence inflicted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG).

To watch the 1-hour video of this webinar, click here.

The webinar featured:

– Jocey Alec, a Wet’suwet’en land defender and water protector. She is the daughter of Dinï ze’ (Hereditary Chief) Woos. She was arrested by the C-IRG on her territory last month.

– Tia Dafnos, an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick. Her research interests intersect in three core areas: Policing, security and pacification; Racialization and colonialism; and Resistance, protest, and social movements.

– Louis Bockner, a Canadian photographer and writer living on the unceded traditional territory of the Sinixt First Nation. He has written about the C-IRG at the Argenta blockade for The Narwhal: I watched my mom get arrested at a logging blockade (June 9, 2022).

– Molly Murphy, a front-line activist, builder, settler, and mother of three. She has written in collaboration with Research for the Front Lines about the C-IRG for Briarpatch magazine: The C-IRG: the resource extraction industry’s best ally (January 5, 2022).

The webinar was moderated by Phil Henderson, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Carleton University and a member of the PBI-Canada Board of Directors.

PBI-Canada is part of Abolish C-IRG, a new coalition of frontline defenders, lawyers, professors, researchers, students, non-profits and settler allies.

The RCMP C-IRG on Wet’suwet’en territory, November 2021.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies CCDA-Verapaces at hearing as Q’eqchi’ communities are criminalized over land rights on ancestral territories

By
Brent Patterson
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On April 14, PBI-Guatemala posted:

“#PBI accompanies members of the CCDA-Verapaces [Campesino Committee of the Highlands] to the hearing of the Manantial case. The case consists of the prosecution of a community that has been settled on land – now in dispute – for more than 20 years. Now, this process has been opened in which they are accused of disturbing possession.

The lawyer considers that this is a case of criminalisation, since the channels for resolving agrarian conflicts have not been exhausted and the case has been taken directly to the criminal courts.”

PBI-Guatemala has previously explained: “The CCDA of the Verapaces accompanies some 150 Q’eqchi communities, supporting them in the resolution of conflicts related to the possession of the land they inhabit.”

The Guardian has also reported: “A peace agreement in 1996 should have led to land redistribution, but a handful of powerful families still dominates the economy, and Guatemala remains one of the world’s least equal and most violent countries, with the largest 2.5% of farms occupying more than 65% of the land.”

And the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has previously reported that there is a “pattern of human rights violations when evictions are carried out” in the country. The IACHR says: “The Maya Q’eqchi’ and Poqomchi’ peoples from the targeted communities have been fighting for the State to recognise their right to their land and ancestral territories. The State’s response – in alliance with powerful private actors – has been repression and criminalisation. This in turn contributes to the rising violence and conflict in the communities and region, and is in direct contradiction to the human rights treaties.”

PBI-Guatemala began accompanying the Comité Campesino del Altiplano/Campesino Committee of the Highlands/ CCDA – The Verapaces in July 2018. Las Verapaces is the region formed by the departments of Alta Verapaz and Baja Verapaz.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies CCR water defenders as judicial coercive measures require them to sign-in every 30 days

By
Brent Patterson
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On April 14, PBI-Guatemala posted:

“#PBI accompanies the 4 criminalised defenders from the Council of Communities of Retalhuleu (CCR) to the signing of the book in the Peace Court, Champerico. This coercive measure is part of the judicial process they face for defending the right to water and a dignified life of more than 70 communities in Champerico and Retalhuleu.”

Back in September 2021, PBI-Guatemala had also posted:

“PBI accompanies the Council of Communities of Retalhuleu (CCR) in the hearing of the criminal proceedings against four people defending water. After more than four years of criminalization, the members of the CCR are still tied to the process and were given back the coercive measures to sign an assistance book every 30 days.”

Criminalized by sugar mills

PBI-Guatemala has previously explained: “The Council of Communities of Retalhuleu (CCR) consists of more than 18 communities in the department of Retalhuleu (mainly in the municipality of Champerico). They began to organize in 2015 because of the adverse effects caused by the expansion of the monoculture of sugar and the use of large-scale agrochemicals and pesticides used by the mills in the region.”

In November 2019, Panorama Noticias reported: “Allegations of violations of the right to water, food and environmental pollution by the communities of the South Coast led to four defenders being criminalized by the mills of El Pilar and Magdalena. The Court of First Instance of Retalhuleu terminated a case in which they were accused, however, the case was appealed by sugar mills and the defenders were linked to the process.”

They are charged with illegal detention, coercion and threats. The accusations come from El Pilar and Magdalena, but Magdalena subsequently withdrew from the case.

Abelino Mejía Cancino, a member of the CCR’s Board of Directors and one of those criminalized, has commented that the purpose of this criminalization is to wear people down physically and psychologically, so that they abandon their demands.

Sugar exports to Canada

As seen in the chart below, Canada is one of the largest importers of sugar grown in Guatemala.

Abelino Mejia Cancino has commented: “We need people to realize that when they consume sugar, it has an impact on the life of the communities and on the right to water for all. We call for the consumption of what is healthy and good produced by the campesinos and not products made by the big companies.”

PBI webinar with CCR water defender

On March 13, 2022, Abelino Mejia Cancino joined a PBI-Canada organized webinar on Defending the right to water from harm by the sugar industry in Guatemala.

The webinar was hosted by Toronto-based PBI-Canada Board member Marianna Tzabiras and also featured Brussels-based Kerstin Reemtsma from PBI-Guatemala.

The Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project began accompanying the Council of Communities of Retalhuleu (CCR) in April 2020.

Water protectors criminalized for defending Wedzin Kwa, now CGL reports drilling has resulted in two bentonite clay spills

By
Brent Patterson
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Video: “The only violence that happens here on our territories is at the hands of the state and at the hands of the RCMP. At the hands of the people that are directing the RCMP to bring violence into our communities, to criminalize us, to harass us, to surveil us, to jail us, and essentially to commit genocide. If we don’t have our land, if don’t have our water, if we don’t have a future, our people aren’t going to want to live.” – Wet’suwet’en water protector Sleydo’.

CBC reports: “The B.C. Energy Regulator (BCER) is investigating after Coastal GasLink (CGL) reported two spills of clay lubricant while it was tunnelling under the Morice River to build a natural gas pipeline through northern British Columbia.”

The drill lubricant is bentonite clay.

The article adds: “Bentonite clay is fine particulate slurry used to install pipeline in the tunnelling process being used at the Morice River crossing. Turbidity — high levels of sediment suspended in water — can be deadly to fish and their eggs and destructive of habitat.”

In this brief statement, CGL provided few details on the spills and downplayed the impact: “One of the two clay deposits was identified in a small tributary on the west side of the Morice River. With winter conditions still present, there is little water flow in the tributary. The other deposit was located on land and has been isolated.”

Drilling began in September

The drilling under Wedzin Kwa began in September 2022.

CGL had said the tunnelling time could take up to three months. It’s unclear why that work is not complete almost seven months after the drilling started.

Hereditary Chief says “drill stuck”

On April 5, Hereditary Chief Gisdaywa from the Wet’suwet’en nation told RBC, the lead financier of the CGL pipeline, that the drill under Wedzin Kwa is stuck. Stand.earth tweeted: “This has not been shared to the public yet.”

Stand.earth also noted: “This is 1 week after raids on Wet’suwet’en yintah.”

C-IRG violence against water protectors

The RCMP community-industry response group (C-IRG) has conducted four raids on Wet’suwet’en territory against water protectors defending Wedzin Kwa.

In the summer of 2022, RCMP Inspector Ken Floyd, the commander of the C-IRG, had spoken to the Board of Directors of the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako. Houston Today later reported: “Minutes of the meeting kept by the regional district indicate that as CGL increases activity, there will be a requirement by the police to escalate care of the workers and to improve response times ‘in the area to accommodate the risk’.”

Tweet by Michael Toledano.

In September 2022, Yintah Access posted: “In advance of CGL’s drilling operations, Wet’suwet’en community members have faced increased surveillance and harassment from RCMP’s C-IRG unit (a police unit created to facilitate pipeline construction) and a series of private security contractors. Wet’suwet’en village sites remain under 24 hour surveillance, while police have made several arbitrary violent arrests, including with pepper spray.”

On November 4, 2022, Wet’suwe’ten Hereditary Chief Na’Moks was threatened with arrest by CGL security, supported by RCMP C-IRG Staff Sergeant Jason Charney, when he attempted to exercise his territorial right to observe the drill pad site at Wedzin Kwa.

Video: Charney on Wet’suwet’en territory, October 9, 2021.

Photo: In a recent CBC interview, RCMP C-IRG Gold Commander John Brewer says he stands by his unit’s tactics.

On March 9, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC) announced it would be undertaking a “systemic investigation” of the C-IRG including their actions in relation to “the Coastal GasLink Ltd injunction on Wet’suwet’en traditional territory”.

“Genocide in action”

Wet’suwet’en water protector Sleydo’ has described the CGL pipeline as genocidal. A genocide financed by RBC and facilitated by the RCMP C-IRG.

She explained: “Our identity as Indigenous peoples is tied to the land, to our water, to the fact that we harvest salmon every year. We know that the people who are killing themselves are the people who don’t have that connection to who they are as an Indigenous person. And if we don’t have that our people will die. And that’s the genocide.”

Defund CGL, abolish the C-IRG

Wet’suwet’en water protectors backed by allies have been calling on RBC to defund CGL. The Wet’suwet’en made this appeal at the RBC shareholders meeting in Saskatoon on April 5. Rather than being admitted into the main room with shareholders, land defenders and hereditary chiefs were segregated into a “second-class room”.

A new Abolish C-IRG coalition comprised of land defenders, frontline activists, lawyers, professors, students, settler-allies and organizations is also calling for an end to C-IRG violence against water protectors.

To join a webinar on Sunday April 16 on RCMP C-IRG violence against environmental defenders, that will feature Wet’suwet’en water protector Jocey Alec, click here. 200+ people have already registered for this webinar, please join them in this important discussion.

If you are on Algonquin territory/Ottawa, you can join a protest in front of the Prime Minister’s Office on Wednesday April 19 calling for the abolition of the C-IRG.

For more on previous bentonite spills in the Fraser River with the TMX pipeline, in twelve river crossings in Minnesota with the Line 3 pipeline, and in the Withlacoochee River in Georgia with the Sabal Trail pipeline: Wet’suwet’en water protectors oppose Coastal GasLink micro-tunneling gas pipeline under sacred Wedzin Kwa river (January 9, 2022).

PBI-Guatemala accompanies Human Rights Law Firm at hearing on evictions that preceded the police killing of three Q’eqchi’ community members

By
Brent Patterson
-

On April 13, PBI-Guatemala posted:

“#PBI accompanies the Human Rights Law Firm to the hearing on the presentation of evidence of the #SamocochCase.

In the course of the hearing the technical defense presented three witnesses, who witnessed the evictions of August 14 and 15, 2014. In addition, one of the accused gave statement about their involvement in the facts investigated.”

PBI-Guatemala has previously explained: “More than 20 PNC officers are accused of extrajudicial execution, non-compliance with duties and abuse of authority for having caused the death of three Q’eqchi’ community members from Samococh village in Chisec, Alta Verapaz, during a demonstration [on August 15, 2014].”

The demonstration appears to have been against the Santa Rita hydroelectric dam on the Dolores River in Alta Verapaz.

Truthout explains: “In Monte Olivo, the state used its full force against the community. On August 14, 2014, 600 police units were deployed to evict a community of a few hundred families along the River Dolores. …In the following days, two other communities, 9 de Febrero and Samococh, both faced similar violent evictions to make way for the dam. These communities were driven out by 1,600 police units, and 22 community leaders were detained.”

Prensa Libre further notes: “The PNC agents who arrived came from Cobán, where the Public Ministry successfully evicted some 160 families who were occupying the Santa Rita and Santa Rita Xalahá Canguini farms. In the first community [Santa Rita], families lived to avoid the construction of a hydroelectric plant [that lacked their free, prior and informed consent].”

Truthout adds: “The Guatemalan-based company Hydro Electrical Santa Rita S.A., owned by the elite López-Roesch family, first proposed the Santa Rita hydro project in 2009. The powerful and influential cement company Cementos Progreso, owned by the Guatemalan Novella family, is reported to also have interests in the project.”

The three community members killed were Sebastian Rax Caal, 29; Luciano Can Cujub, 40; and Oscar Chen Quej, 22.

We continue to follow this.

PBI-Colombia accompanies the Justice and Peace Commission at dialogue with Afro-Colombian communities impacted by Operation Genesis

By
Brent Patterson
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On April 13, PBI-Colombia tweeted:

“We accompany @Justiciaypazcol [the Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace] in the #Cacarica [river basin] in the dialogue between the ethnic communities victims #Cavida [the Community of Self-Determination, Life, and Dignity of Cacarica] and #Clamores and the State, 10 years after the sentence of @CorteIDH [Inter-American Court of Human Rights], in the presentation of a dialogue plan for reparation collective towards #peace and #justice.”

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled in 2013 that the State violated the American Convention on Human Rights when the Colombian armed forces attacked inhabitants of the Cacarica river basin during an offensive that took place on February 24 through February 27, 1997, called Operation Genesis.

PBI-Colombia has explained: “Operation Genesis included the participation of the Army, Navy, Airforce and National Police, in coordination with paramilitaries from the Cordoba and Uraba Self Defence Forces (AUC). The military and paramilitary operation resulted in over 70 crimes, including murders and enforced disappearances. As a result, around 3,500 people from the 23 communities of the Cacarica river basin were forcibly displaced.”

WOLA has also noted: “Operation Genesis formed part of a larger paramilitary political effort to displace Afro-Colombians from their territories to facilitate the entry and expansion of oil palm plantations throughout the department of Choco.”

Two years after their displacement in February 1997, the communities of Cacarica obtained collective ownership of their lands, to which they returned in 2000. There, they established the Community of Self-Determination, Life, and Dignity of Cacarica (CAVIDA).

The PBI-Colombia Project has accompanied the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission since 1994.

PBI-Canada supports gathering outside the Prime Minister’s Office calling for the abolition of the RCMP C-IRG, April 19

By
Brent Patterson
-

Peace Brigades International-Canada is supporting the call for the abolition of the controversial RCMP “community-industry response group” (C-IRG).

Local activists will be gathering on Algonquin territory (Ottawa) on Wednesday April 19 at 12 noon to help amplify an about-to-be-released letter from the recently formed Abolish C-IRG coalition that includes frontline land defenders, professors, students, lawyers, non-governmental organizations and allies. 

This Facebook event page notes:

“Help protect land defenders experiencing police violence by supporting the call to abolish the RCMP community-industry response group (C-IRG).

Hear speakers, help amplify a letter coming from a new coalition calling for the abolition of the C-IRG, and have a piece of ‘Cut the C-IRG!’ cake.

This gathering is taking place on unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin territory.”

The speakers will include Kyla Wills, a frontline activist who was at Fairy Creek, and Shivangi Misra, a human rights lawyer, formerly with the Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA), and one of the authors of the FAFIA report on the RCMP. Other speakers will be announced soon.

12 reasons to be concerned about the C-IRG

We are concerned that:

1- has failed to recognize the Supreme Court of Canada Delgamuukw decision (1997) that established that the Wet’suwet’en nation has a system of law that predates Canada’s Indian Act and that under traditional Wet’suwet’en law the hereditary chiefs are responsible for decisions regarding ancestral lands.

2- was prepared to use lethal force and “as much violence toward the gate as you want” in their January 2019 raid against unarmed land defenders on Wet’suwet’en territory. The Guardian has documented this in their article titled Exclusive: Canada police prepared to shoot Indigenous activists, documents show.

3- has been accused of “a systemic disregard for Indigenous rights and sovereignty and the [Canadian] Charter [of Rights and Freedoms] more generally” in a court application by twelve Wet’suwet’en land defenders.

4- was censured in this 2021 court ruling that found their “exclusion zones, checkpoints, searches, and restrictions on media members clearly interfere with important liberties, including freedom of movement, freedom of expression (including freedom of the press), and freedom of peaceful assembly.”

5- was criticized by numerous United Nations Special Rapporteurs, including the Special Rapporteur on the issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, for allegations that it has “continued to raid Wet’suwet’en encampments, dumping drinking water and violating COVID safety measures by not wearing masks or observing safe social distancing practices.”

6- is being sued in British Columbia’s Supreme Court for wrongful arrest, wrongful detention and violation of the Charter rights of photojournalist Amber Bracken and The Narwhal.

7- has used, as confirmed by APTN News, “so-called pain compliance techniques, which included gouging a protester’s eyes with a face hold, at Fairy Creek.” Allegations also include “intimidation, torture, brutality, harassment, racism, theft, destruction of property, arbitrary detention, inhumanity, lying and deceit.”

8- physically restrained and forcibly cut a cedar bracelet and medicine bag from Wet’suwet’en land defender Sleydo’ as about ten officers watched.

9- “humiliated and degraded” Mohawk land defender Layla Staats by winking at her when she was handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser after she was arrested at a blockade on Wet’suwet’en territory.

10- refuses to respect the Gitxsan hereditary chiefs’ decision to ban this “militarized squadron” from their unceded lands.

11- will receive at least $36 million in provincial government funding despite being investigated by the federal Civilian Review and Complaints Commission to see if their actions are consistent with “the standards and expectations set by Bill C‑15, An Act respecting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the British Columbia Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) and the calls for justice from the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry (MMIWG).”

12- has not withdrawn from Wet’suwet’en territory as repeatedly urged by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Help stop violence against land defenders by joining this event on Algonquin territory (Ottawa) on Wednesday April 19 at 12 noon outside the Prime Minister’s Office.

The RCMP C-IRG on Wet’suwet’en territory, November 19, 2021.

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