Canada: protests go mainstream as support for Wet'suwet'en pipeline fight widens
Source: The Guardian
Canada: protests go mainstream as support for Wet'suwet'en pipeline fight widens
Protesters have blocked railways and barricaded ports in wave of dissent – and the pressure on Justin Trudeau has increased
Amber Bracken at Unist'ot'en Camp and Leyland Cecco in Toronto
Fri 14 Feb 2020 10.30 GMT
Last modified on Fri 14 Feb 2020 16.08 GMT
As armed Canadian police officers advanced through snow towards their camp, the group of Indigenous women was absorbed in a drumming ceremony to honour the spirits of missing and murdered Indigenous women across the country.
Rows of red dresses hung from a fishing line slung across the road, and from pine and spruce trees in the surrounding forest – each one a memorial to the thousands of Indigenous women killed or disappeared in recent years
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But the camp in north-western British Columbia is also the last line of defence in the Wet’suwet’en nation’s fight against a controversial natural gas pipeline.
The long-simmering conflict came to a head this week, as Canada’s national police force deployed helicopters, armed officers and dogs to enforce a court injunction and clear Indigenous activists who had been blocking work crews from the route of the C$6.6bn (US$5bn) Coastal GasLink project.
Twenty-eight people were arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, including three Wet’suwet’en matriarchs – Tait, Freda Huson and Brenda Michell.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/14/wetsuweten-coastal-gaslink-pipeline-allies
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