In a recent article in The Hill Times, Council of Canadians energy/ climate campaigner Maryam Adrangi says, “When it comes to the actual construction (of the Keystone XL pipeline), what we’re seeing is indigenous communities are (developing) the skills to try and actually stop these projects at the source.”
Why has civil disobedience become necessary?
The continuing violation of Indigenous rights
“Ms. Adrangi said that TransCanada Corp, the Calgary-based company that wants to build the pipeline, and the federal government are violating indigenous rights. ‘Corporations and government are discussing what’s going to happen on people’s lands without (First Nation) consultation and without their consent. …With the history of colonization and the history of land-grabs, corporations, and government behave as if they have a sense of entitlement over what happens on indigenous lands’, Ms. Adrangi said.”
The right to refuse is not respected
“‘Communities that essentially should have the right to say no, don’t’… ‘Nowhere along the lines are people along the pipeline’s route being listened to, so it really could come down to people putting their bodies on the line and people stopping the construction’, Ms. Adrangi.”
At the ‘Defend The Coast’ protest in Victoria last October, Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow said to the more than 3,500 people assembled there, “We have to stand in solidarity with struggles in other parts of this country and in other parts of the continent. A special shout out to the people who are sitting in trees, risking arrest, putting their lives on the line in Texas. We’ve been in touch with the people in Texas and they know this is happening today and they’re very excited and they send their love and solidarity from sitting in the trees high above those bulldozers – and they will not come down!”
For more, please read:
First Nations groups resolute in their opposition to Keystone XL
UPDATE: Tree protest in Texas continues to confound KXL construction
VIDEO: Maude Barlow speaks at ‘no pipelines, no tankers’ protest in Victoria, Oct. 22
NEWS: Barlow sees ‘a new wave of civil disobedience coming’
