Unite for Wet’suwet’en! No to imperialist plunder and occupation.

With the intensified and violent attacks against the Wet’suwet’en First Nations defending their ancestral lands from the entry of multi-billion dollar gas pipeline project of TransCanada’s Coastal GasLink, we are called to stand in solidarity to expose the machinations of the imperialist powers, multinational corporations, the Canadian State and its repressive armed forces, and oppose all attempts to trample the struggle for Wet’suwet’en!

The ILPS Commission 10 strongly condemns the violent attacks resulting in arrests of Wet’suwet’en First Nations, land defenders and journalists by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) following the injunction order by the B.C. Supreme Court that favors Coastal Link to proceed in constructing the Coastal GasLink Pipeline through Unist’ot’en territory.

Historically, the Wet’suwet’en territory – or yintah, with several clans developing, governing and stewarding its protection, including the Unist’ot’en, have always been a site of protest and resistance against the entry of big metal corporations and proposed pipelines. Even before and during British and French colonization up to the establishment of Canada, the First Nations have not surrendered their sovereignty.

But the invasion and conquest of First Nations continue. With the spiraling world capitalist crisis that fuels imperialist powers to ravage all available resources, and to compete in exploring and exploiting the world’s riches for profit, ancestral lands preserved and protected by Indigenous Peoples are prime targets. Just in Wet’suwet’en yintah, Chevron, TransCanada and Enbridge drools in extracting natural gas to supply to U.S. and Asian markets. All these at the expense of the grave threats of environmental degradation that oil fracking poses, on top of the complete violation of habits and customs, forcible interference of their life, governance, and beliefs.

While imperialist conquest expands, the ruling powers and their machineries scrambles in peddling lies on how Indigenous Peoples, National Minorities and marginalized sectors must sacrifice their lands, culture, tradition and self-determination for the greater good, for “asset of national strategic importance”, for “national scaled resource development”and for “economic prosperity”.

And these brilliant catchphrases eventually turn into State policies, laws, and agreements enforced by State’s military and armed forces that don’t second guess to use violence and repression, to erase a whole nation, its culture and identity to clear any “development” obstruction.

In reality, the so-called development narratives can no longer hide how its capitalist model of “development” highlights greater corporate profits (feeding multinational and transnational corporations), piecemeal returns for local social services, and insecure and slave-like employments. In many instances, the State and corporate powers use “development” projects viciously divide tribes and villages, and pit the Indigenous against non-indigenous to skew their united struggle against a common oppressor.

The Wet’suwet’en struggle for self-determination links all Indigenous Peoples and National Minorities discriminated for their unique culture and customs, persecuted for their language, color and identity, and, ultimately, oppressed for defending their lands, resources, and right for a self-determined destiny. To stand with Wet’suwet’en is to stand against these very bases of national oppression.

It then becomes urgent and just to show solidarity from the international community, all the marginalized sectors and oppressed peoples victimized by the same oppressive capitalist system, by the imperialist powers infringing and intervening every nation’s sovereignty and by repressive States that threatens the peoples’ self-determination and liberation.#