This article is more than 7 months old

This article is more than 7 months old

Indigenous activists in Canada have vowed to continue their fight against a multibillion-dollar pipeline project across their traditional territory after three female leaders were arrested by police early on Monday.

Freda Huson, Brenda Michell and Karla Tait were among seven people detained when Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers – backed by helicopters, heavy machinery and dogs – moved in on the remote camp in north-western British Columbia.

Police also dismantled a gate erected by activists to prevent access to Wet’suwet’en territories and stop construction of the proposed 670km (416-mile) Coastal GasLink pipeline (CGL).

The raid on the Unist’ot’en camp came after activists in Vancouver and Ontario launched solidarity protests, blocking commuter rail lines and access to shipping ports in support of the Wet’suwet’en land defenders.

Q&A Who are the Wet’suwet’en? Show Hide The Wet’suwet’en nation have lived on their territories in what is now British Columbia for thousands of years. They have never signed treaties or sold their land to Canada. With a population of about 5,000, the Wet’suwet’en are composed of five clans (Gilseyhu, Likhts’amisyu, Laksilyu, Tsayu and Gidimt’en), which are further divided into 13 house groups, each with its own distinct territories. The Unist’ot’en, the People of the Headwaters, belong to the Gilseyhu clan. Hereditary chiefs are responsible for the health and sustainability of their house group territories, and Wet’suwet’en law prohibits trespass on the territory of other the house groups. Wet’suwet’en people have retained their legal traditions and continue to govern themselves through the Bahtlats (feast hall), where decisions are ratified and clan business is conducted.

In a statement, the activists said the raid was launched while they held a ceremony to honour missing and murdered Indigenous women. “We… know that violence on our lands and violence on our women are connected,” the statement said.

“These arrests don’t intimidate us. Police enforcement doesn’t intimidate us. Colonial courts don’t intimidate us … We are still here. We will always be here. This is not over.”

Amber Bracken (@photobracken) Freda and the women, in ceremony pic.twitter.com/zQXCnRyMVZ

Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, who oversee 22,000 sq km of territory in British Columbia, have refused to allow the company Coastal GasLink access to their lands.

The C$6.6bn (US$5bn) project has the support of 20 elected First Nations councils along the proposed route. Five of the six elected band councils in the Wet’suwet’en nation also support the pipeline. But Wet’suwet’en chiefs say the authority of these groups only applies to reservations – not traditional territory.

Last year, the British Columbia supreme court dealt a blow to the chiefs, granting an injunction in favour of Coastal GasLink, which it said has suffered irreparable harm as a result of sustained opposition to the project. The Wet’suwet’en maintain they never ceded land title to the province or federal government and thus maintain jurisdiction over the territory.

Unist’ot’en, the largest of a series of checkpoints on a service road leading to the site of the proposed pipeline, was constructed in 2009 and is now the site of a permanent “reoccupation” camp and indigenous healing centre.

As police prepared to enforce the injunction, solidarity protests have broken out across Canada. In Vancouver, police arrested 38 protesters on Monday who were part of a group that has halted access to four shipping ports in recent days.

Over the weekend, members of the Tyendinaga Mohawk territory in Ontario parked a dump truck with a snowplow blade near a rail line, halting the Toronto-Ottawa corridor, one of the busiest commuter rail lines in the country. Dozens of trips over the weekend were cancelled.

“[Wet’suwet’en] never had a treaty with Canada. Canada can’t claim it’s their land unless they have a purchase receipt with the crown,” the group said in a statement. “Our position is they are our brethren. We have a relationship with them, and we support them in protecting their territory.”

Via Rail, which operates the country’s commuter rail line, said it would not resume service until the situation in resolved. “We are aware that this situation, which is unfortunately beyond our control, has an impact on our customers and we apologize for the inconvenience this situation is causing,” the company in a statement on Sunday.

Pipeline battle puts focus on Canada's disputed right to use indigenous land Read more

Environmental groups, which have long opposed the liquid natural gas development projects in British Columbia, expressed support for the the protests.

“The cross-Canada protests in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en have helped to keep national attention on the injustices happening on their territory,” Greenpeace said in a statement on Monday. “It’s the kind of vital role that peaceful protest has played throughout history in bearing witness and pressuring politicians to do what is right, not what is convenient.”