Brazil's Indigenous Women at Biodiversity Convention in Colombia

Indigenous women leaders from Brazil and WECAN at the UN Biodiversity Convention in Colombia today

'We are the Guardians of the Planet'

Deputy Célia Xakriabá (Xakriabá), Federal Deputy in Brazilian Congress in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, and co-founder of the National Articulation of Indigenous Women Warriors of Ancestrality (ANMIGA), Brazil (Screenshot Censored News)

Indigenous Women from Brazil: Calls for Action to Protect Biodiversity, Indigenous Rights and Climate

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Oct. 24, 2024

CALI, Colombia -- Indigenous women leaders from Brazil defending their rivers, forests and people, spoke with courage and the fire of their ancestors at the United Nations Biodiversity Convention.

"We sing because when we sing together, we don't feel that we are alone," said Deputy Célia Xakriabá, Federal Deputy in Brazilian Congress, and co-founder of the National Articulation of Indigenous Women Warriors of Ancestrality.

"All of our lands, all of our rivers are being murdered," Xakriaba said during the press conference today of Women's Earth and Climate Action Network.

CANADA: Rail Blockade in Second Week in Solidarity with Wet'suwet'en

Kahnawake Mohawk Rail Blockade: Red Dresses for Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women
Photo Mohawk Nation News

Tyendinaga Mohawk Rail Blockade photo by Christi Belcourt.

TOWetsuwetenSolidarity said, "Check out the huge crowd now present at the Vaughan Rail Blockade (just north of Toronto) in solidarity with #WetsuwetenStrong. Almost 2 hours in, blocking all trains going west to Hamilton, London, New York and Michigan."

Shut Down Canada is in the second week, with trains shut down and ports stalled

Article by Brenda Norrell

Censored News

Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020
Updated Feb. 16, 2020

Rail blockades across Canada are now in the second week. VIA Rail announced it has shut down its nationwide system because of the blockades. Tyendinaga and Kahnawake Mohawks said the rail blockades near Toronto and Montreal will continue until Canadian police, RCMP, and Coastal GasLink leave the land of the Wet'suwet'en on the western side of the country.

After days of arrests with high-powered weapons, dogs and helicopters, resulting in the arrest of a small group of women in prayer, RCMP dismantled camps and attacked peaceful land defenders of the Wet'suwet'en protecting their homes and homeland from the destruction of the gas pipeline and its toxic man camps.

"There’s still a heavy cop presence on the territory. Multiple cop vehicles patrolling a 40km stretch of logging road leading to Unistoten. They’re stopping all vehicles except for industry. Govt doesn’t seem to hear the Wet’suwet’en. All Rcmp off the territory," Rob said on Twitter this morning.

Christi Belcourt reports this morning from the frontline of the Tyendinaga Mohawk blockade. The federal Indigenous Services Minister met at the tracks on Saturday morning with Mohawks.

Kanenhariyo Seth LeFort said, “Words are powerful but actions are meaningful. Your country hasn’t treated us well. There is a suspicion that there will be a trick here. That what you say will be different than what you do. Your ancestors came here and were not in a position of power. When they met us we gave them medicine. We helped them. There is a want or desire to pretend you came here and dominated us but that isn’t true. There was a time when we were strong and you were weak. I don’t mean to highjack you. But we’re concerned there will be a trick. There will be an attempt that so says the Indians aren’t being fair.”

“The foundation of our relationship is based on this. We are in our ship and all our ways are there. You are in your ship with your customs. And your courts and laws over yourselves. And we were not supposed to steer each other’s vessel. You stole our children to wipe our mind so they didn’t remember about this. But for 100 years you did the same thing to your own children. You wiped their minds of our relationship. If we are to continue forward we can only do that on the basis of the relationship our ancestors had with each other. And if we can’t respect that relationship with each other then we can’t talk. Because we will be dominated and we are small. It’s our treaty together. All of us. Together. And the animals. We are not separate. You too.”

Listen to Christi Belcourt live this morning.

MLT Blog Kahnawake Rail Blockade near Montreal

Kahnawake Rail Blockade Ready for the Long Haul

MLT Blog reports, "As land protectors continue to come out in support of the Wet'suwet'en people of British Columbia, Canada has been paralyzed. After the RCMP began making arrests to break up blockades of worksites for the Coastal GasLink pipeline, which would pass through unceded territory, groups took up in protest across the country. Now, new blockades have managed to indefinitely suspend rail services in several provinces, in addition to all but two VIA Rail train lines.

https://www.mtlblog.com/news/canada/qc/montreal/wetsuweten-solidarity-protest-in-kahnawake-ready-for-the-long-haul-photos

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Listuguj First Nation holds strong in support of Wet’suwet’en

Residents of the Mi'gmaq First Nation of Listuguj, in Quebec’s Gaspé region are holding strong in support of the Wet’suwet’en.
"About five or six people from the Mi'kmaq community of Listuguj, about 525 kilometres northeast of Quebec City by the New Brunswick border, have set up a campsite a few feet away from the tracks, said Eric Dube, president of the Chemin de fer de la Gaspesie." More here.

RCMP sniper during arrest of Wet'suwet'en from video by land defender.

RCMP also confirm that one of their officers used a rifle scope to observe members of the Wet’suwet’en and their supporters at one of the occupation camps. Read more.

Prime Minister Trudeau in Germany says he will not force RCMP to end rail blockades, but leaves it up to RCMP.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged those demonstrating in solidarity with hereditary chiefs of Wet’suwet’en Nation to ease up blockades along rail lines on Friday, but motioned that the federal government does not have plans to order RCMP action.“We are not a country where politicians can order the police to do something, we are a country that has confidence in its police forces and allows them to do their work in the scope of these blockades,” Trudeau said, while speaking to reporters in Germany." Read more.

Meanwhile, Ricochet reports today that Sol Zanetti, Quebec Solidaire member of the National Assembly for Jean-Lesage, said in a press release that Zanetti is joining the solidarity rally with the Wetsuweten in front of the National Assembly today. The issue is picking up in francophone Quebec."

Read more:

More than 60 shipping vessels stalled off B.C. coast due to rail blockades

Previous story at Censored News:
Censored News: Rail Blockades Shut Down Train System in Canada

Six Land Defenders Violently Arrested on Wet’suwet’en Territories

Jesse Winter Photography

Six Land Defenders Violently Arrested on Wet’suwet’en Territories

http://unistoten.camp/six-land-defenders-violently-arrested-on-wetsuweten-territories/

[Breaking story, info incoming] February 6, 2020:

Six people have been arrested and several others, including members of the press, have been detained and removed from Wet’suwet’en territories in an aggressive pre-dawn raid by RCMP on behalf of Coastal GasLink (TC Energy). Reports and footage are coming in from the siege. Dogs were used, media was banned from filming arrests. Militarized police with night vision and automatic weapons raided the camp in the dead of night.

Transcript of Molly Wickham's statement

Straight

"It’s 5 o’clock in the morning here and we got word at about 3 in the morning 13 RCMP officers went up to past 27 and are headed to 39. And then about two minutes we were informed they had made their first arrest at 39 kilometres at the support camp where nobody is in violation of the injunction and are just there to witness what’s going to be happening on the territory today—what people are doing and what the RCMP activity is there.

"So they’re starting to clear out that camp, arresting people that aren’t in violating any injunction—that are following Wet’suwet’en law, that are guests on our territory. Guests there on our territory. Indigenous people and nonindigenous people out in the dark here at 5 in the morning out on the territory.

"So we’re calling all of our supporters, all of our people, to get ready, get prepared, get here as soon as you can.

"Come to the territory, to the Morice River Forest Service Road. Come watch what’s happening. Come support us.

"Anybody who can’t get here, it’s time to rise up. It’s time to stand up for all Indigenous people all across Turtle Island. It’s time to make it known that Indigenous people will not be oppressed any longer—that the RCMP can’t come in and remove us from our territories, that they have no legitimacy on stolen Indigenous land.

"And that we have a right and a responsibility to be protecting our territory. To be protecting our water. To be protecting our future generations.

"The state—so-called Canada, so-called B.C.—they have no jurisdiction on Wet’suwet’en land. The RCMP have no jurisdiction on Wet’suwet’en land. They’re invading our people again. starting in the wee hours of the morning, arresting people who have been providing food and medical supplies to our camps, who are camped out along the side of the ride doing amazing and righteous work. And right now, they’re being arrested and they’re being removed.

"So wherever you are, everybody who stands with us, we need you now. We need you to take a stand where you are.

"Stand up and fight back against this kind of oppression, against our people, against our territories. If you’re nearby and you’re close, come to us. Come to territory and be with us and witness what’s going to be happening today and over the next several days.

"I am going to provide another update as soon as I get another update.  

"And light your sacred fires. We need your prayers. We need you to call on your ancestors and call on all the ancestors that every fought and stood up for their territory—everybody who ever fought and stood up for their children and their land and their people. That we could here today still fighting. And that we’ll be here today and tomorrow and forever, still fighting.

"And we’ll never, ever, ever give up."

The RCMP have made six arrests on Gidimt'en territories; a police exclusion zone has been implemented on unceded Wet'suwet'en lands; Indigenous people are being forcefully removed from their territories by a colonial and violent state.

Stand with the Wet'suwet'en.

Actions confirmed in:

BAY AREA
BELLINGHAM
CALGARY
COURTENAY
ECUADOR
GODERICH
HALIFAX
KINGSTON
LONDON
NELSON
OTTAWA
MONTREAL
TOFINO
TORONTO
VANCOUVER
VICTORIA
YELLOWKNIFE

https://www.facebook.com/events/221856442184296/?notif_t=plan_user_joined&notif_id=1581005968297837

Gidimt’en Checkpoint
@Gidimten  13 RCMP units descended on Wet’suwet’en territories at 3am this morning - and the first arrests were made at approximately 5am.

More at VICE

The first sound was a snowmobile, somewhere in the distance.

Then, with no warning, a dozen RCMP vehicles, including prisoner vans and RCMP-branded Suburbans, roared out of the pre-dawn darkness and stopped just short of the watch camp where Wet’suwet’en land defenders have been resisting a court-ordered evacuation of their lands to make way for a pipeline. Continue reading https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/qjdjaq/rcmp-are-raiding-wetsuweten-land-defender-camps

VIDEO Indigenous Women Land Defenders at U.N. New York

Tokata Iron Eyes, 14-year-old Dakota, is among youths who first brought attention to Dakota Access Pipeline threatening Standing Rock. "We are the new generation."
"We are going to change the world."
"The only enemy that we have is ignorance."

"No one knows what they are doing right now, because they will hide it from us." LaDonna BraveBull Allard.

"We must empower ourselves. We have a right to live."

"It is about the right of our Mother Earth. It is about the Spirit of the Water."


"What is happening is ethnic cleansing." Michelle Cook, Dine' "We have all been lied to."

"We are not going to be lied to anymore."


"We are using and abusing the land." -- Kandi Mosset, Hidatsa, Mandan, Arikara, urging alternative energy. Corporations are not providing the alternatives the people are demanding.

https://www.facebook.com/WECAN.Intl/videos/2099351246760114/

Watch live below:

FEATURING:
Kandi Mossett (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara; Lead Organizer on the Extreme Energy and Just Transition Campaign with the Indigenous Environmental Network)
Michelle Cook (Diné; human rights lawyer)
Gloria Ushigua (Sápara; President of the Association of Sápara Women, Ecuador)
LaDonna BraveBull Allard (Lakota historian, member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and founder/landowner of Sacred Stone Camp, North Dakota)
Tokata Iron Eyes (Hunkpapa and Oglala Lakota from the Standing Rock Reservation; Youth Advisor for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe; Youth Advisor for Sacred Stone Village; Administrator for Last Real Indians)
Thilmeeza Hussain (Former Deputy Ambassador to the UN from the Maldives; WECAN Advisory Council Member; Founder of Voice of Women, Maldives)
Event moderator, Osprey Orielle Lake (Founder and Executive Director, Women's Earth and Climate Action Network, WECAN International)
ABOUT: As a result of the dangerous intersection of colonialism, racism and patriarchy, Indigenous women around the world are impacted first and worst by the effects of environmental destruction and a rapidly changing climate. However despite all odds and against great challenges, it is these very same Indigenous women who are rising up, challenging the status quo, holding a vision, and taking action to build the vital solutions needed for a just and livable future.
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International Panel, Second Panel on the Livestream

Mirian Cisneros (President of the Kichwa Pueblo of Sarayaku, Ecuador) "This struggle is about the women." "Those who began the struggle are no longer with us, but their spirits are with us." Mirian is speaking of the transnational companies, the extraction, oil, mining, and logging, endangering the Amazon. 
Thilmeeza Hussain (Former Deputy Ambassador to the UN from the Maldives; WECAN Advisory Council Member; Founder of Voice of Women, Maldives) She describes how climate change is impacting her island. "It is climate genocide."
Gloria Ushigua (Sápara; President of the Association of Sápara Women, Ecuador) Gloria said she is not afraid to fight Ecuador. Her people are being killed quietly in the Amazon.