[IPSM] Resistance Without Reservation!

[Devin Butler]

Resistance Without Reservation!
Part 1 of 2

by Harsha Walia and Stefan Christoff; August 05, 2004 - originally posted to 
Znet  

As hundreds of thousands gather in New York to protest the Republican 
National Convention at the end of August, a smaller and less historic but 
perhaps more profound convergence will be taking place in the interior of 
British Columbia. More profound in its demands. More profound in 
representing over 500 years of struggle.

Sun Peaks resort and Delta Hotels are built on Secwepemc territories that 
have never been ceded or surrendered. Land and Water BC disregarded the 
Secwepemc, who said NO to expansion in stakeholder meetings and in June 2001 
obtained a court injunction to forcibly remove the Secwepemc from their 
homelands. The Skwekwelk'welt Protection Center, at the resort's entrance, 
claims aboriginal title and rights. For this exercise of rights, 54 arrests 
with charges ranging from criminal contempt and intimidation by blocking a 
road to resisting arrest have been made.

In honour of the front-line struggles of this land that have been in total 
resistance for centuries, a convergence is being organized on Secwepemc 
territories on August 28-29. Hundreds will travel from Vancouver and 
surrounding areas to escalate the fight against state and corporate 
occupation.

FIGHTING CORPORATE COLONIALISM: SUN PEAKS AND DELTA HOTELS

Empire-building and colonization has sprouted other more seemingly-benign 
heads, more subtle, yet as violent and vicious -- nationalism, terrorism, 
and the project of corporate globalization. The political arm of the state 
and the corporate arm have increasingly become merged to protect the 
interests of the elite. Whether on a local, national or global level, the 
assault on genuine democracy and markets are intrinsically related. Their 
roots lie in the power of corporate entities that are totalitarian and 
increasingly interlinked and reliant on powerful governments.

Sun Peaks resort, Delta Hotels and Nippon Cables has for four years now been 
forcibly pushing ahead with their expansion, "corporatizing the land that 
bears our medicines and plants, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and 
the dreams we dream." (Janice Billy, spokesperson of Skwekwelk'welt 
Protection center).  The $70 million expansion plan is mind blowing: clear 
cut of a total of five mountains for ski runs, development on the drainage 
basin for commercial and residential real estate and expansion of a 9-hole 
golf course to an 18- hole golf course.

Yet again a continuation of the appropriation of politically aware language- 
Three Mountains, One Village- selling a dream of a community "from extreme 
to serene, Sun Peaks resort has it all. Our village is as versatile as you 
are." Beneath the layers of advertising euphemisms is the deeper truth of 
dispossession. Thousands tour the largest ski area in the interior of 
British Columbia, in what has now become not just a winter destination, but 
an all-year around playground for tourists with all the essentials: sports 
centers, golf course, Pancakes with Santa, and a sprawling real estate 
business of townhouses and chalets that mimic Disneyworld. Meanwhile, in 
passing, a culture, a way of life, has been casually decimated.

And the absurdity continues: one of the three mountains has been renamed 
Sundance and one of the lodges at Sun Peaks is called Sundance lodge. Absurd 
because the siege of Gustafsen Lake (1995) that the same Shushwap community 
was embroiled in involved protection of their sacred Sun Dance lands.  In a 
trend that is becoming frighteningly familiar- the market continues to 
absorb its opposition.  Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry.

The entire ski resort industry means greater destruction of mountain 
eco-systems, forest, pure water, and animal habitats. The effects around Sun 
Peaks resort are already being felt. The expansion involves putting ski runs 
on the previously undisturbed Mt. Morrisey, destroying the vital mountain 
ecosystem. Mount Morrisey, Mount Todd and Sundance are being cut, these 
three mountains destroyed along with animal habitat of deer, moose, bears, 
beavers, lynx, bobcat, cougars, wolverines and other animals, along with 
destruction of plant systems that provide berries and medicine for the 
Secwepemc community. Sun Peaks resort pollutes the water with weed-control 
chemicals for their golf course and with chemical and bacterial additives 
used to make artificial snow. Sun Peaks over-consumes water and energy to 
make this artificial snow (it takes 1/3 the energy of a average town to run 
a medium ski area).

The Secwepemc assert that the current expansion of Sun Peaks Ski Resort will 
undermine their ability to exercise their inherent rights to land-use and 
occupancy and thus their Aboriginal title to the land. The federal and 
provincial governments have refused to acknowledge Aboriginal title and 
enter negotiations to establish co-jurisdiction despite legally binding 
decisions to do so. The government disregarded environmental and cultural 
impact studies performed by the Adams Lake and Neskonlith Indian Bands and 
refused to engage in consultation and meaningful discussion with the bands 
about the development. Notwithstanding the lack of consultation, the $70 
million development plan began.

The Secwepemc communiy responded fearlessly to state and corporate 
occupation of their lands. The spirit at the Skwelkwek'welt Protection 
Center (set up in October 2000) is soul-stirring. Lone tents amidst 
sprawling golf courses and ski lifts. The blockades, the camps. These are 
not just protests for the sake of protesting. This is a community with 
ideas, with histories, with stories, with sufferings, with victories, and 
with visions. Remaining on the mountain despite police harassment, anger 
from tourists, and no near hope of victory. Victims, winners, survivors, 
fighters.  

In November 2001, provincial Attorney General Geoff Plant terminated all 
discussions with the Secwepemc community, demanding that people vacate the 
camp located on traditional territories and return to the federal Indian 
reserve. In a letter dated November 2001 "people at Sun Peaks need the 
confidence that they can go on with their lives while we continue with our 
discussions." Read: business as usual must continue. "The protestors have 
demonstrated that their manner of asserting rights requires that others be 
excluded from exercising theirs."

A mockery considering that traditional land-users (i.e "the protestors") 
have shared land in a spirit of co-existence since time immemorial. In fact 
more than a mockery, in a manner that reveals the blatant racism, Sun Peaks 
residents that assault Secwepemc defenders undergo no police investigation 
and are "justified" in asserting their rights to utilize their snowmobiles 
and perpetuate the processes of environmental devastation and cultural 
genocide.

In response Chief Arthur Manuel wrote,  "It is unreasonable that you insist 
that we vacate our lands before you will even discuss our right to use and 
occupy our lands... Even these mass arrests will not deter us from using our 
Aboriginal title lands as we have from time immemorial. You may be able to 
use your police to grab and hand cuff our Elders, land-users and youth and 
haul them away. But you will not be able to keep them away from our land. 
They will return and all our people will return."

After one year of failed attempts at negotiations with the province and Sun 
Peaks, the Secwepemc youth, Elders and land-users established a permanent 
log building on McGillvary Lake road near the resort. An extremely defiant 
step to move off the reserve and build and establish community on the 
traditional territories. Elders taught the youth hunting, fishing, 
recognizing plants and their uses, and building traditional structures such 
as sweatlodges, along with regular discussions on outstanding land issues.

On December 10, 2001 (ironically-or perhaps not- International Human Rights 
Day), Sun Peaks Resort demolished two sweatlodges along with the cordwood 
home of Native Youth Movement freedom fighter Nicole Manuel and her family. 
With the supervision of the government of British Columbia and with the 
blessing of the courts that ruled in favour of an injunction application 
presented by Sun Peaks Resort, hate crimes against religious and sacred 
sites were committed.  In its place, freshly groomed ski trails.

Collusion between state and corporate interests is nowhere clearer than in 
the destruction of indigenous lands. The land at McGillvray Road was not 
under tenure by Sun Peaks in June 2001, they merely possessed a Controlled 
Recreation Agreement with the province of British Columbia. The first 
attempt at getting an injunction to remove peoples off their own land was 
unsuccessful. Two weeks later, the Crown land was transferred under a lease 
agreement to Sun Peaks (based on a hand-drawn sketch of the area and no 
legal description of the property) and an injunction issued to remove 
Secwepemc off their own lands. Two youth and two Elders (ages 75 years and 
73 years old) were charged with criminal contempt when they refused to 
leave.

And the process of criminalization continues: during the trial the defenders 
utilized the `colour of right' defense stating that they believed they were 
not breaking the law because Sun Peaks is built on Secwepemc territories 
without their consent. To this Judge Sather ruled that their beliefs were 
beyond reason and bordering on ridiculous. (A similar judgement was passed 
down to political prisoner Wolverine during the trial of Gustafsen Lake)

Currently, over 15 Secwepemc defenders have court-ordered restrictions 
placed on them, ranging from 5 to 10 kilometre bans. One year later, when 
several youth and Elders returned to the McGillvray Lake area, under heavy 
police monitoring, one RCMP asked two men: "What race are you? Are you even 
human?" And perhaps more despairing is the silence around such atrocities. 
Indigenous peoples are being refused the inherent right to even walk on the 
land; Elders and youth are being smeared as terrorists, a movement is being 
crushed ruthlessly.

Yet the resistance continues- the Secwepemc have developed a huge national 
and international support network (that puts all the city-slicker activists 
to shame), participated in United Nations Convention of Biodiversity 
discussions, made submissions to the United Nations Committee for 
Elimination of Racial Discrimination, along with ongoing fundraising and 
raising awareness.  A Statement of Defense and Counterclaim to the trespass 
charges has been submitted to the provincial court, a crucial step in 
asserting Aboriginal title and forcing the government (judicial and 
executive branches) to deal with unsettled land issues.

THE OLYMPIC BID: WHOSE GOING TO STOP US NOW?

Never mind that now with the Olympic 2010 bid, we are supposed to tingling 
with joy at the prospect of more jobs and a better economy for British 
Columbia. It's funny how the interests of corporations are so often, so 
successfully, and so deliberately confused with the interests of the people 
and local economies. Lands are being occupied. It is an asset. The Earth is 
being owned. This includes the expansion of the Sea-to-Sky Highway ($600 
million), rapid transit system ($2 billion), Trade and Convention Center 
($405 million), improved sport facilities and athletes village ($620 
million). Leonerd Peltier wrote in a statement against the FTAA, 2001 "they 
will justify their actions in the name of development for the poor. 
Development? What the first peoples of America need is recovery, not 
development. Recovery from the very same colonization, domination and 
genocide that multinational corporations want to perpetuate for their own 
gains today."

>From the 2010 Vancouver bid website: "The development of athletes' 
accommodations in Vancouver and Whistler will result in lasting legacies 
that include more affordable housing." Does this mean Vancouver, that boasts 
one of the poorest postal codes in Canada, will get more affordable housing 
only because of the Olympic bid? What is it about our comprehension of 
prosperity and development and economy that allows the devastation of the 
environment and the violation of people's rights on a scale so vast that it 
becomes normalized as everyday life and rendered invisible? The Olympics- 
another capitalist project with questionable benefits but unquestionable 
effects.

Winona LaDuke wrote in her 1995 book: "I have come to the conclusion that 
NAFTA, free trade and the Self government deal are the current political and 
economic tools to genocide against Indigenous peoples. Both agreements are 
primarily designed to continue the dispossession of indigenous peoples from 
their homelands and exploit their resources." Not surprisingly, the 
Government of BC is connected with the Vancouver-Whistler Bid Corporation, 
for example by providing funding through tax dollars for the Corporation's 
operations: a minimum of 26.5% of the $34 million to be spent in the 
preparation and selling of the Bid to the International Olympic Committee 
(IOC).  

A municipal referendum on the Olympics was held in Vancouver, and in an 
interview with CBC Mayor Larry Campbell stated: "Voter turnout was 
absolutely outstanding. The results are decisive, we want the games." 2 
million people voted, with 64% of them voting yes (86,113 votes), amounting 
to 4% of Vancouver's total population. No, not just voter apathy (voter 
apathy places far too much of an onus on those dispossessed and 
disenfranchised)- youth are legally disqualified from voting, as are 
non-citizens and prisoners, and those typically alienated from the electoral 
system include Vancouver's large aboriginal population that lives well under 
the poverty line.

The 2010 Olympic bid is also directly affecting unceded St'at'imc territory 
and Sutikalh camp established in May 2000 to stop construction of a 
$530-million ski resort in Melvin Creek area. Plans for the Cayoosh Ski 
resort began in 1991 by Nancy-Greene-Raine resort consultations (Nancy 
Greene is a former Olympic medalist) but initially the government's own 
Environment Ministry, Kamloops Region, advised against any development in 
the Cayoosh and Melvin Creek watersheds citing danger to wildlife habitats. 
In 1994, after much political pressure, the BC Cabinet overruled the 
Kamloops offices initial decision and subsequent Environmental Assessment 
Reports have downplayed the negative environmental impact. Destruction of 
the previously untouched Alpine mountain area (Cayoosh Mountain Range) has 
resulted in devastation of the habitat of grizzly bears, cougars, bobcats, 
deer, hawks, owls and many other small animals. The area is also home to one 
of the largest herds of mountain goats now remaining in North America.

The St'at'imc, like other indigenous nations in British Columbia, have 
fought for over a century to protect unceded territories that have never 
surrendered through treaties: "We claim that we are the rightful owners of 
our tribal territories...We have always lived in our country, at no time we 
ever deserted it. We are aware that the BC government claims our country, 
like all other Indian territories, but we deny their right to it. We never 
gave it nor sold it to them. They certainly never got the title to the 
country from us, neither by agreement nor conquest, and none other than us 
could have any right to give them title." (1911 Declaration of the Lilloet 
Tribe, St'at'imc nation)

As the Environmental Assessment neared completion in early 2000, a camp was 
set up at Sutikalh and set up an informational checkpoint at Highway 99 for 
17 hours. In August 2000, the Lilloet Tribal Council issued a letter by all 
eleven chiefs rejecting the ski resort and in October 2000, referendum on 
the ski resort was held in Mount Currie. Of 800 eligible voters, 324 voted 
with 276 voting against the ski resort. Over four years now, the camp at 
Sutikalh represents the strong will of the St'at'imc people and is one of 
the longest standing camps in opposition to corporate and state occupation 
of traditional territories.

The inhumanness of the Neskonlith and Adams Lake reserves hits you. Right 
outside the sprawling development of the Sun Peaks Resort. Poverty, 
development and colonization no longer remain abstract words, part of our 
rhetorical vocabulary. It takes on a face in the form of demolished sacred 
sweatlodges and traditional cordwood homes. On International Human Rights 
Day, a young boy who only ever wanted to play with his older brother falls 
into the arms of his mother. Bulldozers, and kilometres of cuts from 
logging. Constant living reminders of what we are fighting for. Yet more 
real, more urgent, more critical.

There is no mitigating argument for the terror that has been unleashed at 
Skwelkwek'welt. Or Cheam. Or Sutikalh. Or Grassy Narrows. Across these 
lands, indigenous peoples continue to serve as collateral damage.

One of the greatest strengths of movements in the present is our solidarity 
and our vision of something new. Something more just. We maintain the right 
to imagine and to create a global apparition. A globalization of struggle. A 
 globalization of hope. Fully articulable but not yet articulated. Yet the 
movement already exists. It has existed for over 500 years. We must remain 
grounded in the historical realities of this land, remain true and honour 
indigenous struggles and indigenous histories and ideas and visions, for it 
is inextricably linked to all futures and all our movements that agitate for 
Earth and a more just existence.  

Based on visits, interviews and support work since 2002. Written by Harsha 
Walia and Stefan Christoff (organizers with No One is Illegal and also 
involved in various indigenous solidarity campaigns).  To find out more 
about the Convergence against Sun Peaks on Aug 28-29, email 
noii-van at resist.ca.

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