[IPSM] March 25th: Delta Hotel Picket (Montreal)

[Devin Butler]

SOLIDARITY PICKET FOR SECWEPEMC
ABORIGINAL TITLE AND RIGHTS
*Stop Delta Hotel's Expansion on
Traditional Skwelkwek'welt Territories

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Thursday, March 25th, 2004  @ 12pm.
Delta Hotel, 777 University Street
Metro Square Victoria
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Members of Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement (IPSM) have launched a 
solidarity campaign with the Secwepemc People of Skwelkwek'welt, and are 
calling for an information picket Thursday, March 25th, at the Delta Hotel, 
to inform tourists of Delta's violations of Secwepemc Aboriginal Title and 
Rights, encourage a boycott of the Hotels, and demand a stop to their 
expansion on traditional Skwelkwek'welt territories.

Last April, 2003 Delta Hotels was hit with 2 information pickets with signs 
and pamphlets "Boycott Delta Hotels". Cab drivers, tourists and employees 
showed keen interest - one employee even asked to borrow videotapes on the 
blockade to share with others. We met the manager, explained our campaign, 
and demanded information be faxed to the owner. We made it clear in weeks to 
come pickets would continue, and that Delta would be targeted as long as it 
was complicit in the displacement of Indigenous Peoples. This Thursday’s 
picket is being  coordinated as a national day of action with supporters in 
other cities, and is being organized in solidarity with a mass rally at 
Kamloops being called by Secwepemc traditionalists and Native Youth 
Movement.

The Sun Peaks Ski Resort is built on Secwepemc land.  This land, known to 
Secwepemc as Skwelkwekwelt, has provided hundreds of generations of 
Secwepemc with everything needed to nourish their bodies and their spirits. 
Each time the Sun Peaks resort has expanded it has caused irreparable damage 
to the land, watersheds, vegetation & wildlife in the area, seriously 
impacting the Secwepemcs ability to survive.

Since purchasing the Sun Peaks resort in 1992, the Japanese holding company, 
Nippon Cable, and it's partner in crime, Delta Hotels, have expanded on-site 
accommodation from 100 beds to 4,000. In 1997, the BC government approved a 
$70 million development plan, allowing Sun Peaks & Delta Hotels to continue 
to expand their resort to 20,000 beds and put ski runs on the previously 
undisturbed Mt. Morrisey. The Secwepemc attended stakeholder meetings and 
clearly said no to the development.

Land and Water BC however, clearly disregarded their voices and granted new 
leases to Sun Peaks & Delta to facilitate their expansion. These leases were 
granted through BCs severely outdated Land Act which does not recognize 
Aboriginal Title. It is business as usual, despite their legal obligations, 
on the old colonial frontier.

The state-party protects commercial, over Indigenous interests, and in June 
2001, Land and Water BC obtained a court injunction to forcibly remove 
Secwepemc from their lands.

To date there have been more than 54 arrests of the Secwepemc people. 
Charges range from criminal  contempt, mischief, intimidation and 
obstruction of a police officer, to intimidation by blocking a road, 
resisting arrest, and breach of bail conditions. While forced to pay 
exorbitant legal defense fees, and/or be incarcerated, the BC government, 
RCMP, Sun Peaks employees, local residents and tourists have all committed 
crimes against Secwepemc people with total impunity.

The Secwepemc people set up the Skwelkwekwelt Protection Center at the 
entrance of Sun Peaks Ski Resort in order to protect their Aboriginal Land 
Title and ensure the accommodation of Aboriginal interests in the area.

To date, five Skwelkwekwelt Protection Centers, two traditional cedar bark 
homes, a hunting cabin, two sacred sweat lodges, and one cordwood 
house--home to a young Secwepemc family--have all been bulldozed or burnt 
down. None of these acts of racial hatred have been investigated by the 
state.

The outright destruction of Secwepemc sacred sweat lodges, and desecration 
of sacred objects violates Secwepemc freedom of religion. The Sun Peaks 
employees who committed these acts were not only not prosecuted, but also 
publicly celebrated the heinous acts that they had committed.

As Aboriginal title is a collective proprietary interest in traditional 
territories, the Skwelwekwelt Protection Center and cordwood home built on 
Skwelkwekwelt territory, were authorized on the basis Aboriginal Title 
permits. Those requesting permits did not want to be confined to their 
reserve where dire social and economic conditions prevail, including 
inadequate housing for all band members. When the homes were ordered 
destroyed by the provincial government and demolished by Sun Peaks workers 
on December 10th, 2002, the family’s right to housing was violated.

On January 10, 2003 a BC provincial judge found four Secwepemc elders-Irene 
Billy, Charlie Willard, Segweses, and George Manuel Junior, not guilty for 
their refusal to obey a court injunction obtained by the Sun Peaks resort 
Corporation to tear down the Skwelkwekwelt Protection Center. The judge 
found that the Crown could not prove beyond a  reasonable doubt that the 
Secwepemc defenders intentions were "criminal". This case sets an important 
precedent for other cases of Aboriginal people defending their lands.

The mounting of an Eastern public pressure campaign, and boycott of Delta 
Hotels, is a very important tactic at this time. It is time for all those 
opposed to the Canadian colonial system and corporate globalization to 
support, through concrete actions of solidarity, the rights of the Secwepemc 
people fighting state & corporate interests in British Columbia. Sun Peaks 
Ski Resort and Delta Hotels are built in Secwepemc territories, land which 
has never been ceded, released, nor surrendered. That they are participants 
in the displacement of Secwepemc Indigenous  Peoples, that they are forcibly 
removing Indigenous Peoples from their traditional territories, constitutes 
genocide under International Laws to which Canada is a signatory.

Come join us Thursday, March 25th, 12pm, for a Solidarity picket of Delta 
Hotels.

Stop the genocide of Indigenous Peoples now!

For more information, email: ipsm at resist.ca or visit www.skwelkwekwelt.org

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