On Monday, January 7th, Canadian federal police raided the Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gidumt’en Territory on unceded indigenous land in what is commonly known as British Columbia, Canada.
The Access Point is the forward position of a pipeline occupation held primarily by the Unist’ot’en Clan of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation. The Unist’ot’en have been occupying this part of their territory for nine years to block numerous oil and gas pipelines from destroying their territory.
On Wednesday afternoon, the RCMP lifted the roadblock and exclusion zone that had been in place since Monday morning. Several RCMP negotiators, as well as hereditary chiefs, passed through the barrier on the bridge over the Wedzin Kwah and are currently engaged in negotiations inside the healing center.
The latest reports confirm that the Unist’ot’en will comply with the injunction and allow some Coastal Gaslink employees onto the territory. It remains to be seen what form the struggle will take.
Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs will open gate and comply with injunction. They do not want violence that happened in Gitdimt'en to repeat here. Many tears shed. Police negotiating with Clan to possibly allow gate to stay up. This is not over. #wetsuwetenstrong#unistotenhttps://t.co/liIUy8fYlW
Some scenes as the Wet’suwet’en hereditary Chiefs arriving in Unist’ot’en territory and crossing through the checkpoint on the bridge near the healing lodge pic.twitter.com/UFO8hXI4by
This is Canada in 2019. Indigenous people getting ripped from their homes by militarized police. Gidumt'en Clan spokesperson Molly Wickham arrested on her land. 12+ arrests including an elder. Wet'suwt'en hereditary chiefs with millenia old names blocked from their territories. pic.twitter.com/1CBZ6d6W8D
Fourteen land defenders were arrested on Monday including spokesperson Molly Wickham. She describes what happened in this video. All of the arrestees have been released as of 3pm Wednesday. You can donate to the legal support fund here.
Molly Wickham, Gitdimt’en spokesperson provides a detailed account of the police raid and arrests.
Media may use clips from this video ensuring context is maintained. Thank you all for your ongoing coverage.
After a lengthy, increasingly heated back-and-forth between the demonstrators and police, officers began cutting the barbed wire and started up a chainsaw. Camp members began to scream in protest; two young men had chained themselves to the fence below the view of the officers, encasing their arms in a kind of pipe that meant opening the gate risked breaking both of their arms… [the] checkpoint camp was abandoned behind a massive fallen tree and a barrier of flame on Monday afternoon as dozens of RCMP officers finally pushed past the barricade set up to bar entry to the traditional territories of the Wet’suwet’en people.
The Gidumt’en and Unist’ot’en are two of five clans that make up the Wet’suwet’en Nation. The traditional leadership of all five clans oppose the pipeline. However, the elected band council (a colonial leadership structure set up by the Canadian state) voted in favor of the pipeline.
More than 60 solidarity events took place across Canada and the world this week. Using the hashtag #ShutdownCanada, blockades have stopped major intersections, financial districts, bridges, and ports in Vancouver, Ottowa, Toronto, Victoria, Montreal, and elsewhere.
This situation has a long background and highly significant legal significance. Kai Nagata describes the situation:
Many Canadians have heard of the 1997 Delgamuukw decision by the Supreme Court of Canada, which recognized that Aboriginal title still exists in places where Indigenous nations have never signed a treaty with the Crown. In fact, the court was talking about the land where tonight’s raid is taking place.
Delgamuukw is a chief’s name in the neighbouring Gitxsan Nation, passed down through the generations. Delgamuukw was one of dozens of plaintiffs in the case, comprising hereditary chiefs from both the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en Nations.
Together those leaders achieved an extraordinary milestone in forcing the Canadian courts to affirm the legitimacy of their oral histories, traditional laws and continuing governance of their lands. But it wasn’t until the Tsilhqot’in decision in 2014 that the Supreme Court went a step further, recognizing Aboriginal title over a specific piece of land.
If the Wet’suwet’en chiefs went back to court all these years later, many legal scholars say the strength of their claim to their territories would eventually force the Canadian government to relinquish thousands of square kilometres within the Bulkley and Skeena watersheds – and stop calling it “Crown land”.
That’s why the TransCanada pipeline company acted quickly, to secure an injunction against Wet’suwet’en members blocking construction before the legal ground could shift under their Coastal Gaslink project.
The 670-kilometre pipeline project would link the fracking fields of Northeastern B.C. with a huge liquid gas export terminal proposed for Kitimat. Called LNG Canada, this project is made up of oil and gas companies from China, Japan, Korea and Malaysia, along with Royal Dutch Shell.
The BC Liberal, BC NDP and federal governments all courted the LNG Canada project, offering tax breaks, cheap electricity, tariff exemptions and other incentives to convince the consortium to build in B.C. Both Christy Clark and Premier John Horgan celebrated LNG Canada’s final investment decision last fall, calling it a big win for the province.
However, without a four foot diameter (122cm) pipeline feeding fracked gas to the marine terminal, the LNG Canada project is a non-starter.
That brings us back to the Morice River, or Wedzin Kwa in the Wet’suwet’en language. This is where the rubber hits the road for “reconciliation”. Politicians are fond of using the word, but seemingly uncomfortable with its implications.
Politicians also talk a lot about the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, and how to enshrine it in B.C. law. Article 10 of UNDRIP states that “Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories.” It is hard to see how tonight’s arrests are consistent with this basic right.
Pro-pipeline pundits are already working hard to spin this raid as the “rule of law” being asserted over the objections of “protestors”. They point to benefit agreements signed between TransCanada and many band governments along the pipeline route.
But under the Indian Act, elected councillors only have jurisdiction over reserve lands – the tiny parcels set aside for First Nations communities that are administered much like municipalities. That’s not where this pipeline would go.
What is at stake in the larger battle over Indigenous rights and title are the vast territories claimed by the Crown but never paid for, conquered or acquired by treaty. In Wet’suwet’en territory, those lands, lakes and rivers are stewarded by the hereditary chiefs under a governance system that predates the founding of Canada.
As militarized RCMP are descending onto unceded Wet’suwet’en to enforce a colonial court injunction, rallies in 30 cities expressing solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en will take place on Tuesday January 8, 2019 across Canada and internationally. The Wet’suwet’en are defending their unceded lands in Northern B.C. from unwanted fracked gas development
Rallies across Canada are being held in Calgary, Chilliwack, Cortes Island, Edmonton, Halifax, Hamilton, Lilooet, Kitchener Waterloo, Mi’kma’ki, Montreal, Nelson, North Bay, Ottawa, Prince George, Regina, Rexton, Saskatoon, Six Nations, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria, Winnipeg, and White Horse. Rallies will take place internationally in Bellingham, Flagstaff, Milan, San Francisco, and Seattle.
According to rally organizers, “We oppose the use of legal injunctions, police forces, and criminalizing state tactics against the Wet’suwet’en asserting their own laws on their own lands. This is a historic moment when the federal and provincial governments can choose to follow their stated principles of reconciliation, or respond by perpetuating colonial theft and violence in Canada.”
Coastal GasLink, a project of TransCanada Corporation, has been constructing a 670-kilometer fracked gas pipeline that will carry fracked gas from Dawson Creek, B.C. to the coastal town of Kitimat, where LNG Canada’s processing plant would be located. LNG Canada is the single largest private sector investment in Canadian history, with support from the Federal Liberal government and tax breaks from the NDP B.C. provincial government.
Under ‘Anuc niwh’it’en (Wet’suwet’en law) all five clans of the Wet’suwet’en have unanimously opposed all pipeline proposals and have not provided free, prior, and informed consent to Coastal Gaslink/TransCanada to do work on Wet’suwet’en lands. The 22,000 square km of Wet’suwet’en Territory is divided into 5 clans and 13 house groups. Each clan within the Wet’suwet’en Nation has full jurisdiction under their law to control access to their territory.
According to the Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gitdumden territory, who issued the call for international solidarity, “All Wet’suwet’en Clans have rejected the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline because this is our home. Our medicines, our berries, our food, the animals, our water, our culture are all here since time immemorial. We are obligated to protect our ways of life for our babies unborn.”
The Unist’ot’en Camp is a permanent Indigenous re-occupation of Wet’suwet’en land that sits on Gilsteyu Dark House Territory. The Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gitdumden territory was announced in the Wet’suwet’en feast hall in December 2018 with the support of all chiefs present to affirm that the Unist’ot’en Clan are not alone.
On December 2018, the B.C. Supreme Court issued a court injunction that authorizes the RCMP to forcibly clear a path through the Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gitdumden territory and the Unist’ot’en homestead on Unist’ot’en territory. This is despite the fact that the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the landmark 1997 Delgamuukw-Gisday’wa case that the Wet’suwet’en, as represented by their hereditary leaders, had not given up rights and title to their 22,000 square kilometers of land. Members of the RCMP met with Hereditary Chiefs in January 2019 and indicated that specially trained tactical forces will soon be deployed.
“Canada knows that its own actions are illegal,” states the Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gitdumden territory. “The Wet’suwet’en chiefs have maintained their use and occupancy of their lands and hereditary governance system to this date despite generations of legislative policies that aim to remove us from this land, assimilate our people, and ban our governing system. The hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en and the land defenders holding the front lines have no intention of allowing Wet’suwet’en sovereignty to be violated.”
Support has been growing for the Wet’suwet’en with statements issued by national and international organizations such as 350 dot org, Heiltsuk Nation, Idle No More, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Civil Liberties Defense Center, Dogwood BC, Greenpeace Canada, Namgis First Nation, Secwepemc Women’s Warrior Society, and Union of B.C Indian Chiefs.
The rally organizers further state, “We demand that the provincial and federal government uphold their responsibilities to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by revoking the permits for this fracked gas pipeline that does not have consent from any Wet’suwet’en Clan. The federal government, provincial government, Coastal GasLink/TransCanada, and the RCMP do not have jurisdiction on Wet’suwet’en land.”
This episode of The Green Flame focuses on colonization and has three interviews: the first with Anne Keala Kelly, a native Hawaiian organizer, journalist, and award-winning filmmaker; the second with Mari Boine, a world-reknowned Sami indigenous musician; and the third with a river.
We discuss colonization, history, tourism, the TMT telescope project on Mauna Kea, indigenous peoples of Europe, music, and how to connect with the land. Three of Mari Boine’s songs are used in this episode, with permission: Gula Gula, Goaskinvielija (Eagle Brother), and Vilges Suola.
The Green Flame is a Deep Green Resistance podcast offering revolutionary analysis, skill sharing, and inspiration for the movement to save the planet by any means necessary. Our hosts are Max Wilbert and Jennifer Murnan.
Bios
Anne Keala Kelly is a journalist and filmmaker. Keala’s published articles and Op-Eds have appeared in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, The Nation, Indian Country Today, Honolulu Weekly, Honolulu Civil Beat, Hana Hou! Magazine, Big Island Journal, and other publications. Her broadcast journalism has aired on Free Speech Radio News, Independent Native News, Al Jazeera English, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Democracy Now!, The Environment Report, and more. She is a frequent guest commentator on First Voices Indigenous Radio, and has been interviewed on numerous nationally syndicated radio programs, from KPFK Los Angeles’ Rise-Up to Native America Calling in Anchorage to the Australia Broadcast Corporation’s Pacific Beat. Her reporting on Hawaiian poverty and homelessness garnered her Native American Journalism Awards. And her documentary, Noho Hewa: The Wrongful Occupation of Hawai’i, has received international film festival awards, and is widely taught in university courses focusing on Indigenous Peoples, colonization, Hawaiian sovereignty, and militarism. Keala is an outspoken Native advocate for Indigenous representation in media, and has been a guest speaker at universities in Hawai’i, the U.S., and Aotearoa-New Zealand. She has delivered conference keynotes and participated in conference and community panels and roundtables. She has an MFA in production from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television. To learn more about her film, go to www.nohohewa.com.
Mari Boine: Imagine the ice and snow of the Arctic landscape, the bitter cold of the Northern wind, the hint of compelling blue under a crystallized lake. Close your eyes. Then listen. Really listen. You’ll feel a voice before you even hear it. It’s like none other. It’s a voice that brings the landscape alive with a mesmerizing purity; a voice that represents a thousand years of ancestral connection to an unyielding frozen space. This is Mari Boine. Musician. Songwriter. Singer. A genre-bending trailblazer with a taste for jazz, folk, rock, and world. An artist whose music is inspired by and infused with her Sámi roots. A woman who knows who she is, where she’s come from and what she stands for. A music icon who has inspired indigenous artists the world over.
For over 6 years now, environmental defenders representing the Unist’ot’en, an official faction of the Wet’suwet’en Nation, have been standing guard over their traditional territory from invasion by Transcanada’s Coastal Gaslink pipeline.
On December 14, 2018, a British Columbia Supreme Court Justice levied a temporary injunction, ordering an end to the blockade — bypassing the required consent of tribal leaders.
Prior to this, a gated blockade had prevented pipeline workers from trespassing onto First Nation lands through the Morice River bridge — located on a forest road.
The injunction, which demands environmental defenders vacate their stronghold of resistance to the planned 670 kilometer pipeline, is set to start on Monday, December 17th, allowing pipeline workers free passage until May 2019.
In a show of quasi-generosity, Coastal Gaslink has stated that the camp connected to the blockade may remain in place… as long as they discontinue any obstruction of pre-construction traffic through the gated area.
“Right now, our focus is on respectfully and safely moving forward with project activities, including gaining safe access across the Morice River bridge … We simply ask that their activities do not disrupt or jeopardize the safety of our employees and contractors, surrounding communities or even themselves,” Coastal GasLink said in a statement.
Representatives of Coastal Gaslink have also cited an inability of First Nation communities to provide restitution for any ‘losses’ the company could incur through delays or obstructions to construction plans as support for the injunction and enforcement order.
Yet, enforcement of the project remains dubious given that the territory has never changed hands via treaty, nor have land rights ever been conceded in any manner. In effect, the right of the Unist’ot’en People to determine the fate of their ancestral land remains intact.
This also makes the injunction a clear violation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) which requires ‘free, prior and informed consent’ (FPIC) when it comes to development, investment or extraction initiatives on Indigenous territories.
The area in question has been occupied by the Unist’ot’en for generations; their current leader, Chief Knedebeas, describes occupying and carrying out tribal traditions there since his childhood.
Now, the territory under threat is being used as a crucial healing center where Wet’suwet’en people are receiving treatment for addiction. Freda Hudson, Unist’ot’en clan, explained:
“The Unist’ot’en Healing Centre was constructed to fulfill their vision of a culturally-safe healing program, centred on the healing properties of the land. It is the embodiment of self-determined wellness and decolonization, with potential to build up culture-based resiliency of Indigenous people who need support, through re-establishing relationships with land, ancestors and the underlying universal teachings that connect distinct Indigenous communities across the world.”
The Unist’ot’en have until January 31, 2019 to respond to Coastal Gaslink’s application.
When it comes to the ruling elite’s corporate plunder and crimes against humanity, the U.S. national memory’s short and no one, not even its political henchmen, assume blame or suffer real consequences: take Halliburton and former chief executive and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney for example. Not only did Cheney plan and justify the invasion, occupation and pilferage of Iraq’s oil, gold bars and national museum treasures under treasonous false pretenses, but its subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR Inc.), overcharged the U.S. taxpayer to a tune of more than $2 billion due to collusion engendered by sole source contracting methods and shoddy accounting procedures. It’s even forgotten that Cheney received a $34 million payout from Halliburton when he joined the Vice President ticket in 2000, in advance of his unscrupulous maneuvers, according to news commentator, Chris Matthews; because on November 5th 2018, in celebration of its 100-year anniversary, its chief executives rang the New York Stock Exchange’s (NYSE) opening bell.
Sadly, as a nation, the U.S. doesn’t recall Cheney’s lies, or his role in planning the contemptible “Shock and Awe” saturation bombing campaign that destroyed a sovereign nation, which posed no threat to the United States, and left the world’s cradle of civilization in ruins. Conveniently, it doesn’t recall the over 500,000 deaths from war related causes, as reported by the Huffington Post in its 2017 updated article; nor does it recall that obliterating Iraq’s government created a sociopolitical vacuum that enabled the exponential growth of the CIA’s unique brand of Islamofascism and its resulting terrorism, which has culminated in war-torn Syria and Yemen.
Iraq’s only “crime” against the United States, if you want to call it that, was being hogtied by Washington’s sanctions and embargo against it – in what can only be called a Catch 22 situation. Iraq couldn’t do business with U.S. corporations not because Saddam Hussein was unwilling to, but because the U.S. government effectively barred Iraq from doing so. This Catch 22 situation is presently being repeated in Venezuela and Iran in advance of its planned invasion and occupation.
Then there is the cost of war itself: according to The Costs of War project at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, “The wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq (the war in Pakistan refers to U.S. counterterrorism efforts there, such as drone strikes and other efforts against al Qaeda) cost $4.4 trillion. Included in the cost are: direct Congressional war appropriations; war-related increases to the Pentagon base budget; veterans care and disability; increases in the homeland security budget; interest payments on direct war borrowing; foreign assistance spending; and estimated future obligations for veterans’ care. By 2053, interest payments on the debt alone could reach over $7 trillion.”
Keep in mind that the U.S. taxpayer directly subsidizes the profits of the military industrial complex, and oil & gas industries. Yet, no U.S. protests against Halliburton are found in the media later than 2007. And, there are no organized disinvestment campaigns of record.
So Wall Street celebrates Halliburton’s 100-year anniversary with a clear conscience, because no one has graffitied its large four column wide sign or is disinvested from its stock. The nation only recalls, according to IBTimes, in their 2013 article on Iraq war contracts, that Halliburton’s subsidiary, KBR, had the most: KBR’s war contracts totaled $39.5 billion in just a decade.
Other than the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission, which found Cheney and President Bush et al guilty of war crimes in absentia for the illegal invasion of Iraq, there remains no lasting acknowledgement in the U.S. consciousness of Cheney’s evil doings. Cheney had recent book deals and continues to ramble on with speaking engagements. He was scheduled by Cornell University to issue a keynote address as recent as May 2018. In short, the ruling elite protects those engaged in their dirty work until they prove unnecessary. In this regard, consider the fact that Saddam Hussein was a former CIA asset and a good corporate customer – as the weapons of mass destruction (WMD), he once possessed, were sold to him by the U.S. and Britain. However, according to the former United Nations (UN) chief weapon inspector, Scott Ritter, the UN destroyed Iraq’s stockpiles after the Persian Gulf War (1990-1991) – well before the 2003 invasion. This report was ignored because it contradicted the prevailing narrative that justified the invasion, occupation and looting of Iraq.
Just as the ruling elite engineered Saddam Hussein rise to power when he was useful, they ensured Cheney’s political ascent, and the success of his campaign against Iraq. To illustrate the persuasive power of the oil & gas industry in politics, note that according to Open Secrets.org, oil & gas lobbyists spent over $175M in 2009 (Obama’s first year in office). Of that amount, ExxonMobil spent the most at $27.4M and Chevron Corp., in second place, spent $20.8M. For the record, ExxonMobil and Chevron are successors of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. Prior to President Obama & Vice President Biden, the Oil & Gas Industry lobbyists spent approximately half that amount at $86.5M in 2007. Thus, Bush & Cheney represented a 50% savings for oil & gas lobbyists.
When seeking to “out” the elite, keep in mind that the Rockefeller clan describe themselves “as ExxonMobil’s longest continuous shareholders.” In Iraq, ExxonMobil has a 60% share of a $50 billion market contract developing the 9-billion-barrels southern West Qurna Phase I field, and ExxonMobil is expanding its oil & gas holdings into the semiautonomous Kurdish region in the country’s north.
Within this context, the enemy is not a corporate office, an oilrig, pipeline or refinery; it’s the ruling elite that own and control the means of production. If people of conscience don’t hold them accountable for their crimes, they will continue to commit them in countries such as Venezuela and Iran, which are presently locked in their sights. While henchmen change, the ruling elite remains. Why should the U.S. allow its military and secret service to be pimped out as corporate stooges and glorified security guards?
Imperialism is insatiable and fascism expedient. The time to hold the ruling elite accountable is now before another invasion and occupation is executed against a fake enemy that just so happens to coincidentally have a large desirable oil reserve. Let’s follow Iceland’s lead and seek the prosecution of white-collar criminals that hide behind a facade of corporate stock holdings now, before its too late and they strike again in Venezuela and Iran.
So for Halliburton’s 100-year anniversary wish, let’s wish its stock tanks and that its guilty are remembered, held accountable, and that justice is ultimately served.
Lauren Smith has a BA in Politics, Economics and Society from SUNY at Old Westbury and an MPA in International Development Administration from New York University. Her historical fiction novel based on Nicaragua’s 1979 revolution is due out in 2019.
On September 30, communities across Canada will be commemorating ‘Orange Shirt Day’, an annual event that is helping Canadians remember the thousands of Indigenous children who died in Residential Schools, and to reflect on the intergenerational trauma that was caused by the Residential school system. Similar school systems were also run in the US, New Zealand and Australia with terrible consequences for Indigenous children and communities.
Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation elder Phyllis Jack Webstad founded Orange Shirt Day in 2013, after she shared her childhood experience at the St. Joseph’s Mission residential school in William’s lake, British Columbia.
Residential school staff stripped her of her favourite orange shirt the day she was taken from her family. As Residential school survivor Vivian Timmins said today, “The orange day shirt is a commonality for all Native Residential School Survivors because we had our personal items taken away which was a tactic to erase our personal identity. Maybe it was a piece of clothing, but it represented our memory that connected us to families. Today is a time to honour the children and youth that didn’t make it home. It’s a time to remember Canada’s dark history, to educate and ensure such history is never repeated.”
Alarmingly, that history is being repeated in many parts of the world. According to Survival International, there are nearly one million tribal and Indigenous children across Asia, Africa, and South America who are currently attending institutions that bear a striking resemblance to Canada’s residential schools.
Indigenous artist RG Miller’s haunting autobiographical painting recalls the horrific abuse he experienced at residential school. Photo Courtesy RG Miller
A horrifying legacy lives on
The horrifying legacy of residential schools is being repeated, on a massive scale, because the attitudes and intentions underlying Canada’s residential school system live on.
Tribal and Indigenous children around the world are being coerced from their families and sent to schools that strip them of their identity and often impose upon them alien names, religions, and languages.
Extractive industries and fundamentalist religious organizations are frequently pulling the strings behind these institutions.
One residential mega-school in India—which boasts it is “home” to 27,000 Indigenous children—states publicly that it aims to turn “primitive” tribal children from “liabilities into assets, tax consumers into tax payers.”
Its partners include the very mining companies that are trying to wrest control of the lands these children truly call home.
Parents have described the school as a “chicken farm” where children feel like “prisoners.”
An expert on Adivasi education told us, “Their whole minds have been brainwashed by a kind of education that says, ‘Mining is good’, ‘Consumerism is good’, ‘Your culture is bad.’ Tribal residential schools are institutions which are erasing the autobiography of each child to replace it with what fits the ‘mainstream’. Isn’t it a crime in the name of schooling?”
Without urgent change, many distinct peoples could be wiped out in just a few generations, because the the youth in these schools are taught to see their families and traditions as ‘primitive’, ‘backward’ and inferior to ‘mainstream’ society so that they turn their backs on their languages, religions and lands.
Survivors of Canada’s residential schools are beginning to speak out against these culture-destroying institutions.
“What’s happening right now at these residential schools in India and beyond is very similar to what happened with the residential schools in Canada”, says Roberta Hill
Roberta Hill is a survivor of the Mohawk Institute in Brantford, Canada, where she was abused by the pastor and school staff in the 1950s and 60s. She sees the strong parallels between her experience and that of Indigenous children in these modern culture destroying schools: “What’s happening right now at these residential schools in India and beyond is very similar to what happened with the residential schools in Canada – this separation of Indigenous children from their family, language, and culture is a very destructive force. My experience at residential school was traumatizing. I was taken from my family at the age of six and put in the school where I experienced a lot of abuse and isolation. If this is happening again now, then there needs to be international attention. It needs to stop or else they are going to go through the same thing that we went through. It will cause irreparable damage – not only to the Indigenous children attending, but to the future generations of that community.”
RG Miller, a prominent Indigenous artist from Canada states: “My horrific experience at Native residential school destroyed my connection with community, family, and my culture. The abuses I suffered there completely broke any sense of trust or intimacy with anyone or anything including God, spouses, and children for the rest of my life.”
Over the past two decades, thousands of residential school survivors have shared their stories of abuse; but there are thousands of other children who will never be able to tell their own stories because they passed away while they were in a residential school. Other children, like Chanie Wenjack, died while trying to escape. The young Ojibwe boy ran away from his residential school in Ontario, trying desperately to reach home, 600 km away. He died of hunger and exposure at the age of 12 in 1966.
Half a century later—and 12,000km away—Norieen Yaakob, her brother Haikal and five of their friends, fled their residential school in Malaysia. The children, who belong to the Temiar—one of the Orang Asli tribes of central Malaysia—ran away to avoid a beating from their teacher. 47 days later, Norieen and one other little girl were found, starving but alive. The other five children died, including Haikal and seven-year-old Juvina.
Juvina’s father, David, told us, “The police said, “Why are you bothering us with this problem?” We felt hopeless. It was only on the sixth day that the authorities began their search and rescue mission for the children. But they told us parents to stay behind. They said if we went in it would just be to secretly give food to the missing children that we were supposedly hiding. They accused us of faking the whole incident to gain attention and force the government to help us more. That was what they thought of us… [Finally] they found a child’s skull and we could not identify immediately whose child it was. We had to wait for the post-mortem. I could not recognize my own child.” The families are currently taking the authorities to court in a case that the world should be watching.
Norieen Yaakob of the Temiar tribe of Malaysia barely survived running away from her residential school. She was found 47 days after fleeing her school; five other children died.
The terrible truth is that Indigenous children are dying in these schools. In tribal residential schools in Maharashtra state in India, over one thousand deaths have been recorded since 2000, including many suicides. With echoes of the traumas experienced in Canada, many parents never learn that their children are ill until it is too late, and they often never know the cause of death.
There are also a frightening number of cases of physical and sexual abuse, very few of which reach the justice system. Government schools across Asia and Africa are often staffed by teachers who have no connection to, or respect for, the communities they serve. Teacher absences are common, and abuse goes unseen and unreported. The potential for devastating damage is extremely high.
Survival International will soon launch a campaign to expose and oppose these culture destroying schools and to demand greater Indigenous control of education, before it is too late for these children, their communities, and their futures.
There is certainly a need for it. These schools endanger lives and strip away identities, but they also deny children the right to choose a tribal future.
The ability of Indigenous Peoples to live well and sustainably on their lands depends on their intricate knowledge, which takes generations to develop and a lifetime to master. To survive and thrive in the Kalahari Desert or to herd reindeer across the Arctic tundra cannot be learnt in residential schools, or on occasional school vacations.
What’s more, in this current age of severe environmental degradation, climate change and mass extinctions, Indigenous Peoples play a crucial role in preserving the world’s ecosystems. They are the best guardians of their lands and they should be respected and listened to if we have any hope of survival for future generations.
Rather than erasing their knowledge, skills, languages, and wisdom through culture-destroying residential schools, we must allow them to be the authors of their own destinies as stewards and protectors of their own lands.
Tribal children in Indonesia learning on their land, in their language. Photo: Sokola Rimba
Dr. Jo Woodman is running Survival International’s upcoming Indigenous Education campaign. She has spent two decades researching and campaigning on Indigenous rights issues, focused on the impacts of forced ‘development’, conservation and schooling on tribal communities.
Alicia Kroemer holds a PhD in political science from the university of Vienna on collective memory and residential schools in Canada, with publications, films, and lectures on the topic. She serves on the board of Indigenous rights NGO Incomindios in Zurich, where she is a human rights educator and UN representative. She also works as a research consultant for Minority Rights Group and Survival International in London, UK. She is interested in allyship, advocating and promoting human rights, with a special focus on Indigenous rights globally.
