Sinixt in Vancouver Courts

Tim McSorley — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 06:14:57 +0000

"Extinct" nation defends traditional territory

VANCOUVER—Throughout January and early February 2011, members of the Sinixt Nation were in Vancouver attending a BC Supreme Court case resulting from their three-week-long anti-logging blockade in October 2010. In this case, Sunshine Logging Ltd., as well as the Attorney-General and Ministry of Forests, are respondents to the Sinixt injunction that was obtained at that time (and which granted a temporary halt to logging operations).

The territory of the Sinixt is located in the south-east region of the province in the Slocan Valley area between the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers (including the Upper and Lower Arrow Lakes, for which the Sinixt are also named). They began the blockade in October 2010 to protect Perry Ridge, the site of proposed logging. According to the Sinixt, Perry Ridge is an important archeological site as well as some of the last remaining untouched wilderness in their territory.

The Sinixt are an interior Salish people that were declared extinct by the federal government in 1956, effectively eliminating Sinixt from any benefits under the Indian Act, including a land base (i.e., a reserve). Their traditional territory spans the US–Canada border, which was established in 1846. Many Sinixt gravitated towards the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington State (which had several different tribal groups concentrated there, including Okanagan and Nez Perce). Some 80 per cent of Sinixt territory, however, is north of the border.

The Sinixt territory has been devastated by a century of industrial mining, logging and dams. Fifteen dams have been built in the region, centred around the Columbia River Basin. In fact, just one year after Canada declared the Sinixt extinct, the US–Canada Columbia River Treaty was signed (in 1957), granting the US access to vast amounts of water and hydroelectric energy from this dam system.

The dams, which have destroyed salmon habitat (a primary food source for the Columbia River peoples), are used to supply power to numerous metal smelters, including aluminum, zinc, and lead. Corporations such as Cominco (now owned by Teck Resources Ltd.) have dumped millions of tons of toxic pollutants into the Columbia River.

For the past 25 years, members of the Sinixt Nation have campaigned for recognition of their sovereignty and in defence of their land. Some also demand that the federal government re-establish the Arrow Lakes Indian Band and reserve.

Since 1989, the Sinixt have maintained a presence at Vallican along the Slocan River. The camp was established to protect burial grounds and archeological sites unearthed by road construction in 1987. At that time, the Ministry of Highways (which builds the roads and bridges for logging companies) made no effort to contact any Sinixt and instead deposited skeletal remains and archeological objects into museums.

In 1997, the Sinixt, along with local residents and environmentalists, blocked road construction on Perry Ridge. As many as 300 people participated. In 2000, non-Native residents of the area protested clear-cut logging by blockading the logging road. Most recently, on October 26, 2010, the Sinixt Nation asserted their sovereignty by initiating the Sinixt Slhu7kin' (Perry Ridge) Protection Camp on their ancestral lands.

In addition to government bureaucracy and intransigence, the Sinixt also face obstacles from neighbouring Indian Act band councils, including those of the Okanagon National Alliance and the Lower Kootenay Band, both of which claim Sinixt land as part of their traditional territories. In Washington state, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation has asserted itself as the sole representative of Sinixt in both the US and Canada.

Hearings into the case concluded on February 4, and, according to the Nelson Star, a decision could be rendered within the month. For updates, visit http://mediacoop.ca.

This article was originally published by the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Gord Hill is from the Kwakwaka'wakw Nation and has been active in Indigenous and anti-capitalist movements for many years, including writing and graphic arts under the pseudonym Zig Zag.

Sinixt in court

Why protest Vancouver's 2010 Olympics?

dawn — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 06:16:26 +0000

Standing up to the global system makes change possible

There are many reasons to protest the Olympic Games. It is a multi-billion dollar industry run by an elite clique that sells the five rings to the highest bidder, using sports as a commodity and a platform for corporate advertising. Their main goal is profit, in collaboration with their partners: government, local organizing committees, and corporations (construction, real estate, tourism, TV, and media, as well as sponsors).

The Olympics have a long history of association with fascists, colonialists, and authoritarian regimes (i.e., the 1936 Hitler Olympics, the 1968 Mexico City Olympic massacre, and the 2008 Beijing Summer Games). Since the 1980s, they have displaced over three million people and contributed to massive increases in homelessness (as we’ve seen in Vancouver).

Massive construction projects associated with the Olympics, from venues to infrastructure, result in both widespread environmental destruction and huge public debts. As part of security operations, police, military, and intelligence agencies receive millions of dollars for new personnel, equipment, and weapons — strengthening the creeping police states we see around the world and further eroding our alleged 'freedoms' and civil liberties.

Some naysayers ask: Why protest, since protests don’t change anything, and the Games are going to happen anyway? Their questions are based on the apparent futility of protest.

To begin with, protests are but one tactic used by social movements. They help raise awareness and mobilize people. The US black civil rights movement started out as small protests and grew into a mass campaign of civil disobedience. This forced the government to enact reforms and desegregate the South. Protests weren’t the only activities carried out by the civil-rights movement. They also organized forums, held workshops on legal rights, registered black voters, and printed newsletters.

Protests and civil disobedience were what made change both possible and necessary, because not only did they draw international attention to racism in the US, they also made it impossible for the apartheid system in the South to go on as it had before. By the 1970s and ’80s there were black mayors and chiefs of police; today, there is a black president.

People who say protests don’t change anything don’t know history. Those who say the Olympics can’t be fought don’t even know their own local history.

Over the last three years, the anti-Olympic movement has forced the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) off the streets, to the point where it no longer holds large, public ceremonies (as it did in 2007). Anytime the organizing committee does have events, it requires a large policing operation to secure them. This is because we have successfully used direct action to disrupt Olympic events.

The effectiveness of direct action and protest can be seen in the struggle for social housing in Vancouver. This campaign increased in 2006 when the growing ranks of homeless began to become a major political issue, linked to Olympic-related construction, gentrification, and tourism.

By the fall of 2006, housing and anti-poverty groups were having large, noisy protests and began occupying empty hotels. Over two dozen people were arrested, many of them members of the Anti-Poverty Committee. These actions raised the profile of homelessness and dislocation.

Since 2007, various levels of government, along with VANOC, have had to respond with measures to limit the loss of low-income housing units, and to appear as though they are addressing the issue. By 2008, the homelessness crisis, along with the Olympic Village fiasco, determined the outcome of the Vancouver civic election.

Homelessness became a public issue because people organized, educated, and agitated for change. Without the political pressure exerted by protest groups, without community resistance, the situation for the poor and the homeless would be far worse than it is today.

Why protest 2010? Because as history shows us, the limits of tyrants are set by those whom they attempt to tyrannize.

Gord Hill is a member of the Olympic Resistance Network and maintains No2010.com. He is also an artist and carver. A version of this article previously appeared in the Georgia Straight.

Eagleridge Bluffs

The Dominion - Gord Hill

Sinixt in Vancouver Courts

Why protest Vancouver's 2010 Olympics?