Indigenous groups condemn violent incident at Coastal GasLink work site
A Wet’suwet’en hereditary leader said her community was “disheartened” by Thursday’s early morning attack on a Coastal GasLink work site that saw nine contractors and security guards threatened, and millions of dollars in damage to heavy machinery and buildings left behind.
“We certainly don’t, as Wet’suwet’en people, condone this type of action,” said Chief Wihaliy’te, whose English name is Theresa Tait-Day, in a statement distributed by the First Nations LNG Alliance, which describes itself as a collective of First Nations participating in LNG development.
RCMP have characterized the assault as a calculated and co-ordinated attack by 20-to 40-people. Coastal GasLink released images captured by security cameras showing individuals wearing masks and dressed in camouflage, some armed with axes, who confronted the overnight crew as they fled.
The RCMP said the assailants commandeered heavy equipment at the site to ransack the site, overturning other machines and smashing buildings before leaving.
© Coastal GasLink A surveillance camera captures an attacker lighting off a flare during the attack on the Coastal GasLink camp near Houston, B.C, on Feb. 17. This image, taken as the attack started, was provided by the company.
The attackers disabled the cameras a short time later.
RCMP Chief Supt. Warren Brown told Postmedia News that responding officers were confronted by six-to-eight assailants who threw torches, smoke bombs and other objects at them as they tried to clear trees felled across the road as barricades before retreating into the woods.
Police are working to identify suspects, but Wihaliy’te, in an interview with Global News, said they believe a “rogue group of people who want to fulfil their own agendas” is responsible.
“Our feeling is that these are people from outside the province,” Wihaliy’te said. “We would like them to go home and leave the decision-making of these projects up to the Wet’suwet’en people. We don’t need their help.”
The site of Thursday’s incident, a remote work site some 69 kilometres down forest service roads southwest of the small town of Houston, is also a location of blockades against the project and police actions to clear them.
Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs opposing the pipeline sparked rallies and rail blockades across Canada in 2020. Coastal GasLink obtained an injunction against blockades, and Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs issued the company an eviction notice.
Hereditary Chief Na’moks, with those who opposed the development, told The Canadian Press by text message Friday that he wouldn’t comment on the incident until they too receive more information.
“All we know is no arrests or charges, and harassment of our camps continue,” he said.
Coastal GasLink’s $6.7-billion, 670 kilometre natural gas pipeline, intended to link with LNG Canada’s $18 billion liquefied natural gas plant being built on tidewater at Kitimat, does have the support along its route of 20 elected First Nation governments, which have impact-benefit agreements with the company.
Maureen Luggi, elected chief of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation near Burns Lake, one of five communities in the larger Wet’suwet’en territory, said the public often misunderstands who opposes the project.
“My biggest concern is that this incident increases the division within our respective Wet’suwet’en communities, as well as our relationships with those who are non-Indigenous,” Luggi wrote in a response to email questions.
On Saturday, Luggi’s council sent out a statement condemning the attack “in the strongest possible terms,” and called on “those who are inviting violent non-Wet’suwet’en people into our territories to withdraw the invitations.”
Luggi offered an additional statement through the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, which declared that the incident “goes against Carrier Sekani values of respect for the land and each other.”
“This attack shocked our communities,” Luggi said in the Carrier Sekani statement. “These violent attacks are against our values. They not only left a great deal of property damage, but also has created a local environmental crisis due to the industrial fluids that were spilled due to the destruction.”
