Pipeline Dispute: Ministers, Wet’suwet’en Chiefs Reach Proposed Agreement
The Canadian Press, March 1, 2020
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/pipeline-rail-blockade-agreement
SMITHERS, B.C. — A Wet’suwet’en hereditary chief and senior government ministers say they have reached a proposed arrangement in a pipeline dispute that has prompted solidarity protests across Canada in recent weeks.
Federal Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett and British Columbia Indigenous Relations Minister Scott Fraser would not give details on the proposal, saying it first has to be reviewed by the Wet’suwet’en people.
Fraser says that while the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline at the heart of the dispute is already approved and underway, the talks have helped develop a protocol to deal with such projects in the future.
Chief Woos, one of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary leaders, says the proposal represents an important milestone for everyone involved.
But he says the hereditary chiefs remain opposed to the pipeline in their traditional territory.
The dispute has spurred solidarity protests that have disrupted passenger and freight train service over the last three weeks. Police recently moved to dismantle some of the blockades.
Sunday’s announcement came as talks between the hereditary chiefs and the ministers entered a fourth day.
The Wet’suwet’en are governed by both a traditional hereditary chief system and elected band councils. A majority of its councils have approved the pipeline, but some of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs oppose it running through their traditional territory.
The dispute also involves other unsettled land rights and title issues, including who has the right to negotiate with governments and corporations, the fact that the land is not covered by a treaty and remains unceded, and a 1997 court case that recognized the hereditary chiefs’ authority and the exclusive right of the Wet’suwet’en peoples to the land but did not specify the boundaries.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on March 1, 2020
Canada’s Nevsun Resources
To Face Mass Slavery Lawsuit
After Supreme Court Ruling
By Daniel Tencer, HuffPost, March 1, 2020
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/nevsun-supreme-court-slavery-bisha-mine-eritrea
A Vancouver-based mining firm can be sued for slavery, forced labour and crimes against humanity over its operations in Eritrea, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday.
Experts say the ruling could change the way Canadian companies do business abroad.
The ruling marks the end of efforts by Nevsun Resources to stop a lawsuit that began in 2014, when three Eritrean refugees took the company to court in British Columbia. They alleged the local government forced them to work at a facility jointly owned by Nevsun and the Eritrean government, and sought damages for violations of international law, including slavery.
As involuntary conscripts in the military, they claimed that they were forced to work at the Bisha gold, copper and zinc mine under intimidation and threats of torture, sometimes in exposed sunlight at temperatures approaching 50 C.
The three plaintiffs told the courts they had respectively spent 17, 14 and 11 years in forced military labour before escaping in 2011, and were forced to work 12-hour days, six or seven days a week, while at the Bisha mine.
Since its inception, Eritrea has been a dictatorship run by Isaias Afwerki, a former Marxist guerrilla who fought a war for independence from Ethiopia. He was supported first by the U.S. and later the Soviet Union.
Afwerki instituted compulsory military service for all citizens when they turn 18. The service runs for 18 months but can be extended indefinitely. For this and other reasons, the UN and Amnesty International have accused Eritrea of crimes against humanity ― accusations the government rejects.
I invoke Wakanataka, White Buffalo Calf Woman,
Chief Sitting Bull, Chief Cochise, Chief Red Cloud,
Chief White Cloud, Chief Joseph, Chief Geronimo,
Yeshua, the Magdalena, Sanat Kumara, St. Germaine,
the Halion Engineers, the Healers of Tralana, the Hathors,
the Mighty Ones, the Mother, the Universal Laws,
the Divine Blessings, Virtues, Qualities,
the Dimensional Growth Patterns
for Peace, Love, Joy within/without,
Harmony and BALANCE in all realms.