By David Ljunggren
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canadian police are ready on Thursday to pull Indigenous protesters out of TC Energy Corp’s Coastal GasLink pipeline in British Columbia, a progression that some First Nations teams have long opposed.
One of the clans, the Gidimt’en, said Sunday that they ordered the corporation to leave a camp in the north of the province, which is in its classic territory. Coastal says it is allowed to paint on the pipeline.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia said some protesters broke the law by vandalizing devices and destroying a road, and also blocked supplies, it said.
“We were uming that a solution would be discovered without the need for the policeArray . . . we are now mobilizing our resources for a rescue mission,” Chief Superintendent John Brewer said in a statement.
The hereditary heads of the five clans of the Wet’suwet’en people, who oppose the project, have been there for more than a year to prevent the construction.
The 20 indigenous gang councils elected along the direction of Coastal GasLink’s 415-mile (670 km) project, but the hereditary heads of wet’suwet’en say they, not the community’s elected officials, have authority over classic lands.
Coastal, which is owned by equity firm KKR
“It is bad luck that the RCMP has to take this step so that legal access to our shelters and public forest roads can be restored,” he said in a statement, adding that the protesters “have no interest in dialogue. “
A social media account representing Gidimt’en’s blockade tweeted Sunday that between 30 and 50 police officers had landed at a local airport.
“Throughout the day today, helicopters flew over our camps, conducted low-altitude flights and planned surveillance . . . we will back down,” he said.
“The province has chosen to send buses loaded with police to criminalize wet’suwet’en and checkered water protectors as a mercenary force of oil and gas,” the Gidimt’en said, the structure of the pipeline would pollute the water and destroy the environment.
(Reporting through David Ljunggren; Edited via Aurora Ellis)