Mi’kmaq Blockade Update: RCMP Has Withdrawn, Resistance Continues

18th Octo­ber by Trash­fire / Earth First! News

After a day of clash­es yes­ter­day, the police with­drew around 7pm to cheers from the crowd.

40 peo­ple are report­ed arrest­ed and 5 police vehi­cles were burned.

No One Is Ille­gal reports these lists of sol­i­dar­i­ty actions – Google Docs

Pow­er­shift Cana­da

Yes­ter­day saw many emer­gency sol­i­dar­i­ty actions includ­ing a major through­way being shut­down in Win­nipeg.

Today is a day of action called for by the Mi’kmaq ear­li­er this week.

Tomor­row is anoth­er day of action against frack­ing orga­nized under the ban­ner Glob­al Frack­down.

 

There has also been a request that sup­port­ers call the pre­mier of New Brunswick to express con­cerns over the RCMP’s actions against the Mi’kmaq – .New Brunswick Pre­mier – David Alward
Email: premier@gnb.ca
Phone: (506) 453‑2144
Fax : (506) 453‑7407

Charges for those arrest­ed includ­ed firearms offences, utter­ing threats, intim­i­da­tion, mis­chief and for refus­ing to abide by a court injunc­tion.

The pro­test­ers arrest­ed were tak­en to three dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties where they are expect­ed in court Fri­day morn­ing around 9:30 to face charges. Police spread the arrest­ed pro­test­ers out in an effort to pre­vent the cour­t­hous­es being over­whelmed by protest sup­port­ers dur­ing the arraign­ments.

Chief Aaron Sock was among those arrest­ed in the clash. He and a few of his band coun­cil mem­bers were released a few hours after their arrests.

Sock is the leader of the band that has been blockad­ing Route 134 near Rex­ton since Sept. 30.

On Oct. 1, Sock issued an evic­tion notice to SWN Resources of Cana­da. His band and his band coun­cil planned to pass a res­o­lu­tion pre­vent­ing the gov­ern­ment and shale gas com­pa­nies from con­tin­u­ing their work by reclaim­ing all unoc­cu­pied reserve land and giv­ing it back to First Nations.

The road between Rex­ton and High­way 11 has been the scene of the protest, involv­ing a coali­tion of natives and non-natives opposed to shale gas explo­ration.

Pro­test­ers moved into the area on Sept. 30, ini­tial­ly estab­lish­ing a bar­ri­cade to the stag­ing area used by SWN Resources Cana­da to park its explo­ration vehi­cles and equip­ment.

The protest pro­gressed to the point where bar­ri­cades were also estab­lished on the road, pre­vent­ing traf­fic from going through.

SWN Resources went to the Court of Queen’s Bench and suc­cess­ful­ly sought an injunc­tion to end the protest.

Dur­ing a hear­ing, court was told SWN Resources is los­ing $60,000 every day its seis­mic explo­ration trucks remain block­ad­ed in the com­pound off Route 134.