Category: Fracking

25 June 2013 Com­mu­ni­ty Mem­ber Hit by Car, Sov­er­eign­ty Sum­mer Cam­paign Call­ing for Nation­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty Actions

By Sun­day, June 23rd, SWN Resource Canada’s high­ly con­test­ed and protest­ed seis­mic test­ing along high­way 126, in Kent Coun­ty, New Brunswick, had almost wrapped up.

But the seis­mic test along the high­way is only one of sev­er­al planned test­ing lines, and the company’s attempts to begin anoth­er line of seis­mic test­ing – this time along the back roads of Kent Coun­ty – was yes­ter­day halt­ed in its tracks by com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers liv­ing in the vicin­i­ty of Browns Yard.

SWN’s seis­mic test­ing of the back roads areas of Kent Coun­ty – con­duct­ed with All-Ter­rain Vehi­cles known as ‘Bom­badiers’, and dyna­mite charges – is slat­ed to be exten­sive, with approx­i­mate­ly 150kms of test­ing expect­ed to take place.

Yesterday’s resis­tance, con­duct­ed first­ly by local fam­i­lies and the action group known as ‘Upriv­er Envi­ron­ment Watch’, sug­gest that SWN’s task in the woods of New Brunswick, where there is local knowl­edge, deep forests and intense oppo­si­tion to the test­ing, will be a tough slog indeed.

At about 2pm, an SWN-con­tract­ed truck with a trail­er parked itself along high­way 490. The truck was aban­doned by the SWN-con­tract­ed work­ers, but it was an announce­ment of their pres­ence to the vig­i­lant com­mu­ni­ty.

A small group of local famil­i­ties – about 15 peo­ple in all, includ­ing young chil­dren – then gath­ered. A Bom­badier, two geo­phones, a surveyor’s tri­pod and a SWN anten­na, were spot­ted. Who­ev­er had posi­tioned the equip­ment had done so on a pri­vate piece of land adja­cent to the dirt high­way.

The dri­ver of the Bom­badier approached the sur­vey­ing equip­ment, poten­tial­ly to recov­er it from the gath­er­ing crowd, only to be chased away from the equip­ment by the crowd. The dri­ver sped south along a dirt road and did not return to the scene.

An SWN-con­tract­ed secu­ri­ty truck appeared on the scene about ten min­utes lat­er. The dri­ver of the truck did not speak to the gath­ered crowd, but as he was dri­ving away he struck local res­i­dent Dave Morang hard enough with his driver’s side mir­ror to bend the mir­ror back­wards. The dri­ver did not stop.

Morang, injured, request­ed that an ambu­lance need­ed to be called. An Emer­gency Response team lat­er took Morang to hos­pi­tal on a spinal board and a stretch­er. His con­di­tion is cur­rent­ly unknown.

“I can’t believe they didn’t stop,” Morang told the Hal­i­fax Media Co-op before the ambu­lance arrived. “They hit me hard enough with his mir­ror that it bent it. He would have known that. How many laws can they break?”

About 20 min­utes lat­er, RCMP appeared in force, with 26 offi­cers and 14 cars and pad­dy wag­ons sta­tion­ing them­selves along the dirt road. The call through social media, how­ev­er, had beat­en them to the punch, and by the time they arrived the gath­ered crowd had swelled to about 100 non-Indige­nous and Indige­nous peo­ple.

RCMP con­sult­ed for about twen­ty more min­utes, before appar­ent­ly decid­ing that the best course of action would be to pick up SWN’s anten­na and geo­phones. Pho­tographs indi­cate that SWN’s equip­ment appears to have been some­how bent and oth­er­wise bro­ken.

With noth­ing left to do, and with a gath­ered crowd which now includ­ed Chief Aaren Sock of Elsi­pog­tog First Nation, the police packed up and retreat­ed down the dirt road from which they had appeared.

Chief Sock, whose band coun­cil late Sat­ur­day night issued a Band Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tion invit­ing Unit­ed Nations Observers to Elsi­pog­tog, was not impressed with SWN’s unwant­ed incur­sions into Kent Coun­ty, or the arrests of his peo­ple while in cer­e­mo­ny.

“Mes­sage for SWN: You’re not wel­come in my ter­ri­to­ry,” Sock told the Hal­i­fax Media Co-op. “Noth­ing per­son­al.”

After the RCMP depart­ed with SWN’s equip­ment, those gath­ered con­tin­ued to cheer and drum. They then began to slow­ly trick­le back to their respec­tive com­mu­ni­ties.

It was lat­er dis­cov­ered that SWN’s aban­doned truck – the orig­i­nal sign of their pres­ence – had had its win­dows smashed, doors dent­ed and bumpers knocked off. As of press time, it is not known how this dam­age might have hap­pened.

A packed com­mu­ni­ty hall meet­ing in Elsi­pog­tog, open to the gen­er­al pub­lic, took place lat­er in the evening. The top­ic of the meet­ing was not only how to stop SWN, but how to get shale gas out of New Brunswick, and all of the Mar­itimes. With UN observers now in place, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from var­i­ous War­rior soci­eties from across the Mar­itimes have been wel­comed to Elsi­pog­tog. They were greet­ed at the meet­ing with a stand­ing ova­tion.

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Cross Post­ed from Idle No More

This is an offi­cial notice and “Call Out” to all Idle No More & Defend­ers of the Land – Sov­er­eign­ty Sum­mer – activists, allies and sup­port­ers, and part­ner­ship orga­ni­za­tions to act in aid and in the defence of grass­roots Elsi­pog­tog First Nation, fam­i­lies, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, and sup­port­ers near Monc­ton, New Brunswick.

In the last few weeks, Elsi­pog­tog First Nation com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and allies have tak­en peace­ful action to pre­vent seis­mic test­ing vehi­cles and work­ers from test­ing for shale gas deposits for pur­pos­es of resource exploita­tion on Indige­nous ter­ri­to­ries.

The pro­tes­tors have remained strong and peace­ful for numer­ous days and the RCMP have become more aggres­sive and vio­lent; arrest­ing a man as he held a sacred pipe in his hand, as well as arrest­ing com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers at the site of the sacred fire. SWN con­trac­tors have also threat­ened to run over Mi’kmaq youth at the site.

In total, this past week­ends Abo­rig­i­nal Day’s 12 arrests brings the total num­ber of arrestees to 29 from both the Mi’kmaq and non-Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties at the loca­tion of a sacred fire being kept (locat­ed at the junc­tion of high­ways 126 and 116 west) in Kent Coun­ty near Monc­ton. These arrests includ­ed the arrest of a eight and a half month preg­nant Mi’kmaq woman as well as local man, Dave Morang. Mr. Morang was injured by an SWN-con­tract­ed secu­ri­ty truck, who failed to stop after hit­ting him.This peace­ful resis­tance is on-going to pre­vent SWN Resources Cana­da from frack­ing in the imme­di­ate area.

INM orga­niz­ers have been in con­tact with Elsi­pog­tog First Nation com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and have request­ed fur­ther sup­port.

Sov­er­eign­ty Sum­mer Cam­paign-Idle No More & Defend­ers of the Land