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honor the earth
'We Are Not Deterred': Water Protectors Vow to Keep Fighting as Line 3 Completed
"Do not think we are going quietly into the night, we will continue to stand on the frontlines until every last tar sands pipeline is shut down and Indigenous communities are no longer targeted."
Sep 29, 2021
Indigenous and environmental activists on Wednesday vowed to keep up the fight against Enbridge's Line 3 pipeline expansion after the Canadian company announced the completion of the multi-billion-dollar tar sands project.
"From the belly of the beast north of the medicine line to rice beds that sustain the life-ways of the Anishinaabe... we will continue to fight for the natural and spiritual knowledge of the Earth."
--IEN
Calgary-based Enbridge on Wednesday announced the "substantial completion" of the 1,097-mile Line 3 expansion, which will enable the flow of up to 760,000 barrels of crude tar sands oil--the world's dirtiest fuel--from Alberta to the port of Superior, Wisconsin.
Line 3 traverses Anishinaabe treaty land without the consent of the Indigenous peoples who live there. The pipeline's route crosses 200 bodies of water and 800 wetlands, raising serious concerns about its climate impact, as well as accidents and leaks that are endemic to pipelines, and other issues including sex trafficking by Line 3 workers.
State and local law enforcement officers--some of their agencies paid by Enbridge under Minnesota state rules--have violently repressed anti-Line 3 demonstrations in northern Minnesota while arresting hundreds of water protectors in recent months.
Winona LaDuke, executive director of the Indigenous-led environmental justice group Honor the Earth, responded to Enbridge's announcement by declaring that "the fight to #StopLine3 is not over."
\u201cEarlier today, Enbridge announced that the Line 3 project will be complete on October 1st and operational by October 3rd. \n\nThe fight to #StopLine3 is not over, but this marks a new phase. Please read my statement below.\u201d— WinonaLaDuke (@WinonaLaDuke) 1632933918
Other Indigenous and environmental leaders also vowed to keep fighting the project.
"The Line 3 fight is far from over, it has just shifted gears," the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) said in a statement.
"Do not think we are going quietly into the night, we will continue to stand on the frontlines until every last tar sands pipeline is shut down and Indigenous communities are no longer targeted but our right to consent or denial is respected," the group said.
"We promise to continue to show up each time even stronger with new voices and hearts ready to lead," IEN continued.
\u201cIndigenous Environmental Network Statement on Enbridge\u2019s Line 3 Completion of Work (September 29, 2021)\u201d— Indigenous Environmental Network (@Indigenous Environmental Network) 1632934408
"From the belly of the beast north of the medicine line to rice beds that sustain the life-ways of the Anishinaabe all the way down to our relatives impacted in the bayous, we will continue to fight for the natural and spiritual knowledge of the Earth," the group added. "We will continue to fight and take care of one another and our Mother because she has always taken care of us."
The frontline Line 3 resistance group Camp Migizi said it "made a solemn promise to stop Line 3 and we intend to go down fighting. There is still work that needs to be done before the project is considered complete; we promise to disrupt and stop that work."
The group continued:
We ask that you remember us, as we will still be here, fighting to protect all that is sacred, even if they build Line 3. Our community that we have built here will still remain. We ask that you remember that just like all of the Indigenous communities we come from, we are still here learning, fighting, and healing.
We will remain an open camp, for queer BIPOC anarchists and water protectors alike to reconnect to the water, the land, and the world around us. We will still be here as you sit in your homes drinking Starbucks coffee, placing bets on which football team will win next Sunday.
We will still be here in the cold, in the heat, through the mud and the barbed wire. We ask that you remember us, because the fight for clean water is never over. We will remain, with all of our lives, the frontline.
Giniw Collective founder Tara Houska said that "this shameful moment marks what the promises of the Democratic Party to listen to climate science look like in action, what it looks like when human beings refuse to open our eyes to the burning world around us and respond with equal urgency."
"Biden and the other politicians who chose to do nothing as treaty rights were violated, waterways were polluted, and peaceful protesters were brutalized have placed themselves on the wrong side of history."
--Margaret Levin, Sierra Club
"Over 800 people from all walks of life were arrested here for protecting our land, treaty obligations to tribal nations were once again violated, [and] statutory requirements were cast aside in favor of corporate greed," Houska continued. "We were shot at with rubber bullets paid for by Enbridge, police officers in financial relationship with a foreign company used pain compliance on us, we face years in prison for defending the drinking water of tens of millions downstream from Alberta tar sands oil set to flow through the Mississippi River headwaters, 22 rivers, 800 wetlands."
Houska defiantly added: "We are not deterred. We answer the failures of governmental leadership to abandon the status quo that's killing all life with building the world we want to live in and standing up for what is right. Line 3 is one coffin nail of many, we cannot and will not stop fighting for a better tomorrow."
Environmental groups also pledged to continue resisting Line 3.
"President [Joe] Biden and the other politicians who chose to do nothing as treaty rights were violated, waterways were polluted, and peaceful protesters were brutalized have placed themselves on the wrong side of history," said Sierra Club North Star chapter director Margaret Levin. "We will continue to seek to hold them accountable for failing to prioritize the best interests of our communities over the desires of a foreign oil company."
\u201cToday, Canadian oil company Enbridge announced that tar sands is set to start running through the Line 3 pipeline this Friday. Line 3 has faced fierce opposition because of the threat to clean water, Indigenous rights, & the climate. #StopLine3 https://t.co/jrDGR0qyGk\u201d— Sierra Club (@Sierra Club) 1632928225
"This is not the outcome we hoped for, but the fight to stop Line 3 has always been a fight for climate justice and a future free from fossil fuels, and that fight will not stop just because Enbridge has succeeded in building this pipeline," Levin added. "Our movement is powerful, and we are not going anywhere. We will keep pushing forward--demanding that our elected leaders live up to their promises and lifting our voices for healthy and safe communities and climate justice."
Line 3 opponents continue to implore the Biden administration to shut down the project. Three months ago, the president was accused of a "horrible and unconscionable betrayal" of his promises to combat the climate emergency and respect Indigenous rights after his administration filed a legal brief backing the federal government's 2020 approval of Line 3 under former President Donald Trump.
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Water Protectors Challenge Minnesota AG Keith Ellison's Silence on Line 3 Pipeline
"What is your plan?" one demonstrator asked while interrupting a speech by Ellison. "Are you going to take a stand?"
Sep 24, 2021
Water protectors fighting to stop Enbridge's Line 3 tar sands pipeline expansion interrupted a Thursday evening speech by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to challenge the Democrat's silence on the multi-billion-dollar project, which violates Anishinaabe treaty rights while endangering local ecosystems, Indigenous communities, and the global climate.
"What will you do about the frivolous charges brought against over 800 people drawing attention to Line 3's climate impacts and civil rights violations?"
--Water protector
"In 2015 at an anti-tar sands rally, you promised to stand with the First Nations brothers and sisters--that's a quote--and defend Mother Earth," one protester shouted out as he was removed from the St. Paul auditorium hosting a ceremony for the new dean of the Mitchell Hamline School of Law. "And yet you've been silent on Line 3... What is your plan? Are you going to take a stand?"
Another water protector asked, "What will you do about the frivolous charges brought against over 800 people drawing attention to Line 3's climate impacts and civil rights violations?"
Ellison, who was the keynote speaker, admonished the demonstrators but agreed to meet with them after the event.
In a video of a post-event exchange published by BLCK Press, Jaike Spotted-Wolf, a leader in the frontline Line 3 resistance group Camp Migizi, told Ellison that "two out of three tribes didn't approve" the pipeline, "and you guys went against treaty law, which is sovereign... you went above the treaty to approve that pipeline. And protesters have been violently arrested all summer long. What are your thoughts on that, as people are being sex-trafficked all along that pipeline?"
Camp Migizi founder Taysha Martineau showed Ellison a photo of their three daughters and asked, "Which one are the Enbridge workers going to target? Which one is going to be raped before the age of 15, which one is going to go missing, which one is going to get murdered, and which one are they going to attempt to sex traffic?"
As Ellison stood in sullen silence, Martineau continued: "This is an honest conversation that Indigenous women wake up every single day terrified about... The [Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women] issue is always going to be there."
"I'm supposed to be able to trust you," they told Ellison, who replied, "I didn't ask you to trust me."
"I've said I don't like Line 3," Ellison said. "If I had any authority to do anything about Line 3, I would."
The attorney general assured the protesters that he would look into sex trafficking and other abuses perpetrated by Line 3 workers.
In 2015, then-Congressman Ellison (D-Minn.) held up a sign reading "I Will Act on Climate" at a Tar Sands Resistance March in St. Paul, and declared, "We've got to stand together; we've got to say no to... fossil fuels; we've got to defend Mother Earth."
However, according to anti-Line 3 campaigners, Ellison has not taken a public stance on the project since being elected attorney general.
The administration of President Joe Biden--who earlier this month called the climate emergency a "code red" crisis--was accused in June of a "horrible and unconscionable betrayal" of his climate promises after filing a legal brief backing the federal government's 2020 approval of the Line 3 project under former President Donald Trump.
Earlier this week, after Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz kicked off Minnesota Climate Week by vowing to "recommit to combating climate change," Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) tweeted, "Let's #StopLine3."
The Indigenous-led frontline group Honor the Earth denounced Walz for what they called his meaningless climate proclamation while imploring the governor to "take real action."
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'The World Is Watching': Indigenous Critics of Line 3 Meet With UN Human Rights Expert
"Since the U.S. government is yet again failing Indigenous people and future generations, we turn to the international community."
Aug 18, 2021
Indigenous women who are leading the fight against Enbridge's Line 3 tar sands pipeline met virtually with a United Nations expert on Tuesday to discuss human rights abuses of those who have joined the movement opposing the polluting project.
"The Biden administration has turned a blind eye, so we hope that international attention can protect the rights of our people and the water we all depend on."
--Winona LaDuke, Honor the Earth
"We met with the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights defenders because gross human rights violations are occurring at the hands of police in [a] financial relationship with Enbridge," Giniw Collective founder Tara Houska of Couchiching First Nation said in a statement.
Houska and Honor the Earth executive director Winona LaDuke of White Earth Nation have submitted a formal complaint about actions by law enforcement in Northern Minnesota to Mary Lawlor, the U.N. special rapporteur.
LaDuke and Houska, with support from the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), shared with Lawlor details about what Line 3 opponents have endured while protesting the Canadian company's effort to replace an aging pipeline with one that will have larger capacity and cross 200 waterways as well as Anishinaabe treaty territory.
\u201cI heard a woman paid to organize against Line 3 screaming at us that we were violent, that we needed to stop. I heard a woman screaming who had blood pouring down her face from the rubber bullet that had hit her. I heard the sound of my own breath rattling in my respirator.\u201d— tara houska \u1516\u1433\u140c\u1474 (@tara houska \u1516\u1433\u140c\u1474) 1628874668
When approving Line 3 in 2018, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission required a Public Safety Escrow Trust funded by Enbridge to reimburse law enforcement for policing costs related to the pipeline--an arrangement that has angered activists on the ground.
Motherboardreported earlier this month that the company has paid police $2 million through the trust. According to the Pipeline Legal Action Network, more than 700 water defenders have been arrested for actions opposing Line 3 in Minnesota.
"Minnesota law enforcement has used pain compliance, psychological trauma, threats, rubber bullets, mace, and chemical warfare on people standing up for water," Houska explained, "which it then bills to a fund Enbridge pays into to the tune of $2 million to date--most of these charges are misdemeanors, all of them are nonviolent."
"We pose no threat. Enbridge threatens Anishinaabe cultural survival, the drinking water of millions, and the public's trust," she added. "Since the U.S. government is yet again failing Indigenous people and future generations, we turn to the international community. The world is watching."
\u201cThis morning, Giniw Collective founder @zhaabowekwe met with UN Rapporteur on Human Rights @MaryLawlorhrds to discuss the egregious human rights violations occurring at the hands of police in direct financial relationship with Enbridge. \n\nThe world is watching. \n\n#StopLine3\u201d— giniw collective (@giniw collective) 1629242748
LaDuke thanked Lawlor "for putting attention on what's happening in Northern Minnesota, where an international fossil fuel corporation is once again brutalizing Indigenous people to expand the footprint of its toxic and unneeded tar sands oil project."
"State and local government are working directly at the behest of the Enbridge corporation, and the Biden administration has turned a blind eye," she said, "so we hope that international attention can protect the rights of our people and the water we all depend on."
The meeting occurred on the same day as a national day of solidarity against Line 3 held by U.S. health professionals--who sent a letter to President Joe Biden echoing activists' demands, urging him to block the project like he did the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline earlier this year.
"Line 3 cuts through the heart of the Anishinaabe territory in Minnesota, violating treaty rights, damaging sacred wild rice beds, and threatening the health of our Indigenous communities, who have already experienced generations of oppression and trauma due to exploitation of their land and their people," the letter says. "Health professionals across the country stand in solidarity with our Indigenous leaders who are putting their bodies on the line to defend sacred water, land, and climate."
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