Tsimshian Protest Camp on Small Canadian Island Defies Massive Natural-Gas Project

Since late August, members of an indigenous First Nations community from the Tsimshian (also spelled Ts’msyen) Nation have been occupying—“re-occupying,” as they prefer to put it—an island off the coast of northern British Columbia where an energy multinational from Malaysia wants to build a liquid natural gas (L.N.G.) exporting terminal.  The community, Lax Kw’alaams, often referred to by its colonial name, Port Simpson, is the most populous Tsimshian village in Canada (there is also one over the border in Alaska) and is home to nine of the Tsimshian Nation’s fourteen constituent tribes.  Lax Kw’alaams members overwhelmingly voted down the developments plans in a referendum in May of this year, and the community’s mayor, Garry Reece, said late last month that the Lax Kw’alaams First Nation would file suit for aboriginal title to the island, Lelu Island, and to nearby Flora Bank.

Tsimshian territory makes up about the northern third of B.C.’s coast.  Since, with very few exceptions, almost no land in this vast province has been ceded by Indian treaty, technically all of Tsimshian territory, and nearly all of B.C., is in one sense not part of B.C. or Canada but is unceded aboriginal territory.  An “aboriginal title” claim by Lax Kw’alaams would take these territories out of their current legal limbo (which the federal and provincial governments treat as de facto Crown sovereignty) and put them squarely before the courts, where a number of recent decisions (the Gitxsan in 1997, the Tsihlq’otin in 2014) have greatly strengthened the aboriginal hand.

Artist’s rendering of the L.N.G.-terminal project proposed for Lelu Island

The struggle over L.N.G. pipelines through the territories of B.C. nations has become a flashpoint in the indigenous North American land struggle, including the recent aboriginal push against environmentally destructive energy projects which operates under the banner “Idle No More.”  (See articles from this blog about the Gitxsan land struggle here, here, and here and about that of B.C.’s Wet’suwet’en here.)

The Lelu project planners, Petronas (a Malaysian corporation known worldwide for its record-breaking Petronas Towers skyscraper complex), and its Canadian arm, Pacific NorthWest L.N.G., have said that construction of the terminal would cost nearly $1.5 billion.  This includes constructing a bridge and a harbor in addition to the processing plant.  But Lax Kw’alaams, with studies in hand, points out this will harm salmon habitat in the nearby Skeena River estuary, a serious issue for a community very dependent on the traditional seasonal round of resource-gathering, primarily salmon.  Among the other six Tsimshian communities in Canada, Metlakatla (Maxłakxaała) and Kitselas (Gits’ilaasü) bands signed off on the project (Metlakatla is home to members of several of Lax Kw’alaams’s nine tribes, but the tribes’ paramount chiefs are of Lax Kw’alaams), but Kitsumkalum (Gitsmgeelm), Kitkatla (Gitkxaała), Klemtu (the Gidestsu people at Kłmduu), and Hartley Bay (Gitga’ata), as of late September, had yet to do so.  B.C.’s premier, Christie Clark, is a supporter of the Petronas plan.

Sm’oogit Yahan, a.k.a. Donald Wesley, Jr., who has been speaking for the protestors, said in September that his group will be co-founding a brand-new organization called the Northern First Nation Alliance, along with some of the more uncompromisingly sovereigntist nations in the province, including the Gitxsan, the Wet’suwet’en, and the Council of Haida Nations.  (The Nisga’a, just to the north, are not part of the club: their chiefs surrendered their territory to the Crown in the 1990s for a cash settlement and for self-government rights that they already possessed.)  As Yahan explained, “Our Traditional ways of life and the resources which have sustained our people are not to be pawns in the Christie Clark government’s L.N.G. dreams.  Development within our Traditional territories must have our free, prior and informed consent.  The people of Lax Kw’alaams spoke very clearly in their rejection of the 1.25-billion-dollar offer from Petronas, and this camp builds upon that rejection.  This issue is not just a First Nations issue but one that will affect all British Columbians, especially those who rely upon healthy and abundant fish stocks.”

Meanwhile, Mayor Reece—whose village government office is separate from the Lelu protest group but for a while was quoted in the media as implicitly supporting it—said last month, “We want to protect crucial salmon habitat, protect our food security, and ensure that governments and industry are obligated to seek our consent.  If we obtain title, we will own Lelu Island and Flora Bank.”  He added, “Our traditional law, backed by our scientific reports, has made it clear that Flora Bank cannot be touched by [Pacific NorthWest] or any other company that proposes development.”

Gitxsan chiefs visited Lelu Island to show solidarity.

But things got complicated in late September, when Petronas workers conducting unauthorized surveying on Lelu were escorted away by members of the Lax U’u’la Warriors—an intertribal, interethnic support group linked to the Lelu protest camp.  (Lax U’u’la, also spelled Lax Üüla, or “place of the harbor seals”) is the Sm’algyax (Tsimshian language) name for the island.)

The flag of Lax Kw’alaams, flying on Lelu Island

In response, in early October, a statement issued on behalf of “the Hereditary Chiefs of the Nine Tribes of Lax Kw’alaams” granted Petronas surveyers “conditional access to Lelu Island and the Flora Banks to complete their studies, the results of which will allow us to determine our final stance.”  The statement said that Yahan and the island’s occupiers did not have “authority to speak or act, no authority to unilaterally decide to use and occupy any lands and no authority to use the identity of the Nine Tribes.  All of this contravenes Ts’msyen Law.  ...  We are actively addressing the shame certain individuals, bound by our laws, have brought by these actions.”  Regarding the expulsion of the Petronas workers, the hereditary chiefs’ statement added, “To commit violence, demean and disgrace the station of Ts’msyen Chieftainship through words and action is abhorrent to the true Chiefs of the Ts’msyen Nation and such disrespect threatens the Nine Tribes of Lax Kw’alaams,” whose “duties and responsibilities” and “names handed down since time immemorial, are thus activated, and we remind all our people that they have the right to live and work in safety under the protection of the Laws of the Ts’msyen.”

Lax Kw’alaams

In the traditional social and political structure of the Tsimshian, Gitxsan, Nisga’a, Wet’suwet’en, Haisla, Haida, Tlingit, and other nations in the area, it is the hundreds of matrilineal extended families (houses) which hold sovereignty over their separate territories.  In Lax Kw’alaams, however, houses pool some of their authority in the paramount hereditary chieftainships of the community’s nine tribes.  (For more detail on Tsimshian social structure, see my book Becoming Tsimshian: The Social Life of Names.)

Mayor Garry Reece (left), with timber executive Wayne Drury

Yahan, identified as chief of the Gitwilgyoots (one of the Nine Tribes), reacted swiftly to the joint statement from the hereditary chiefs by stating that only he had the authority to grant access to the island.  “I stand on that island because it is on our traditional territory.  I am the sole chief in standing in this tribe that has a say in what goes on.  ...  We are all individual tribes and we don’t go over other tribes’ territory.”  Mayor Reece, who uses the chiefs’ name Txagaaxs and is identified as chief of the Ginaxangiik, appeared to agree with Yahan that no one had “authority to represent or sign anything on the tribe’s behalf.”  He added that no person or group currently speaks on behalf of all nine tribes.

The Tsimshian, at least, certainly are idle no more.  Which approach to land stewardship will prevail in the Lax Kw’alaams community, and whether protectors of the land will win this battle in the war over energy projects and the environment, remains to be seen.

[You can read more about the Tsimshian, Gitxsan, Nisga’a, etc., as well as sovereignty and independence movements both famous and obscure in my new book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas just published by Litwin Books under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar.  The book, which contains 46 maps and 554 flags (or, more accurately, 554 flag images), is available for order now on Amazon.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even if you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook and see this interview for more information on the book.]

Full disclosure: I have worked with and for various Tsimshian organizations, including the Allied Tsimshian Tribes Association, the Tsimshian Tribal Council, the Kitsumkalum Band Office, and, in particular and most extensively, the Kitsumkalum First Nation Treaty Office, as well as many individuals and families.  My opinions and perspectives are my own, not necessarily shared by anyone else, and I do not speak on behalf of any Tsimshian individual or organization.

Ex-Premier Reveals Saskatchewan, in 1995, Mulled Secession on Its Own as Quebec Independence Vote Neared

Roy Romanow, the former New Democratic Party (N.D.P.) premier of Saskatchewan, confirmed this week that in 1995, as Quebec prepared to hold a referendum on independence from Canada, a secret cabinet “‘constitutional contingencies’ committee” met to plot possible moves in case the result was a “yes.”  One of those possibilities was for Saskatchewan to proceed with its own secession.  The committee’s existence had just been revealed in excerpts, in the Canadian news magazine Maclean’s, of a forthcoming book by the journalist Chantal Hébert titled The Morning After: The Quebec Referendum and the Day that Almost Was.

The committee included Romanow (pictured at the top of this article), two or three cabinet members, and his minister for intergovernmental affairs, Ed Tchorzewski.  “It would have been absolutely foolish to talk about it at the time,” Romanow told the Saskatoon Star–Phoenix this week, when asked about the need for secrecy at the time, adding, “You had to have the committee meeting in secret; otherwise, you’d have headlines [like], ‘Romanow considering pulling out.’  The key word is ‘contingency’—contingent on a successful vote for Quebec separation.  What were our options?”

In addition to secession, the secret committee mulled possibilities such as annexation by the United States—something also openly contemplated at the time in the Maritime Provinces of New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, which would have been cut off by a Quebec secession from the rest of Canada.  But Romanow says now that neither that nor independence were considered by the committee viable.  As he put it this week, “ The separation idea simply was not on. It would not make sense economically and socially,” he said.  “It would offend everything with respect to my personal history.  I didn’t go through patriation and the Night of the Long Knives and the Charlottetown accord for that—these are things I believe in passionately, so [secession] was simply not on.”

The flag of Saskatchewan

More likely, if the referendum had succeeded, would have been a strengthening of ties with British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, and the northern territories, Romanow said, mainly because the remaining parts of Canada would have to find new geopolitical orientations.  As the Star–Phoenix summarized this thinking, “If Quebec separated, Atlantic Canada would be ‘an island,’ Ontario would likely strengthen its ‘north–south’ economic partnerships, and the western provinces would be on their own.”  In the event, the secessionist cause lost by a handful of votes.

For the most part, Saskatchewan has been very nearly the least separatist among Canada’s Anglophone provinces.  Alberta is the most independent-minded, although their main separatist party, the Western Block Party (W.B.P.), hung up its hat (pictured above) earlier this year (as discussed at the time in this blog).

The 1995 referendum was a nail-biter for all Canadians.

[For those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with my forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  The book, which contains dozens of maps and over 500 flags, is now in the layout phase and should be on shelves, and available on Amazon, by early fall 2014.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even though you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook.]

Related articles from this blog:

“Tense Standoff Eases as Gitxsan Nation Suspends Evictions from British Columbia Land; All Hinges on Aug. 25th Talks” (Aug. 2014)
“Deadline in British Columbia for ‘Eviction’ from Gitxsan Aboriginal Lands Arrives; Chiefs Plan ‘Direct Action’” (Aug. 2014)
“Gitxsan Chiefs in British Columbia Serve Eviction Notice on Fishermen, Railroads, Logging Industry across Vast Territory” (Aug. 2014)

“‘Western Canada’ Separatists Throw in the Towel” (Feb. 2014)

“Quebec Free-Love Saucer Cult Joins Muslim Headscarf Debate, Suggests Censoring Religious Texts” (Oct. 2013)

“Separatists Challenge Canadian Tolerance with Proposed Islamic-Headscarf Ban” (Sept. 2013)

“Vancouver Islanders Hope to Be Canada’s 11th Province—and Its Greenest” (Aug. 2013)

“Which Part of Wet’suwet’en Territory Don’t They Understand?” (Nov. 2012)

“Quebec Cracks Down on Crimes against the State—Like Playing Hopscotch in English” (Nov. 2011)

Tense Standoff Eases as Gitxsan Nation Suspends Evictions from British Columbia Land; All Hinges on Aug. 25th Talks

Gitxsan activists during an “Idle No More” protest action in January 2013

The heated land dispute between the Gitxsan indigenous nation and the federal and provincial governments in north-central British Columbia, Canada, seems to have been resolved peacefully, at least for now, weeks after Gitxsan hereditary chiefs set a deadline for “evicting” those carrying out non-indigenous economic activities on their vast, 33,000-square-kilometer territorial claim.  Canadian media reported August 9th that the Gitxsan treaty office said the nation was suspending eviction notices to Canadian National Railway (C.N.) and timber and sport-fishing outfits after the Crown agreed to allow amendments to an agreement which Gitxsan claim signed some territories away to downriver villages of the Tsimshian nation.

Gitxsan activists during a C.N. railroad blockade protest last year

But the suspensions hold only until August 25th, the date of planned meetings between the Crown, the Gitxsan, and leaders from the two Tsimshian villages in question, Kitsumkalum and Kitselas.  The easing of the Gitxsan position came just days after the nation’s chief negotiator, Gwaans, whose English name is Beverley Clifton Percival, had told national news media, “The eviction is going forward.  [But] we’re being reasonable.  We’re giving all parties time to act.  We’re trying to work with all parties.”

The Gitxsan territorial claim
(some boundaries disputed by neighboring nations)

As reported earlier in this blog, the Gitxsan set the August 4th deadline last month after aboriginal title to territory was strengthened in official eyes by a dramatic court ruling in favor of the Tsihlqot’in (Chilcotin) nation in south-central B.C.  The deadline passed (reported earlier this month in this blog) amid a tense few days in the remote forest region, with C.N. temporarily suspending rail traffic and, according to news reports, First Nations people ejecting anglers from Gitxsan lands.

Nearly all land in B.C. was absorbed into Canada without any Indian treaties, and the Tsihlqot’in decision is only the latest in a series of court findings, starting with the Gitxsan’s own land claim in the early 1990s, which is determining that indigenous people have unextinguished rights in the land.  The extent of these rights is still being explored, but the Tsihlqot’in ruling requires aboriginal permission, not just consultation, for economic activities on the land.  In B.C., there is already a lot of political momentum in aboriginal communities, generated by a wave of protests over the past couple years as part of the nationwide “Idle No More” uprising against oil pipelines and other projects.

An aboriginal protester during an “Idle No More” day of action in Manitoba last year

Tenimgyet, a Gitxsan hereditary chief whose English name is Art Mathews, said of the suspension, “It is a very positive move by the Crown to undertake to work diligently with Kitselas and Kitsumkalum to ensure that all parties in the situation are dealt with honourably.  The government being honourable is not a one-size fits all.”

Joe Bevan, chief councillor of the Kitselas (Gits’ilaasü) First Nation, a Tsimshan community whose territory borders Tenimgyet’s tribal village, said that he was open to discussions but was certainly not ready to give ground.  “We’re true to our lands,” Bevan said, “we know where our territory is, our traditional land, and we’ve been using it for thousands of years.  Our door is open for the Gitxsan to come in and have an open and frank discussion.  It’s quite unfortunate that the Gitxsan have taken the role that they have and this type of route, that’s not the way we operate but that’s what they’ve chosen to do.”

Kitselas’s chief councillor Joe Bevan, second from right, flanked by Chinese trade delegates
and the mayor of Terrace, a town which sits on unceded Tsimshian territory

Clifton Percival, the Gitxsan negotiator, meanwhile emphasized that her nation’s dispute is with the government, not with the Tsimshian.

Beverley Clifton Percival

[You can read more about the Tsimshian, Gitxsan, Nisga’a, etc., as well as sovereignty and independence movements both famous and obscure, in my new book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas just published by Litwin Books under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar.  The book, which contains 46 maps and 554 flags (or, more accurately, 554 flag images), is available for order now on Amazon.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even if you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook and see this interview for more information on the book.]

[Full disclosure: I have worked extensively with, and published about, Tsimshian communities, especially Kitsumkalum, and have conducted research which defends that community’s interests.  Also, Beverley Clifton Percival was once a graduate student of mine.  But none of my research focused on territorial disputes, and I take no position on the disagreements between Kitselas, Kitsumkalum, and the Gitxsan.]

Deadline in British Columbia for “Eviction” from Gitxsan Aboriginal Lands Arrives; Chiefs Plan “Direct Action”

Chief Francis Laceese of the Tl’esqox First Nation

Last month in this blog, I reported on an announcement by hereditary chiefs from the indigenous Gitxsan nation in northern British Columbia that, in light of recent Supreme Court decisions in Canada recognizing aboriginal title, railroads, sport fishing, and logging operations in the vast Gitxsan territories had until August 4th to clear out.  Today is the deadline for that “eviction notice,” and there are no indications that any of the entities served notice are pulling up stakes and decamping.

A “Gitxsan against Enbridge” demonstration in 2012

The Gitxsan’s negotiator, Gwaans, whose English name is Beverley Clifton Percival, told an interviewer last week that if the deadline passed with no movement, then “next steps” would be taken.  “We are going to take action against C.N. [Canadian National Railways], and we are going to look at the railway line and a potential disruption of service,” she added.  “We’re going to take action August 5 if there is no action by the Crown. ... We don’t want any violence or confrontation, but we want the Crown to step up.  We want to deal with C.N., we want to deal with the sport fisheries, we want to deal with B.C. Timber Sales.”

The Supreme Court of Canada’s June 26th ruling in favor of the Tsihlq’otin (a.k.a. Chilcotin) First Nation, in south-central B.C., affirmed that in unceded, untreatied lands such as those of the Tsihlq’otin, Gitxsan, and most other aboriginal nations within the province’s declared boundaries, non-aboriginals would need “consent” in order to use the land.  This replaces the previous political dispensation, under which ill-defined “consultation” was sufficient.

There are also at least eleven lawsuits now filed by B.C. First Nations seeking to halt Enbridge Inc.’s planned Northern Gateway Pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to Kitimat, B.C., through Gitxsan and other territories.  (To complicate matters, not all Gitxsan hereditary chiefs are in favor of the eviction notice or against the Enbridge pipeline.)

None of the government ministries or private firms to which the eviction notice is to apply had any comment.

This blog will keep readers updated on what happens as the day for action against arrives tomorrow.

[You can read more about the Gitxsan and other indigenous, separatist, and new-nation movements, both famous and obscure, in my new book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas just published by Litwin Books under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar.  The book, which contains 46 maps and 554 flags (or, more accurately, 554 flag images), is available for order now on Amazon.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even if you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook and see this interview for more information on the book.]

Gitxsan Chiefs in British Columbia Serve Eviction Notice on Fishermen, Railroads, Logging Industry across Vast Territory

Yesterday, July 20th, was the 143rd anniversary of British Columbia’s confederation—i.e., when it ceased to be a colony of the United Kingdom and became a member of the then-four-year-old independent Dominion of Canada.  But celebration by some Canadians in one vast territory in the northern interior of the province was muted.  For it was also the ninth day of a countdown to August 4th under the terms of an indigenous “eviction notice” that challenges the legitimacy of settler rule in B.C.  For it was on July 10th that the hereditary chiefs of two tribal villages of the Gitxsan nation, Gitwanga (a.k.a. Kitwanga) and Gitsegukla, gave notice to Canadian National Railway (C.N.) and individuals and institutions representing the sport fishing and timber industries.  The notice, issued by the Gitxsan Treaty Society in Hazelton, B.C. (even though there is no Gitxsan treaty and many Gitxsan don’t want one; more on this below), states that it covers all of the approximately 33,000 square kilometers of northern B.C. territory belonging to the land-holding leaders of the several dozen extended matrilineal families (“houses”—similar to European noble houses) that make up the Gitxsan nation.  It states, in part, “This eviction notice affects all sports fisheries on the Skeena River and tributaries, all forest activities … and C.N. Rail.  All are expected to vacate and cease activities on Aug. 4, 2014, until both Crowns [i.e. the provincial and federal governments] have obtained the required consent of the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs.”

The Gitxsan chiefs are using centuries of legal precedent.  This includes not only the millennia of Gitxsan law strictly governing the use of family-owned territories—the Gitxsan ayookw—but also a series of Canadian legal decisions which recognize Gitxsan law.  In the Royal Proclamation of 1763, King George III (yes, the same chap who later got so grumpy about surrendering certain other North American territories) affirmed that no scrap of Indian land can come under the rule of the Crown without treaty—and yet in only a few remote corners of B.C. were any treaties ever signed.  Then, Delgamuukw vs. the Queen, a massive lawsuit against the federal and provincial governments brought in the late 1980s by the Gitxsan (the spelling Gitksan was preferred in those days) and a neighboring nation which speaks an unrelated language but exercises an interlocking system of land tenure, the Wet’suwet’en, was struck down in an openly racist court ruling but then partly upheld in an appeal a few years later in a decision that recognized that aboriginal title did exist and that mostly oral traditions such as those of the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en could constitute title.  It left open what the nature of such title was, let alone its implications.

Earl Muldoe (seated, at left), holder of the chiefly title Delgamuukw,
a made famous in the annals of Canadian law

A 2004 ruling in a case brought by the Haida people of northwestern B.C., Haida Nation v. Minister of Forests (B.C.), laid out a stricter process for consulting in land use than the de facto system of “‘consult’ with tribes, then do what you want anyway” under which government and industries have mostly operated in the treatyless lands.  Earlier this year, a case involving the south-central B.C. Tsihlqot’in (a.k.a. Chilcotin) nation, Tsihlqot’in Nation v. B.C., reaffirmed the Delgamuukw 1997 appeal decision in more concrete terms and recognized a governmental-type role for First Nations on equal par with, and in some respects above, the Crown.

As Vernon Smith, who holds the Gitxsan hereditary title Sagum Higookw, pointed out, “In line with our ayookw, the Supreme Court of Canada says repelling trespassers is a necessary element of our title.”  And, as Beverley Clifton Percival,* a negotiator who holds the hereditary title Gwaans from Gitsegukla’s House of Hanamuuxw, said, “There is no legislative authority for these government bureaucrats to make determinations regarding Gitxsan strength of title and rights.  Without the consent by the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs, they are trespassers.”

Beverley Clifton Percival

Clifton Percival also told media that the specific land dispute which brought about the eviction notice involves territories claimed by Gitxsan houses which are being treated in Crown negotations as territory of the Kitselas (Gits’ilaasü) and Kitsumkalum (Gitsmgeelm),** two tribal villages downriver which are part of the linguistically and culturally related Tsimshian (Ts’msyeen) nation.  She added, “We want the Gitxsan lands taken out of the offer, that’s the only part we’re interested in; we also want to achieve reconciliation with the crown of Canada and British Columbia, and we want to have a good legal relationship that moves us all forward in a positive way in the creation of a sustainable economy here in the northwest that allows people to benefit, and as well we have an economic component to our title, so any revenues that are generated on our lands, we’re entitled to that.”

Approximate territories of the coastal nations of British Columbia

Art Mathews, who holds the chiefly title Tenimgyet from Gitwangak, added, “The Crown has never been honourable in their engagement with the Gitksan since 1997.  Harvesters of trees and fish are now evicted.”

Heiltsuk protesters greet a visiting government
negotiating team in Bella Bella, B.C., in 2012.

Al Wilson of the B.C. Wildlife Federation acknowledges that the Tsihlq’otin ruling is still so recent that no one has really grasped its full implications, which are immense. “Clearly,” Martin said, “government is trying to get their mind around that [court decision].  It’s early days.  It’s clear there is a lot of work to be done to figure out the implications of this as you translate from the judgment level of the Supreme Court to how things will actually work across landscapes and watersheds and how it will affect the use of resources, including fish and wildlife.”  The Gitxsan eviction notice accelerates mightily the timetable under which the implications of the decision will need to be sorted out.

The Enbridge pipeline would run through the territory of the Wet’suwet’en, which has joined other
Dene (Athabaskan) speaking nations in the anti-pipeline Yinka Dene Alliance.

But these latest developments have a much larger context as well.  The Northern Gateway Pipeline being planned by Enbridge, Inc., to run from Alberta’s tar sands to the small northern-B.C. harbor city of Kitimat, in the Haisla nation’s territory, would run through a snippet of Gitxsan territory—and, as discussed earlier in this blog, a significant part of Wet’suwet’en lands as well.  Numerous First Nations along the route have organized against the pipeline, which they see as not just an environmental but an existential threat, and the movement has galvanized indigenous communities throughout Canada and the United States under the catch phrase “Idle No More”—evoking the image of a sleeping giant being stirred to action by a further atrocity.

Nathan Cullen, the New Democratic Party’s member of parliament (M.P.) for the area, has pleaded for calm.  Meanwhile, the squatters have till August 4th to clear off.  I have a feeling they won’t, and that the struggle for the land will enter a new chapter.  Watch this space.

[You can read more about the Tsimshian, Gitxsan, Nisga’a, etc., as well as sovereignty and independence movements both famous and obscure, in my new book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas just published by Litwin Books under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar.  The book, which contains 46 maps and 554 flags (or, more accurately, 554 flag images), is available for order now on Amazon.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even if you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook and see this interview for more information on the book.]

Related: hear the author of this blog discuss the Cascadia independence movement in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia in a recent interview for Seattle’s N.P.R. affiliate station KUOW-FM.  Click here to listen.

* Full disclosure: Ms. Percival was a graduate student of mine some years ago at the University of Northern British Columbia’s Terrace campus, though I think I learned at least as much from her as she did from me.

** More full disclosure: I have worked very closely with the Kitsumkalum and Kitselas communities, and in particular with hereditary chiefs and treaty negotiators of the Kitsumkalum community.  I myself take no personal position in any territorial dispute; my work there has not focused on territorial questions but on other governance issues such as membership policy.

Sochi Update: Earthquake Prayers, Racist Rings, Gay-Pride Flag Kerfuffles, Jailed Activists

Here is the latest news from the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, where politics is the most interesting spectator sport.

Islamists pray for Sochi earthquake
The Caucasus Emirate movement, which aims to separate the North Caucasus region, including Sochi, the site of this year’s Winter Olympics, as a separate Islamic state, is considered the greatest threat to the Games.  The group’s Vilayat Dagestan subdivisions claimed responsibility for the recent lethal bus bombings in nearby Volgograd, and the group has promised to send Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, “a present” during the Olympics.  But no concrete security threats have materialized.  (The Caucasus Emirate was no. 1 in this blog’s list of “10 Political Causes Sure to Disrupt the Sochi Games.”)

The imaginary Islamic state of the Caucasus Emirate includes a province (vilayat)
called Ġalġayçö, consisting of Ingushetia and predominantly-Christian North Ossetia.

On February 10th, however, the local branch of the Emirate for the Republic of Ingushetia, a Russian republic east of Sochi, veered toward the supernatural.  An announcement on the Ingush branch’s website asked the faithful to pray for an earthquake to devastate Sochi during the Olympics.  The Emirate movement, as well as more moderate Circassian nationalist groups, have condemned the Russian decision to hold the Games near the site of a genocide of predominantly-Muslim Circassians, exactly 150 years ago this year.  (The Circassian genocide was no. 2 in this blog’s list of “10 Political Causes Sure to Disrupt the Sochi Games.”)

Funeral for a policeman killed in the Islamist terrorist attack on Volgograd

The Emirate’s appeal read, in part, “All who are able to read this letter can supplicate that the Almighty destroys the land in Sochi with an earthquake, and makes the infidels ‘drunk of water’ before Hell and drown in a flood!”  It added, “The Games of the atheists and pagans!  The pigs are so arrogant that they decided to host the Games on the ground where our ancestors shed their blood to defend Islam and Muslims.  Even the blind can see it!”  The statement concluded, “May Allah give the infidels in Sochi the last earthquake of their lives.”

The Caucasus Emirate glee club

No seismic activity has as yet been detected.

Gay-pride flag raised—sort of
There was a brief kerfuffle after the Games’ opening ceremony on February 7th, when some international media openly interpreted the gloves worn by Greece’s national team as using differently colored fingers in reference to the gay-pride flag (technically, the LGBT flag).  This was seen as a middle finger—a yellow middle finger!—to the host country, Russia, and its draconian anti-gay laws (which were no. 3 in this blog’s list of “10 Political Causes Sure to Disrupt the Sochi Games”).  Greece, after all, because of the openly homoerotic culture of ancient Athens, is practically synonymous in the wider world with homosexuality (we’ve all heard of Lesbos), though nowadays it is far tougher to be gay or lesbian in the Balkans than in northern Europe.

Greek officials pointed out, however, that the colored fingers corresponded to the five colors of the Olympic rings (see more below on that) and not the gay-pride flag.  Germany’s team also wore rainbow colors in its opening-ceremony uniforms, but corresponding neither to the gay-pride or Olympic color arrays.

The most serious flag controversy of the Olympics so far, however, has been far from Sochi, in Calgary, Alberta, in Canada.  There, the city has been divided over the question of whether to fly the gay pride flag during the Olympics.  Many Canadian city halls are doing this as a protest of the Russian Federation’s new anti-gay legislation.  These include those in Edmonton, Montreal, Quebec City, Regina, St. John’s, Toronto, Vancouver, and the national capital, Ottawa.  The attack on Calgary’s use of the flag has been led by Jerry Joynt, a member of the Olympic organizing committee back in 1988, when Calgary hosted the Winter Olympics.  Media have also lodged criticism.  The mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi, has nonetheless defended the decision; which flags fly are ultimately his decision.  When a city official took the occasion of Nenshi’s visit to a conference in London to announce that the flag was coming down, Nenshi telephoned from London to overrule him.

Calgary’s city hall

Alberta, often called “the Texas of Canada,” is the epicenter of fundamentalist religion and social conservatism in Canada—a country where religion otherwise, certainly when compared with the United States, plays very little role in public life.  Nenshi, the first Muslim mayor of a major North American city, whose parents were members of Tanzania’s diaspora South Asian community, is locally regarded as very liberal and is a vocal champion of gay and transgender rights.  His house was vandalized in 2010 on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and he has faced a barrage of criticism from extremist Christian activists.

Calgary’s mayor, Naheed Nenshi, is not your typical Albertan.

Ideally, Nenshi says, he would like the Olympic and gay-pride flags to fly side by side outside city hall.  But any flying of the Olympic flag anywhere needs to be authorized by the International Olympic Committee (I.O.C.), and they have not done so.  Nenshi generously says that official permission must be bogged down by red tape, but is the real reason that the I.O.C. does not want to offend this year’s Olympic hosts by having the gay-pride and Olympic flags flying together in an Olympic city?

Calgary hosted the Olympics in 1988.
Shoulder pads, fringe—that was the ’80s.

And, of course, we are still awaiting word on whether anyone in Sochi has spotted the flag of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, a constituent unit of the Russian Federation—originally Josef Stalin’s Siberian dumping ground for troublesome Jews—whose flag so resembles the gay-pride flag that last year (as reported at the time in this blog) officials had to issue specific statements outlining their differences.

See?  The J.A.O. flag has two different shades of purple.  It’s totally different.

Russia puts racial categories back into Olympic symbol
Though there have been few flag kerfuffles in Sochi, there is some controversy over the way that Russia’s Olympic organizers have been displaying a monument in Sochi featuring the Olympic rings.  The five rings representing the Olympics are generally assumed to represent the number of continents in popular conception at the time—and indeed European schoolchildren, for example, still learn that there are five continents.  (To explain this to Americans: they lose Antarctica—no one lives there anyway—and merge North and South America.)  While it is true that the number five was originally chosen to represent the continents, there is no truth in official Olympic rules or in original intent to what has by now become the common popular interpretation: that the different colors of the rings indicate which of the five continents they represent.  The founder of the Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, intended the colors to represent the different colors in all of the flags represented at the first modern Games in 1896: “the blue and yellow of Sweden, the blue and white of Greece” (note: white is the Olympic flag’s background), “the tri colors of France, England, and America,” etc.  (England’s flag is a two-colored St. George’s Cross: like most Frenchmen, the Baron did not know the difference between England and the United Kingdom, but never mind that.)

Nonetheless, the rings as they appear prominently on an Olympic monument in Sochi are labeled by continent: yellow is Asia, black is Africa, blue is Europe, green is Australia, and red are the Americas.  This has caused some complaints.  However, a similar official display at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, also featured continent-labeled rings.

Incorrect—though most people do not realize it

Georgia warns Olympic guests away from Abkhazia
The foreign ministry of the Republic of Georgia on February 12th asked visitors to the Winter Olympics not to visit the nearby Republic of Abkhazia, which functions as a Russian puppet state separate from Georgia but most of the world—other than Russia and four other nations—regards as Georgian territory.  Russia and Georgia cut off diplomatic relations after a 2008 war in which Georgia tried to reclaim Abkhazia and another de facto independent puppet state, South Ossetia.  Georgia came close to boycotting the Olympics this year.  Georgia calls the Russian effort to lure Olympic tourists to Abkhazia “a provocation aimed at undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia.”  But an I.O.C. spokesman, when asked about tourism to Abkhazia, said, “Why not?”  He added, “ The talks and exchanges between the two governments, that’s entirely been to the two governments. In terms of going to Abkhazia ... well if it’s safe, people will go there.”  (Abkhazia and South Ossetia were no. 5 in this blog’s list of “10 Political Causes Sure to Disrupt the Sochi Games.”)

Environmental activist sent to labor camp
The public outcry over this week’s sentencing of Yevgeny Vitishko, a 40-year-old geologist critical of the environmental damage done by the Sochi Olympics, has increased in recent days.  The I.O.C. has demanded an explanation, and Human Rights Watch (H.R.W.) has condemned the move as well.

Yevgeny Vitishko being arrested last week

Vitishko was first arrested in 2011 for “hooliganism” when he and other members of his group, Environmental Watch on North Caucasus, broke through an illegal fence erected in a public forest.  When the activists discovered evidence of illegal logging of protected species, some members of the group spraypainted on the fence, “This is our forest.”  The trouble was, the fence was considered part of the summer home of Aleksandr Tkachev, governor of Krasnodar Krai.  Vitishko was sentenced to three years’ labor in a penal colony, pending appeal.  Then, last week, when he was on his way to speak to reporters in Sochi about his case, he was (as reported in this blog) arrested for using profanity at a public bus stop and taken away for a 15-day jail term.  A legal appeal of his sentence failed on February 12th.  Yulia Gorbunova, of H.R.W., said, “The case against Vitishko has been politically motivated from the start. When the authorities continued to harass him it became clear they were trying to silence and extract certain retribution against certain persistent critics of the preparations for the Olympics.”

The Krasnodar crime scene: “This is our forest”

Governor Tkachev, a certified ultranationalist loon, has been in the news before.  As governor of the jurisdiction which includes Sochi, he has been among those most outspoken in casting the security threats to the Olympics as a racial problem.  It was he who (as reported at the time in this blog) first invited Cossack troops to patrol both Sochi and Krasnodar Krai as a whole, promising local police that “what you can’t do, the Cossacks can”—while also reassuring rights groups that Cossacks do not carry firearms, only whips (phew!).  There are 1,000 Cossacks in full uniform currently patrolling Sochi.  Tkachev has also called for Cossacks to expel North Caucasus minority groups, who are predominantly Muslim, from the province.  He referred to the region as “crawling” with Caucasus people who he said “make ethnic Russians feel like strangers in their own country.”  Nor is he ignorant of the fact that the minorities in question are the indigenous peoples of the region and that Russia brutally conquered the territory only a few generations ago.  He is a foremost proponent of Putin-era Russia’s fascist-style worship of authority and the ideology of “might makes right” on which modern Russia’s authoritarian regime is built.

Gov. Tkachev in his Cossack regalia

Arbitrary arrests, labor camps, Cossacks, ethnic cleansing, shameless apologism for genocide—the “new Russia” sure looks a lot like the old one.

[For those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with my forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  The book, which contains dozens of maps and over 500 flags, is now in the layout phase and should be on shelves, and available on Amazon, by early fall 2014.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even though you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook.]

Anna Sidorova, from Russia’s curling team at the Sochi Olympics

Related articles from this blog:

“Sochi Update: Puppet States under a Cloud, Pussy Riot in New York, Ukrainian Hijacker Questioned” (Feb. 2014)

“Games Begin! Ukrainian Hijacking, Putin Rounds Up Dissidents” (Feb. 2014)

“Yet Another Genocide Olympics: 10 Political Causes Sure to Disrupt the Sochi Games” (Feb. 2014)

“Is Ossetian Reunification Just Russian Irredentism by Another Name?” (Jan. 2014)

“10 Separatist Movements to Watch in 2014” (Dec. 2013)

“‘Separatism’ Added to List of Things Russians Aren’t Allowed to Talk about” (Nov. 2013)

“Abkhazia & South Ossetia Won’t Compete in Sochi Olympics, I.O.C. Declares” (Oct. 2013)

“Putin Wants to Revive Stalin’s Old “Jewish Region” in Siberia; Israel Not Amused” (Aug. 2013)

“She Recognizes Me, She Recognizes Me Not: Fickle Vanuatu Dumps Abkhazia for Georgia” (March 2013)

“Separatist Football Update: Carnage at a Dagestan–Netherlands Match, Alderney vs. Sealand, Barotseland’s National Team” (Aug. 2012)

“Somaliland’s Own Mo Farah Clinches Olympic Immortality” (Aug. 2012)

“Olympic Update: Femen Protest, Bigoted Judokas, Sudanese Defectors” (Aug. 2012)

“Celts, Cypriots, Aborigines Raise Stink at Olympics: Ethnonationalist Protest Update” (July 2012)

“10 Ethnonationalist Causes That Might Disrupt the Olympics” (July 2012)

“Will Siberia Become the 51st State—or Maybe 51 through 77?” (Jan. 2012)