Resources for supporting the Wet’suwet’en

https://www.yintahaccess.com/
https://www.instagram.com/wetsuweten_checkpoint/
https://gitluuhlumhetxwit.ca/

real quick

Delgamuukw, the defendant in Delgamuukw v British Columbia in 1997, died this January 2nd. RIP.

Kolin Sutherland-Wilson

Our first interviewee ever (special thanks!) is Kolin Sutherland-Wilson of the Fireweed clan of the Gitxsan people. His family has generations of participation in the resistance against settler-colonial encroachment on indigenous land in what we in the West call Canada. Kolin has been speaking out on behalf of both his people and their ancient allies, the Wet’suwet’en, as they weather continued assaults on their soverignty from settler-colonial Canada and large gas extraction corporations. Scott contacted him on Reddit, where he has written extensively over the past few years about his experiences as /u/decolonialman.

In 2020, Kolin staged a “solo week-long strike of his own outside the B.C. Legislature in support of the Wet’suwet’en peoples against the [Coastal Link Gas] pipeline. He walked out during the first week of classes on Jan. 6 and was there from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day of that week.” He published a video explaining why he was doing so on the first day. Today, we discuss the continuing effort to protect unceded lands in the northwest of our continent.

Interview [35m46]; annotated transcript of the interview

the Gitxsan, ‘People of the River of Mist’

The Gitxsan have a similar social structure of clans and houses to the Wet’suwet’en, although they have over 60 houses as opposed to 13.

Eastern clans, including Kispiox
Gisgaast – Fireweed
Lax Gibuu – Wolf
Lax See’l – Frog

Western clans
Giskaast — Fireweed
Lax Gibuu — Wolf
Ganada — Frog
Lax Skiik — Eagle

the Wet’suwet’en

The name Wetʼsuwetʼen means “People of the Wa Dzun Kwuh River (Bulkley River)”. The 22,000 square km of Wet’suwet’en Territory is divided into 5 clans and 13 house groups. Each clan within the Wet’suwet’en Nation has full jurisdiction under their law to control their territory.

• Gilseyhu (Big Frog)
• Laksilyu (Small Frog)
• Gidimt’en/Gitdumt’en/Gitdumden (Wolf/Bear)
• Laksamshu (Fireweed)
• Tsayu (Beaver clan)

chart of hereditary chiefs provided by the Unist’ot’en

I also want to mention the Unist’ot’en group, which is currently affiliated with the Yex T’sa Wilk’us (Dark House) under the Gilseyhu (Big Frog) Clan. Western media have called this a protest camp, but the people living there do not.

According to the Unist’ot’en on their own website,

The Unist’ot’en homestead is not a protest or demonstration. Our clan is occupying and using our traditional territory as it has for centuries. Our free prior and informed consent protocol is in place at the entrance of or territory as an expression of our jurisdiction and our inherent right to both give and refuse consent.

The hereditary chiefs jointly filed a press release stating the same in 2019.

The Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs have maintained their use and occupancy of their lands and hereditary governance system for thousands of years. Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs are the Title Holders and maintain authority and jurisdiction to make decisions on unceded lands….

Chief Kloum Kuhn stated, “The five clans of the Wet’suwet’en will never support the Coastal Gaslink (CGL) project and remain opposed to any pipelines on our traditional lands.”

Ukraine

As another example of Western imperialism, and with Russian/Ukrainian/US tensions back in the news again for the first time since we began the program, I thought the few minutes we have left in the hour could be spent providing some background on the situation there which is not very well-known. I’m not an expert on this, but I think this is context which should not be left out of the conversation. More background can be found in several episodes of Congressional Dish, primarily episode 244

Players:

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is “an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its mission is ‘working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.'”. This “work” is done by loaning cash from wealthy countries to ones which are struggling. These loans come with strings attached — policies which must be changed or added as a condition of accepting the loan. This comes from a sentiment that seems on it’s face to be less than sinister — after all, there must be a reason these countries are in financial trouble, so it would be irresponsible to loan them money without addressing those reasons, lest the debtor not be able to repay his debt.
  In practice, the reason many of the countries which have been loaned money by the IMF are in financial trouble is due to exploitation, or worse, sanctions. Because many (not all) of these situations are caused by external forces, this results in the IMF functioning more as a way for the wealthy, exploitative, capitalist oligarchies to change the laws and rule over countries which don’t align with the neoliberal world order. If this sounds nuts, please spend some time listening to Congressional Dish and following her sources.
• Viktor Yanukovych was the fairly-elected president of Ukraine from 2010 until he was ousted in the early-2014 “Revolution of Dignity“. The Revolution of Dignity was a protest movement and eventual violent ousting of the president after he announced plans to accept a loan from Russia instead of one from the IMF.
• Victoria Nuland is our current Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. From 2013 until 2017, she was the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.
• In the audio clip, she’s speaking with Geoffrey Pyatt
• Arseniy Yatsenyuk (“Yatz”) was the Prime Minister of Ukraine from 2014 to 2016.
• Petro Poroshenko is not mentioned directly in these clips, but it’s relevant to know that he is the President of Ukraine since 2014, and is a far-right Ukranian nationalist who outlawed Communist imagery in 2015 on a policy of “decommunization”. His presidency was distilled into a three-word slogan: “military, language, faith”.
• Vitali Klitschko is Mayor of Kyiv and Head of the Kyiv City State Administration.
• Oleh Tyahnybok is the leader of the far-right ultranationalist Svoboda political party in Ukraine

Nuland/Pyatt Leaked phone call

1m37s

A phone call between high-ranking government officials was leaked Feb. 4, 2014, wherein those officials discuss who they think should and should not be taking high-ranking roles in the Ukrainian government.

Joe Biden at the Council on Foreign Relations on “Defending Democracy”

clips are not related aside from being from the same conference

• Question posed: Should we be “seeking regime change in Russia?” [29s]
• Anecdote about leveraging a billion dollar loan to get a Ukrainian prosecutor fired [1m12s]

Music

Bloodywood — Aaj [5m02s]