**LIL'WAT NATION BLOCKADES 'ILLEGAL' LOGGING ON THEIR TERRITORY**
Beginning March 27, blockading of logging access to Ure
Creek, Lil'wat Nation began with a "Road Closed Due to Corporate
Crimes" banner strung across the road and Shelagh Franklin
suspended from a 20 metre tall tripod.
The blockade is peaceful, even though police violence and
harassment has occurred at previous blockades.
The logging company being blockaded is C.R.B. Logging, who
are fulfilling a contract with the mega-corporation Interfor.
Logging in Lil'wat territory has been extensive, even on areas
sacred to the Lil'wat peoples -- for instance, Ure Creek is an
ancient burial site, but it has been violated by clearcut logging
for a long time.
On March 29, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) served
the blockaders with an injunction to end the blockade (with the
use of a helicopter). The injunction remains from the last
blockades, in 1991.
The injunction names three individuals (none of whom were
present that day) and "John Doe." Franklin claimed legal immunity
from the injunction because being a woman, she doesn't fit under
the title "John."
The RCMP told the blockaders to leave by 7:00pm that
evening, even though loggers had blockaded the blockaders from
leaving by placing bridge-building equipment across the road.
The counter-blockade left the blockaders, and Canadian
Broadcast Corporation (CBC) reporters, trapped.
CFUV Radio's reporter on the scene also conveyed that there
is a very heavy police presence. The police in Lil'wat territory
are no joke -- some Lil'wat people allege to have been beaten up,
threatened with their lives, and dragged to a Vancouver 'pre-
trial' centre to be further beaten up and called a "fucking
roadblock Indian."
LIL'WAT TERRITORY ILLEGALLY EXPROPRIATED
The Lil'wat peoples have been living in their territory
since time immemorial and have never ceded an inch of it.
Nonetheless, the Crown has asserted its own jurisdiction, which
the Lil'wat say is illegal according to British and Canadian law.
Some of the Lil'wat persons who were arrested in the 1991
blockade are contesting their arrest on this point of native
jurisdiction. Legal Aid has denied them their services because
they claim the jurisdiction argument has no chance of success.
LOGGING IS DESTROYING THE LAND
Logging in Lil'wat territory was found in January of this
year in what has become known as the 'Tripp Report' to have
violated Fisheries guidelines 49.4%.
Last week, Interfor logged an active site of the Spotted
Owl, which is an endangered species.
The provincial government has the authority to revoke
Interfor's cutting licence, but has chosen not to for undisclosed
reasons.
FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO LEND SUPPORT
Please contact Chub Pascal at PO Box 208, Mount Currie,
B.C., V0N 2K0, CANADA, phone (604) 849-6640.
You can also contact the Forest Action Network, Box 155 -
1895 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, B.C. V5N 4A6, CANADA, phone
2111) and Rita Corcoran as contacts, phone (604) 938-0220.
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