In the past few weeks, a number of water protectors have seen criminal cases dismissed by prosecutors in so-called Northern Minnesota for alleged actions taken to stop the Line 3 pipeline in defense of the water, the climate, and the treaty rights of the Anishinaabeg people.
Violating Anishinaabe treaty territories in Minnesota, the new stretch of Line 3 was approved without full consent or proper impact studies, threatening safe water sources for millions. It carries the carbon equivalent of 50 coal plants. More than 68,000 Minnesotans testified against this plan.
Over 1,000 arrests were made during the nine months of construction. These individuals put their bodies on the line to stop Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline, a massive tar sands project that threatens the state’s lakes, rivers, aquifers and wild rice beds. Police forces – directly funded by Enbridge – have responded to this massive movement with surveillance, harassment, physical torture (“pain compliance”), and trumped-up charges, including felonies. In this time of climate catastrophe, governments must listen to water protectors instead of criminalizing and prosecuting them.
The Canadian energy transportation corporation, Enbridge, funded and collaborated with the police force in northern Minnesota, and we currently understand have paid for $8.6 million for costs associated with arresting and surveilling water protectors, including recent news of Aitkin County Sheriff billing 4,800 hours to Enbridge.
More recently, water protectors have seen a large number of their criminal cases dropped by prosecutors. A water protector said this of her dropped charges:
“We are proud to have stood in solidarity with the Anishanaabe people and do our small part in saying that Enbridge should not be allowed to further destroy the earth. Enbridge, with a history of over a billion dollars of damage to Anishanaabe waters and lands, is guilty of climate crimes against humanity and all beings. The police and judicial system are directly implicated with this subjugation of Mother Earth and her Indigenous caretakers, having received what we now understand to be $8.6 million dollars from a private company to terrorize water protectors.
In the face of a global climate crisis, our governing bodies have chosen to protect the interests of capital, not humanity. We live by the delusion that profit is boundless, while the resources that sustain us, our water, our land, fossilized fuels deep underground, even our own families – are very much finite. To the prosecutors, attorney general, police officers, DNR, army corps of engineers, President Biden– What will your legacy be, to your children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, as we face this climate crisis together? What is it that you love, and how do you want to be known for protecting it?
What will it take for the law of the land to protect life on Earth, and the fragile human beings that we are? We urge the state to do what’s right and to drop all charges.”
To learn more about the “Drop The Charges” campaign and the broader campaign to stop line 3, visit StopLine3.org and follow the Giniw Collective, Migizi Will Fly, Honor the Earth, and Resist Line 3