"Line 3 Construction Halted As Activists Lock Down, Charged with Felonies; National Support of Indigenous Fight Against Enbridge Pipeline Grows" 2 July 2021

As a sign of the growing national movement to stop the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline being built on the treaty territory of Anishinaabe peoples, activists from across the country are risking arrest to stop construction of this disastrous fossil fuel project. On Thursday, July 1, 2021, Rainforest Action Network Executive Director Ginger Cassady and others engaged in a peaceful civil disobedience to protest construction and are now facing felony charges.

“This pipeline is a violent assault on Indigenous People and their rights,” said Cassady, in a statement prior to her detainment. “Line 3 would violate the treaty rights of Anishinaabe peoples and other nations. [...]”

In a further example of the strong arm tactics at play in this dispute, Hubbard County is refusing to honor the traditional 10% cash bail option, instead demanding $5,000 conditional and $10,000 unconditional bail payments for release.

“Over 13 people died recently from extreme heat in Seattle, while another 60 walked on in Oregon,” said Tara Houska, founder of the Giniw Collective and one of the leaders of the Indigenous movement against the Line 3 pipeline. “[...] Here in Minnesota the rivers and lakes are drought-stricken as Enbridge sucks water for Line 3 drilling mud from exposed river banks. [...] We need the environmental movement to step up and stand with the sacred in more than words. Stop Line 3.”

[...]Projects like Line 3 will only lock in future fossil fuel production for decades to come. And in the short term, inevitable pipeline leaks and spills will needlessly devastate lands such as the Ojibwe reservation and other ancestral lands over which local communities have treaty rights to hunt, fish, and gather wild rice.

[...]

Postscript for the Japanese version

[Japanese-to-English translation: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

Line 3, to be built by Enbridge, a major Canadian pipeline company, will connect Alberta, Canada, to Wisconsin via Minnesota in the United States.

[...]

In addition to North American banks, all three of Japan's mega-banks are participating in the support for Line 3. Among them, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) is the largest funder in Asia, and Mizuho Financial Group is playing a key role as the lead banker for the $1 billion loans.

Line 3 has no financing specifically for the project, and Enbridge has billions of dollars in loans from dozens of major banks that can be used for "general business purposes." Financing this project is a clear violation of the banks' recent net-zero commitments and their policy of respecting human rights.[...]