Native Warrior Society Confiscates Olympic Flag: Things Are Heating Up

The following communiqué has been issued by the Native Warrior Society:

March 7th, 2007
Coast Salish Territory [Vancouver, Canada]

In the early morning hours of Tuesday, March 6th, 2007, we removed the Olympic Flag from its flag-pole at Vancouver City Hall. We pried open the access panel on the pole with a crowbar, using a bolt-cutter, cut the metal cable/halyard inside, cause the flag to fall to the ground.

We claim this action in honor of Harriet Nahanee, our elder-warrior, who was given a death sentence by the BC courters for her courageous stand in defending Mother Earth.

We stand in solidarity with those fighting against th destruction caused by the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

No Olympics on Stolen Land!

Native Warrior Society

Thanks to the excellent Liberated Yet? blog for posting the above.

Harriet Nahanee, for those who don’t know, was a Pacheedaht grandmother, Elder, and an Indigenous Warrior who had married into the Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish) Nation – one of the only Indigenous protesters protecting the Eagle Ridge Bluff site on Coast Salish Territory where people stayed to protect the site that was slated to be destroyed to expand the Sea to Sky Highway for the 2010 Olympics. For asserting her Indigenous rights as an Indian under the Canadian Constitution and for refusing to apologize for her blockade action, on January 24th, 2007, despite her frail health, Harriet was sentenced to fourteen days in the Surrey Pretrial Centre, a men’s prison and a notorious hell-hole for women: she developed pneumonia while inside and was dead within a couple of weeks of her release.

The 2010 olympics are shaping up to be a flash-point for working class and anti-colonial struggle on the West Coast. Already the Native Youth Movement, Vancouver’s Anti-Poverty Committee and others have begun mobilizing, as wherever an event like the Olympics lands, it has the effect of boosting the dynamics of exclusion and oppression (also known as “economic development”).

On the other side of the ethical divide, settler-racist groups such as the Guardian Angels have vowed to “stand by the police” against the anti-olympics opposition.

Interesting days ahead….

For those of you who actually live in the Vancouver area, you may want to check out this event next Monday: