Bela Shayevich writing about Camp Migizi

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Indigenous groups leading the movement against Line 3 include the Giniw Collective, founded by Tara Houska; Winona LaDuke’s Honor the Earth; the Rise Coalition and environmental organization MN350, both founded by Nancy Beaulieu; and Camp Migizi. To “deal with” the protesters, Enbridge opened an escrow account to reimburse Minnesota state and local agencies for the cost of policing their private interests. After Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources, which issued the permits for Line 3, law enforcement agencies received the largest payout from the escrow fund. Conflicts between protesters and the specially formed Northern Lights Task Force escalated to the police using LRADs (long range acoustic devices, also known as sound cannons), helicopters, rubber bullets, tear gas, and techniques they referred to as “pain compliance.” All this was paid for by Enbridge, and planned for in collaboration with Minnesota law enforcement based on case studies from Standing Rock.

Out of approximately nine hundred Line 3–related arrests since 2020, at least ninety-one protesters were charged with felonies. As of March 2022, sixty-six felony charges remained open. These numbers do not include the charges against Indigenous activists transferred to tribal courts. Felony charges, which vary from state to state but typically apply to violent crime and carry heavy penalties, are largely unprecedented for ecological protest. Direct actions along Line 3 were uniformly passive, involving no violence or property damage. Under most circumstances, such actions would result in the relatively minor misdemeanor charge of trespassing. But prosecutors wanted to create deterrents, and found creative ways to charge protesters with more serious crimes. Water protectors were charged with “assisted suicide” for climbing into and occupying sections of unused pipe, and “felony theft” for costing Enbridge money in the form of work stoppages by locking themselves to equipment or fences. Both carry penalties of up to ten years in prison. Meanwhile, a number of Line 3 activists subjected to “pain compliance” have sustained permanent facial paralysis in the form of Bell’s palsy.

As of January 2022, Enbridge had paid out $4.8 million to fund anti-protest policing.

Imagine if all these resources — the state’s, the corporation’s, law enforcement’s, the lawyers’ — went toward averting the mass extinction coming for us all, instead.


- from Bela Shayevich's article Migizi Will Fly




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