TYENDINAGA, ONT. -- The Ontario Provincial Police have told Mohawk First Nations demonstrating at a railway in Tyendinaga, Ont. that they have until midnight to clear the rails, or they could face police investigation and charges, according to footage from Real Peoples Media.
In a video posted to Real Peoples Media on Sunday, an OPP officer tells Mohawk demonstrators that “CN has made us aware that, as the complainant, they’re willing to not have the OPP investigate any criminal charges as long as everything from the site is cleared out by the end of today.”
The Mohawks of Tyendinaga have been demonstrating since Feb 6. in support of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs in the wake of the B.C. RCMP enforcing an injunction in unceded Wet’suwet’en territory to allow Coastal GasLink workers to start construction on a pipeline that hereditary chiefs say they have not consented to.
Camps have been set up in Tyendinaga, near Belleville, Ont., that have blocked CN Rail passenger and freight trains.
In the video the OPP officer clarified that “everything” included , “structures, vehicles, equipment, items, people,” and that they needed to be “cleared from the site by 11:59.”
Tyendinaga Mohawk Kanenhariyo, whose English name is Seth LeFort, said in a press conference on Friday that they would not be letting trains pass through their territory until the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs have confirmed that B.C. RCMP have left their lands.
