Freda Hewson: “You Can’t Take Any More Land From Us”

Freda Hewson is fighting to grab the land of Native Canadians. As Wet’swet’en leader, he received the alternative Nobel Prize – and launched a nationwide solidarity movement.

Freda Hewson is only 1.5 meters tall but combative: The 57-year-old has been known nationwide at the latest as she stood before Canadian police officers in February last year and was carried away.

The Hussons are the so-called hereditary chiefs of the indigenous people of the Wet’suweton in northwestern Canada, in the province of British Columbia. And their protest is directed against the controversial Coastal GasLink pipeline, which is to run through the Wet’suwetan area:

“We’re sending a message to the province and government in Ottawa. They can’t take any more indigenous land from us,” she told reporters at the time. “We protest peacefully, we’re not aggressive, we don’t want to hurt anyone. But we want them to take us seriously, that we want to protect this country for the sake of our children and grandchildren. “

nationwide protest started

But the police lifted the blockade of Freda Hewson and her associates – the result of protests across Canada. Supporters, including several climate activists, blocked railroads across the country for several days. The local protest had become a national movement with which many expressed solidarity – and the indigenous people of Canada were heard:

We don’t have much land left anyway. They have already taken a lot from us. We use what’s left: we hunt, pick berries and teach our culture to children.

“Healing Centers” Instead of Boarding Schools

In 2019 he traveled to the United Nations in New York to draw attention to the construction of the pipeline and the consequences for his indigenous community. At a special forum, he also made serious allegations against the Canadian government: “They want to drive us out of their land. This is part of a genocide. They want to deprive us of our land rights. But we depend on the land.” ”, she told the United Nations.

Recently, the fate of the so-called First Nations in Canada has come into focus again. In the past few months, more than 1,000 graves have been found near former boarding schools for Indigenous children.

Between 1874 and the 1990s, about 150,000 children of Native Americans and mixed couples were separated from their families and sent to special boarding schools to force them to adapt to white-majority society.

“You will protect this land”

Hewson founded the Unistoten Healing Center a few years ago specifically for them – on a mountain slope on their land: “The Canadian state has done everything we can to get Indians out of our children’s boarding schools,” she expressed Center target back then. “At our healing center we want to give them back to the Indians so that we can be strong people again.”

Children must be reconnected to the country: “Spiritually, culturally and psychologically. Then no one can drive them out of their country. And they will protect this country for generations to come.”