Last month, indigenous activists and supporters of the Make Amazon Pay movement, delivered our petition (signed by over 75000 people) and a statement to Amazon Headquarters in Seattle, calling on Amazon to stop ignoring indigenous voices opposing the River Club development on a sacred floodplain. Sasha LaPointe of the Upper Skagit and Nooksack Indian Tribe, an Indigenous author and poet of the Upper Skagit and Nooksack tribes, noted that if Amazon continued to ignore indigenous voices, “it is our job to bring those voices to them directly.” LaPointe added that “on my own ancestral lands, I have seen my own rivers and sacred sites taken. In my lifetime, I have watched salmon disappear and I have seen how hard my relatives have fought to defend what is ours… because of the strength I’ve seen and what I know we can do when we work together, I stand in solidarity with the Indigenous people of South Africa who have a right to defend what is theirs.”
We salute the solidarity of indigenous activists around the world because the script playing out at the River Club – huge mega-profits to be made, divide and rule strategies to disrupt grassroots opposition, and dirty tactics to undermine leadership who dare to stand up to power, is what we see elsewhere in the world.
Amazon had five other suitable sites to place their Headquarters but insisted on an environmentally sensitive floodplain that is a cultural landscape of enormous importance for indigenous heritage. It is a site currently being assessed for national heritage status by the competent national heritage authority, the South African Heritage Resources Agency.
Our case to review the approval decisions is still on track. We will hold the City of Cape Town to account if the Western High Court does find the approvals were unlawful and demand that they order the demolitions of the current behemoth constructed for Amazon on a sacred floodplain of high environmental sensitivity. A construction that should never have been permitted to happen.
However, in the face of money is being thrown at this case so as to immobilise us in court, we appeal to you for your financial support so that we can pursue this case and the campaign effectively. Please contribute financially to support the costs of the case. If everyone who has signed this petition contributed R20 or US$1, we would be in a much stronger position to fight this case fully. Please support us by contributing at our fundraising site. Any donation of any size will make a huge difference
Visit our website and follow the Liesbeek Action Campaign on twitter: @LiesbeekAction.
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