cheekeye-dunsmuir bombing

CHEEKEYE-DUNSMUIR COMMUNIQUE

DIRECT ACTION – MAY 31, 1982

On May 31, we bombed four 500 kV transformers at the Dunsmuir substation on Vancouver Island. This substation is part of the $1 billion CheekeyeDunsmuir transmission line project being built by British Columbia Hydroelectric. This project, if completed, will provide electricity for a wave of industrial development planned for Vancouver Island. It was in rejection of both the ecological destruction and the human oppression inherent in the industrial societies of the corporate machine in the West and the communist machine in the East. In the last two hundred years industrial civilization has been raping and mutilating the earth and exterminating other species at an ever increasing rate. Already in this province, half the forest has been logged and many rivers dammed. The valleys are littered with highways and power lines, the estuaries are paved and polluted, the water is poisoned, mills and smelters belch noxious fumes, and nuclear power and acid rain are soon to come. While being in complete opposition to further ecological destruction, we also oppose the human oppression resulting from the economic and political systems throughout the world that are based on profit and power. In fact, ecological destruction is directly related to the human oppressions of sexism, racism, hierarchy and imperialism. The desire for power, the insensitivity to the suffering of others and the need to feel superior are the sinister bonds that underlie all these oppressive human relations. Canada’s historical role has always been that of supplier of cheap resources to the industrialized world. As this role becomes more critical internationally, the development of energy and resource mega-projects in Canada has become a government priority. As well as serving a strategic function within the international capitalist economy, the Canadian capitalists see these mega-projects as a means of overcoming the ongoing economic crisis nationally. We must make this an insecure and uninhabitable place for capitalists and their projects. This is the best contribution we can make towards protecting the earth and struggling for a liberated society.