On Friday morning, a member of the Occupy 麻豆传媒映画tent city who gave her name only as "Kiki" delivered a statement to journalists in response to fire department demands to clean up the site. The Occupy protesters have camped on the lawn of the 麻豆传媒映画Art Gallery since Oct. 15.
Here's an edited transcript of the statement as recorded by the Courier:
We want to make this clear that this is a message [from] the people of tent city and it's been consensed upon within tent city council. It has not been brought to the GA [general assembly]. This is a message specifically from the tenters to the people of 麻豆传媒映画and the movement as a whole.
We want to start off by recognizing that Occupy 麻豆传媒映画tent city is located on unceded Coast Salish territory. Furthermore we declare our encampment to be an autonomous state ruled directly by those who live in it as part of the global Occupy movement.
It was consensed [sic] upon last night in the GA that all orders or threats from various municipal or provincial agencies will only be addressed if brought to the GA through proper protocol.
We want to go further to make it clear that orders brought to us or to the GA from outside agencies will be considered only in an advisory capacity. The members of tent council have consensed this is a self-ruling autonomous zone and while we do welcome informed advice from relevant authorities, the ultimate decision-making authority rests in the hands of the people.
We are ruling ourselves peacefully here and we will continue to do so.
Within our zones we are creating a fully functioning committee that directly serves the needs and the interests of the people. Our goal here is to provide the social services needed to sustain a healthy and vibrant community. It is imperative to do so, not only in order to support the Occupy movement, but also to deliver basic social services that are not being met by the current system to the people of Vancouver. This includes basic needs such as shelter, food and medical care. [The intent here at tent city is] to cover education. We've got childcare [we're] working on [and] other modes of healing that are not accessible to people without the money to get them.
We want to make it clear we will provide these services for free to all and that we will continue to expand our operations-to build from the ground up parallel systems outside the zone so we may be completely autonomous.
We are proving our ability to provide for ourselves each day that our community peacefully grows. We welcome all the individuals who make up the 99 per cent to contribute to the success of the community by volunteering their relevant skills and training.
We want to make it clear that you do not have to be a tenter to support tent city, Every service needed in the City of 麻豆传媒映画is also needed in here as well. We urge you to join us in whichever way you can.
It has been consensed upon within tent council that weapons are not welcome within these grounds, nor are those who carry them.
It has also been consensed upon that while we appreciate the city's concern for our health and safety and look forward to maintaining friendly relations with the city workers, fire department, municipal authorities and the police, the authority of these individuals and their agencies is not recognized in the autonomous zone.
As such, those working for those agencies are still welcome to join the movement as sovereign individuals and assist the movement by applying their skills and training here to meet the needs of the movement. However, we want to make it clear as an autonomous zone, as an encampment on unceded native land, their institutional authority is not recognized here.
We govern ourselves. We also want to make it clear should the police choose not to respect our decisions, we are willing to stand in the way of these weapons in order to protect our autonomy_.[applause interupted transcript recording].
We would like to reiterate that this is not a dispute with the city, but rather an ongoing battle_.
