Posts Tagged Canada
Stand beside us in defense of the land: Wet’suwet’en
Posted by carnalizmo in General, Turtle Island, indigenous on February 12, 2010
by Dawn Paley
Toghestiy (Warner Naziel) traveled from Smithers to Vancouver on Thursday in order to add his voice to the chorus of Olympic resistance.
He came with a message for activists gathered in Vancouver: he thinks the pressure for corporate development on Wet’suwet’en territory, which encompasses 22,000 square kilometers in central British Columbia, will increase when the B.C. government has to start paying down the deficit accrued because of the 2010 Games.
“When the time comes for them to actually pay off that bill, we know they’re going to start making their way into our territories, as well as other First Nations’ peoples territories that aren’t ceded yet, and they plan on paying off that bill by extracting resources from our lands, and doing it as quickly and as efficiently as possible,” he said.
There are two proposed oil pipelines that would cut through Wet’suwet’en territory: the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, and a separate Kinder Morgan pipeline, both of which to carry tar sands bitumen from Alberta to the BC Coast. The Wet’suwet’en have expressed their absolute and unconditional rejection of pipelines in their lands.
“The Wet’suwet’en want to protect our land, we want to protect it from any type of pollution, any type of industrial development, because we need to make sure the lands are available for our children and our unborn children,” Toghestiy told the Vancouver Media Co-op.
In the context of building post-Olympic movements in Vancouver, Toghestiy said that the Wet’suwet’en would like to have the support of people in the city as part of their struggle to defend their lands. “We’re looking at developing a larger network of people who can and will stand beside us,” he said.
The Wet’suwet’en nation withdrew from the B.C. Treaty process last October, after spending 16 years at the table with the provincial government.
“Now that Treaty is dead in our territory, one of the discussions that the clan groups had, we’re made up of five distinct clans, and one of the discussions that the clan groups have been having is ‘what are we going to do about occupation,’” said Toghestiy. “We need to go out and begin actually occupying our lands again.”
One of the ways that the Wet’suwet’en are reoccupying their lands is through a cabin building project, where a group people are learning to cut trees, mill them, and build log cabins. “They’re building them out in our territories, without permits or licences or anything like that from the government.”
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Host First Nations Bite the Olympic Hand
Posted by carnalizmo in General, News on February 12, 2010
February 9, 2010
Will the government meet its funding obligations before the Games?
by ZOE BLUNT
Chief Bill Williams at Ut'sam, 2006. Williams and other leaders of the Four Host First Nations are demanding the federal government meet its financial obligations to the communities before the Olympic Games.
VANCOUVER—It looked like the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Committee had everything sewn up tight: new venues built to order, ads from corporate sponsors, bylaws against ambush marketing, and smiling Indigenous people welcoming the world.
Now, the committee must be wondering whether it misjudged its First Nations “partners.”
Hard on the heels of Indigenous protests during the Olympic Torch Relay, the Four Host First Nations (FHFN) surprised the province and its international partners with an announcement in January. Chief Bill Williams, chair of the FHFN, declared they will use the power of international media to shame the province into honouring its commitments to economic development.
Thomas Leonard, president of the BC First Nations Forestry Council, fired the first shot. In a letter to BC Forests Minister Pat Bell last December, he wrote, “The fact that your government and its federal partner are spending $3 billion to stage the Winter Olympics is merely exacerbating the frustration and anger felt by our communities as they continue to be told that there is no money in the pot to address their situations, which, as you are fully aware, are of a most desperate nature.”
Williams explained the consequences for ignoring the FHFN’s ultimatum. “There’s going to be some 14,000 media people running around [at the Olympics],” he told the Globe and Mail. “Some of them are already contacting us. They want to know, ‘What’s it like to be an Indian in today’s world? How do you live?’ We are going to start letting those reporters know the reality of the poverty we face.”
The host nations—the Squamish, Musqueam, Tsleil Waututh, and Lil’Wat Nation bands—signed partnership agreements with VANOC years ago, and until now, they’ve submitted to the demands of the international committee on everything from cutting old-growth forests to wearing faux regalia. Some, like Kwakwaka’wakw activist Gord Hill, have accused the FHFN of selling out, and cheaply.
Raising the price at this late date doesn’t make it right, and Hill calls the latest move an “attempted cash grab” by “native sell-outs.”
“What is truly hypocritical is for Williams to now raise the issue of Native poverty, or to express concerns about the social conditions for Native people, after several years collaborating with VANOC and the 2010 Olympics,” Hill told The Dominion.
Indeed, with the Olympic spectacle upon us, Indigenous leaders have upped the ante. Thomas said, “Our communities are tired of being told there is no new funding available—and that they might have to make do with even less than they already have—and at the same time being told they should be excited about the 2010 Winter Olympics.”
Thomas asked the province for an urgent meeting to resolve the issue, and said if steps aren’t taken, “The FNFC and its member first nations will reluctantly, but without hesitation, take advantage of the intense international media interest that will be focused on BC before and during the Winter Olympics.”
Along with his position as chair of the FHFN, Williams is vice-president of the BC First Nations Forestry Council. He said the province is overdue in funding $6.2 million for developing aboriginal forestry businesses. According to a press statement, similar commitments from Ottawa for $135 million for mountain pine beetle salvage and recovery were pledged years ago but never materialized. A second letter to Federal International Trade Minister Stockwell Day requested a meeting to discuss the long-overdue funding from Ottawa.
Hundreds of reserves across Canada are mired in abject poverty, and thousands make do without safe drinking water, housing, health care, employment and education. Conditions for Indigenous people have only deteriorated since Vancouver and Whistler won the Olympic bid, Hill said. “During this period, hundreds of Natives have been made homeless in Vancouver, subject to police violence and harassment; yet where were Mr. Williams, the Four Host First Nations and their Olympic toad Tewanee Joseph? Kissing the ass of corporations, government and Olympic officials,” he charged.
Investing in forestry is a delicate issue for the Squamish and other First Nations who have fought to preserve the forests of their traditional territory from industrial clearcutting. But in many parts of the coast, unprecedented liquidation of old-growth and second-growth forests is underway, and raw log exports are at an all-time high. Meanwhile, unsettled Indigenous land claims languish in limbo.
Growing nations are desperate for jobs and economic development, and this is the trade-off they face. The Olympics represent development, but at the expense of traditional lands, foods, and wildlife.
Today, neither the province nor the chiefs are speaking to the media—likely because they are attempting to negotiate a truce. The chiefs are certainly aware that when provincial and federal governments are confronted by intractable First Nations threatening action, they often give in to the demands. That’s how Indigenous activists have won substantial concessions in the past.
In this case, the FHFN demands are dwarfed by the scale of the Olympic money-pit. The province’s $6.2 million debt to First Nations forestry amounts to one-tenth of one per cent of Olympic spending. Ottawa’s contribution to pine-beetle salvage in First Nations communities would be a little over two per cent of the budget for the Games. Clearly, the host nations have the position and the leverage to negotiate sweeping changes. But what they stand to win by what some have called “selling out” appears to only be crumbs from the master’s table.
Zoe Blunt is a journalism school dropout on Vancouver Island.
For up-to-the-minute Olympics resistance coverage, check out theVancouver Media Co-op, and the Convergence website. Follow the VMC on twitter!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Jack Poole, VANOC Chairman, Dies as Olympic Torch Lit in Greece
Posted by APOC-Philly in Canada, News on October 24, 2009
Vancouver Olympic chairman Poole dies
CBC News, Friday, October 23, 2009
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2009/10/23/jack-poole-obit.html?ref=rss
Jack Poole, the man who brought the 2010 Winter Olympic Games to Vancouver, has died.
Olympic officials confirmed early Friday that Poole, the chairman of the Vancouver Olympic organizing committee’s board of directors, died after a lengthy battle with pancreatic cancer.
The death of Poole, 76, comes a day after the flame for the Vancouver Games was lit in Olympia, Greece.
During the ceremony, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge gave special thanks to Poole, to whom, he said, “I bring a very warm and special salute.”
British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell, who attended the torch-lighting ceremony, also praised Poole’s work in bringing the games to Vancouver.
“British Columbia and Canada have lost a great friend,” Campbell said in a statement Friday.
“Few citizens reflect the generosity of spirit, the commitment to the public good and the undying dedication to public well-being that was exemplified by Jack Poole. His was an example of leadership, strength and integrity that is unmatched in my recollection”.
Poole, born on April 14, 1933, in the small town of Mortlach, Sask., started out in residential construction and went on to become one of B.C.’s top real estate developers.
He was also known for his philanthropic work and was awarded the Order of Canada in 2006.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
No Olympic ‘Truce’ for Canadian Troops in Afghanistan
Posted by APOC-Philly in Canada, News, Turtle Island on September 29, 2009
September 21, 2009 – 01:02 — no2010
Olympic truce tradition hard for Canada to swallow
Organizers say they have no intention of asking troops fighting in Afghanistan to lay down arms during the Games
ROD MICKLEBURGH, Globe and Mail, Saturday, Sep. 19, 2009
Canada may be in an awkward “do as I say, not as I do” situation next month as it prepares a resolution for the United Nations General Assembly calling on all nations to observe an Olympic truce during the 2010 Winter Games.
Canadian soldiers continue to fight and die in war-torn Afghanistan, and 2010 organizers say they have no intention of asking that their country’s own troops lay down their arms for the 17 days of the Olympics.
“We will not be entering into that kind of discussion with Canada,” VANOC president John Furlong affirmed yesterday.
The UN has traditionally passed an Olympic Truce resolution before each Summer and Winter Games since the early 1990s, echoing the practice of the ancient Greeks, who, according to legend, put aside their weapons every four years to compete peacefully at the Olympic Games of yore.
The country where the Games will be staged routinely introduces the resolution.
“The goal is to have all nations of the world support the truce, which is intended to promote a spirit of peace around the world during the period of the Games,” Mr. Furlong said. “The whole idea is to promote peace, not just in the host country, but in other countries.”
Canada, however, as one of the few host Olympic nations in recent years to be engaged in an actual conflict, is unlikely to observe any sort of ceasefire.
The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City was the last occasion a country held an Olympics while taking part in military hostilities. The United States was then at war, also in Afghanistan, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. U.S. diplomats watered down their UN Olympic Truce resolution to focus on providing “a safe passage” to the world’s athletes, rather than a call for peace.
Of course, Olympic controversy over foreign troops in Afghanistan is nothing new. The largest boycott in the history of the Olympics took place in 1980, when dozens of Western nations, including Canada and the United States, withdrew from the Moscow Summer Games to protest against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.
Now, it’s the West’s turn to fight in the impoverished Asian country, but this time, no one is boycotting anything.
Asked whether Canada would take any initiative to ease hostilities there during the Olympics, Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Alain Cacchione steered carefully away from the question.
“What I can tell you at this point in time is that, as host of the upcoming Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, Canada is pleased to bring forward the draft resolution entitled ‘Building a peaceful and better world through sport and the Olympic ideal,’ ” Mr. Cacchione responded in an e-mail.
He said the resolution would “promote the ideals of peace, understanding and fair play within the positive atmosphere of sport.”
The concept of a modern-day Olympic Truce was launched by the International Olympic Committee in 1992. Despite some early successes (a temporary ceasefire in the bloody civil war in Sudan, and an arrangement to deliver humanitarian aid to the hard-hit population of strife-ridden Bosnia), the IOC now plays down expectations of meaningful peace gestures while the Games go on. Advocates stress instead the symbolic value of the truce.
“The world is a complex place,” Mr. Furlong acknowledged. “But by bringing the world’s attention to the truce, the whole idea is to promote the spirit of peace at home, and just try to get the world to focus on the value of this, at a time when it’s needed.
“We’ve always believed, and people in sport believe, that when you’re playing, you are not fighting.”
Late yesterday, VANOC officials released examples of recent truce initiatives by previous Olympic Organizing Committees.
For the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, for instance, a partnership with Unicef was struck to help vaccinate children in countries ravaged by conflict during the truce period, while organizers of the Athens Summer Olympics in 2004 added peace to the message of its torch
relay.
Canada is due to introduce its Olympic Truce resolution at the UN General Assembly on Oct. 20. The wording of the motion is still being worked on. Those involved include representatives of Foreign Affairs, VANOC, the IOC and the International Paralympic Committee.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Private Security for 2010 Recruiting in Saskatchewan
Posted by APOC-Philly in General on August 20, 2009
August 21, 2009 – 00:48 — no2010
Vancouver-based security company coming to Saskatchewan to recruit for 2010 Olympics
By Heather Polischuk, Leader-Post, August 14, 2009
REGINA — In what it’s hailing as a great opportunity for Saskatchewan’s aboriginal population, a Vancouver-based security company is coming to the province to recruit for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
“It’s a great opportunity to help contribute to the success of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic (Winter) Games, so that once in a lifetime opportunity is definitely a key thing to highlight,” Derek Gagne, workforce division manager with Contemporary Security Canada, said during a phone interview from Vancouver. “I think the other is Contemporary Security Canada is going to be offering a really extensive training program where the folks who work for us will gain really valuable skills as well as experience that they can use towards future job opportunities.”
CSC, contracted to provide security screening for the games, is looking to hire 5,000 security staff from across the country, including 1,500 to 2,000 people of aboriginal background. To do that, CSC is sending recruiters across the country, including to Regina’s Gathering Place beginning at 9 a.m. on Monday and Tuesday. The search continues the following two days in Saskatoon.
“Ideally we want it to be diverse and reflective of our diverse population, so looking at French speakers, women, First Nations,” Gagne said. “It’s about creating a diverse workforce that’s reflective of Canadian society.”
While anyone is welcome to apply, Gagne said aboriginal groups have shown great interest in the recruitment campaign and he expects hundreds to turn up in Saskatchewan — the first stop for CSC.
“There are folks who have expressed a keen interest and we will travel where the keen interest is,” he said.
The File Hills Qu’Appelle Tribal Council is among groups that have been in contact with CSC to facilitate Saskatchewan recruitment.
“It’s certainly exciting that any company would come specifically to target First Nations and Métis individuals for employment,” the council’s tribal vice-chairman, Myke Agecoutay, said. “The organizers are ready to train certain individuals in different fields, so those are skills that these First Nations people can carry on to something different once the Olympic Games are over . . . so it’s a win-win situation for everyone.”
CSC is looking to fill five positions, including screeners, x-ray operators, team communication operators and two management positions, none of which require any past security experience as paid training and licensing are provided. Applicants must be eligible to work in Canada, commit to full-time work during peak periods in February, successfully complete training and be willing to go through a criminal record check. CSC is looking for people with good customer service and interpersonal skills and who can work well in a team environment.
Information about the positions and qualifications — as well as the online application CSC recommends be submitted prior to interview — is available at www.hireme2010.com.
hpolischuk@leaderpost.canwest.com
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Attention: Anti-Olympic Resistance!
Posted by APOC-Philly in General on July 21, 2009
July 15, 2009 – 06:35 — no2010
Callout to Anti-Olympics organizers across Turtle Island
Are you involved in Anti-Olympics organizing in your town, your community, your city?
The Olympic Resistance Network (Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories) is coordinating anti-Olympics efforts. In doing so, we are looking to compile contacts for groups, communities and Indigenous defenders already resisting or planning on opposing the Games (whether through educational events, disrupting the Torch Relay, outreach efforts that link local struggles to the 2010 Games etc). We are hoping to build strength and unity in coordinating our efforts by having this information available on our website.
Please email us by August 2nd at olympicresistance@riseup.net with the name of your group/community, where you are located, contact information that can be made publicly available (phone, email, and/or website information).
Thank you and in solidarity,
Olympic Resistance Network
olympicresistance.net
———————————-
The Olympic Resistance Network is primarily based in Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories and exists as a space to coordinate anti-2010 Olympics efforts. In doing so, we act in solidarity with other communities across ‘BC’ – particularly indigenous communities who have been defending their land against the onslaught of the Olympics since the bid itself.
Anti Olympics organizing through the Olympic Resistance Network is largely being done under the primary slogan and understanding of “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land”, although this is an opportunity for a large convergence of groups, issues, and sectors – anti capitalist, Indigenous, anti poverty, labour, migrant justice, housing, environmental justice, civil libertarian, anti war, and anti colonial – to come together.
We represent a diverse network of groups and individuals which is continuously growing. We look forward to working together across our experiences and movements, while sharing a common understanding including an anti-colonial and anti-capitalist analysis; respect for diversity of tactics and strategies; an anti-oppression understanding and solidarity with those most directly affected; and organizational philosophy based on decentralization within a coordinated and accountable structure.
The ORN supports the international resolution passed by over 1500
Indigenous delegates at the Intercontinental Indigenous Peoples Gathering
in Sonora, Mexico to “boycott the 2010 Olympic Games” based on Resolution
#2 of the Gathering which states “We reject the 2010 Winter Olympics on
sacred and stolen territory of Turtle Island–Vancouver, Canada”. Based on
this, we are working towards a global anti-capitalist and anti-colonial
convergence from February 10th-15th 2010.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Vancouver Mayor Slams 2010 Security
Posted by APOC-Philly in Uncategorized on July 21, 2009
July 14, 2009 – 00:31 — no2010
Mayor slams ‘Orwellian’ limits on free comment
‘Vancouver is a free-speech zone’
The Province | Jul 10, 2009, By Damian Inwood
Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson says he’s concerned about the intimidation of activists by Olympic security cops.
And he’s hitting out at the “Orwellian” label of “free-speech zones” for protesters during the 2010 Winter Games.
“I am concerned about the intimidation that the activists have felt, related to the [Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit's] activity and questioning,” Robertson said at a city council meeting yesterday.
“I think there are more appropriate ways to conduct those conversations and communications.”
Council voted to write letters to senior levels of government, Vancouver 2010 and the ISU, asking they “publicly reaffirm their commitment to the security of the person and freedom of expression in light of recent concerns about intimidation” during the lead-up to the Olympics.
The move follows complaints from 20 people who claim they were approached by plainclothes police at home, at work and on the street, and whose neighbours were questioned about them.
“I think there are more appropriate ways to conduct those conversations and communications,” said Robertson.
“We do need to be vigilant that civil liberties are guaranteed throughout.”
Robertson supports concerns over ISU plans to set up “free-speech zones” for Olympic protesters.
Calling it an “Orwellian” label, he said: “Vancouver is a free-speech zone and we will ensure . . . that we maintain that status and work closely with the ISU to make sure that they are not overstepping bounds.”
Chris Shaw, spokesman for 2010 Watch, accused council of passing a “wishy-washy, motherhood-and-apple-pie” motion supporting the Charter of Rights.
He said council should be telling, not asking, city police what they’ll do during the Games.
ISU officials couldn’t be reached for comment.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
22 Days into June and Still the US is Denying Mohawks Access to their Own Community
Posted by APOC-Philly in General on June 23, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Reposted from: http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2009/06/22-days-into-june-and-still-us-is.html
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
A voice from the Akwesasne border standoff: ‘Start listening to Mohawk people’
Posted by APOC-Philly in Uncategorized on June 23, 2009
By Jesse Freeston, Reprinted with permission from www.rabble.ca
Story Published: Jun 20, 2009
Story Updated: Jun 22, 2009
Photo by Shannon Burns
After Canadian Border Service Agency guards abandoned their posts May 31, Mohawks pulled down the American and Canadian flags, leaving only Akwesasne’s raised. The symbolic warrior flag was also hung over a CBSA sign.
CORNWALL, Ontario – For three weeks the border crossing that spans the St. Lawrence River between Cornwall, Ontario and Massena, N.Y. has been inoperable. On the north side, Canadian authorities have blockaded the Three Nations Bridge Crossing, while their U.S. equivalents do the same on the south shore of the river. On the island in the middle stands a community in protest.
The community of Akwesasne, part of the Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) Nation, has unified in resistance to the Canadian government’s plan to arm its border guards with 9mm pistols. The guns were set to appear June 1, but Canadian Border Services Agency guards walked off their posts at midnight May 31 in response to a non-violent protest by members of the Akwesasne community. Since then the bridges have been sealed and the feds have refused to speak with community representatives.
Only Akwesasne community members are being permitted to cross the north bridge, while New York State police maintain a total blockade from the south. After being denied entrance to the community by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Cornwall Police, the following interview with Sakoietah, a representative of Akwesasne’s Men’s Traditional Council, was conducted by telephone.
Jesse Freeston: What is the greatest misconception about the current dispute that is being put forward in the media?
Sakoietah: I guess the biggest misconception has been about the blocking of the bridges. A lot of the coverage leads you to believe that we, meaning the people, were blocking the roads, and that wasn’t the truth. And it still isn’t the truth. None of us are stopping anybody from traveling, north or south.
JF: For many this dispute will be difficult to understand, because most people do not have an international border running through their community. How did a border end up in the middle of your community?
S: You have to look at before this actual border came into our territory. It goes back to when the U.S. and Britain signed the Jay Treaty. Article 3 of the Jay Treaty said that we would be allowed to travel back and forth. And our people perceived that border line as being 10 feet above our heads, it didn’t matter to our people that it was there, this was a line dispute between Britain and the U.S., and this is how they settled that dispute. Article 3 allows for us to pass through our own country, unhindered. This goes way back before the construction of the border. The physical building and officers came into effect in the early 1950s. That’s the reason our people fight, because we don’t actually believe that there is a border here. This physical thing that sits here is not for us, it’s for the Canadian public and the U.S. public.
JF: How did the community arrive at the decision to oppose the arming of the guards?
S: The movement here is a people’s movement; it doesn’t follow any kind of council. I sit on the Men’s Council, but we’re not the leadership. This is why the people are so resolved. They’re not going to budge on this issue. Continually, the people have told Canada and the CBSA that the guns will not be allowed within our territory. Our situation is unique, the guard post sits in our territory, in a residential area, and there have been a lot of problems because of that. There are a lot of cases of abuse that are in court right now, and a lot of the people felt that if the arming of the border guards were to happen, it would create the potential for something drastic to happen.
JF: What is your relationship like with the local Canadian settler population? What has been their response to the dispute?
S: We have a good relationship with part of the population and a bad one with another part of the population. A lot of people feel that the law should be applied to everybody regardless of who you are. But the fact is that we are a nation, and we have our own laws. If we were to apply it to them, would they be happy with that?
The Mohawk nation, and in fact the whole Haudenosaunee, or Six Nations Confederacy, signed a treaty known as the Two Row Wampum, and we apply that with any foreign nation or country that we come into contact with. The Two Row Wampum simply explains that we are two rows that travel down the same path together, their ship and our canoe. We travel side by side in this life. The ship has its own laws and customs and our canoe has its own laws and customs. Neither one is to set foot in the other in order to try and steer it.
JF: What has been the response from other original people communities?
S: We have received a lot of support from all over, not only other Mohawk communities but from all over the country. I believe everybody is becoming aware about what is happening here. Just the other night here with the people, a woman from British Columbia said that the people of her nation are aware and they’re burning a fire in support of us. So I think that the news is getting out all over even though the media is blacking out our voice and trying to present what the government of Canada wants to say.
JF: Speaking of the media, I want to give you an opportunity to respond to a couple of the arguments we are seeing in the reporting; the first being that ‘you don’t have anything to worry about with armed guards unless you are doing something wrong.’
S: The fact is that there is a record of mistreatment of our people over the years. And the issue didn’t just arrive. Forty years ago, they blocked the bridge in the same location. In 40 years nothing has changed, the abuse has happened over and over. It seems to happen more and more often. CBSA doesn’t seem to understand, and Canadians don’t seem to understand who we are and what we are. We are not lawless people here. We are in fact the most law-abiding people. But we abide by our laws. To push a foreign entity on us, to push a foreign law on us and continually abuse our people. To put our young people in this so-called justice system, for committing what they call a crime. This is important to understand for those who say that if we weren’t committing crimes we would have nothing to worry about. The physical abuse is happening; and could get worse with weapons.
JF: Could you give us an example of the abuse?
S: A grandma from our sister community Kahnawake was crossing, and because of a so-called lack of cooperation she was physically abused. And that is being looked at by the Human Rights Tribunal right now. My own son was involved in an incident where he was abused, charged and eventually acquitted. There are a lot of different incidents, piles and piles of reports that have been given to Mohawk Council and to the Traditional Men’s Council, detailing the abuse that is happening here.
JF: Another argument we see in the papers is that ‘the U.S. guards have been armed for years and there has never been a problem.’
S: That is true. This issue is bigger than the gun issue. The issue is that these buildings sit within our territory. And laws imposed on us in any way, whether it’s guns or Canadian law, must be questioned. Some of our people travel this so-called border seven to 10 times per day. Our families are here, our jobs are here. Yes, the U.S. customs has guns, but they never asked us whether or not they could have guns. The U.S. [has spent] millions of dollars to build a big [Customs and Border Protection] building across the way. For what? Seventy percent of the traffic at this border is our people. Are those holding cells that they’re building for us? The issue over there hasn’t been addressed as of yet, but it will be.
JF: Clearly this issue goes quite a bit deeper than arming the border guards. Have you proposed a long-term solution to the problems created by the border?
S: That would have to be a decision by the people. Right now we are all resolved to saying there will be no weapons here. The ball is in the court of Canada and Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan. Van Loan says that border guards will not return here unless they’re armed, and the Mohawk community should realize that they have no say in this because it’s a Canadian law that has been enacted. The people will not allow guns here, so if it’s the case that border guards won’t be here, then they won’t be here. I mean, in the last week it’s been very nice here without the border guards, no problems. The only problems have been the police blockades on the Canadian and U.S. sides.
JF: What can people do to support your community in this dispute?
S: The main thing is to start asking the questions that we are talking about. Talk to your MPs and elected leadership and ask them these questions. Why isn’t the truth getting out? Why doesn’t the government come to Akwesasne and speak with the people? We need that kind of support. Hopefully there will be a peaceful resolution to this, but the Mohawk people are resolved to the fact that they’re going to stand as long as it takes. We hope that the public can bear with us, as I said we’re not the ones who blocked access to anywhere, and we didn’t overtake a building and throw people out. They simply left their post. And people want to help us out? Start getting out the truth, talk to the people you put in office, and start listening to what Mohawk people are saying.
Jesse Freeston is an independent journalist, currently working with The Real News Network.
Reposted from: http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/archive/48483537.html
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Resist 2010: Eight Reasons to Oppose the 2010 Winter Olympics
Posted by APOC-Philly in Uncategorized on June 16, 2009
Resist 2010: Eight Reasons to Oppose the 2010 Winter Olympics. (LOW RES) from BurningFist Media on Vimeo.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Akwesasne Under Siege
Posted by APOC-Philly in General on June 8, 2009
by Special Correspondent Jessica Yee, originally published at Rabble
Ed. Note: Jessica wrote this in response to Canadian border patrol agents being armed in Akwesasne. This article gives a summary of the situation:
A respected security and anti-terrorism expert says Canada’s federal government should stand by its guns and ignore threats from Mohawk militants in Cornwall, Ont., who have vowed to storm the Canadian border post if Ottawa gives sidearms to border agents there.
John Thompson, president of the Mackenzie Institute, a Toronto-based think-tank, said Monday that Mohawk militants are “blowing smoke,” and would never attempt an armed, illegal occupation of the offices of the Canadian Border Services Agency.
Native leaders and activists at Akwesasne have been warning for months they would take action to prevent Canada from giving 9-mm pistols to its border agents, because they say the presence of armed government agents on their reserve is an affront to their aboriginal sovereignty.
“Things are escalating in Akwesasne. The Indians aren’t being peaceful anymore,” the news reporters are saying.
500 years of colonization and the continuous refusal to acknowledge our fundamental human rights do not produce peaceful results. I’ll tell you that right now.
But I’m not currently in Akwesasne — my home community which has been under siege by the Border Patrol Services for quite some time now. Yes, the existence of a transnational border that tears a community apart is a sign of putting us under siege. Only this time, since June 1, 2009 to be exact, they want to legitimize and regulate their firearms against us.
So if you want to get a first hand account of what’s going on there right now — I implore you to ask someone who belongs to and is in the community as we speak. But I do have some things to say about this situation which has been a long time coming.
The media have repeatedly asked me about which “side” do I think is right, do I agree with the border being closed, do I side with the “warriors” who refused to back down to the rule of the governments, or am I simply indifferent to it all since I live in Toronto now?
I actually know precisely where I stand – as a Kanionke:haka woman, a Mohawk woman, who belongs to the Haudenosaunee people, and as young person who is part of the next seven generations, I am on the side of my community who is on the side of the land – of Mother Earth. As women we are titleholders and caretakers of the land. And I know very well that the border should not be there.
I am also not a trade economics ignoramus — I recognize why countries feel the need to have borders, make passport and visa systems, promote capitalism, etc. But what I have never understood is how can you really separate a people and a community? How can you tell a nation to pick a side? The answer is to conquer them — that’s how they tried to do it to us — and that’s also why.
What the border has done to far too many of our First Nations communities is horrific and atrocious on so many levels — and it has poisoned our minds to think in singular factions, instead of a full circle. Billy Two Rivers, an Elder and community activist from Kahnawake spoke to me about that this past weekend. “They have no right to tell you which side you belong to. Oh sure, they say it’s St. Regis on the ‘Canadian Side’ and Hogansburg on the ‘American side,’ but that is all your lands. It’s gotten to the minds of our people — and that has got to stop.”
It is incredibly degrading to have to show proof of citizenship simply to see your family or go to the other side of your own community — and sure we might have some sort of a special “border-crossing lane” but its mere existence is enough to put insult to injury — which continues to do much harm to our people. Borders were created to separate and destroy us, all across Turtle Island, but I don’t know how much other people remember this when it’s not going on in their territory.
So what’s going on in Akwesasne now is not an opportunity to jump on the bandwagon of telling the government to shove it — the issue runs much deeper than that. The border might be there, but we are NOT a conquered people.
Which way is going to best resolve this situation I’m not sure of yet but I do know we have a right to stand up for our own community, which will never solely be in Canada or the United States. We belong to Mother Earth in whom no one has claim over – and where there aren’t any borders.
(Image Credit: Ottawa Citizen)
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
What Do You Say?