The Dominion - Six Nations

Plan to Pipe Tar Sands to East Coast Protested

dawn — Fri, 25 May 2012 09:59:40 +0000

Activists interrupt National Energy Board's hearing on Enbridge's proposal to reverse flow of Line 9 pipe

TORONTO—Environmental justice protestors temporarily shut down a hearing into a proposal to have tar sand oil piped through Ontario. The hearing took place place in London, Ontario, on Wednesday.

The three day hearing, held by the National Energy Board (NEB), is examining a proposal by Enbridge to reverse the flow of an existing pipeline (Line 9), which currently carries imported overseas oil west. Enbridge wants to instead use the pipeline to bring oil east. However activists are concerned that this will allow Enbridge to bring tar sands to the east coast for export to Europe.

After entering the hearing, protestors employed the People's Mic, where the crowd would echo back whatever was said by a spokesperson in order to project their voices. After a few minutes of the People's Mic commencing, most other attendees at the hearing exited the room. The NEB hearing was shut down for approximately an hour.

The spokesperson who led the Peoples Mic was arrested and then removed from the room. She was later released with a ticket for trespass.

The protestors raised concerns about the environmental impacts of the Alberta tar sands, the possibility of a spill in Ontario and the lack of prior and informed consent being sought from First Nations in Ontario.

"Six Nations rights already have been violated in this review process," stated Wes Elliot, a resident of Six Nations in a press release. "Free, prior, and informed consent is not a factor in these hearings."

Line 9 cuts through the Haldimand Tract, land which was deeded to Six Nations in 1784.

"We also must object to the illegitimate and anti-democratic conduct of the officials who are fast-tracking this review," said Elliot in the release.

Following the protest, demonstrators held what they dubbed an unofficial "People's Hearing on the Tar Sands Pipeline."

"The current framework of the National Energy Board hearings does not allow us to draw connections between tar sands extraction, toxic refineries and upgraders, and various other downstream consequences," said Taylor Flook a member of Occupy Toronto who attended the event in London. "The People's Hearing was arranged as a more open forum, where anyone can share any of their concerns about relevant issues."

"The tar sands industry is attempting to build as many pipelines as they can," said Flook. "We should not accept the fast-tracking of these projects," she said. "No tar sands operations should proceed without the consent of everyone who may be impacted."

As the extraction of tar sands from Alberta has increased, a series of new pipeline projects have emerged to bring the dirty oil to refineries and ports across Canada and the US.

The Harper government has loudly endorsed these projects. But following a series of protests against TransCanada's XL pipeline, which would send tar sands oil south, President Obama delayed approval for a section of the project that goes through the United States until after US elections, which will take place in November.

Opposition by First Nations and environmentalists to Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would bring oil from Alberta to the BC coast for shipment overseas, has garnered attention across Canada.

Protestors worry the Line 9 Reversal could be rushed through before there is time to build awareness and opposition to the pipeline. But they say many of the concerns with the Northern Gateway Pipeline also apply to the Line 9 reversal.

The Line 9 approval process is taking place in two phases. The London hearing deals with bringing oil from Sarnia, Ontario, to Westover, Ontario. The second phase regards oil transport from Westover to Montreal, Quebec.

Tim Groves is an investigative journalist and regular contributor to the Toronto Media Co-op, where the original version of this article appeared.

Protest against Line 9 reversal

Torch Ignites Resistance

Tim McSorley — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:27:17 +0000

Opposition to Olympic Torch spreads across Canada

KITCHENER-WATERLOO—Emerging from the October 2007 Indigenous Peoples gathering in Sonora, Mexico, was a call out for an anti-Olympics convergence in Vancouver in 2010, to coincide with the opening days of the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics. In February 2009, the Olympics Resistance Network (ORN) in British Columbia issued a statement: Solidarity and Unity in Opposing the 2010 Olympics.

The call was heard in Ontario, and since then resistance to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in the province has drawn attention to ongoing local colonialism and environmental destruction. Actions undertaken by anti-poverty, Indigenous and solidarity activists have highlighted how the Olympics impact the gentrification of Vancouver and Whistler, the destruction of native lands, and the criminalization of activists—all also occurring in communities across Ontario.

The Olympic torch is to arrive in Ontario on December 12, 2009, after departing from Victoria, BC, on October 30.

In August 2009, headlines were made when residents of Six Nations, in Southern Ontario, started debating the torch relay’s intrusion into their territory. In October 2008, protests followed the Canadian Pacific Olympic Spirit Train through Ontario (including a rail blockade outside of Toronto). In March 2009, activists disrupted the Royal Bank Torch Relay press conference in Toronto and directly confronted the then-Assembly of First Nations chief, Phil Fontaine. In October 2009, the Olympic Resistance Network-Ontario (ORN-O) released a statement calling for autonomous actions to disrupt the torch relay.

Wherever groups have organized against the Olympics, activists have been targeted by policing and intelligence agencies who have visited and interrogated people at their homes and workplaces, and in some cases even pulled them out of university classrooms.

One of these activists is Melissa Elliot, a founding member of Young Onkwehonwe United (YOU) and one of the individuals who confronted Fontaine this past spring. Elliot has been central in the debate about the torch relay at Six Nations, where youth are organizing to stop the torch passing through their territory. They have echoed the slogan that unites much of the Olympic resistance movement nationwide: “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land.”

Elliot says that at Six Nations, “We have land rights and we have treaties that are nation-to-nation.” She emphasizes that the torch relay compromises their assertion of sovereignty: “They’re not coming to us under the Two Row Wampum and asking if they can cross our territory.” She continued, “They are going through band council and asking if it can pass through our Canadian municipality—we’re not a Canadian municipality, we are a nation.”

In Stratford, 100 kilometres northwest of Six Nations, the annual, six-month-long Shakespeare Festival has been targeted by Stratford Action for Equality (SAFE). Comparisons are drawn to the Olympics by showing how the festival committee is an instigator and propagator of local gentrification, which targets low- and no-income communities, and of neoliberal exploitation of art and culture.

While attempts to convince City Hall to block the torch from coming through Stratford have been rejected, SAFE continues to conduct rallies and small actions directed against the city and Olympic sponsors. These actions have ignited debates around gentrification in Stratford and Julian Ichim, one of SAFE’s core organizers, draws connections between his own community and the 2010 Olympics. “Stratford is a town based on tourism,” says Ichim. “We have a lot of social cleansing [...] removing specific undesirable elements to create the image of the town being perfect. And the reality of the situation is that what is happening in BC is happening in Stratford [...] so we have a direct interest and a direct tie to what is going on.”

Elliot and Ichim both think that one major benefit of working on the No 2010 campaign is that it has created new energy for direct action and change in their respective communities despite the negative police and media attention that has been focused on anti-Olympics organizers across the country. Elliot adds that the No 2010 campaign has played a big role in the recent trend towards political engagement and mobilization among youth from Six Nations.

Elliot and Ichim are both also excited about the positive impacts Olympics organizing has made on the activist community in Southern Ontario. Ichim says that anti-Olympics organizing in Stratford has helped to “take things to the next level...It has revealed the inefficacy of the democratic process, it has exposed the city and has exposed the liberals who claim to be the friends of poor people, it has exposed all the hypocrisy.”

Ichim and Elliot both stressed that solidarity between native and non-native activists has been one of the campaign’s strengths. Ichim says, “The Olympics are imperial in nature. In Canada the issue is that the Olympics are taking place on stolen Native land.” For him this equates simply: “As settlers we have to take a stand...while some people think that it is an issue of the past, it is still today stolen land.”

For Elliot, one of the reasons she is enthusiastic about the campaign against the torch relay and the Olympics is that, “We’re all working together, and that is very powerful: non-natives and natives working together, that is a huge step forward in healing.”

Alex Hundert is a founding member of AW@L and the KW Community Centre for Social Justice (kwccsj) in Kitchener. He is a co-host of AW@L Radio on 100.3 SoundFm, and the Rabble Podcast Network.

Dan Kellar is an organizer with AW@L. He recently completed a master’s degree focusing on the application of environmental impact assessment legislation to the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Torch Ignites Resistance

Land & Jail Part II

Moira Peters — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:45:19 +0000

Canada's incarceration strategy

NANAIMO, BRITISH COLUMBIA–Armed Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) entered the Six Nations Territory of Douglas Creek in Caledonia, Ontario – about 20 kilometres east of Hamilton - on September 19 of this year. According to witnesses, the OPP jumped a resident, “beat him down,” and arrested him while threatening other residents not to interfere.

The Crown, after repeated arrests and jailings, reached a deal with the defense on September 29 to have activist Shawn Brant plead guilty to involvement in two blockades in Desoronto, Ontario, in April 2007. The Crown agreed to drop all but three of the mischief charges, with Brant to receive a sentence of time already served pretrial, a 90-day conditional sentence, and one year of probation.

Brant cited familial considerations behind his agreement with the Crown. However, OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino still faces scrutiny over his controversial threats to Brant. Ontario New Democrat MP Peter Kormos chided Fantino for his “pugnacious and bellicose” remarks and his “Rambo-style policing.”

Brant challenged Fantino afterwards: “Commissioner Fantino has always said he couldn’t comment because [the case is] before the courts. Well, now it’s settled, and it's time the public hears from Mr. Fantino.”

****

Incarceration of First Nations people has been the long-standing strategy for Canadian authorities.

The Supreme Court of Canada stated on April 23, 1999, in R v. Gladue: “If overreliance on incarceration is a problem with the general population, it is of much greater concern in the sentencing of aboriginal Canadians.”

R v. Gladue referred to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples which held that the “crushing failure” of justice meted out to Original Peoples was due to “the fundamentally different world views of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people” and that it “emphasize[d] the importance of an understanding of history.”

In the vein of this recommendation, it is important to note that culturally insensitive and racist proclamations have long been a part of the Canadian criminal justice and political establishment’s make-up. Meanwhile, provincial authorities continue the use of aggressive strategies in disputes with Original Peoples. At Barriere Lake First Nation, in October of this year, the Quebec police used tear gas and “pain compliance” techniques against peaceful demonstrators, including elders and children, said witnesses.

Canada’s first prime minister, John A Macdonald, exposed an animus toward the Métis in writings to his London agent: “These impulsive half-breeds have got spoilt by their emeute," he wrote, "and must be kept down by a strong hand until they are swamped by the influx of settlers.”

The controversial deputy superintendent general of Indian Affairs, Duncan Campbell Scott, testified before a Special Committee of the House of Commons examining the Indian Act amendments of 1920:

I want to get rid of the Indian problem.
...
Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill.

In 1991, the Kanienkehaka community of Kanesatake was at odds with the township of Oka, ON over the township’s proposal for a golf course expansion and condo development on land claimed by the Kanienkehaka. The Sûreté du Québec, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and the Royal 22nd Regiment were brought in to break up the Kanienkehaka blockade.

Racism was heightened by the Oka Crisis. Warrior Publications informed of “white mobs” burning and hanging effigies of Kanienkehaka warriors from lamp posts.

In 1995, a group of Original Peoples had gathered to hold the previously banned Sundance ceremony at Ts’peten (Gustafsen Lake) in central British Columbia. There the celebrants were accosted by ranch hands and told to vacate the land. This led to a major standoff over the unceded Secwepemc land of the Canoe Creek First Nation.

Prior to the mobilization of the RCMP at Ts’peten, Bruce Clark, legal counsel for the Ts’peten Defenders (as the defenders of indigenous title were called), informed the RCMP that action against the Sundancers would be illegal according to international and constitutional law.

Clark reminded the RCMP of their duty “to respect and to defend the rule of law” that he insisted was "clear and plain.”

Clark applied logic to remediate the crimes committed against the Original Peoples: “Legal justice requires that the rights usurped be restored, and that reasonable compensation be made for past transgressions. Territory should be restored where it has been illegally taken away. And the existing aboriginal right to govern upon that territory should be respected.”

Fifteen of the 18 Sundancers at Ts’peten were found guilty, including Secwepemc Elder Wolverine (William Jones Ignace), who was found guilty of mischief to property and other crimes.

Wolverine contended that ranch “owner” Lyall James was a squatter on indigenous land.

“It’s the real criminals who are in control here. The judges," he said. "The lawyers. The politicians. And in the enforcement arm, the RCMP and its agencies. These are the real criminals because they're covering up the theft of native land.”

Clark stated that the treaty process is designed to “extinguish the Indians’ natural law, international law and constitutional law right of jurisdiction that otherwise is not supposed to be ‘molested or disturbed’ by domestic crown governments, their courts or their police.” Clark implicated the judiciary in the “theft of jurisdiction” and cover up of genocide. An RCMP management team video depicted Ryan relaying orders from Superintendent Len Olfert: "Kill this Clark and smear the prick and everyone with him," and, "Clark is a goddamned snake."

The Law Society of Upper Canada v. Bruce Clark acknowledged on June 19, 1996, that “the ‘genocide’ of which Mr. Clark speaks is real” and inescapable. Despite this, Clark was disbarred in 1999 for being “ungovernable.”

Clark does not flinch from indicting many of his peers in the genocide. He contends that the judiciary is running the “perfect scam,” “the absolute quintessence of crime personified” by preventing an impartial third party from ruling on the genocide perpetrated on the Original Peoples in Canada. Wrote Clark, “The moment you get third party adjudication, it’s game over for these criminals.”

Kim Petersen is the Original Peoples Editor for The Dominion.

For more on Canada's strategy of incarceration, see "Land & Jail: Ipperwash, official racism, and the future of Ontario," also by Kim Petersen.

Six Nations Cops

Gaining Ground

hillarybain — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 20:43:51 +0000

"A monumental year" for the people of Six Nations

On January 1, 2007, the people of Six Nations arrived at their Council House, and walked inside.

The event did not make media headlines, but the significance of the day was not lost on those crowded into the long line of cars, bearing Iroquois Confederacy and Unity flags, that lead up to the Council House.

“Even before Canada declared itself a country, we had a meeting place down here for traditional governance,” says Janie Jamison, one of the spokespeople for Six Nations. For generations, Chiefs representing the Confederacy Council gathered in the Council House to make decisions by consensus, a process often called the oldest participatory democracy on Earth.

In 1924, however, Canada instated the Indian Act and the RCMP raided the Council House, removing the traditional chiefs and clan mothers. In its place the band council system was set up, acting as an arm of the Canadian government.

For Jamison, who has never seen herself as Canadian, destroying the traditional government and imposing a new one was Canada’s way of declaring that her culture, her nation, her people “no longer existed.”

“What people don’t understand is that we weren’t defeated at that point,” says Jamison. “Our traditional government went underground.” For decades it continued to operate, unrecognized by the federal government. In 1959 an attempt was made to take back the Council House, remove the band council and reinstate the traditional governance system. The RCMP moved in again. “Men, women and children were beaten,” says Jamison. “Our people weren’t successful then.”

But on New Year’s Day, “Eighty years after being told we don’t exist,” says Jamison, “here we are.”

The people of Six Nations made their existence difficult to ignore starting February 28, 2006, when a blockade set up near Caledonia, Ontario, halted the construction of a subdivision that many said was being built on unceded Six Nations’ territory. Almost a year later, the people of Six Nations are holding their ground and, according to spokesperson Hazel Hill, making “leaps and bounds” towards the reinstatement of their traditional government.

The first leap came shortly after April 20, 2006, when the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) performed a pre-dawn raid on the blockade site. The raid, meant to clear the site of protesters, backfired when hundreds of Six Nations’ people and their supporters peacefully took back the site within a few hours. The resolve and determination of those holding the site was strengthened, and media coverage of the raid ensured that people across the country and around the world knew about the standoff.

Shortly after the police raid, the Six Nations’ band council, which had previously refused to support the blockade (though it did support the land claim), endorsed the leadership of the Confederacy Chiefs.

The move was significant. “Eighty to eighty-five per cent of [Six Nations] people support the traditional government,” says Hill. For the first time, the leadership that had always been recognized by the people of Six Nations would be the leadership that government would be forced to negotiate with.

Another leap came when – after months of calling the standoff a provincial matter – the federal government came to the table. “It’s the first time the federal government has sat down with the traditional government,” Barbara MacDougal, Canada’s representative at negotiations, told the CBC in September 2006, adding that it was a “tremendous breakthrough.”

The breakthrough may have been spurred on by Six Nations representative Doreen Silversmith when she spoke to the United Nations’ Permanent Forum on Indigenous People in Geneva, Switzerland, on May 1, 2006. Referring to the raid, Silversmith said, “Canada has clearly portrayed the message that ‘might is right.’ When a situation of ownership is challenged, their laws allow them to continue to reap the benefits of our Land, destroy our environment, and clearly ignore the truth of the Onkwehonweh [First People] … who hold title to the Land.” At the end of her speech, she called on the international community to intervene at Six Nations. “The Onkwehonweh require your assistance, with respect to our Law, our Treaties, including the Two Row Wampum, and in effect, the Authority with respect to our Land, Our Law and Our People.”

“To have the confederacy recognized at the international level for the traditional government that they are, that they always were, and always will be,” was important says Jamison. She feels that recognition from the United Nations forced Canadians to appreciate the legitimacy of their struggle. “We aren’t making these things up,” she says. “We are a government of people, a nation of sovereignty.” This, she says, is something Canada is going to have to deal with.

Jamison has been living with the legacy of Canada’s denial for too long, she says. “My family has had too many things stolen from them.” And she’s not just talking about land. “When I was three years old, I was home alone with my mom and she shot herself–. She was a victim of residential school system,” says Jamison. Her aunt was one of the thousands of native women in Canada who have gone missing; her raped and brutalized body found later. Jamison’s sister was put in an orphanage at birth and remained there until she was two. “She could have ended up on a pig farm like so many others, but somehow she made it back to us,” she says. And finally, a year and a half ago, her 17-year-old son crashed his car while he was driving drunk. “We watched him die a slow death after his car rolled. He died last April.”

Her family isn’t just the victim of bad luck, says Jamison, but of deliberate government policies that have driven so many of her people to despair and death. “That’s why I made that decision to take that stand. No more. No more to make us become something that we never will be” she says. “We need to learn truth, acceptance and understanding to be able to coexist together.”

For Jamison, that starts with “Canada finally taking responsibility for what they’ve done and starting to pay back some of the money they owe our people.” These are “not handouts” emphasizes Jamison, but payments that are owed to the Six Nations from lease agreements that were never honoured. In terms of the piece of land at the heart of the dispute today: it’s not for sale.

“We’ve always said we’re not selling that land,” says Jamison.

This doesn’t mean that those living on the land now will have to move says Hill – though she notes that her people have been forced to relocate many times in their history. “But we’re not going to do it to them,” says Hill. “There’s a lot of that land that’s undeveloped, unceded. There’s a mechanism for returning that.”

“To me, it’s about continuing what we’ve started,” she says. “This isn’t just about Six Nations or that little piece of land. This is about sovereignty and the unity of the Original People of the land that have a right to live in harmony. To have clean air and green grass where you don’t have to live with landfills and concrete everywhere you look.”

We need homes, says Hill, “but not concrete jungles. There’s a difference.”

Six Nations Blockade

hillarybain — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 20:43:22 +0000

A mohawk warrior flag flies from a lone tree on the site that was slotted for subdivisions before the Six Nations blockade began last February.

Barbara McDougall on Six Nations

hillarybain — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:11:33 +0000

Another interesting interview on the Autonomy & Solidarity website.

This is a very interesting interview done by CBC with Barbara McDougall who is representing the Canadian government at the negotiating table. She says some quite positive things about Six Nations and also critiques the people in Caledonia who are stirring up trouble...

Video Footage from Six Nations

hillarybain — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 13:36:41 +0000

I just came across some great interviews with people from Six Nations. I found Janie Jamison's words particularly kick-ass.

Canadian Land Claims

Sat, 13 May 2006 18:25:54 +0000

It's the federal government making a land claim, not the Six Nations

The Great Law of Peace is being offered to Canada. photo: NDN News

First the facts: Canada is a settler state located in the northern portion of Turtle Island, formed out of two European colonies established here in the seventeenth century, one by Great Britain and one by France. These colonies were established on the basis of the Doctrine Of Discovery--an outgrowth of the European decision to disassemble the original Peoples of Turtle Island as both individual human beings and as collections of human beings living together in societies governed by the rule of law--and to re-construct these erased people and Peoples as a monolithic dependent population known thenceforth as "Indians," "Natives," and "Aborigines," in need of civilizing.

Modern Canadians will say: "What do the actions of my ancestors in the seventeenth century have to do with me today?"

Modern indigenous people and Peoples are living trapped inside nations based on the Doctrine of Discovery--a legal doctrine now routinely overturned whenever it comes to trial in the international arena--leading tortured lives as "Indians," "Natives" and "Aborigines." This, while modern Canadians and modern euro-ancestry citizens of every other nation on Turtle Island and in other places around the globe--Australia and New Zealand, for instance--enjoy among the highest standards of living in the world.

If this was not the case, then one could respond: "Why, nothing at all."

This brings us to the Haldimand Tract in southern Ontario, running from the Grand River's mouth on the northern shore of Lake Erie in a 12-mile wide swath up the Grand River to its headwater basin. In current mainstream discourse, the Six Nations land dispute is framed in the context of "Indian land claims." Reports mention up to 29 separate claims being made by Six Nations against the Crown's assertion of title. The federal government of Canada and the provincial government of Ontario are establishing a panel to settle these "Indian land claims."

The reality, obscured by three unrelenting centuries of the European invention of "Indians," is that--at least in law--it is the federal and provincial governments of Canada who are trying to make a claim to land, a claim based on the Doctrine of Discovery. The same objection raised at the Henco development site by Six Nations people can be legally raised by various indigenous Peoples, throughout the entire territory currently called Canada. Instead of a panel whose every chair is occupied by a federal or provincial representative, either pale-faced or brown, seeking resolution to "Indian land claims," there should be a panel of non-European, non-Canadian adjudicators seeking resolution to "Canadian land claims."

A panel made up of well-respected international figures like Rigoberta Menchu from Guatemala, Arundahti Roy from India, Linda Smith from New Zealand, and so on across Africa and Asia, would be able to listen to Canada's claims with an open mind and a willing heart. It's not a question of whether the indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island want to share the land with settler populations from around the globe. If that were the case, then there would be no settler nations present on Turtle Island, just as there are no settler nations present in China. The seventeenth century European decision to manufacture "Indians" was based on the European observations of the sixteenth century: The people and Peoples of Turtle Island, while fierce in protection of their way of life, were committed to rule-of-law societies rather than rule-of-force societies, held sharing as a core value and eschewed murder as a dispute resolution mechanism.

At Six Nations we see the outline of this older form of society still intact in spite of three centuries of investment first by European and now by Canadian interests into the complete elimination of this distinct society. Twice, European colonial forces attempted a total eradication of Six Nations Peoples, at one point reducing the Six Nations Confederacy population to one per cent of its former count. To the Western World's surprise, a delegation from Kanawake arrived at the doorsteps of the newly formed League of Nations in 1924, asking for admittance to the organization modeled on the Six Nations Confederacy. Canada's response was to send an armed force of RCMP to Kanawake to arrest the Longhouse leaders, impose an Indian Act-recognized Chief and Council system, and amend the Indian Act to make it illegal for Indian Bands to hire Canadian lawyers to defend their interest in Canadian or other courts.

Astonishingly, in 2006, the Six Nations Confederacy still exists. The people have their language, their constitution--in English called the Great Law of Peace--their original peaceful co-existence agreement with Europeans, the Two Row Wampum Belt agreement, an understanding of their territorial boundaries and of their way of life based on a Clan Mother system that recognizes women as the title-holders of the land, protecting it for the "faces to come" who are the true owners.

The Six Nations Confederacy call themselves the Eastern Door People. They are strategically located on the entrance to the northern portion of Turtle Island. Passing through their territory, one can travel to the geographical centre of Turtle Island by water. Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, Boston and New York are all located on Six Nations Confederacy lands.

The Six Nations Confederacy was part of the way through a unification process using the Great Law of Peace, which is not only the basis of first, the League of Nations and now, the United Nations, but also of modern democracy. The colonial experience is just a hiccup in this unification process. It's possible that, in spite of several hundred years of genocide, the Six Nations may wish to extend an invitation to Canada to join in unity under the Great Law of Peace. Canada could become a nation in law, could even possibly become a nation of peace. Modern Canadians could possibly enter into a new relationship with the original human inhabitants of the northern portion of Turtle Island, a relationship that the original Peoples have been patiently waiting for, for hundreds of years.

Lastly, the facts: The Six Nations Confederacy cannot be eradicated by any means. The offer to join them under the Great Law of Peace will probably remain on the table. Canadians can accept the offer now, or continue with their attempted eradication for another unknown amount of time.

As a modern Canadian, what would you like to choose?

Native people aren't 'claiming' anything, says Stewart Steinhauer, it's the federal government that's making a land claim on Six Nations' land.

Is Military Using Hamilton in Six Nations Standoff?

Sat, 22 Apr 2006 19:58:32 +0000

Officials "not aware" of military involvement in Six Nations crisis, but won't deny reports

Protesters are occupying a housing development on Haudenosaunee land near Caledonia. photo: OCAP

A military force of unknown size and capacity seems to be operating out of the Hamilton airport, according to information gathered by the Dominion. The deployment of military forces would be a major escalation in the standoff between Native protesters and the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP). The OPP has tried once, though unsucessfully, to remove demonstrators occupying a housing development that Six Nations Kanienkehake (Mohawks) say is illegal under Canadian, Haudenosaunee and international law.

During an interview, an airport official initially confirmed that Canadian Forces were at the airport as "back up support." Mary Beth Horvath, Marketing/Commuications Coordinator for the Hamilton Airport, first told the Dominion that Canadian Forces were not "using it [the airport] as a staging ground. I haven't heard it regarded in that term."

When she was later asked to confirm her report, Horvath repeated that "there is some backup support there." When asked to specifically to confirm if Canadian Forces were on site, Horvath responded that "I don't know if, again, I don't know to what extent or to what, so I'm not, I really don't want to be quoted on that because I'm not there to actually see it, physically."

[Update: A Caledonia resident who asked not to be identified, told the Dominion he saw an unmarked grey van traveling in his neighborhood, blocks away from the standoff, with eight Canadian Forces personnel aboard. "They looked like Rangers," the source said.]

Horvath referred the Dominion to two other officials, neither denied that Canadian Forces were operating from the Hamilton Airport.

"I know nothing about that," said Haldiman County Official Bill Pierce when asked about a military staging ground at the airport.

Dave Rector, a spokesperson for the Ontario Provincial Police, said "I am not aware of the presence of any Canadian armed forces."

Eyewitness and press reports have confirmed that RCMP are assisting the OPP, and some reports cite the Hamilton Airport as the Federal police force's staging area. An RCMP spokesperson confirmed that the RCMP is playing a supporting role, but would not comment on any specific locations or activities.

As of this writing, the Dominion could not find any officials willing to deny the deployment of military to the airport.

Federal Involvement?

The deployment of the military would mark the involvement of the Federal Government, signaling a departure from what officials have repeatedly insisted is a Provincial matter.

The last time Canadian Forces were deployed against Native demonstrators was during the 1990 Oka crisis, when Kanienkehake citizens occupied land that was slated for a golf course development. The land had been stolen a century earlier by the Catholic Church, and a century of Kanienkehake protests had not changed the situation. Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa invoked the National Defense Act, requesting "military aid to the civil power". The deployment of the Canadian army ended with one dead soldier and two related civilian deaths. Reports of torture and unjustified tactics earned Canada the condemnation of the International Federation of Human Rights and a place on Amnesty International's list of human rights violators.

Provincial officials requested the deployment of Canadian Forces--specifically, the elite Joint Task Force Two--during the 1995 Gustafsen Lake standoff, but were officially denied. According to court testimony by police officers, police took flack jackets to a firing range and fired guns at them in order to create the appearance that police had been shot by the small group of Natives occupying the site. Internal police video showed commanders stating the need for a "disinformation and smear campaign" against the Native occupiers. With 77,000 rounds of ammunition shot by police, the deployment of armored vehicles, and the use of a land mine against a truck driven by one of the demonstrators, Gustafsen lake has been cited as the largest paramilitary deployment in Canadian history.

In his book Canada's Secret Commandos: The Unauthorized Story of Joint Task Task Force Two, Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese wrote that officially, JTF2 "wasn't deployed to the standoff."

"But civilian police officers privately confirm that JTF2 operators were at the siege, helping them in covert intelligence gathering as well as determining the lay of the land in case the entire unit was needed for an assault on the native encampment," Pugliese wrote. "Some of the native protesters also insist that it was members of JTF2, and not the RCMP, who engaged them in a gun battle in early September."

Federal officials have denied that the current standoff at Six Nations has anything to do with land. "This is not a lands-claim matter," Deirdre McCracken, a spokesperson for the Minister of Indian Affairs Jim Prentice told reporters. McCracken also said that the blockade "has nothing to do with the federal government."

The presence of Canadian Forces on the ground, if confirmed, will be a stark change from the government's stated policy.

» The Dominion: Home On Native Land

» Wikipedia: Oka Crisis

» Everything2: Gustafsen Lake Standoff 1995

Home On Native Land

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 17:12:24 +0000

The people of Six Nations are repossessing their land

According to the Six Nations Confederacy, women are the title holders of the land.

Sewatis has been at the Six Nations blockade since it began on February 28. "I was the first one to encounter your enforcement officer," he says. "I was peaceful and just explained the situation. [I said] 'I cannot follow your orders because I'm not Canadian. I'm Haudenosaunee.'"

The police officer he was speaking with didn't appear to know how to handle Sewatis' response to his order. Apparently, the fact that someone born and raised only a few miles from where they stood--just outside of Caledonia, Ontario--was not Canadian was a difficult concept to grasp. "So, I just told him 'You'll have to wait for my superiors to come,'" says Sewatis. "That's the kind of language they seem to understand."

I am sitting with Sewatis in his van. For over six weeks this is where he has slept. That is to say, when he has slept. Many nights he sits by the fire, keeping watch in case the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) chooses to invade the site.

From where we sit, we can see dozens of people gathered around the fire, singing, laughing and talking. To our left is a cookhouse that was recently built to feed the growing number of people that have come to support the repossession of Six Nations' land. There are several tents, a teepee and a couple of trailers scattered nearby.

It might feel like a camping trip except for the fact that we are in the middle of a construction site. There are no trees or grass and ten partially built suburban homes stand nearby. Henco Industries had hoped to build hundreds of houses here. Construction was halted on February 28 when the road to the site was blocked and Henco was informed that the land is not theirs to build on.

"We're here telling people that it's our land and it was illegally attained and it was illegally sold," says Sewatis. "That's just the plain and simple truth."

This is not "the kind of language they seem to understand."

On April 6, the Canadian government said that the Six Nations dispute is not about land rights. "This is not a lands-claim matter," said Deirdre McCracken, a spokesperson for the Minister of Indian Affairs Jim Prentice. She also said that the blockade "has nothing to do with the federal government."

But according to a statement released on March 20 by the women of Rotinoshon'non:we (meaning Iroquois or Haudenosaunee, depending on the language being spoken), the blockade has quite a lot to do with land--and with the Canadian government.

The statement outlines how "General Haldimand confirmed that Britain would affirm the right of the Six Nations to a tract of land six miles deep on either side of the Grand River, running from its mouth to its source." The piece of land immediately under dispute is only a small part of the much larger 'Haldimand Tract.'

This piece of history is not being debated. A plaque erected in Cayuga, Ontario by the Ontario Archaeological and Historic Sites Board says much the same thing. The sign also notes that the land was awarded in 1784 in recognition of the Six Nations' help to the British Crown during the American Revolution. What the plaque says next is where the stories diverge. "In later years, large areas of this tract...were sold to white settlers."

According to the women of the Rotinoshon'non:we, however, "None of this land [the Haldimand Tract] was ever legally surrendered." The women's statement carries a great deal of weight as, "Women are the 'Title Holders' of the land of Rotinoshon'non:we as recalled by Wampum 44 of the Kaianereh'ko:wa."

The significance of the previous sentence will be lost on most Canadians, who will have no idea what it means.

Indigenous nations have their own constitution (Kaianereh'ko:wa). "The idea that British Colonists or their descendents--like Canadians--were the only people who had 'law' is a legal fiction," says Kahentinetha Horn, a Mohawk elder from Kahnawake. Canada "has totally disrespected our laws and agreements to conduct a nation-to-nation relationship."

The Six Nations Confederacy has been called the oldest living participatory democracy on earth. Hazel Hill, one of the women active at the blockade describes how decisions are made: "There are fifty chiefs who represent the Confederacy Council and they have a clanmother with each chief. It is the people whose voice the chiefs and clanmothers carry. Any decision regarding land comes first from the women, and then to their clans; and through the process of our council, when all are in agreement, or when consensus has been reached, only then does the decision stand," she says. "In our history of the Haldimand Tract, this has never been done."

In 1924, the Band Council system was imposed by force on Six Nations. In the place of the traditional government what critics refer to as "a puppet government" was installed using the Indian Act.

Since 1924, the Canadian government has done its negotiating with the Band Council, a system that is a part of and paid for by the federal government. "The Band Council," says Horn, "does not represent the Six Nations peoples according to international law."

In an open letter to local newspapers, Hill compares the government's agreements with Band Council to finding a few people in Caledonia to agree to sell their town to the people of Six Nations. "Would that be legal?" she asks.

The Band Council system does not allow the voice of the people to be heard, says Horn. If the Canadian government wants to seek legitimate discussions, negotiations must be undertaken on a nation-to-nation basis. "There could then be an orderly settlement based on an orderly investigation of the facts and an orderly identification of the laws that apply," says Horn. "The reason Canada doesn't want to do this is because it knows full well that when the process is complete, the facts will clearly show they have illegally invaded our land."

There is a large sign at the Six Nations blockade that reads "Oh Canada, your home on native land." The play on words from something as basic as the national anthem is appropriate for a standoff that could turn the meaning of Canada on its head.

"A lot of people have squatted on our land," observes Carol Bomberry. Pointing to Caledonia she continues, "This is one of the towns that is on our land."

Most Caledonians probably don't consider themselves squatters. Chances are they consider Caledonia home. What does it mean if Caledonia is not Canada?

Mike Laughing, one of the men manning the blockade, responds matter-of-factly. "Look at it this way: just imagine if all those people got to live on native land. Instead of paying taxes to the government they could be giving it to the true landlords, back to this nation," says Laughing. "If they didn't want to do that then they'd have to move. But we're not saying move away."

As for the small piece of land immediately under dispute, Bomberry has a similarly straightforward suggestion: she'd like to see the Canadian government buy the houses back from Henco Industries and restore the land to Six Nations.

The Six Nations Reserve, the most populous reserve in Canada, is currently less than five per cent the size of the original Haldimand Tract. "There's a ten year waiting list for houses," Bomberry points out. "Our population is growing every year. We need more room."

Acknowledging Indigenous land rights will, of course, mean much more than establishing who lives where or who pays taxes to whom. Laughing says he's at the blockade for the sake of his kids. Canada "has been standing on the back of an Indian for too long," he says. "It's time to get off and let us stand proud of who we are."

It is not only First Nations people that stand to benefit from a just outcome to the Six Nations standoff, says Horn. Native and non-native people alike are suffering from a system that is destroying the environment. Horn believes that under Indigenous title, the land would be treated with far more respect. "According to our constitution, we have to take care of the land, in other words we're environmentalists," explains Horn. "That's why it's important [for non-native people] to help us assert our jurisdiction."

People from across Canada and around the world have lent their support to the Six Nations' struggle. Hundreds of people have gathered at the site each time there has been a threat of the OPP moving in.

"The Canadian government calls themselves peaceful," says Sewatis. "I hope that they live what they say."

If the OPP chooses to invade, many at the site feel that it is their duty to defend their land and defend their people. "We're not seeking violence," Sewatis says. "I seek peace first...but, I believe in what's right."

Sewatis has seen how standoffs over land rights have ended before. "They think they can make peace by having a gun and having it their way," he observes. "We want to talk about peace and the laws and jurisdiction of the lands. We are going to utilize the great law of peace. We're going to offer it one more time."

At the time this article went to print, over 50 police cruisers were gathering in Caledonia and Six Nations was on "Red Alert."

Hillary Bain Lindsay visits the Six Nations blockade near Caledonia, Ontario where First Nations people are repossessing their land.

OPP appear to be preparing to use force at Six Nations blockade

Tue, 11 Apr 2006 22:10:20 +0000

Six weeks after citizens of the Six Nations repossessed land near Caledonia, Ontario on February 28, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) appears to be making prepations to remove protesters by force.

On April 11, more than 50 police cruisers gathered at an abandoned school on Unity Road in Caledonia. Two paddy wagons and several vans were also seen.

"Things are very tense," said Dick Hill, one of the people on site. "We are trying to defend our lands, which were taken from us. Every time we try to stand up for who we are and what we are, they come and drag us away."

Before the site was blocked by protesters, Henco Industries had began construction on 10 of 71 houses planned for the site, says the Hamilton Spectator. Citizens of the Six Nations say they set up the blockade after officials ignored other forms of protest.

The piece of land under dispute was registered as a land claim by the Six Nations Band Council in 1987 and has yet to be settled.

"We're doing what justice calls for," explained Sewatis. "We're here telling people that it's our land and it was illegally attained and it was illegally sold. That's just the plain simple truth."

The Six Nations people are demanding nation-to-nation dialogue with the Canadian government and continue to call for a peaceful resolution. If the OPP choose to use force, however, those manning the blockade say they will defend their land and their people.

"If they break the peace, we'll do what we have to do," said Hill.

For more context to the current situation at the Six Nations' blockade click here