MNN. Jan. 14, 2022. [Thahoketoteh of MNN on FCC Court case.] Day 1, Federal Court of Canada. The prothonotary/judge, the lawyers for McGill, Montreal City, Quebec Government and Stantec Construction listed the court’s protocol demands for the whole two hours on Zoom. The kahnistensera Mohawk Mothers wanted to discuss the “substance”, which is the investigation of the unmarked graves of the children behind McGill University. The judge and the rest wanted the kahnistensera to each have a lawyer who knows the court rules. Even appointing one on their behalf. Those who represent themselves delay the justice system and the state wins by twisting around its rules. They want to avoid the kanienkehaka culture. They allotted two days for the women to answer their procedural questions. In the end, to get them out of their court system, they suggested outside mediation so there would be no resolution.
COURT TACTIC #1: THROW THOSE WOMEN INTO OUR PROCEDURAL SWAMP!
AUDIO:
No: T-1696-21
FEDERAL COURT
BETWEEN:
THE KANIEN’KEHA:KA KAHNISTENSERA (MOHAWK MOTHERS) KAHENTINETHA, KAWENAA, KARENNATHA AND KARAKWINE, supported by the MEN’S FIRES OF KAHNAWAKE, AKWESASNE, KANEHSATAKE, OHSWEKEN AND KENHTEKE
Applicants
And
SOCIÉTÉ QUÉBÉCOISE DES INFRASTRUCTURES,
MCGILL UNIVERSITY; OFFICE OF THE PRINCIPLE & VICE CHANCELLOR;
CONSIDERING THAT on Jan. 14, 2022, 1:30 PM-EST the Federal Court Prothonotary and the Respondents have asked the Applicants to file a notice of motion on the following subjects:
Representation
Sequencing
Out of court litigation
THE MOTION SEEKS to (1) explain why the traditional protocol that the kaianerekowa, great peace, provides that the sovereign rotinonhsonni Applicants do not use a lawyer; (2) Confirm that the Applicants’ original request for an injunction must precede the Respondents’ motion to strike the case out of the Federal Court; and (3) notice to the parties that a litigation before the International Court of Justice of The Hague may be envisioned.
THE GROUNDS FOR THIS MOTION ARE AS FOLLOWS:
In accordance with our traditional protocol, the above questions were submitted to the kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers), who have interpreted the provisions of our precolonial constitution, the kaianerekowa.
Representation
Our case refers to Sections 35 and 52 of the Constitution of Canada Act, 1982, which states that “the existing pre-colonial aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal people [of turtle island] are hereby recognized and affirmed”. The Aboriginal rights of the rotinonshonni people is the kaianerekowa, great peace, whose constitution does not recognize other laws. Pursuant to 52, the supreme law of Canada establishes all laws of Canada are inconsistent with the kaianerekowa and therefore of no force or effect. The kahnistensera are strictly following the protocols provided by the kaianerekowa at all steps of this legal process.
The Prothonotary, and the four lawyers for the Respondents suggest that the kahnistensera get a lawyer to represent them so the case can move faster and easier for them. According to the kaianerekowa this will not be possible, as each kahnistensera is sovereign, has the right to be heard, and must represent herself through the established way. The kahnistensera are not a “group” and do not have any “spokesperson”. kaianerekowa provides they have an obligation to each put our own words into the issue through our protocol.
Our decisions are based on going back to the people for their words. In our way everyone’s voice must be heard through our clans. Our consensus-based culture does not allow a single “spokesperson” to make a decision without consulting the people. Each must voice their opinion according to tentewatate’nikokonhri:sakta, “to search in each other’s minds for the truth”. The kaianerekowa values decorum where one speaks, and all listen until the speaker completes their thoughts. We listen to our opponents and do not immediately answer. We take it back to our people for their minds. We then bring back their words. We each represent our people and their words. This has been our way since time immemorial.
Advising us to have a lawyer is imposing a protocol on us which is inconsistent with the kaianerekowa. A lawyer or spokesperson with no cultural background on the language, culture and substance of the kaianerekowa would be inconsistent with our law and damage our cause. They don’t know who we are. A lawyer has a sworn allegiance to uphold the laws of Canada, which Section 52 declares are of no force or effect. Also, they would expect to be paid for having us teach them our culture and how to try to litigate our case. By contrast with the Respondents, we are not a corporation having the kind of money necessary for such a process.
Sequencing
As to sequencing, we are adamant that our original demand to order an injunction is an urgent matter that cannot be delayed by court technicalities. We were prepared to address this timely issue during our hearing on January 14th, 2022. We were mislead. Instead of treating the issue, the 2-hour hearing only dealt with court technicalities which have no grounding in our culture and our law. We are ready to state our case.
We wish to deal with the substance for relief as soon as possible. The motion to strike out our cause will not be necessary if the Federal Court abides by Sections 35 and 52 of the Constitution Act of Canada, 1982, which show that the motion to strike out our case concerns mostly procedural rules which are of no force or effect given their inconsistency with our sovereign Aboriginal law, the kaianerekowa.
The kaianerekowa, great peace, does not suggest any difference between local, regional, provincial, federal, commonwealth, private or public courts. It is concerned with the self-preservation of indigenous lives and cultures that face genocide at the hands of colonists trespassing on our land. We want Sections 35 and 52 of the Constitution to be enforced over the people that are using the laws of Canada to violate the kaianerekowa, our land, our people, and our culture.
The only relevant subject of discussion is the action that must be taken immediately to make sure the Respondents do not allow the concealing of the unmarked graves of our people on the site of the Royal Victoria Hospital and the Allan Memorial Institute.
TRUDEAU: “YES, I CONFESSED THAT IT WAS GENOCIDE”.
Out of court litigation
As for bringing this case before a dispute resolution table for discussion in another jurisdiction, we had raised this possibility with McGill University before filing our first motion at the Federal Court and was never responded to. The Société québécoise des infrastructures contacted the Band Councils, which were invented by the Canadian Parliament as part of the racist Indian Act which was forcibly imposed on our people as a means for genocide. Prime Minister Trudeau acknowledged this. The way the Respondents disregarded the role of the kahnistensera by contacting the Canadian government’s agents, the Band Councils, indicates that they have no interest in resolving this matter by kaianerekowa methods. This tactic will lead to unnecessary further delay.
This is a serious case involving potential unmarked graves of children, whose recovery is provided by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People UNDRIP. The case cannot waste time in out of court litigation which would postpone the relief sought. According to the kahnistensera, the kaianerekowa does not respect mediation or other alternative methods invented by the court for resolving these issues.
In case the Federal Court does not abide by its obligations in Sections 35 and 52, the only alternative for dispute resolution is in the International Court of Justice in the Hague, established in 1903. This was the first world court signed by all countries in the world as the non-Admiralty dispute resolution court for all nations.
Conclusion
The resolution to this issue is based on the Constitution Act of Canada, 1982, [Sections 35 [1] and 52[1] which provides “the existing pre-colonial aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal people [of turtle island] are hereby recognized and affirmed”. Section 52[1] affirms that “any law that is inconsistent with the provisions of the constitution is, to the extent of the inconsistency, of no force or effect”. The notwithstanding clause Section 33 of the Constitution does not touch Sections 35 and 52. It only applies to Section 2, and Sections 7 to 15 of the Charter of Rights found in the Constitution Act 1982. Therefore, the kaianerekowa is the existing law of the land since time immemorial and cannot be revoked or changed as it is based on the natural world. Therefore, all laws not recognized by the kaianerekowa are of no force or effect on any of our land. Although the Constitution of Canada acknowledges and affirms the kaianerekowa, the kaianerekowa does not recognize Canadian courts, laws and procedures, which are not based on nature.
We cannot have a lawyer appointed for us to say our words. This violates our law and culture. Everyone has a right to represent themselves according to the kaianerekowa. As the Federal Court of Canada is a foreign court that our law does not recognize, we are addressing it for the sole purpose of asking the Federal Court to ensure its citizens follow their own laws and stop trespassing, stealing, and killing us. This is the substance we wish to deal with. There should be no further delay in the judge entering the proper judgment.
We want acknowledgement of the genocide that occurred and the current trauma of the victims by dealing with issues of unmarked graves more promptly without delay by judicial technicalities that are of no force and effect according to the Constitution of Canada.
The kanien’kehá:ka kanistensera: kahentinetha, kawenaa, karennatha and karakwine, supported by the men’s fire of kahnawake, akwesasne, kanehsatake, ohsweken and kenhteke.
Me Alexandre Rouanet-Bazinet, BERGERON, DENILLE & ASSOCIATES, Counsel for the defendant Société québécoise des infrastructures E-mail: arouanetbazinet@sqi.gouv.qc.ca : 438-831-4032 / f.: 514 873-2516 DAJ@sqi.gouv.qc.ca
Me Brigitte Savignac, CLYDE & CIE CANADA S.E.N.C.R.L. Counsel for the defendant Stantec inc., 630, boul. René-Lévesque Ouest, Bureau 1700 Montréal (Québec) H3B 1S6, Telephone : (514) 843-3777 Brigitte.savignac@clydeco.ca
Me Doug Mitchell, IMK AVOCATS, Counsel for the defendant McGill University, Place Alexis Nihon / Tower 2, 3500 De Maisonneuve Boulevard West, Suite 1400, Montreal (Quebec) H3Z 3C1, Telephone 514 935-2725
Me Simon Vincent, BÉLANGER SAUVÉ, S.E.N.C.R.L., Counsel for the defendant City of Montreal, 5, Place Ville Marie, bureau 900, Montreal (Quebec) H3B 2G2, Telephone: 514 876-6203
niawen’kowa.
Shania Twain knows aboutfirst impressions: She’s not impressed: [that don’t impress me much].
[Thahoketoteh of MNN coverage of FCC v. kahnistensera court case] The teiohateh two row is the relationship between us and the colonists, the canoe and the ship. The peace, friendship and respect was to keep us side by side on our land and water. The ship is temporarily tied to our land with the silver covenant chain. We are now asking those on the ship to respond.
PART I AUDIO: [in 3 parts]
MNN. Jan. 10, 2022. Section 35 [1] of the Constitution Act of Canada, 1982, provides “the existing precolonial aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal people [of turtle island] ARE HEREBY RECOGNIZED AND AFFIRMED”. Section 52 [1] affirms that “‘any law that is inconsistent with the provisions of the constitution is, to the extent of the inconsistency, OF NO FORCE OR EFFECT.
Therefore, the kaianerekowa, which is the existing aboriginal legal system which we have inherited from precolonial times which was never revoked or conceded, is the supreme law of “Canada”. All laws not recognized by kaianerekowa are of no force or effect on any of our land.
AUDIO
No: T-1696-21
FEDERAL COURT
BETWEEN:
THE KANIEN’KEHA:KA KAHNISTENSERA (MOHAWK MOTHERS) KAHENTINETHA, KAWENAA, KARENNATHA AND KARAKWINE, supported by the MEN’S FIRES OF KAHNAWAKE, AKWESASNE, KANEHSATAKE, OHSWEKEN AND KENHTEKE
Applicants
And
SOCIÉTÉ QUÉBÉCOISE DES INFRASTRUCTURES,
MCGILL UNIVERSITY; OFFICE OF THE PRINCIPLE & VICE CHANCELLOR;
CITY OF MONTRÉAL; and STANTEC CONSTRUCTION:
Respondents
APPLICANTS’ RESPONSE TO THE RESPONDENTS’ REQUEST
TO STRIKE OUT THE APPLICANTS’ PLEADING
(Rules 4, 8, 25, 221 and 369 of the Federal Courts Rules)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Notice of Motion………………………………….………………………………….…..3
Written Submissions of the defendant…………….….…………………………………..6
Proposed Court Order …………………………………………………………………..16
CONSIDERING THAT the SQI Société québécoises des infrastructures (« SQI ») will present a request to strike out the Applicants’ motion to the Court on January 14, 2022, at 1:30 PM-EST.
THE MOTION SEEKS to (1) confirm that the Federal Court is the competent court to judge the present case.
THE GROUNDS FOR THIS MOTION ARE AS FOLLOWS:
In their Avis de requête, the Respondents suggest that the Federal Court would not have the ability to judge our case and ask to strike it out.
The Respondents allege that the case does not meet the three-part test established by the Supreme Court to determine if it belongs to the jurisdiction of the Federal Court.
However, as sovereign traditional rotinonhsonni people, the Applicants are adamant that the Federal Court is the only instance available within the State of Canada which can examine their case, as it concerns the nation-to-nation relationship between Canada and the rotinonhsonni confederacy.
The Applicants argue that not receiving the case in the Federal Court would violate the Silver Covenant Chain and Two Row Wampum treaties between the Rotinonhsonni Confederacy and the British Crown the fiduciary obligation of the Crown towards Indigenous peoples, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and the Constitution of Canada, 1982. The Rotinonhsonni Confederacy has no dialogue or historical relationship with the Canadian province of Quebec, which lacks competence in Indigenous issues.
The Applicants also argue that the case concerns Bill-15, which is an Act of the Canadian Parliament, acknowledging and affirming the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, notably the right to patriate human remains.
The kanien’kehá:ka kanistensera, kahentinetha, kawenaa, karennatha and karakwine, supported by the men’s fire of kahnawake, akwesasne, kanehsatake, ohsweken and kenhteke. PO Box 991, kahnawake, Quebec, J0L 1B0 Email: kahnistensera@riseup.net; kahentinetha2@protononmail.com
ADRESSED TO:
Me Alexandre Rouanet-Bazinet,BERGERON, of DENILLE & ASSOCIATES, Counsel for SQI the defendant Société québécoise des infrastructures E-mail: arouanetbazinet@sqi.gouv.qc.ca : 438-831-4032 / f.: 514 873-2516 DAJ@sqi.gouv.qc.ca
Me Brigitte Savignac, of CLYDE & CIE CANADA S.E.N.C.R.L., Counsel for the defendant Stantec inc., 630, boul. René-Lévesque Ouest, Bureau 1700, Montréal (Québec) H3B 1S6, Telephone : (514) 843-3777, Brigitte.savignac@clydeco.ca
Me Doug Mitchell, of IMK AVOCATS, Counsel for the defendant McGill University, Place Alexis Nihon / Tower 2, 3500 De Maisonneuve Boulevard West, Suite 1400, Montreal (Quebec) H3Z 3C1, Telephone 514 935-2725
Me Simon Vincent, of BÉLANGER SAUVÉ, S.E.N.C.R.L., Counsel for the defendant, City of Montreal, 5, Place Ville Marie, bureau 900, Montreal (Quebec) H3B 2G2, Telephone: 514 876-6203
WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS OF THE APPLICANTS
Context
The plaintiffs hereby requesting an injunction order from the Federal Court of Canada are the kahnistenhsera (life-givers, i.e. women), which wampum 44 of the kaianerekowa, the precolonial constitution of the rotinonhsonni (Iroquois) confederacy, declares as the sovereign caretakers of a’nowarà:ke, turtle island, for the coming generations, tahatikonhsontóntie. As sovereign indigenous people, the kaianerekowa is our basis of all adjudication and resolution, and our duties and rights are exercised in our protocols, clan system and oral tradition which come from time immemorial.
Following serious allegations that Indigenous children were used and may have died from being subject to MK-Ultra “mind control” experiments conducted by Dr. Ewen Cameron at McGill University’s Allan Memorial Institute in the 1950s and 1960s, the kahnisténhsera have demanded the immediate cessation of planning and construction work on the sites of the Royal Victoria Hospital and the Allan Memorial Institute authorized by the City of Montreal (file 1217400001) to investigate potential unmarked graves on site.
In a letter to the Office de Consultation Publique de Montréal (OCPM) dated November 9, 2021, the Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic) of McGill University has agreed that an investigation into unmarked graves on said sites was necessary and committed to collaborating in it. However, no effort has been done to reach out to the kahnisténhsera to realize this investigation. The Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI), which was declared to be the owner of the Allan Memorial Institute by Nicole Brodeur, president of the OCPM, during the hearing of the kahnisténhsera, has contacted the Band Council offices of Kahnawake and Kanehsatake on November 9, 2021, to discuss collaborating on the matter. However, Band Councils have no jurisdiction on traditional indigenous homelands outside of the boundaries of reservations, and they are in a conflict of interest given that they as allies administer funds from the federal government of Canada, which unconstitutionally imposed the Band Council system on the kanien’keha:ka people through the Indian Act. Moreover, the SQI has later denied owning the said sites.
The kahnisténhsera are still waiting for the parties involved to collaborate and provide funding for a kahnisténhsera led investigation on potential atrocities conducted on the sites of the Royal Victoria Hospital and Allan Memorial Institute. The unmarked graves of our children are part of the ongoing crimes against humanity and genocide of the indigenous people in Canada, following the definition of the United Nations 1948 Genocide Convention. Recovering the remains of Indigenous people killed because of genocidal policies has been acknowledged as an utmost priority by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, whose validity has been affirmed by the Parliament of Canada in Bill C-15
As kahnisténhsera the Applicants are seeking relief by requesting the Federal Court of Canada to issue an order impeding demolition and construction work on said sites in order to allow an Indigenous-led archaeological and forensic investigation on the presence of human remains.
Through the lawyers of the Société Québécoise des infrastructures, the Respondents have filed a Dossier de requête en radiation d’une demande et en prolongation de délai to the Court on December 7, 2021. They argue that the Federal Court lacks the jurisdiction to judge the case.
The Applicants are adamant that the Federal Court of Canada is the proper court to examine the case. The following arguments explain why.
Arguments
The Respondents argue that the case does not pass the test created by the Supreme Court in Windsor (City) v. Canadian transit co, 2016 SCC 54 (“Windsor”), to determine the jurisdiction of the Federal Court determined by the Federal Court Rules, R.S.C. 1985, c F-7 (“FCA”); 1] There must be a grant of jurisdiction by an Act of the Federal Parliament; 2] There must be a body of federal law that is essential to the resolution of the dispute and is the basis for the statutory grant of jurisdiction; 3]The law relied upon in the case must be “a law of Canada” within the meaning of section 101 of the Constitution Act, 1867.
The Respondents argue that Article 35 of the Constitution Act of Canada, 1982, which the Applicants rely on in their original motion, is not a “law of Canada” within the meaning of section 101 of the Constitution Act, 1867.
The argument used in Windsor para. 63 makes a distinction between Canada as a country and Canada as a level of government within Canada, stating that “After the 1982 ‟patriationˮ, the Constitution is certainly a law of Canada the country, as opposed to a law of the United Kingdom, but it is not one of the “Laws of Canada”, the federal laws, referred to in 101of the Constitution Act, 1867.” In para. 64, it states that “Surely constitutional law is neither federal nor provincial. The Constitution logically precedes that distinction”. It is on that basis that it concluded in para. 33 that by addressing the Constitution of Canada, the Canadian transit company was not addressing the jurisdiction of a Federal Court, as it was “not seeking relief “under an Act of Parliament or otherwise” (i.e., under federal law) as required by s. 23(c) of the Federal Courts Act. Section 23”.
However, the Applicants are adamant that the Federal Court of Canada is the only court available in the legal system of the State of Canada to examine the case.
It must be noted that even though it would confer jurisdiction to the Federal Court of Canada, the Applicants are not seeking relief under the provisions of the Specific Claims Tribunal Act, which only concerns non-sovereign “First Nations” incorporated under the Indian Act, who have thus relinquished their sovereign rights protected by the United Nations Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous People and the Constitution of Canada, 1982. The Specific Claims Tribunal Act only allows for monetary compensation; whereas the present case concerns issues of sovereignty, land and genocide which cannot be resolved only with monetary compensations. Consequently, the jurisdiction of the Federal Court of Canada is rather evidenced by the following points:
First, para. 4 of the Federal Court Rules, R.S.C. 1985, c F-7 states that “The Federal Court has concurrent original jurisdiction to hear and determine proceedings to determine disputes in which the Crown is or may be under an obligation and in respect of which there are or may be conflicting claims”. The fiduciary responsibility of the Crown vis-à-vis the sovereign Indigenous peoples of a’nowarà:ke, turtle island, is an obligation of the Crown engaging the Federal Court as a referee in conflicting claims between the Applicants and the Respondents.
Second, the case engages strictly Federal jurisidictions and responsibilities, such as the Calls for Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada indicating that the search for unmarked graves is a top priority for the State of Canada to advance “reconciliation” with Indigenous peoples.
Third, most importantly the case directly engages at least one “law of Canada” in the meaning of section 101 of the Constitution Act, 1867. This law is Bill C-15, An Act respecting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the Parliament and Senate of Canada, and having received royal assent on June 21, 2021. In para. 17a, the Act affirms “the Declaration as a universal international human rights instrument with application in Canadian law.” The current motion asks the Federal Court of Canada to assess the application of Bill C-15, as an “Act of Canada” in the current issue. Provided that the search for unmarked graves of sovereign Indigenous peoples, their right not to be subjected to genocide, and their right not to own and to live freely in their traditional unceded lands constitute the backbone of the present case, the following paragraphs from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples apply directly to it:
PART II AUDIO:
(Art. 1) Indigenous peoples have the right to the full enjoyment, as a collective or as individuals, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms as recognized in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights4 and international human rights law.
(Art. 7) 1. Indigenous individuals have the rights to life, physical and mental integrity, liberty and security of person. 2. Indigenous peoples have the collective right to live in freedom, peace and security as distinct peoples and shall not be subjected to any act of genocide or any other act of violence, including forcibly removing children of the group to another group.
(Art. 12) 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practice, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the right to the use and control of their ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of their human remains. 2. States shall seek to enable the access and/or repatriation of ceremonial objects and human remains in their possession through fair, transparent and effective mechanisms developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples concerned.
(Art. 19) States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.
(Art. 25) Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied and used lands, territories, waters and coastal seas and other resources and to uphold their responsibilities to future generations in this regard.
(Art. 26) 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired. 2. Indigenous peoples have the right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use, as well as those which they have otherwise acquired. 3. States shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories and resources. Such recognition shall be conducted with due respect to the customs, traditions and land tenure systems of the indigenous peoples concerned.
(Art. 27) States shall establish and implement, in conjunction with indigenous peoples concerned, a fair, independent, impartial, open and transparent process, giving due recognition to indigenous peoples’ laws, traditions, customs and land tenure systems, to recognize and adjudicate the rights of indigenous peoples pertaining to their lands, territories and resources, including those which were traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or used. Indigenous peoples shall have the right to participate in this process.
Fourth, the case directly engages the original jurisdiction of the Federal Court for extraprovincial matters. This extraprovincial jurisdiction applies to conflicting claims between subject and subject, and not only to claims where the Crown is a party. 25 of the Federal Court Rules, R.S.C. 1985, c F-7 (“FCA”) states: “The Federal Court has original jurisdiction, between subject and subject as well as otherwise, in any case in which a claim for relief is made or a remedy is sought under or by virtue of the laws of Canada if no other court constituted, established or continued under any of the Constitution Acts, 1867 to 1982 has jurisdiction in respect of that claim or remedy”. It is a fact that no other court has jurisdiction in respect of the present claim, which engages the fiduciary responsibility of the Crown vis-à-vis Indigenous peoples, Bill C-15 as a law of Canada, and the Constitution of Canada, 1982.
Fifth, the Respondents’ argument to strike out the case based on the Supreme Court ruling in Windsor to the effect that the Constitution of Canada is not a “law of Canada” rather reinforces the Applicants’ claim that the Federal Court of Canada is the only available instance within the State of Canada that may examine the case. The following reasons lead to this conclusion:
The Respondents base their argument for striking out the case on the notion that the Constitution of Canada, 1982, is not a “law of Canada” within the meaning of section 101 of the Constitution Act, 1867. Yet the Respondents fail to mention the Applicants’ reference to Article 52 of the Constitution of Canada, 1982, which states that it is the “Supreme law of the land”, that all the “laws of Canada” that are not consistent with the Constitution are null and void, and that its provisions are not subject to the Notwithstanding Clause [that nothing can contradict the kaianerekowa that supercedes anything and everything.]. This includes Article 35, which “affirms” the “existing rights” of “Aboriginal people”, and cannot be revoked. On the unceded Kaienke’ha:ka territory of Montreal, the supreme law of the land acknowledged the Constitution of Canada, 1982, is the kaianerekowa (Great Peace, constitution of the rotinonhsonni confederacy), which states that the Applicants, as kahnisténhsera, are the sovereign caretakers of the land.
The rotinonhsonni (Iroquois) confederacy has an historical nation-to-nation agreement with the British Crown, namely the Silver Covenant Chain which Queen Elizabeth II has polished in the sovereign kanien’keha:ka territory of Tyendinaga in 2010. The Silver Covenant Chain originally allowed the British ship to dock at a’nowarà:ke, provided that it would respect the teiohá:te (Two Row Wampum), stating that the European peoples’ ship would not encroach on the ways of life and the land of Indigenous peoples. When the Constitution of Canada was “patriated” in 1982, it has been assumed that Canada would inherit the fiduciary responsibility and the nation-to-nation relationship with Indigenous peoples previously assumed by the Crown of the United Kingdom. However, the Province of Quebec has never established any diplomatic relationship with the traditional government system of the rotinonhsonni (Iroquois) confederacy, and therefore lacks jurisdiction in matters concerning traditional rotinonhsonni and kanien’keha:ka peoples.
If the Supreme Court ruling in Windsor states that the Constitution of Canada, 1982, is not a “law of Canada”, it is because it is higher than all the “laws of Canada”, and overrides them by virtue of Article 52. As it acknowledged that the Constitution of Canada is higher than the “laws of Canada”, this argument cannot be used to send the current case to a lower court, but implies that it belongs to the highest possible court. If the Federal Court does not assert jurisdiction, and if no such higher court is available within Canada, it is because the case belongs to the sovereign jurisdiction of the rotinonhsonni confederacy, the kaianerekowa (Great Peace) on its unconceded traditional homeland.
Traditionally, the nation-to-nation relationship between the sovereign rotinonhsonni confederacy and the sovereign of Canada, the Crown of the United Kingdom was in the legal jurisdiction of the Privy Council of the Commonwealth of the United Kingdom. As a British court, the Privy Council was the “higher court” assuming jurisdiction over the relationship between the “laws of Canada” and sovereign Indigenous peoples. However, the Privy Council of the Commonwealth was abolished in 1949, and the Canadian federal courts inherited its judicial obligations vis-à-vis Indigenous peoples.
If the Federal Court of Canada is not the highest court having jurisdiction over constitutional matters engaging sovereign Indigenous peoples, the Applicants would appreciate to know which is the higher court responsible for upholding the Constitution of Canada, 1982.
In the meanwhile, the Applicants’ understanding is that Article 52 of the Constitution of Canada, 1982, affirms that all the “laws of Canada” that are inconsistent with the Constitution are null and void, and that the Notwithstanding Clause does not apply to the Constitution. This includes Article 35, which acknowledges the sovereignty of “existing Aboriginal rights”, which in the case of the traditional homeland of the rotinonhsonni and kanien’keha:ka peoples, is the kaianerekowa (Great Peace).
The Applicants also point out that the Royal Proclamation of 1763, where the British Crown promised that Indigenous peoples would not be “disturbed” in their sovereign unceded territories, has never been revoked, and is still part of the constitutional groundwork of Canada.
In essence, the Applicants argue that the case is brought before the Federal Court of Canada because it concerns Canadian subjects who have violated the supreme law of the land, the constitution of the rotinonhsonni confederacy, the kaianerekowa (Great Peace), whose supremacy is acknowledged by the Constitution of Canada, 1982, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. It is the fiduciary obligation of the Crown to uphold the kaianerekowa.
OUR FIGHT IS NEVER BEHIND US UNTIL THE GREAT PEACE WINS.
PART III Audio
Clarifications on traditional rotinonhsonni protocol :
The 1763 Royal Proclamation, the 1982 Constitution Act of Canada, the Constitution of the United States of America and all other legal foundations of settler colonial occupation have no power to turn trespassers into true natural sovereigns on a’nowarà:ke, turtle island. According to the kaianerekowa, great peace, the kahnisténhsera, “life-givers”, are each the sovereign caretakers for the coming generations, tahatikonhsontóntie. The kaianerekowa provides that any decision must be gained through our clan system and our consensual decision-making process.
The Silver Covenant Chain and the teiohá:te (Two Row Wampum) is the protocol that originally allowed European settlers to share an existence on a’nowarà:ke, turtle island. The settlers agreed to keep their culture, language, and ways on their ship, ensuring that the indigenous canoe would always remain sovereign on the continent of a’nowarà:ke. Neither the teiohá:te nor the kaianerekowa permitted settlers to encroach in any way on the land except to grow food in the depth of a plough for their sustenance. There were not allowed to build infrastructures nor extract our natural resources. Furthermore, the infrastructures at McGill University and in the City of Montreal were built with borrowed Iroquois Trust Funds which have never been repaid, and that were confiscated to our people using the racist pretext that indigenous peoples were incapable of managing their own funds.
Canada, Quebec, Montreal and McGill University have no legal relationship, agreement, treaties or covenants with the rotinonhsonni confederacy and the sovereign kanien’keha:ka people using the protocols of the kaianerekowa. Due to this legal limbo, McGill University, the SQI and the City of Montreal are currently trespassing upon the following Iroquoian ancestral homelands: kawehnote teiontiakon [Montreal Island], tekanontak/ononta tiotiake [two mountains connected, Mount Royal], and skanawatsta [across the mud flats, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue]. The Sulpicians have purported that they were granted these lands from the King of France but have failed to show any proof that these sites were ever ceded or sold by the Iroquoian peoples. All parties that have bought and sold said lands throughout history have been guilty of handling stolen property.
We understand English as the diplomatic language we can use for communication with non-indigenous parties. Communicating without our permission in French, a language that we do not understand, violates international protocol. Should the defending parties insist on speaking French to us, we will reply in kanienkehaka Mohawk language, the original language of our Iroquoian homelands.
Canada and its affiliated institutions are currently violating the sovereign rotinonhsonni constitution of the kaianerekowa, the Great Peace. Section 35 [1] of the Constitution Act of Canada 1982 provides: “the existing [pre-colonial] aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal people [of turtle island] are hereby recognized and affirmed”. Section 52[1] affirms that “any law that is inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution is, to the extent of the inconsistency, of no force or effect.” Therefore, the kaianerekowa, which is the existing aboriginal legal system which the rotinonhsonni confederacy has inherited from precolonial times, and which was never revoked or conceded, is the supreme law of “Canada”. Consequently, all laws of Canada that are not recognized by the kaianerekowa are of no force or effect on the original homelands of the Iroquoian people.
The kaianerekowa is based on the natural world. It follows sha’oié:ra, “the way of creation forever”, and cannot be revoked. The Federal Court of Canada must accept our truth, that the original peoples of a’nowarà:ke and their legal systems are part of the sustainable ecological reality that allows life to continue. They are part of the earth, water, air and sun that are necessary for life. The corporation of Canada [licence ISO# CA 3166-1], and the British common law and French Civil law on which it is based, have no foothold on the natural reality of a’nowarà:ke, having rather allowed its destruction by supporting environmentally harmful projects that were in violation with the kaianerekowa.
After the discovery of 215 unmarked graves of Indigenous children in Kamloops, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau admitted that “We are guilty of genocide”, suggesting that the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions’ “Call for actions” must be followed to allow a reconciliation between settler and indigenous peoples in Canada. Mohawk language contains no word for “I am sorry”. We say Enhskerihwakwatá:ko, “I will make it right”. We are here today to request that the Canadian judicial process stops facilitating the genocide of indigenous peoples on a’nowarà:ke, and respects the 1948 Genocide Convention. Our message is based on our law and culture and cannot be challenged by any foreign entities and laws, which have no force or effect.
No Indigenous people ever ratified Canada to become a nation. We and our lands have never been for sale. The Doctrine of Discovery, the Right of Conquest, and John Locke’s right of appropriating land through improvement, are based on racist ideologies that contradict the Unites Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom, the basic principles of democracy and the common sense of most Canadians in 2022. This is why the City of Montreal, McGill University and the corporation of Canada acknowledge that a’nowarà:ke is unceded indigenous land. The legal consequences of this fact, which implies the unbreachable sovereignty of the kaianerekowa on traditional Iroquoian homelands, must be assessed by the Federal Court of Canada.
We are not addressing this court to debate or be bound by the legal procedures of a judicial system that must first assess its fundamental nation-to-nation relationship with the sovereign indigenous peoples of a’nowarà:ke. We are placing our provisions of the kaianerekowa before you for your records. It is up to the Canadian court system to judge its own citizens if they violate the kaianerekowa. The kaianerekowa exists since time immemorial and can never be amended as it is based on the natural world. The kaianerekowa does not recognize other laws on a’nowarà:ke. All laws of Canada, case laws, treaties, and procedures have no force or effect unless they are recognized by the supreme law of the land, the kaianerekowa.
Today we are embarking onto the European ship to remind settlers of the original law of this land. The colonial court under your sail has no jurisdiction over us, the sovereign kanienkehaka:onwe. You have jurisdiction over your own people on your ship. Without our permission the governance of your people overreached its jurisdiction, violating the kaianerekowa. Your ship is temporarily chained to our shores by a Silver Covenant Chain agreement. We request that your colonial settler population respect us, follow your laws, to stop the genocide and crimes against us. We are not Canadian subjects. Our culture is based on the natural world. We will tell you the truth, and we will expect you to respect it.
A’nowarà:ke, January 8, 2022.
toknikon, the sovereign caretakers,
The kanien’kehá:ka kanistensera, kahentinetha, kawenaa, karennatha and karakwine, supported by the men’s fire of kahnawake, akwesasne, kanehsatake, ohsweken and kenhteke. PO Box 991, kahnawake, Quebec, J0L 1B0 Email: kahnistensera@riseup.net; kahentinetha2@protononmail.com
COURT ORDER
CONSIDERING the Notice of Motion filed in the Federal Court of Canada by the Applicants on November 9, 2021;
CONSIDERING the Respondent Société québécoise des infrastructures’ Dossier de requête en radiation d’une demande et en prolongation de délai (request to strike out the Applicants’ pleading and to prolong the delay)
CONSIDERING THAT the Respondent’s request to strike out the Applicants’ pleading is not legally justified;
FOR THESE REASONS, THE TRIBUNAL:
DISMISSES the Respondents’ Dossier de requête en radiation d’une demande et en prolongation de délai dated November 7, 2021.
THE WHOLE with costs.
The Beatles knew when it was over.: “I read the news today, oh boy, About a lucky man who made the grade. And though the news was rather sad, Well, I just had to laugh”
MNN. NOV. 14, 2021. [By thahoketoteh of MNN] FROM: Mohawk Mothers, Secretariate of the kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera, PO Box 991, kahnawake, Quebec, J0L 1B0
OUR FIGHT IS NEVER BEHIND US UNTIL THE GREAT PEACE WINS.
TO: -Société québécoise des infrastructures Direction générale de la requalification du site Royal-Victoria 445, Saint-Gabriel Street. Montreal (Quebec), H2Y 3A2 Email : smayes@sqi.gouv.qc.ca Telephone: 514 873 5485, 5413
-McGill University Office of the Principle & Vice Chancellor, 845 Sherbrooke Street West. Montreal QC, H3A 0G4 Telephone: 514-398-4180, Fax 514-398-4763
-Mairie [mayor] d’arrondissement de Ville-Marie, 800, Boulevard De Maisonneuve street East, Montreal QC, H2L 4L8
On November 10, 2021, a rally was held in front of the Allan Memorial Institute (AMI) bringing together family members of MK-Ultra experiments survivors, Duplessis orphans, McGill students and the Milton Park citizens’ committee to support the kanien’keha:ka kahnistensera’s (Mohawk Mothers) opposition to renovating the ex-Royal Victoria Hospital and AMIsites. Later that evening, the 50+ protestors accompanied the kanien’keha:ka kahnistensera’s as they shared their message in a 10 minute hearing with the non-decisional commissioners of the Office de Consultation publique de Montréal. This message, also transmitted to the responsible parties via an injunction T-1696-21 Nov. 9, 2021 filed in the Federal Court of Canada, stressed that: 1) no project can start without the permission of the kanien’keha:ka kahnistensera, as the traditional caretakers of kanien’keha:ka territory according to the precolonial Great Law of Peace, kaianerekowa, recognized by Section 35 of the Constitution Act of Canada, 1982; 2) the Royal Victoria Hospital and AMI sit on the location of the precolonial Iroquoian village and very likely contains archeological remains of interest to the kanien’keha:ka people. This land was never ceded by the Iroquois, as no land deed was shown to prove that such a transfer existed. The Société Québécoise des Infrastructures (SQI), City of Montreal, Hugh Allan family, and McGill University have thus bought, sold and handled stolen land; 3) strong evidence exists to support allegations that indigenous and non-indigenous adults and children would be buried on the site of the AMI, as a result of the psychiatric experiments of Dr. Ewen Cameron.
WHERE THESE “MIND CONTROLLERS” BELONG.
On November 11, 2021, the kanien’keha:ka kahnistensera noticed new materials on the website of the Office de Consultation publique de Montréal, which were posted without giving notice to the kahnistensera. One letter dated November 9, 2020 from McGill University’s Office of the Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic) to the Office de Consultation publique addressed the kahnistensera’s concerns, and contained a clear commitment to allowing the necessary forensic and ground-penetrating investigations to happen to assess the presence of human remains on the site of the AMI: “‘no reconciliation is possible until the truth is known’, the letter said. Therefore, we are ready to collaborate with government and Indigenous community representatives so that the proper investigations can be conducted”. Even though the kahnistensera approve this commitment, they were not directly addressed in the letter nor notified that it had been written. They have a strong concern about who exactly is targeted in the expression “Indigenous community representatives”, as the traditional Great Law of Peace, kaianerekowa, still in effect on the traditional homeland of the kanien’keha:ka nation, holds the kahnistensera responsible for caretaking the land, and nobody else.
Two other letters had also been sent on November 9, 2021, from the SQI to the Band Council offices of Kahnawake and Kanehsatake, inviting Band Councillors to collaborate on exchanging information on potential unmarked graves on the site of the AMI that the SQI claims to own. The two letters clearly circumvented and invisibilized the authority of the traditional caretakers of kanien’keha:ka territory, the kahnistensera, who had raised the allegations in the first place, and who are solely responsible for the land. Band Councils were forced upon Indigenous peoples by the Indian Act, and the resistance of traditional kanien’keha:ka government to this colonial government system was brutally crushed as the RCMP stormed the Akwesasne Longhouse in 1899 to impose it, killing chief Jake Fire and seizing wampums and traditional regalia. Given that Band Councils funnel funds from the Federal Government and assume control of Indigenous communities despite extremely low participation in tribal elections, they are not recognized as part of the traditional kanien’keha:ka nation, and they are in a conflict of interest that impedes any possibility of them being involved in the search for unmarked graves.
THE MEN’S FIRE ARE GONNA CLEAN UP THEIR ‘BRAINWASHING’ ACT!
This letter is to notify the proper protocol that will be followed now that the necessity of an investigation was acknowledged by McGill University and the SQI. In the current search for unmarked graves in the grounds of the Mohawk Institute in Brantfort, Ontario, near ohsweken (Six Nations of the Grand River), great care was taken to avoid the local Band Council from being involved, given their conflict of interest as representatives of the Federal government. Instead, a group composed of survivors and grassroots traditional Indigenous peoples –women, “kahnistensera” –, was formed to supervise and monitor the investigation. The same process will be followed in the upcoming ground penetrant radar investigation on the grounds of the AMI. A group composed of MK-Ultra survivors and their families, as well as the Secretariate of the kanien’keha:ka kahnistensera (Mohawk mothers), including representatives from every kanien’keha:ka clan (bear, turtle, wolf), will lead the investigation under the traditional Indigenous legal framework of the rotinonshonni (Iroquois) confederacy: the Great Law of Peace (kaianerekowa). Therefore, all future correspondence must be addressed to the Secretariate of the kanien’keha:ka kahnistensera. To ensure no conflict of interest, the role of the SQI, the Government of Canada, the City of Montreal and McGill University will be limited to allowing access to the grounds, financing the investigation using funds borrowed from the Iroquois Trust Fund in the 19th Century, and facilitating the investigation by releasing all files concerning medical experimentation programs at the Royal Victoria Hospital and AMI.
Yours truthfu
Secretariate of the kanien’keha:ka kahnistensera
Muse sings what’s around the corner; “Rise up and take the power back It’s time the fat cats had a heart attack chase the fat cats. You know that their time’s coming to an end We have to unify and watch our flag ascend (So come on)”
Nov. 12, 2021. [thahoketoteh of MNN]. On November 10 at 7.10 pm the men’s fire and the kanistensera – Mohawk Mothers – met with the McGill-Royal Victoria makeover commissioners via Zoom [VIDEO BELOW]. According to kaianerekowa protocol, the men’s fire and Mohawk mothers informed the Commissioners that there is the possible presence of unmarked graves in certain portions of the ex-hospital site. All work on the McGill Royal Vic project must immediately stop as it could be a crime scene. The Truth and Reconciliation commission’s final report states: “no reconciliation is possible until the truth is known.” McGill stated that on their blog, ‘We are ready to collaborate with government and band council agents of Canada [the genociders] so that the proper investigations can be conducted”!!
The sovereign Mohawk mothers secretariat will oversee this task by retrieving all medical experimentation funded by the US and Canadian military and intelligence agencies. files related to Dr. Cameron’s and his colleagues mind control experimental work. This will be funded by the new vic project until it is totally completed to the satisfaction of the Mohawk mothers.
The men’s fire and kanistensera also informed the Commissioners that no permission was given to build the McGill Royal Vic project or any entity which is on unceded kaneienkehaka land. This area is known as “thegnondat”.
Without asking for the permission of the men’s fire and kanistensera, the SQI who call themselves owners of the land, appointed the Canadian government band councils to undertake the investigation for these communities. The band councils were set up in 1924 to carry out the residential school genocide program. This is a gross conflict of interest to cover up their role in turning indigenous children over to the macabre mind control death programs of McGill University and others. We are the sovereigns of turtle island and speak according to the kaianerekowa. Section 35 of the Constitution Act of Canada 1982 supports the kaianerekowa as the supreme law of turtle island. All other laws are subservient. The kaianerekowa controls this entire process.
Commissioners began the hearing in French, even though we requested that they speak to us in the intermediate language of English. We began speaking in Mohawk and translated it for them into English. This is the correct protocol throughout the world. McGill has decided to ask the band council genociders to oversee this process. As noted, the band council agents of Canada have no standing except to help coverup of murder that they facilitated. See video of Zoom meeting with Commissioners:
Alice Cooper sings of the future of McGill University: No more pencils, no more books No more teachers, dirty looks Out for summer, out ’til fall We might not come back at all
READ MOTION FILED BY KANISTENSERA IN FEDERAL COURT OF CANADA T-1696-21 AGAINST societe quebecoise des infrastructure; mcgill university office of the principle & vice chancellor; mairie d’ardonissement de ville marie; stantic inc.
MNN. Nov. 10, 2021. [thahoketoteh of MNN] This is the full motion filed by the kanistenrsera mohawk mothers in the Federal Court of Canada on Nov. 9, 2021 and served on the four parties. In addition to our b rief we have filed a motion of application to the Federal Court of Canada T-1696-21. The Affidavit of Service has been served to all parties.
THE FOLLOWING ARE EXCEPTS OF THE KANISTENERA’S CONCERNS:
Federal Court Number: T-1696-21 Responders are societe quebecoise des infrastructures; mcgill university office of the principle and vice-chancellor; mairie d’ordinissement de ville marie; stantic inc.
This is a precedent for all turtle island cases. This will be addressed today at 7.10 pm EST. for ten minutes by Zoom between the two parties and a video will be available to the public. We are meeting today with the Commissioners of the project to inform them officially that they do not have our permission to construct their project on our unceded kenienkehaka land they must immediately leave and investigate the grounds for unmarked graves and burial sites.
The kanistensera have filed a Notice of Motion in the Federal Court of Canada to impede the projected demolition, construction, transformation of buildings, and the repurposing of the surrounding on the site of the Allan Memorial Institute, Ravenscrag gardens, and Royal Victoria Hospital [allotments 1 341 184, 1 341 185, 1 341 182 and 1 354 912 proposed by the City of Montreal on file no. 1217400001.
The kanistensera seek an order to stop the renovation plans until a thorough investigation of the grounds is carried out for searching unmarked graves of individuals unlawfully experimented upon; and until an injunction is issued to stop all construction.
IN THE FEDERAL COURT
Between: The kanien’kehá:ka kanistensera (Mohawk mothers) kahentinetha, kawenaa, karennatha and karakwine.
Applicants
And
SOCIÉTÉ QUÉBÉCOISE DES INFRASTRUCTURES, MCGILL UNIVERSITY OFFICE OF THE PRINCIPLE & VICE CHANCELLOR, MAIRIE D’ARRONDISSEMENT DE VILLE-MARIE, and STANTEC INC.
Respondents
APPLICANT’S WRITTEN REPRESENTATIONS
1. The kaianerehkó:wa, great law of peace, is the original constitution of the onkwehonweh, the original rotinonhshonni (Iroquois) people. Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, recognizes and affirms existing aboriginal rights, e.g. the kaianerehkó:wa and teiohateh, two row wampum, as traditional legal frameworks for unceded rotinoshionni (Iroquois) territories. The kaianerehkó:wa and teiohateh, apply in this case and every other case in this territory.
2. According to Wampum 44 of the kaianerehkó:wa, the precolonial constitution of the rotino’shonni iroquois confederacy, every original indigenous woman is a caretaker of the land on behalf of the future generations: kononkwe ne konwatsirineh ne kanakerasera. ne enkotiyatakwehnyyokeh ne onwentsa. ronnonkwe tahnon ne konnonkwe ne enhatihsereh tsiniyakotaroten ne ronwatihnistenha, “The lineal descent of the people of the Five Nations shall run in the female line. Women shall be considered the progenitors of the Nation. They shall own the land, and the soil. Men and women shall follow the status of their mothers” (see Appendix 1).
3. Given their status as the progenitors of all life on onowarekeh (turtle island) since the beginning of life on earth and as the original owners of the land following Indigenous law, the kahnistensera must give permission for anything to be done to their traditional unceded homeland.
4. It is with this understanding that we original peoples seek the assistance of the Canadian judicial system in the peaceable resolution of preventing a miscarriage of justice on our land and resolve this dispute between us and your subjects. Nothing can be done on any part of turtle island without the permission of its sovereign indigenous people, as stated in Section 35 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This court is bound by the Charter of Rights and must affirm the concerns found in section 35.
5. File no. 1217400001 of the City of Montreal provides for the demolition, construction, transformation of buildings, and the repurposing of the surrounding on the site of the Allan Memorial Institute, Ravenscrag gardens, and Royal Victoria Hospital (allotments 1 341 184, 1 341 185, 1 341 182, and 1 354 912). See Appendix 2.
6. The Société Québécoise des Infrastructures has allowed McGill university to plan a repurposing project for the site of the Royal Victoria Hospital, in a plan called “The New Vic”.
7. The Société Québécoise des Infrastructures Allan Memorial Institute has commissioned Stantec inc. to explore and plan demolition, construction and landscaping work on the site of the Allan Memorial Institute and the Ravenscrag gardens.
8. The respondents have illegally bought and sold stolen Indigenous property.
9. As the caretakers of thequenondah (two mountains beside each other/mount royal), we thus demand the immediate suspension of all reconstruction plans for the Royal Victoria Hospital and Allan Memorial Institute sites on the campus of McGill University, for the following reasons: the site is unceded kanien’kehá:ka territory; the site contains archaeological remains from the original precolonial Iroquoian village; the grounds of the Allan Memorial Institute must be investigated for potential unmarked graves of atrocities committed during the MK-Ultra program, between 1954 and 1963 by the CIA and Canada.
10. The kanien’kehá:ka land on which the Royal Victoria Hospital and Allan Memorial Institute sites are located are said to have first been transferred by the Sulpicians to private owner Pierre Raimbault as “concession 637” in 1708. No information has been provided to us attesting to the Sulpicians having acquired the said land from the rotino’shonni:onwe iroquoian peoples who have lived on this land since time immemorial. Jacques Cartier first encountered our rotino’shonni:onwe ancestors in 1535 and indicated that the village of “Hochelaga” was located at thequenondah (mount royal). Given our people’s practice of safeguarding the environment by moving our villages regularly throughout our territories, the village had been temporarily left to natural regeneration when Samuel de Champlain came back to the site, in 1603. When our people returned, they saw a group of strangers had moved onto our site and learned that they called the settlement “Ville Marie”. Unable to use the land to meet regularly with indigenous peoples from all directions of turtle island, our people renamed the location tionni’tio’tià:kon, “the place where the people separated”. As no proper land deed or certificate of cession of this land has ever been shown to us, the site is considered unceded kanien’kehá:ka land, as publicly acknowledged both by McGill University and the City of Montreal.
11. Only the kanien’kehá:ka’onwe, the “people forever of the flint”, can make decisions on the use of our land, in accordance with the kaianerehkó:wa (great peace), our ancestral constitution which supersedes colonial legislation following 8 according to Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. As unceded kanien’kehá:ka territory, the valid legal frameworks on thequenondah are the kaianerehkó:wa, accompanied by the two historical agreements between the rotinoshionni confederacy and the British Crown: the teiohateh (two row wampum) and the silver covenant chain (Appendix 3).
12. McGill campus on thequenondah is widely acknowledged as the original site of many of the precolonial iroquoian villages today referred to as “hochelaga”. As stated in Arkeos’ 2016 archeological survey (Appendix 4), the large number of precolonial indigenous burial sites throughout the thequenondah and Royal Victoria Hospital sites demonstrates that the remains of our indigenous ancestors lie beneath its surface. As their heirs, it is our duty to determine how these crucial archeological sites will be treated in any change to the thequenondah site. It is an extreme offence to disturb our ancestors.
13. In addition to archeological remains, the kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera have been aware of allegations that indigenous and/or non-indigenous children may be buried in the vicinity of the Henry Lewis Morgan pool, and in adjacent grounds of the Ravenscrag gardens of the Allan Memorial Institute. The Henry Lewis Morgan pool was built in 1961 during Dr. Ewen Cameron’s unethical psychiatric experimentations on mind control, carried within the Allan Memorial Institute between 1954 and 1963, and funded by the Canadian government and the CIA’s MK-Ultra project (Appendix 5).
14. An audio taped conversation under oath with 80-year-old Winnipeg resident Lana Ponting (Appendix 6), is one of the few remaining victims of these experiments, has confirmed several aspects of these allegations. Lana Ponting has stressed three points: 1) That indigenous peoples were victims of these experiments, as she remembers seeing at least one indigenous individual receiving intense shock treatment in the Allan Memorial Institute during her stay, in April 1958; 2) That underaged children were victims of these experiments, as Lana Ponting witnessed many minor individuals in the building, and as she was herself 16 years old at the time. It is also public knowledge that several MK-Ultra sub-projects included psychiatric experiments on unwitting children (Sub-projects 102, 103, 177, and 122, see Appendix 7); 3) That the rumour that the experiments’ victims were buried in the Ravenscrag gardens surrounding the Allan Memorial Institute was already in circulation amongst its patients as early as 1958. Notably, Lana Ponting recalls that suspicious activities were conducted outside the building at night. Lana Ponting has obtained a letter her doctor attesting that she is of sound mind. Lana Ponting and many other family members of psychiatric experiments at McGill University have strong suspicions that unmarked graves, potentially including indigenous children, will be uncovered beneath the grounds of Ravenscrag.
15. The kanien’kehá:ka caretakers of thequenondah take these allegations very seriously. Indigenous children who were kidnapped from their families and put in Residential Schools were legally deemed “wards” of the State of Canada. Given this status, many of these children were used for experiments, including on nutrition and starvation (Appendix 8). It must also be noted that before coming to the Allan Memorial Institute, Dr. Ewen Cameron practiced psychiatry in Brandon, Manitoba, where he likely had access to indigenous patients. Another important 9 fact bolstering our suspicions is that underage Duplessis Orphans, who had a similar status as indigenous children in Residential Schools (e.g. “wards of the State”), were subjected to extreme psychiatric torture experiments in psychiatric wards. Many died and were interred in unmarked graves, including numerous human remains found in the pigsty near St-Jean-de-Dieu hospital, in Montreal (Appendix 9). Electroshock torture was also practiced on children in residential schools, as the revealed by the Ontario Provincial Police’s inquiry on Fort Albany’s St Anne’s Residential School (Appendix 10).
16. A zone potentially containing unmarked graves has been identified (Appendix 11). Before unmarked graves of indigenous children were actually found across Canada, the widely circulated stories of their existence among indigenous peoples were dismissed as rumors.
17. The kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera, careholders of thequenondah are concerned that the current Royal Victoria Hospital and Allan Memorial Institute rehabilitation project could destroy evidence of the unmarked graves of their siblings, depriving them of proper identification, repatriation and burial. It is McGill University’s responsibility to provide the funds and the expertise necessary for an immediate and thorough kanien’kehá:ka led investigation of the Allan Memorial Institute site, which must be considered a site of crimes against humanity. All files concerning MK-Ultra experiments conducted in McGill University’s psychiatry department must be released without delay and made available to the public without restriction.
18. According to Calls to Action 71 to 76 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, recovering unmarked graves of Indigenous children is a top priority for the state of Canada to avoid continuously carrying out crimes against humanity.
19. Before any construction can take place, the site must be thoroughly investigated by a kanien’kehá:ka led forensic and archaeological team to confirm the existence of unmarked graves or other evidence of unlawful activity. All of which is respectfully submitted this 8th day of November, 2021 by
OBJECT: Public Consultation on the Former Royal Victoria Hospital. This brief was served on McGill Royal Victoria Secretariat on October 15, 2021.
FROM: The rotisken’raketeh of kahnawake, ohsweken/six nations of the grand river, akwesasne, and kanehsatake, on behalf of the kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera (the mohawk mothers).
ATTENTION: Laurent Maurice Lafontant, Adjoint administratif, Office de Consultation Publique de Montréal 1550 Metcalfe Street, office 1414. Montreal, H3A 1X6 ocpm.qc.ca/Royal-Victoria; 514 872 8510; 1 833 215 9314
ABSTRACT: The kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera (mohawk women), “the umbilical cord connection between mother and child” and between “human race and mother earth” the caretakers of thequenondah (two mountains/mount royal), demand the immediate suspension of all reconstruction plans for the Royal Victoria Hospital and Allan Memorial Institute sites on the campus of McGill University, for the following reasons:
1]The site is unceded kanien’kehá:ka territory; 2) The site contains archeological remains from the original precolonial Iroquoian village; 3) The grounds of the Allan Memorial Institute must be investigated for potential unmarked graves and proof of atrocities committed during the MK-Ultra program, between 1954 and 1963.
Shé:kon,
This brief will be presented on November 10, 2021, via Zoom for 10 minutes, to the Office de Consultation Publique de Montréal. It will be presented by members of the rotisken’raketeh (men’s council fire) of kahnawake, ohsweken/six nations of the grand river, akwesasne, and kanehsatake. The video of this meeting will be posted on MNN.
Following traditional protocol, the rotisken’raketeh will carry the words of the kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera (mohawk mothers), who are the caretakers of onowarekeh (turtle island), in custody for the tahatikonhsontóntie, “the future generations still in the ground of mother earth”. This brief is an objection to the plans of the corporation of McGill University and its affiliated institutions to violate the circle of life on our ancestral land at thequenondah (mount royal). As members of the rotino’shonni iroquois confederacy, we have the following vested interest in the Royal Victoria Hospital reconstruction project under the following:
According to the kaia’nere:kowa (great peace), which is the precolonial constitution of the rotino’shonni iroquois confederacy, the kahnistensera (mothers) are the progenitors of all life on onowarekeh (turtle island) since the beginning of life on earth. Their duty is to carry out the will of creation, embodied in the original circle of 49 families (tekentiohkwenhoksta). Our alliance protocol, the teiohateh (two row wampum, Appendix 1), provides that we survive and coexist with all life as siblings with our mother, the earth. All of turtle island is the unceded birthright of the onkwehonweh (original people) to caretake future generations1.
On September 12, 2015, a Notice of Seizure of McGill University was sent by kahentinetha, a kanien’kehá:ka woman of the waksarawakeh clan, to McGill’s Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Suzanne Fortier (Appendix 2). Addressed were multiple violations of the kaia’nere:kowa (great peace) by McGill University, whose campus is on unceded kanien’kehá:ka territory, and was built using funds borrowed from the rotino’shonni:onwe, and which were never repaid. The kaia’nere:kowa supersedes the Constitution and Charter of Rights of the corporation of Canada both historically and legally. McGill acknowledges on its own blog that its campus is located on unceded indigenous land. Despite McGill’s creation of a Task Force on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education in 2016 (of appointees or employees by McGill), no official response was provided to this Notice of Seizure. A second letter (Appendix 3) was thus sent in May 2021, informing McGill’s Board of Governors that their failure to respond to the 2015 Notice of Seizure meant that they admitted by default that McGill illegally sits on kanien’kehá:ka land. Unless McGill University abides by the kaia’nere:kowa (great peace) and the teiohateh (two row wampum), it is considered as trespassing kanien’kehá:ka land. No agreement is valid without the consensus of the original sovereigns of turtle island. The kahionni 44 (hiawatha belt) of the kaia’nere:kowa provides the duties of the women as caretakers: kononkwe ne konwatsirineh ne kanakerasera. ne enkotiyatakwehnyyokeh ne onwentsa. ronnonkwe tahnon ne konnonkwe ne enhatihsereh tsiniyakotaroten ne ronwatihnistenha. “Women shall be considered the progenitors of the people. They are the prime caretakers of the land and the soil. Men and women shall follow the status of their mothers”.
The private “indigenous consultation” firm Acosys hired by McGill University has not received permission from the kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera to repurpose our land known as “the Royal Victoria Hospital site”. This permission is the first step towards any planning. The kahnistensera are still waiting to be provided with the information on who was improperly consulted on their behalf. Acosys must use the proper kaia’nere:kowa protocol. As caretakers of thequenondah, including the site of the Royal Victoria Hospital and Allan Memorial Institute, the kahnistensera hereby inform you that our protocol has been violated and that the project cannot proceed.
Our demands are based on the following considerations:
1-The kanien’kehá:ka land on which the Royal Victoria Hospital site is located is said to have first been transferred by the Sulpicians to private owner Pierre Raimbault as “concession 637” in 1708. No information has been provided to us attesting to the Sulpicians having acquired the said land from the rotino’shonni:onwe iroquoian peoples who have lived on this land since time immemorial. Jacques Cartier first encountered our rotino’shonni:onwe ancestors in 1535 (Appendix 4) and indicated that the village of “Hochelaga” was located at thequenondah (mount royal). Given our people’s practice of safeguarding the environment by moving our villages regularly throughout our territories, the village had been temporarily left to natural regeneration when Samuel de Champlain came back to the site, in 1603. When our people returned, they saw a group of strangers had moved onto our site and learned that they called the settlement “Ville Marie”. Unable to use the land to meet regularly with indigenous peoples from all directions of turtle island, our people renamed the location tionni’tio’tià:kon, “the place where the people separated”. This name indicates that the kanien’kehá:ka people could no longer meet on this site, because it had been unlawfully occupied without notice by the kanatiens, “those who squat on our land.” As no proper land deed or certificate of cession of this land has ever been shown to us, the site is considered unceded kanien’kehá:ka land, as often publicly acknowledged both by McGill University and the City of Montreal.
2-Only the kanien’kehá:ka’onwe, the “people forever of the flint”, can make decisions on the use of our land, in accordance with the kaia’nere:kowa (great peace), our ancestral constitution which supersedes all colonial legislation. In the absence of any proof of the land being ceded, the only juridical foundations of the colonial occupation of onowarekeh (turtle island) are racist ideologies: the right of conquest and the right of discovery. These false doctrines underlie the Europeans’ invalid right to commit genocide of our people to the present day. Under the kaia’nere:kowa, we have a right to survive by any means. As unceded kanien’kehá:ka territory, the only valid legal framework on thequenondah is the kaia’nere:kowa, accompanied by the two historical agreements between the rotinoshionni confederacy and the British Crown: the teiohateh (two row) and the silver covenant chain (Appendix 5).
3-McGill campus on thequenondah is widely acknowledged as the original site of many of the precolonial iroquoian villages today referred to as “hochelaga”. As stated in Arkeos’ 2016 archeological survey (Appendix 6), the large number of precolonial indigenous burial sites throughout the thequenondah and Royal Victoria Hospital sites demonstrates that the remains of our indigenous ancestors lie beneath its surface. As their heirs, it is our duty to determine how these crucial archeological sites will be treated in any change to the thequenondah site. It is an extreme offence to disturb our ancestors.
4- In 1847, McGill College cashed a loan of £2000 ($8000) from the Iroquois Trust Fund. This fund, intended to compensate the use of aboriginal lands, was kept in trust by the Federal government under the racist pretext that indigenous peoples were unable to manage their own funds. This sum, which built part of the McGill campus, was never paid back to the rotinoshionni confederacy. With 10% compound interest, the amount owed today is $5,584,800,717.46, based on the value of the gold standard at that time (Appendix 7). This full amount must be immediately remitted to the rotinoshionni to stop the accumulation of interest which is compounded from sunrise to sunset every day.
5- In addition to archeological remains, the kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera have been aware of allegations that indigenous and/or non-indigenous children may be buried in the vicinity of the Henry Lewis Morgan pool, and in adjacent grounds of the Ravenscrag gardens of the Allan Memorial Institute. The Henry Lewis Morgan pool was built in 1961 during Dr. Ewen Cameron’s unethical psychiatric experimentations on mind control, carried within the Allan Memorial Institute between 1954 and 1963, and funded by the Canadian government and the CIA’s MK-Ultra project.
An audio taped conversation with 80-year-old Winnipeg resident Lana Ponting, who is one of the few remaining victims of these experiments, has confirmed several aspects of these allegations. Lana Ponting has stressed three points: 1) That indigenous peoples were victims of these experiments, as she remembers seeing at least one indigenous individual receiving intense shock treatment in the Allan Memorial Institute during her stay, in April 1958; 2) That underaged children were victims of these experiments, as Lana Ponting witnessed many minor individuals in the building, and as she was herself 16 years old at the time. It is also public knowledge that several MK-Ultra sub-projects included psychiatric experiments on unwitting children (Sub-projects 102, 103, 177, and 122, see Appendix 8); 3) That the rumor that the experiments’ victims were buried in the Ravenscrag gardens surrounding the Allan Memorial Institute was already in circulation amongst its patients as early as 1958. Notably, Lana Ponting recalls that suspicious activities were conducted outside the building at night. Lana Ponting has agreed to have her eye-witness testimony included in this brief (Appendix 9) and mentioned on tape that her doctor will provide a letter attesting that she is of sound mind. Lana Ponting and many other family members of psychiatric experiments at McGill University have strong suspicions that unmarked graves, potentially including indigenous children, will be uncovered beneath the grounds of Ravenscrag.
The kanien’kehá:ka caretakers of thequenondah take these allegations very seriously, as should McGill’s Board of Governors. Indigenous children who were kidnapped from their families and put in Residential Schools were legally deemed “wards” of the State of Canada. Given this status, many of these children were used for experiments, including on nutrition and starvation (Appendix 10). It must also be noted that before coming to the Allan Memorial Institute, Dr. Ewen Cameron practiced psychiatry in Brandon, Manitoba, where he likely had access to indigenous patients. Another important fact bolstering our suspicions is that underage Duplessis Orphans, who had a similar status as indigenous children in Residential Schools (e.g. “wards of the State”), were subjected to extreme psychiatric torture experiments in psychiatric wards. Many died and were interred in unmarked graves, including numerous human remains found in the pigsty near St-Jean-de-Dieu hospital, in Montreal (Appendix 11). Electroshock torture was also practiced on children in residential schools, as the revealed by the Ontario Provincial Police’s inquiry on Fort Albany’s St Anne’s Residential School (Appendix 12) 2 .
The families of the indigenous victims of mass murder want closure. To investigate these allegations of unmarked graves around the Allan Memorial Institute of McGill university, the kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera have set up an investigation team that includes a surveyor, a geologist and a search dog, assisted by Geoview Pro software. A zone potentially containing unmarked graves has been identified (Appendix 13). Before unmarked graves of indigenous children were actually found across Canada, the widely circulated stories of their existence among indigenous peoples were dismissed as rumors.
The kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera, careholders of thequenondah are concerned that the current Royal Victoria Hospital rehabilitation project could destroy evidence of the unmarked graves of their siblings, depriving them of proper identification, repatriation and burial. It is McGill University’s responsibility to provide the funds and the expertise necessary for an immediate and thorough kanien’kehá:ka led investigation of the Allan Memorial Institute site, which must be considered a site of crimes against humanity. All files concerning MK-Ultra experiments conducted in McGill University’s psychiatry department must be released without delay and made available to the public without restriction.
Considering the above points, on behalf of the kaia’nere:kowa and in the name of children of the past, present, and future, the kahnistensera careholders of thequenondah, formally request:
a. The immediate termination of any work or planning activities concerning construction on site. 2 On St Anne’s Residential School, see “St. Anne’s Residential School [1941-72] Fort Albany, Cochrane District, Ontario, Canada, “Turtle Island” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcgLDvR32p0
b. That McGill University, now considered a potential crime scene by the kahnistensera, is shut down within 28 days (wahnita, “one moon”).
c. That the site be thoroughly investigated by a kanien’kehá:ka led forensic and archaeological team to confirm the existence of unmarked graves or other evidence of unlawful activity.
d. That all people and institutions responsible for the suffering of patients in MK-Ultra experiments in the Allan Memorial Institute be charged with crimes against humanity.
e. That the kaia’nere:kowa (great peace) is the only legal framework currently applicable on site, and that the kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera have the final say in any decision pertaining to the land. McGill University and the Royal Victoria Hospital are the property of the kanien’kehá:ka people, as they have been built with our funds and resources.
f. That McGill University should be renamed with a proper kanien’kehá:ka description, and be governed by the kahnistensera to address and remedy the inappropriate connection of this institution to John McGill, a slave owner and trader, and a thief of kanien’kehá:ka land and funds; kanien’kehá:ka place names shall replace all names on campus.
g. That the corporation of McGill University, the Allen Memorial Institute and all affiliate institutions engaged in the raping, pillaging and murder of our mother earth and its children immediately cease and desist their occupation of onowarekeh (turtle island).
h. That the corporation of McGill University, the Allan Memorial Institute and all affiliate institutions respect the kaia’nere:kowa (great peace) and the teiohateh (two row) as the basis of our relationship to the earth. tehiakwen’wehnniokenteh, “We have spoken”.
karakwine, rotinahton
kahentinetha, wakskarewakeh
kawenaa, wakskarewakeh
karennatha, wakskarewakeh
teiohateh
Here’s an old classic critique of demon Capitalism by Max Fleischer’s 1936 cartoon “Greedy Humpty Dumpty”. “Higher, higher. more bricks”.
MNN. 27 Sep. 2021. This Notice was sent by Registered Mail to McGill University for illegal construction on Mohawk rotinoshonni land. We Mohawk kanienkehaka have inalienable rights to this land and have received no notification. We need to be put on the agenda. We own this land and they do not have our permission. We want an investigation of our property which may be a crime scene.
LISTEN, THEY THINK THEY’RE GONNA KILL OUR MOUNTAIN. NOT AS LONG AS WE’RE ALIVE.
NOTICE: Men’s Fire of the Six Nations Grand River Territory
542 Mohawk Rd., ON N0A 1H0 226 388 4191
27/09/2021
Attention: Office de Consultation Publique de Montréal
Attention: The Public Consultation (Site of the Former Royal Victoria Hospital):
I am writing to request a formal hearing session to express the following issues prior to any construction associated with the project:
Introduction:
Kahnawake, Akwesasne, Six Nations and all kanienkehaka are the original people of the territory and as such are; Haudenosaunee Iroquois Confederacy onkwehonweh meaning we are not citizens of either Canada or the United States or Quebec. As Haudenosaunee Iroquois Confederacy onkwehonweh,
The Commissioner is on Notice to effectively notify the proper Authorities of any development to this property (Former Royal Victoria Hospital)
As per: The Two Row Wampum, and Silver Covenant Chain Wampum, the onkwehonweh (original peoples) have inherent treaty rights on the territory of tionitiohtià:kon (Montreal), as nor we nor our ancestors have ever relinquished their sovereignty from the beginning of time. The City of Montreal acknowledges that the Haudenosaunee Iroquois Confederacy have never ceded their territory. There has never been any surrender of any of our territories.
McGill University was initially built with money taken from the Indian Trust Fund in 1850, supposed to be given back to the rotinoshonni. The reimbursement process for these loans has not been implemented yet by the City of Montreal nor McGill University.
The Constitution of 1982 legislation allows us to exercise the following:
Haudenosaunee have inherent outright claim to this property
No Consultation has been conducted to-date
Onkwehonweh have strong suspicions from our elders in the community of buried bodies of our people at various locations on site.
kahentinetha, rotiskariwakeh [spitting bear clan], wishes to have a meeting with the Commissioner ASAP.
1701 Great Peace of Montreal when the French sued for peace with the rotinoshonni after 100 years of defeat.
Fiduciary Obligation
There are two ways in which fiduciary obligation may arise between the Crown and Indigenous Peoples. (Haudenosaunee):
When the Crown has discretionary control over a specific or cognizable aboriginal interest, (“SUI GENERIS fiduciary obligation”)
Where the Crown has undertaken to exercise its discretionary control over a legal or substantial practical interest in the best interests of a beneficiary (the “AD HOC fiduciary relationship”)
Case Law: Williams Lake Indian Band v Canada, Coldwater Indian Band v Canada (Indian Affairs and Northern Affairs)
The Hodiskeagehda (Men’s Fire of the Kahnawake, Akwesasne, and Six Nation Territory) are presenting to you your responsibility to honor and act in accordance to the kaianerenko:wa (Iroquois Great Law of Peace), the teiohate Two Row Wampum, and the Silver Convonant Chain.
The Iroquois of turtle island have never relinquished their sovereignty to allow the proposed repurposing of the site of the former Royal Victoria Hospital. Allow me to remind you of your legislation:
Bomberry v. Ontario (Minister of Revenue) (Ont. Div. Ct.), 1989 CanLII 4300 (ON SC)
It is clear that neither the province nor the federal government can extend their administrative power beyond their constitutional reach, the charter of rights, particularly in a way that trenches upon the exclusive legislative authority of the other order of government, or the universal human rights of individuals. Please contact us if you have any questions, concerns or complaints.
Respectfully submitted by the Hodiskeagehda (Men’s Fire of the Kahnawake, Akwesasne, and Six Nation Territories)
Signed by:
Wifred Davey, Secretary for the Hodiskeagehda Wilfred Davey (Latudalasluni), Six Nations Grand River Territory. wilfreddavey@gmail.com
ROTISKEHRAKETEH ROBBIE ROBERTSON makes it as simple as it gets: “You’re in Indian country. This is Indian Country.”
MNN. May 22, 2021. WE ARE ONE. WE ARE EACH SOVEREIGN. WHAT IS STOLEN FROM ONE IS STOLEN FROM ALL!
MCGILL UNIVERSITY HAS FAILED TO RESPOND IN ANY WAY TO OUR REQUEST MADE IN THE LINKED NOTICE DATED SEPTEMBER 9, 2015. https://mohawknationnews.com/blog/2015/09/12/mohawk-seizure-notice-to-mcgill/ MCGILL HEREBY CONCEDES GUILT OF TRESPASSING, THEFT OF INDIAN TRUST FUNDS AND DESIGNING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION AND GENOCIDE FOR ISRAEL TO KILL PALESTINIANS AND FINANCING EVICTIONS OF PALESTINIAN PEOPLE. THESE CRIMES AGAINST THE KAIANEREKOWA, GREAT PEACE, REQUIRE MCGILL’S BANISHMENT FROM TURTLE ISLAND.
OUR FIGHT IS NEVER BEHIND US UNTIL THE GREAT PEACE WINS.
THE KOHTIHONTIAKWENIO HERETO INFORM:
TO: M. MICHAEL A. MEIGEN , BOARD OF GOVERNORS, MCGILL UNIVERSITY, #506, 845 SHERBROOKE ST., WEST, MONTREAL QUEBEC CANADA N2A 0G4 michael.meigen@mcgill.ca
RE: McGill has violated the kaianerekowa great peace and teiohateh two row: through an illegal 1821 British Royal Charter, with no jurisdiction on turtle island, to build an unlawful university on stolen kanienkehaka Mohawk land; stealing Iroquois trust funds in 1850 to construct McGill which has not been repaid; and is conspiring with Canada and Israel to use our native and public funds to develop technologies for arms for the lsraelis to massacre the Palestinians. McGill has shown total disrespect for the original people of turtle island. The kaianerekowa great peace penalty is total banishment. McGill has not denied any of their crimes to the onkwehonweh.
Accusations were made. You did not respond. You are in default. You and your conspirators did not go through proper great peace protocols to get our permission to use or reside on our unceded land. No onkwehonweh sanctioned your actions to build on our land or use our money to construct McGill on turtle island. Our jurisdiction is from ocean to ocean, pole to pole, the Western Hemisphere. More importantly, the onkwehonweh condemn creating any weapons of mass destruction and genocide. This means you, the ‘cana’jon, the “squatters”, are trespassing on tiani tiotiakon [Montreal] land and guilty of mass murder of the Palestinians. All the land and your infrastructure belongs to the kanienkehaka Mohawks.
Your banishment from turtle island begins immediately. Each one of us is a sovereign caretaker to all of turtle island. An injury to one part is an injury to all; your criminality forfeits everything; you cannot benefit in anyway from your crimes; as each of us is sovereign, this injury has damaged all of turtle island. When one is hurt, then the whole suffers.
McGill did not explain why it is circumventing the kainerekowa great peace, the law of turtle island since time immemorial. Only the real natural people can decide all activities on turtle island. The puppets of the invaders, the band council, are fellow ‘cana’jon [squatters] and follow settler colonial directives and take orders only from the canadien/cana’jon colonial government.
Our jurisdiction starts from the beginning of time immemorial. The women are the “progenitors” of the soil of turtle island. The kasatstenera kowa sa oiera, the great natural power , creation, placed the natural people on turtle island as caretakers.
As indigenous sovereigns, “tewatate’wennio” we are of each part of turtle island to care for our mother earth. McGill is a non-sovereign corporation that is designed to shield elected and unelected “leaders”and bureaucrats from any accountability to the original sovereign people of the land. 51% majority rules and 49% without a voice is not a democracy. kaianerekowa is based on censensus among the sovereigns.
According to the great peace and two row, onowarekeh turtle island cannot be conveyed, sold or transferred to anyone. It belongs to the future unborn children and all life natural to turtle island.
THEREFORE in 2015 we demanded that McGill provide us the kanienkehaka Mohawks, ‘the keepers of the eastern door’ of turtle island, valid proof based on the great peace and two row of your claim and use of our land. By your default in not responding to this request, your immediate eviction must happen forthwith.
This notice of jurisdiction applies to all projects and persons from anywhere who are not natural onkwehonweh of onowarekeh, turtle island, in particular McGill University. Anything they do to our land, water and air without our knowledge and consent is criminal and void. Everything over, upon and below turtle island, the Western Hemisphere, continues to remain with the original people. The British Crown cannot legally convey our property to anyone as the Crown never got a proper conveyance from any sovereign indigenous person as this is impossible pursuant to the great peace and two row.
As ‘canadien’ squatters you have conceded that you must be evicted. The eviction will be immediate and final!
We order that you stop all your activities on turtle island and to not interfere with us. No municipal, provincial or federal government has any authority to make any decision about us or turtle island. Creation determines that only we the caretakers have jurisdiction over each and every part of turtle island.
The disrespect shown by McGill University and all its associates to the sovereign onkwehonweh proves that you know that there is no dispute that the land is ours, that you took our trust funds and are developing weapons to kill the Palestinians. You trespassers must leave immediately.
We object to the invasion and occupation of ganiengeh rotinoshonni:onwe territory by the corporations of Canada, Quebec and all canadien/squatters, i.e. McGill University; agents of the Crown of Canada and Quebec must abide by the kaianerekowa and teiohateh; cease and desist immediately the invasion, trespass and exploitation of kanienkehaka/Mohawk of onowarekeh; to respect kaianerekowa and teiohateh as the basis of all relations with the kanienkehaka; and to repay monies forthwith including compound interest.
Your continued support for the American/Canadien holocaust of the original inhabitants of turtle island is criminal.
On behalf of the past, present and future ancestors and descendants of the Mohawk Nation, the great peace and two row will prevail,
http://demilitarizemcgill.com INFO: Demilitarized McGill: McGill Aerospace Mechatronics Laboratory works with defence contractors through Defence Research Development Canada DND directed by Suffield Research Center’s Autonomous Intelligent Systems Section to ‘enhance soldiers’ through unmanned technology UVGs, weaponized drones; McGill & DND are developing urban warfare strategy using armed “strtikebots”; unmanned ground, air and marine vehicles for surveillance and to make decisions to kill: The war production lab is funded by Bombardier, CAE, Bell Helicoptor Textron; targetting assassinations in Palestine, Afganistan, Yemen & Somalia. McGill Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering works on missile guidance with Lockheed Martin, DRDC, military researchers in Israel from 1999 to 2010, track-before-detect-low-observable-targets; Mizrahi-Tefahot Bank finances construction of new settlements on Palestinian land, 800 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles Ca. 900917 https://www.mizrahi-tefahot.co.il/en/contact-us/; Remax Real Estate 6075 S. Syracuse, Denver, Colorado 80237 303-770-5531, sells land in Israel profiting from transfer of Israeli settlers onto Palestinian territory, violating article 49 of the Geneva Convention (303) 321-0455; McGill – Lockheed Martin-Defence Research Development, – Canada-Technion, – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa Israel, involved with McGill.
Abigail Popplenews@mcgilldaily.com; Palestine Community Action Network, McGill School of Social Work 514-398-6717 ican@mcgill.ca; media@itk.ca; Governor General?, Rideau Hall, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A1; Chief Justice of Supreme Court of Canada, Richard Wagner, 301 Wellington St. Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0J1 613-995-4330; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, 284 Wellington St., House of Commons, K1A 0H4, Justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca, 613-992-421`1, President Putin of Russia, Accredit@Gov.ru; Pope Francis https://www.newwaysministry.org/advocate/contact-pope-francis/ ; Queen Elizabeth, Royal Communications Office, Buckingham Palace, London, SW1A 1AA +44 303 123 7300; Assembly of First Nations, 55 Metcalfe St., Suite 1600, Ottawa ON K1P6L5, 613-241-6789; National Congress of American Indians, 202-466-77671616 P St., NW, DC 20005; Quebec Premier Francois Legault, 1-877-644-4545, 835 Rene Levesque E, Quebec City, G1A 1B4; Denis Coderre deniscoderre@yahoo.ca; Hon Bob Rae, Ambassador, United Nations, 760 United Nations Plaza, New York 10017; World Conference of Indigenous People indigenous_un@un.org, President Joe Biden, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington DC 20006, Jody Wilson Reybold, M.P. Jody.Wilson-Raybould@parl.gc.ca, Kamala Harris, Vice President US, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington DC, 20006, Village Voice, 2151 Dupont Drive, S-240, Irvine CA 92612, https://www.villagevoice.com/about/email-us/?category=Send%20Us%20Feedback;Dominique Anglate, Liberal Party, Quebec, 581-628-1854; South Africa, 1103 Arcadia Street, Hatfield, Pretoria, South Africa; Cuba Gov. Calle 30, Miramar, Habana, +53-204-2516 haban@international.gc.ca; Dominique.Anglade.SHSA@assnat.qc.ca;Peace Palace, Carnegicplcin 2, 2517 KJ The Hague, The Netherlands information@icj-cij.org +31[0]703022323; Office of Wetsuweten: 250-847-3630 http://www.wetsuweten.com/contact/;
McGill Daily, Globe & Mail, 35 King, E, Suite 1000, Toronto On. M5A 0N1; New York Times, letters@nytimes.com; Washington Post, cameron.barr@washpost.com 202-334-7454; USA Today, 7050 Janes Branch Drive, McLean Va. 22102, 1-800-872-0001; Los Angeles Times, 2300 E Imperial Highway, El Segundo CA 90245, 213-237-5000; Toronto Star phone 416-869-4300 email city@thestar.ca; Ottawa Citizen 416-659-8958; , Montreal Gazette 1-800-361-8478; RT.com, +7 499 75-00-100 press@rttv.ru; North Korea, [850 2] 18 111 ext. 8536 kef@star-co.net.kr; Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, cs@mc.gov.sa ; National Post https://nationalpost.com/contact/;
CANADA DECLARES “WAR” ON MOHAWKS. Mohawks and indigenous in general are constantly under seige by Canada, as this review will reveal. This report is based on extensive Freedom of Information accounts obtained by the media containing a great deal of sacrifice of truth in this military campaign against the Mohawk communities of kanehsatake, kahnawake and akwesasne in 1994 to 2002.
Original report posted on
Please post & distribute.
AUDIO NO. I – INTRODUCTION
MNN. Feb. 24, 2021. This is a review of the planned joint military operations against kanienkehaka Mohawks from 1994 to 2002 by our enemies, the colony of Canada.
WHEN YOU RECOGNIZE WHAT IS BEAUTIFUL IN THIS WORLD, YOU STOP BEING A SLAVE.
turtle island is made up of fiercely independent autonomous sovereign peoples who must protect the land and all natural live. The report is in ten sections as follows:
AUDIO NO 1: INTRODUCTION
AUDIO II. NO. 12: GOVERNMENT LIES
AUDIO III. NO 18: CSIS INVOLVED
AUDIO IV. NO. 23: A POWDER KEG
AUDIO V. NO 26: THE KANEHSATAKE STORY
AUDIO VI. NO. 28: THE SOVEREIGN MOHAWK NATION
AUDIO VII. NO. 29: REPORT FROM KANEHSATAKE 2004
AUDIO VIII. NO 30: THE GIG IS UP; AND AUDIO NO. IX [COMBINED] NO. 31: MOHAWK LEADERS FUMING
AUDIO X. NO. 32: MOHAWK WARRIOR TRADITION
MNN. Feb. 12, 2014. This is a detailed report on the readiness of the colony of Canada and its military to attack the “Keepers of the Eastern Door”. We, the sovereign Kanion’ke:haka [Mohawk] were asked to give the Kaia’nere:kowa, the Great Peace, to the world. Canada is bound by international law to protect us. Dekanawida said, “Part of the tail of the white serpent would break off and crawl to the hilly country to heal with the onkwe’hon:we. The rest would make a feeble attempt to swim toward the light.” Let us stand together as brothers and sisters in each community and plant the Tree of Peace.
All statutes in the corporate by-laws book can never be removed. They can be activated anytime the corporation pleases. [at the end]
“ PREPARING FOR INVASION: A GUIDE TO THE CURRENT THREATS AGAINST THE MOHAWK NATION.
Our men always ready on cold January 2006 day.
This collection of articles posted on Ontario Coalition on Poverty OCAP gives some background information to the continuing military and police threats against Mohawk communities of Tyendinaga, Kahnawake, Kanehsatake, Six Nations and Akwasasne and place them in historical context. Here is what you’ll find here:
Contents: Page # 2-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-14, 15-16
Section 1: Current Plans for Invasion.
1. Press Advisory of March, 2006 by Tyendinaga residents giving an overview of the current situation.
2. The “Toronto Star” article of March 6, 2006, “Mohawks fear action on trade in tobacco”.
3. The “Mohawk Nation Drummer” article of May 2005 about raids in Ohsweken, Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. This is background on the cigarette trade in Mohawk communities, what it represents, and why it must be defended.
Section 2: Invasion Plans from 1994.
4. Article from “Eastern Door” about Canada’s plan to invade Mohawk communities in 1994 based on Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents requested by Marco Fortier. This outlines the Canadian government’s real intentions to invade the Mohawks with military force supposedly to stop the cigarette trade. This is his original article.
5. Excerpts from “Canada’s Secret Commandos” and the intensity of the 1994 plan. Canada’s Secret Commandos.
Section 3: Kanehsatake 2004
Sections 5-7 are about the conflicts in Kanehsatake that began in 2004 and continue. The conflict was portrayed first as an operation against criminals, then as an internal community affair, and finally, 2 years later the Quebec Public Security Minister, who was in charge at the time, deemed it was illegal. This unlawful pattern was constantly repeated.
6. Public letter by Jake Brant from Tyendinaga as the conflict begins.
7. Article from “Wii’nimkiikaa” about what happened in Kanehsatake and why.
8. Montreal Gazette articles reporting on the comments of Jacques Chagnon, Quebec Public Security Minister, calling the invasion illegal.
Section 4: More Background
9. The Mohawk Warrior Tradition also from “Wii’nimkiikaa”.
17-18 19-28 29-31 32-35
Page 1. Advisory:
Some of our Mohawk communities of vast Rotino’shonni:onwe Territory.
Tyendinaga, Mohawk Territory:
Mohawks Told to Brace for RCMP/Military Invasion in Spring.
Recently, Tyendinaga community members have been told on two separate occasions, by two different sources, that an invasion into the community, led by the RCMP and backed by the Canadian Military, is planned for Saturday April 1st, 2006.
Read on for to understand the context in which this invasion is likely to occur.
10. Recent Military Training ExercisesWednesday, February 8, 2006, 8:30 PM – 2 army helicopters conduct flights, flying less than 100 feet and spotlight people’s homes and businesses. One chopper lands on the centre runway of the Tyendinaga Airport. When questioned by community members as to the purpose of the presence of military personnel, wearing full uniform, helmet and night vision goggles, who say they are conducting routine training. They do not answer questions on who authorized them to engage in ‘training’ on the Territory. Instead, they return to the helicopter and fly away, conducting no further manoeuvres over the Mohawk commmunity.
Thursday, February 9, 2006 – Similar night flights occur in Kahnawake, Akwesasne and Kanehsatake. Wednesday, February 15, 2006, 9:30 PM – 2 Army helicopters conduct low-level flights, spotlighting homes and businesses in Tyendinaga.
Summer 2005– Canadian and U.S. Special Operations Soldiers are discovered where the CN Rail Lines cross into the Reserve. Once confronted, they leave without further incident.
Summer 2005-Canadian Military personnel are discovered on a stretch of road near the northern boundary of the reserve. When confronted, dozens of soldiers emerge from the trees on both sides of the road and leave.
These and numerous other incursions that occurred over the past months and years cause the community grave concern and prompted Tyendinaga’s Band Council to write to the Military as recently as February 9, 2006.
11. Tobacco
Since 1994, the Federal Government has been quietly organizing a new strategy to deal with stopping tobacco sales within all Mohawk communities. The alleged crime is the manufacturing and sale of Native-made Cigarettes. A deal signed in November 2003 between Kanehsatake and the Solicitor General was reportedly aimed at targeting the Indians’ claims to the [Page 2] inherent right of inter-tribal trade with sister Mohawk communities and the native run tobacco manufacturing industry as a whole.
We are united in saving our mother!
The Federal Government reaps billions in revenue from the taxes on tobacco. However, massive military and police operations are deemed to be warranted against the very people it has forced to drink dirty water and live in sub-standard housing, at the very time when we have begun to develop self-reliant economic strategies to improve our quality of life.
Tyendinaga has brought to the forefront the tobacco trade as a viable economic resource for the community. We talk about the native trade and refuse to be criminalized for engaging in simple, straightforward business practices. END OF AUDIO 1…
AUDIO II. NO. 12: GOVERNMENT LIES
AUDIO II. NO. 12: GOVERNMENT LIES
12. Government Lies
Ongoing Tyendinaga, Government propaganda constantly portrays us as dangerous and criminal.
In September 1995, Government propaganda specifically stated, “There is no native burial ground in Ipperwash Provincial Park. These people are not supported by the government band council.” A few days later, three Anishnawbe were shot, one fatally, and people who tried to help were beaten. The worst was reserved for a band council member. Then Minister of Indian Affairs, Ron Irwin, was forced to admit that there was in fact a burial ground in the park. Proof was presented and Dudley George lay dead.
In 2002, Ottawa Citizen journalist David Pugliese published a book entitled “Canada’ s Secret Commandos, Joint Task Force Two”, detailing the aborted Scorpion Saxon Operation of 1994 (referenced below). Pugliese talked about Tyendinaga and the possibility of community members planning to sabotage the water treatment plant in the neighbouring community of Deseronto, Ontario. He said JTF2’s intelligence cell was to watch for the releasing of “toxic waste into the treatment plant to poison the water system.” Half of Tyendinaga’s households draw water from that very plant, making its sabotage a remote possibility to say the least.
13. The Prepared Invasion in 1994
In 1994, the Canadian Military trained for an invasion of 4 Mohawk communities: Kahnawake, Akwesasne, Kanehsatake and Tyendinaga. The ‘Scorpion Saxon Operation’ was to have involved some 1,500 soldiers, 2,000 RCMP and 2,000 Quebec officers. The invasions were to take place at night, with the forces arriving by road, rail and air using helicopters and armoured vehicles. The soldiers would have tear gas, smoke bombs and pepper spray. They had apparently perfected the use of 66 millimetre rockets and M-67 type fragmentation grenades. The operation involved low level helicopter training flights below power lines and shooting exercises at flight levels of 100 feet. The Military’s most secret and elite unit, Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2), was on standby to participate in the operation. JTF2 soldiers were informed that the planned assault was expected to spark countrywide native protests and to prepare for multiple native-led strikes.
At the time, the Military called their assault preparations ‘simple routine training’. It would appear the invasions were called off largely for two reasons: (1) CSIS issued a warning to the Federal [Page 3] Government that the police measures would cause such “grave political violence” that it would be unpalatable to the Canadian public. (2) There were so many leaks, rumours and media coverage about the Military’s training activities at the time, the Army felt its element of surprise had been compromised. The Federal Government maintains the entire exercise was simply an attempt to curb the sale of Native Cigarettes.
14. In Conclusion
In the spring of 1992, Tyendinaga fishermen renewed the practice of harvesting fish by spear in various rivers throughout the Bay of Quinte area. These rivers fall within Mohawk Territorial waters, running largely off reserve. Non-native fishermen are bound by Ontario law with respect to fishing seasons, catch quotas and licences. Mohawks fish without any outside restrictions. Though based on unrelinquished historical rights, the fishermen endure racist slurs, unfounded accusations that they would decimate the fish stocks and assert their rights to provide food for their families. Today we are still fishing and there are lots of fish.
We may again be facing violence and racism as we utilize another resource that has been with us since time immemorial. Tobacco, which can contribute to the maintenance and development of our families and our nation, on our own terms, and for years to come. In 2006 Mohawk people have established stores that sell pop, chips, newspapers, and cigarettes without criminal involvement. Tyendinaga is home to a number of viable and successful businesses that do not charge taxes on their goods or services. This does not make them criminal, it makes them Native-run.
Mar. 6, 2006. 01:00 AM PETER EDWARDS STAFF REPORTER
Community members of the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory in eastern Ontario say they’re bracing for a combined Canadian Forces/RCMP operation targeting the cigarette trade next month.
“The whole community believe it and people are gearing up for it as if it was a fact,” said Shawn Brant, 41, a father of three.
Brant said news of the planned operation leaked out from military sources, but he declined to elaborate.
Sgt. Martin Blais of the RCMP in Ottawa declined to comment. “We would not confirm or deny this or any operational matter.” Among those attending a public meeting in Tyendinaga this week that dealt with fears there will be a military/RCMP operation was Brant Bardy, 43, co-ordinator for the aboriginal media course at the First Nations Technical Institute at Tyendinaga.
The operation would target businesses that sell cigarettes and tobacco products without collecting sales tax.
Bardy, a life-long Tyendinaga resident, said the community was already upset after low-flying military helicopters from nearby Canadian Forces Base Trenton flew over residences and businesses the night of Feb. 8 and during the next day.
“They (the military) just come in here when they want,” Bardy said.
“There’s a growing animosity here. The attitude of the military has got to change.” However, Maj. Mike Lagace of the Canadian Air Force Air Wings headquarters in Winnipeg said relationships with local communities are important for the military.
“As planners we consider how it affects surrounding communities. The Canadian Forces are very open to discussing these concerns,” Lagace added.
[Page 5]. Chief R. Donald Maracle of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, Tyendinaga, said he wasn’t able to attend this week’s urgent meeting because he was undergoing surgery in Toronto.
However, Maracle revealed he wrote a letter to the military on Feb. 9 protesting the helicopter flights, saying “further activities will be viewed as harassment and a serious breach of protocol.”
“We have a lot of people in our community who are decorated veterans,” Maracle said in an interview. “We want to have a positive relationship with the military.”
Bardy fears any operation on the reserve would end tragically, like when the Ontario Provincial Police marched on Ipperwash Provincial Park late at night Sept. 6, 1995, after Stoney Point Indians occupied the park.
[Page 6]. From the “Mohawk Nation Drummer” Tyendinaga, Mohawk Nation Territory March 2005
16. The Sovereignty of the Mohawk People
Recent raids into some businesses on the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, has raised concerns among local business owners on Tyendinaga. The issue is the sale and trade of tobacco products throughout native territories and within sister communities.
With news of the RCMP raids still fresh in peoples minds, Shawn Brant of the Tyendinaga Mohawk Tobacco Products (TMT), spoke with me surrounding the recent events in Six Nations and the future for Tyendinaga.
Brant said, “In 1991 it was illegal for a Mohawk person to harvest fish from the Belleville and Napanee Rivers to feed their family. It took the overwhelming courage of this community to confront that issue, raise public awareness and fight for the dignified right to feed ourselves, on our terms. I see the tobacco issue following that same course.”
“We have to stop accepting the white man’s version of events, and believe in who we are as a people. We are distinct, sovereign, and honourable. We herald from the greatest Nation this world will ever know.”
To defend his statement Brant cited a recent court ruling where the presiding Provincial Court Judge Collins agreed, “that Mohawk People truly represent a clear, separate and distinct nation of people, They have existed long before the creation of Canada, and its laws, and more importantly, exercised the right of Treaty Making in its relationships with incurring sovereigns like the English, French and Dutch.
In this case, it was ruled that the Albany Treaty signed in 1701, between Mohawk and British people, was in fact an example of the sovereign right that is vested with any Nation and subject to the standards set out under international rule of law.
Simply stated by Brant, “Our ancestors were a nation of people and we are the true heirs and successors of that nation.”
During the thirteen days of historical evidence, presented by the crown and defence, the court found that, “Mohawk people clearly engaged in resource harvesting and trade for the purpose of economic benefit”.
Brant continues, “It is for these reasons that we must change our vocabulary from disingenious words like “contraband”, and replace them with words that recognize the tremendous value that this and our other resources can provide. By utilizing this resource, as our anscestors did, we can contribute to the maintenance of our nation, on our own terms, and for years to come.”
While the raids in Six Nations yielded some hot community meetings and strong anti-government rhetoric, there was no immediate defensive strategy to deal with the anti-native events from [Page 7] happening. When asked about Tyendinaga’s ability to respond to similar police tactics here, Brant concluded, “We are always organized and ready to meet the challenges that threaten the people, land, or law. I do not see this as simply an issue of tobacco. This is about Bill C-20, FNG, and the OPP killing of Dudley George. It is about seeing if we can believe again in who we are, as a society, and for the values that have preserved us for generations.”
[Page 8] From “The Eastern Door” Kahnawake, Mohawk Nation Territory Volume 8 Number 25 July 16, 1999 “http://www.easterndoor.com/archives/VOL.8/8-25.htm”
17. Army Was Poised To Invade Kahnawake By: Kenneth Deer
An article published in Le Journal de Montreal confirmed that the Canadian Armed Forces, the RCMP and the SQ were prepared to enter the three Mohawk communities of Kahnawake, Kanehsatake and Akwesasne in 1994. (See following story)
Under the Freedom of Information Act, reporter Marco Fortier obtained 1599 pages of documents which outlined a plan to send 2,000 RCMP, 2,000 SQ officers and 15,000 soldiers into the three communities to, ostensibly, stop the “illegal” trade in contraband cigarettes.
The report drew quick response from the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake. The MCK “is shocked but not surprised at the governments and police planned assault on Kahnawake, Kanehsatake and Akwesasne in 1994. Although relations between the Provincial and Federal governments and Aboriginals has improved, the MCK will always be vigilant when dealing with any government and will remain conscious of the history.”
“In 1994 the three Mohawk Chiefs of Kahnawake, Kanehsatake and Akwesasne were meeting with Federal Ministers to look at alternative and peaceful economic development measure to replace the tobacco industry, apparently the governments had other plans – “might is right” and “force is the answer”.
“It is incredible to believe that a country (recently honoured as the most peaceful country) could have planned such an attack.”
Fortier submitted his request to the Armed Forces last October and waited eight months for a response.
“I knew the papers were there because there were so many rumours in 1994 about such a plan,” said Fortier. “My goal was not to anger anyone, neither government nor Mohawks. I was just writing a story.”
Fortier received the documents two weeks before the published report. He said that it was just a coincidence that it came out just after the powwow. A spokesman for National Defense could not be reached for comment. [Page 9]. END OF AUDIO II…
AUDIO III.
AUDIO III. NO 18: CSIS INVOLVED
18. CSIS involved
In a second article that appeared on Tuesday, July 13, Fortier reported that CSIS warned the government about any intervention on the reserves. “The police measures aiming to counter contraband activities (from the Mohawk Warrior Society) will increase significantly the risk of grave political violence” according to the article.
CSIS was active in trying to recruit informants in the three communities. Jean Jolicoeur, described as a former resident of Kanehsatake, stated that he was approached by three operatives of CSIS in 1994. He said that he and two other Mohawks met with CSIS seven or eight times in Dorval and Laval. “We said nothing to them; if we had revealed something, we would be dead,” Jolicoeur is quoted. He states that he warned the people on the reserve about these incidents.
The article goes on to say that the National Defense Department had placed a Special Investigations Unit with sophisticated equipment on alert. They were in charge of watching the barricades at the entrance to Kahnawake, the Longhouse, the Survival School, the Mohawk Nation Office and the Peacekeepers station, according to Army documents.
In Kanehsatake, they were to watch the band council and the treatment center. In Akwesasne, the Seaway and the East end of Cornwall Island. “The Mohawk Warrior Society is the biggest extremist Aboriginal group and potentially the most violent in Canada”, stated the CSIS report.
Training to the scale of expected Mohawk resistance.Night shooting, anti-tank combat, handling of fragmenting grenades: the military exercise of 1994 foresaw rough resistance by the Mohawks of Kahnawake, Kanesatake and Akwesasne. Article translated by Isobelle Schulte-Tenckhoff. By: Marco Fortier.
The National Defence was to be guided by principles requiring minimal use of force and had planned always to obey the rules, according to documents obtained by the Journal de Montreal. But the weapons involved on both sides portended the risk of bloodshed.
“We must expect to confront people who are armed. Therefore, the commander in charge of tactics could not risk exposing his soldiers equipped only with sticks and shields,” warned a high-ranking representative of the Terrestrial Forces in an internal note dated February 1994.
Military strategists were expecting confrontations between soldiers and Mohawks where each would carry an automatic or semi-automatic weapon.
20. Barricades
The soldiers would have had easy access to tear gas, smoke bombs and pepper spray, according to the wishes of the high commander of the operation. Four years after the Oka crisis, soldiers from Valcartier, Gagetown and Petawawa were thus trained to assault barricades.
The documents reveal that the soldiers perfected the art of using 66 millimeters rockets and of handling M-67 type fragmentation grenades.
From February 14 to 25, 1994, soldiers from the 5th Mechanized Group of Canada and from the Royal Canada Regiment also learned to build trenches and erect road blocks to surround a territory. RCMP personnel took part in some training activities.
21. In the air
From February 28 to March 4, 1994, Squadron 430 of Valcartier was trained to fly helicopters below power lines. They also did exercises of shooting while flying at 100 feet above the ground. The plan made provisions for an agreement with the Federal Minister of Transports to allow the army to fly over the three reserves targeted without restrictions. [Page 11].
Two of the three reserves had small civilian planes, but also weapons likely to cause heavy damage, according to a (then) secret report: 50 calibre “snipers,” caliber M-60 weapons, grenades, light anti-tank artillery, plus the usual AK-47.
The risk was so high that the project was aborted in the fall of 1994.
The invasion of the three Mohawk reserves by police and army was becoming so risky that the operation was aborted in the fall of 1994.
The plan of the SQ, the RCMP and the Canadian army was cancelled because of (well-founded) rumours about the military operation circulated by the media, in addition to a radical lowering of the tax on tobacco.
According to a service note from the Headquarters of the National Defence dated June 29, 1994, obtained through the Access to Information Act, “information available to date and our knowledge about the plan of the police indicate that it is appropriate from now on to lower the level of alert.”
The note specified that the National Defence and the police forces continued to exchange information, but decreased tension in the reserves no longer justified an armed intervention.
22. Peaceful struggle
It must be said that the governments resorted to drastic means to make life miserable for contraband without using armed force.
One week prior to the start of the intensive military exercise involving 1,500 soldiers, Prime Minister Jean Chretien announced an immediate tax reduction of 5$ per cigarette carton.
The provinces followed course. This was a solid blow to contraband, made less attractive because of the reduced prices.
The Chretien government also doubled the number of RCMP and customs agents in charge of preventing the illegal commerce of tobacco, alcohol and firearms. This initiative gave rise to some spectacular arrests in the Montreal area and the seizure of millions of dollars.
Invasion of the three Indian reserves were already prepared in spite of denial by federal and provincial authorities
Documents obtained by the Journal de Montréal revealed that at least 5,500 heavily armed policemen and soldiers were put in a state of alert to invade the three Mohawk reserves of Kahnawake, Kanesatake and Akwesasne in February 1994.
According to the 1,599 pages of documentation obtained through the Access to Information Act, more than 1,500 Canadian soldiers had followed intense training for the possible invasion of the three Aboriginal reserves, with 24 to 72 hours notice. [Page 12]. END OF AUDIO III…
AUDIO IV.
AUDIO IV. NO. 23: A POWDER KEG
23. A powder keg
In fact, the Montreal region was sitting on a powder keg all through the first half of 1994: Mohawks armed to the teeth had announced they would retaliate with force to any aggression by police or army.
An internal note from the National Defence Department dated February 14, 1994 stated: “It is possible that the Canadian Armed Forces are called upon to assist the civil authorities or to provide armed assistance to the RCMP in the struggle against natives selling cigarettes, mainly in Quebec or Ontario, with little notice.”
The documents obtained by the Journal de Montreal demonstrate that the federal and provincial governments committed outright lies; they had always denied persisting rumours of an invasion of the Aboriginal reserves.
SQ, RCMP and army planned an unprecedented operation to put an end to the alleged trade of cigarettes, alcohol, firearms and illegal aliens by the Mohawks. According to the documents obtained, SQ and RCMP would lead an offensive strike and be the first to invade the three reserves. The army would then follow quickly to “secure” the Aboriginal territories.
According to our information, 2,000 SQ agents and the same number of RCMP personnel would have taken part in the operation. More than 1,500 soldiers from the three bases were trained.
Soldiers from Valcartier would have entered Kahnawake on the south shore of Montreal; those from Gagetown, New Brunswick, would have struck Kanesatake (Oka); and the soldiers from the Ontario base of Petawawa would have invaded the Akwesasne reserve, which spreads over Quebec, Ontario and the State of New York, south of Cornwall.
Those three tactical groups could rely on ten bases scattered across Canada for extra weapons, combat vehicles or personnel.
Indeed, the plan anticipated recourse to two infantry companies, four combat units and a tactical group per reserve “to make a show of force during the initial deployment.”
The strategists of SQFT, the Quebec Sector of the Terrestrial Forces, chosen to command the operation, had planned to deploy the armed forces during the night. They would have arrived by road, rail and air, using helicopters and Cougar, Husky and Grizzly armoured vehicles.
One of the possible HQs of the operation was situated at Château-du-Lac, at exit 17 of west-bound highway 20, in what used to be the former head office of Septa Rail.
The planned invasion of the three Mohawk reserves was a total failure as far as public relations were concerned. There were so many leaks to the media that the police and the army did not know what to invent to keep the plan a secret. [Page 13]
“Because of existing censorship, we are in a situation where we have to either avoid the media altogether or lie about the state of our preparations,” indicated an internal note dated February 1994 from the Headquarters of the Quebec Sector of the Terrestrial Forces.
The tension was at its peak when, on February 4, RCMP representatives tried to reassure the three Mohawk Chiefs in a meeting held in a Dorval hotel. The Aboriginal chiefs came out of that meeting more worried than ever!
“Transparency has always been the key to the success of the military in the eyes of the public. [… ] The credibility of the military has suffered, for it looked as if we were trying to hide something,” said Captain J.B.S. Roy, from the Commander Office of the Terrestrial Forces of St-Hubert, in a service note dated June 30, 1994.
24. “Routine training”
Given the extent of the rumours, Public Affairs of the National Defence Department then agreed to describe the Scorpio-Saxon exercise as “simple routine training.” There was no intention to confirm the plan to invade the three Aboriginal reserves, explain several internal notes from the National Defence Department, obtained by the Journal de Montreal. The Mohawks, who were far from reassured, had created a Peacekeeper force in Kanesatake to counter possible “aggression” by the SQ.
Menard
According to the press of November 19, 1994, this moved Public Security Minister Serge Menard to state: “We have no more the intention of invading Kanesatake than of invading Sainte-Anne-de- Beaupre [a religious retreat].” [Page 14]
More on ’94… Note: Joint Task Force Two is Canada’s version of the U.S. Navy Seals or British SAS i.e. the most elite highly trained soldiers in Canada.
“Throughout December 1993 and into early January, senior officials from the Defence department, RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service held a series of strategy sessions to determine the best course of action. By the end of January, a plan had been hatched and Cabinet ministers briefed. Put before them was a sweeping operation that would see an assault force of as many as 800 RCMP officers, backed by several thousand soldiers, take control of the reserves. The RCMP would use four military sites, including CFB Trenton, Ontario, as jumping off points for what was essentially an invasion of native lands.
“Covert reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering missions would be conducted by the military police’s SIU Special Operations Branch. In particular. The RCMP needed detailed information on the numbers and types of weapons the Mohawk Warriors might have on hand. JTF2 would be needed to deal with any attacks by natives on key points such as water treatment plants and highways. The unit was told to prepare for multiple native-led terrorist strikes.
“… JTF2 was also informed that the planned RCMP assault was expected to spark country-wide native protests. Military intelligence reports listed a few of the vulnerable areas. For instance, there was potential for natives at the Tyendinaga reserve, east of Belleville, to close down Highway 401, the main transportation artery in Ontario. Mohawk sympathizers might also seize and sabotage a water treatment plant at Deseronto, Ontario, releasing toxic waste in the treatment plant to poison the water system. The same scenario might play out at water filtration and pumping stations near Forest, Ontario.”
Note: This makes no sense. The water treatment plant that “Mohawk sympathizers” were apparently going to sabotage services half of the Tyendinaga Mohawk reserve which borders Deseronto. Why would Mohawks poison half of their own people? Answer: they wouldn’t, obviously. But then again, just about every violent claim that the government, police, and military agencies make against the Mohawks and other native people turns out to be bullshit.
“…Other military units across the country, in particular those in Quebec and New Brunswick, were also put on five days notice to move into the volatile areas. The Second Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment (2RCR) was to provide engineers with heavy equipment to smash down Mohawk barricades as well handle crowd control. To do its job, the battalion requested seven M113 armored personnel carriers, 13 heavy machineguns, and large stocks of riot gear including face shields and body armor. The 5e Groupe Brigade Mécanisé du Canada, also part of the assault force, asked for an extra $4.2 million worth of ammunition. At CFB Petawawa, the First Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment (1RCR) began training for crowd control and dismantling roadblocks. In all, a quarter of the Canadian Army’s combat power was at a high state of readiness.
“The mission went by two names: Operation Campus and Scorpion-Saxon.Worried that the news media might find out about the plan, the military decided to call their assault preparations an “exercise.” Canadian Forces public affairs officers concocted a cover story to mislead journalists about [Page 15] the growing movement of troops around bases in Quebec and New Brunswick. Reporters were told that since some units had let their combat skills slide while on peacekeeping duties in the former Yugoslavia, they needed to take refresher training. A few news agencies didn’t buy the story. On February 16, Le Journal de Montreal reported that two artillery units from CFB Valcartier, Quebec, had been placed on standby to support some kind of RCMP operations within the next eight days. The next day, La Presse newspaper reported that troops at Valcartier and CFB Gagetown, New Brunswick, were going to take part in counter-smuggling operations.
“In the end, cooler heads prevailed and Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government backed off the assault plan. With the element of surprise lost, Ottawa would try new, more peaceful methods, such as reducing cigarette taxes, to break the lucrative trade in “smuggled” smokes…” [Page 16]
25. Letter from Jake Brant, Tyendinaga
January 17, 2004 Re. Kanehsatake
Within the whole of the Mohawk Nation, we have been waiting for such an event. Since the failed Military invasion of our communities in 1994, which included some 6,000 troops and months of training, the Federal Government has been quietly organizing a new strategy to deal with its approach to totally non-existing] “organized crime” within all Mohawk communities. The crime that was alleged to have been committed in 1994, and as government suggests, continues to be committed is the manufacturing and sale of cigarettes by the natives. One report suggests the need to “target the Indians’ claims to the inherent right of inter-tribal trade with sister Mohawk communities and the native run tobacco manufacturing industry as a whole.” It is concluded that the organized aspect to the criminal offence exists because all distributors in Kanehsatake charge the same price of $25.00 per carton thereby suggesting collusion between proprietors.
The government has successfully transmitted its media message of “law and order” and “organized crime” to the public and they do so at any cost. I sat through a Kanehsatake Police Commission press conference and witnessed a proud Mohawk man give his story on serving his community, as a member of the Police Commission and with no criminal record, and watched him break down when he told us how he had to explain to his children that he was not a criminal. Each of the members recounted similar stories.
I personally recall in Sept/95, reading government propaganda, endorsed by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), that specifically stated, “There is no burial ground in Ipperwash Provincial Park. These people are on the fringe and are not supported by the council for the Band.” A few short days later, three Anishnawbe were shot, one fatally, and people who tried to help were beaten. The most severe beating was in-fact reserved for a band council member. Then Minister of Indian Affairs, Ron Irwin, was forced into admitting that there was in fact a burial ground in the park, after proof was presented.
During Gustafsen Lake BC, supporters behind the lines were presented as terrorists, dissidents, and on the fringe. The public as a whole failed to question the legitimacy of the government reports and allowed for an invasion force to attack and shoot the defenders of the land. A U.S. court however, after being asked to return one First Nations man for trial who was involved, ruled that the people of Gustafsen were engaged in a legitimate and political action to force the government of Canada from power and advance the cause of the people who lived in squalor on Indian Reservations. The court further found that the information relayed to the public at large was not truthful and was only intended to discredit the people involved and to create a feeling or sentiment of lawlessness and imminent peril for the Canadian people as a whole. There was no prospect for a fair and impartial trial and the Canadian request for extradition was refused.
I cite these two examples of struggle to illustrate the ignorance of the general public at that time and their inability to determine fact from fiction. It further illustrates the government’s willingness to engage us, even in the most righteous of situations and including those that have been likened to the protection of a cemetary from commercial development. [Page 17]
Today in Kanehsatake, the government propaganda is “organized crime” and “hells angels connection”. For us living on Nation lands and within Mohawk communities, this type of rhetoric is laughable. We know that families with children run the convenience stores. In the year 2004, Mohawk people have developed their mental capabilities to be able to establish stores that sell pop, chips, newspapers and cigarettes without mob involvement. There are craft shops, smoke shops, wood shops and others that don’t charge taxes on their goods or services and are all perceived as organized crime because they agree collectively not to collect taxes.
There is no lawlessness in Kanehsatake. There are no harleys running up and down highway 344. I would suggest that the recent Barrie, Ontario “Molson’s Pot Bust” would not fit in all the basements of the few homes in Kanehsatake. In that situation, I would hardly think that the Barrie chief of police was fearing for his job because he didn’t know it was happening right under his nose or that the people of Barrie would have tolerated the city being surrounded by military while every house and person is searched.
The issue at hand is simple. It is an attempt to curb the sale of cigarettes, made by first nations people and industries, and sold throughout first nations communities in every province.
The issue of solidarity and understanding is always difficult, despite the lessons learned from 1995. If good Canadian people are tricked once again by their government, then people in Kanehsatake and elsewhere will be subjected to further despair, intrusion, and violence. That being said, we can all rest assured that some report, sometime in the future, will reveal once again how the government lied to its people and justified its assault on the Mohawk Nation. Perhaps in a few years we can have some speakers come out to a workshop who will speak first hand to the bullshit and injustices that are being faced today by the people of Kanehsatake, but however it may be billed at the time, “Aboriginal solidarity” and Mohawk sovereignty will be determined over the next few days and weeks.
This issue has not concluded. Let us govern ourselves accordingly. Jake Brant [Page 18]
From: Wii’nimkiikaa (It Will Be Thundering) published in Coast Salish Territories (vancouver, british columbia, canada) wiinimkiikaa@resist.ca Kanehsatake Story. END OF AUDIO IV…
AUDIO V.
AUDIO V. NO 26: THE KANEHSATAKE STORY. MOHAWKS KICK COPS OFF THE REZ.
26. The Kanehsatake Story…
Mohawks Kick Cops Off Rez
On January 12th of 2004, Kanehsata:ke’s government Grand Chief James Gabriel incited a confrontation when he brought in 67 police officers from other Native communities to take over the Kanehsata:ke Mohawk Police (KMP) force and “crack down on crime”. Community residents called it an invasion and responded with force.
Earlier in the week, the news had gotten out that Gabriel had secretly signed a policing deal with the Canadian government in November of 2003, and community residents swarmed the Band Council office to reject the deal and the incoming police force. When James Gabriel’s new cops arrived on January 12th, road blockades were immediately set up to prevent nearby Quebec Provincial Police (Surete Quebec – SQ) from also invading.
Community members and masked-up Mohawk Warriors surrounded the Kanehsata:ke Mohawk Police station, using trucks to block the gates of the parking lot. The Mohawk Warrior flag was hung on the fence outside the station and a bonfire was built to keep everybody warm.
“In 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush deployed 113,000 troops to Iraq, population 27 million, to wage war on international terrorism. On Jan. 12, 2004, the Canadian and Quebec government sponsored a raid on Kanesatake, population 1,500, with 67 armed men. Can someone please tell Canadians why a small aboriginal community warrants an assault force that was proportionally 10 times greater than was deemed appropriate to combat Saddam Hussein?”
(Jane Whelen, Montreal Gazette, Tues. May 11, 2004)
About 20 riot cops assembled and fired two volleys of tear-gas canisters over the fence. The Warriors responded by chucking burning logs from the bonfire at the police. Angry community members moved onto the road and then to James Gabriel’s home. The garage was set on fire, along with Gabriel’s car. At some point, the Grand Chief had fled the reserve.
Community members then returned to the police station and vowed to confine the police to the building until they agreed to leave Kanehsata:ke entirely. When the cops tried to order pizza, it was quickly intercepted and given out to the community members at the bonfire. Some Warriors said that police of any kind are unnecessary in Kanehsata:ke, since Warrior Societies have always fulfilled the role of protecting the people. By the bonfire, one community member explained: [Page 19]
“People are getting frustrated. They’re sick and tired of Jimmy endangering their lives. People don’t want this SOB back – he’s not coming back. As far as we’re concerned, he’s banished. It’s always these secret deals with him. The feds love him because he’ll sign whatever they put in front of him – but then, what can you expect? That’s Jimmy.”
James Gabriel’s decision to bring back former Kanehsata:ke cops Larry Ross and Terry Issac, further enraged the community. Both had been previously fired from the KMP because of their conduct, and in 1999 both had been involved in the shooting of Kanehsata:ke Warrior Joe David which left him paralyzed. “These guys are deadlier than the outside cops” asserted one person.
The next day, Kanehsata:ke Police commissioners and the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake negotiated a deal to bring in a joint force of Mohawk “peacekeepers” from Kahnawake and Akwesasne to temporarily take over Kanehsata:ke’s police station. James Gabriel’s goon squad left the reserve shortly after midnight.
It was soon revealed that the Canadian government had been ready to fund Gabriel with $900,000 to replace the Kanehsata:ke Mohawk Police and the community-appointed commission that is supposed to control it with a new organization called the “Kanehsata:ke Public Security Commission.” The commission would work in partnership with the SQ and RCMP.
The so-called “Band Council resolution” which Gabriel passed in order to bring back Larry Ross and Terry Issac was signed on January 2nd, 2004, a day when government offices and the Mohawk Council of Kanehsata:ke were closed.
February 8th: 2004, about 200 Mohawks from Kahnawake and Akwesasne took part in a solidarity march in Kanehsata:ke, some carrying signs with written slogans like “Iroquois not Quebecois.”
February 20th:The Mohawks of the Tyendinaga community showed their solidarity by physically preventing James Gabriel from holding a meeting on policing at the local Mohawk Community Centre. They set up a temporary lodge outside the centre and had a bonfire going all night. More people showed up in the morning to oppose Gabriel, but the ousted Grand Chief didn’t show his face.
March 11th: Gabriel signed yet another policing deal with the Quebec and Canadian governments at the Hilton hotel in Laval, behind a wall of riot cops.
March 31st:Schools shut down and Mohawk Warriors gathered outside the Kanehsata:ke Police station as the community prepared for the arrival of Gabriel’s newly appointed police chief Ed Thompson and the possibility of another invasion. The station’s KMP flag was taken down and replaced with a Warrior flag, but the Warriors left the scene before Thompson finally showed up, all by himself. Over the next few days Thompson proved himself to be a puppet of James Gabriel, and he mostly operated from nearby Oka, while Melissa Montour was the only KMP officer actually patrolling the community. [Page 20]
April 9th:About 20 community members gathered on Highway 344 and blocked Thompson and six of his newly appointed police officers from entering the reserve. Another police officer was turned away the following day.
April 12th:Going on the offensive, community members took over and shut down the Kanehsata:ke Police station and said that it would stay closed, at least until Band Council elections in June. Weapons were removed and given to the Kahnawake Mohawk police force. Residents proceeded to patrol the community, watching for attempted police raids.
April 16th:Arrest warrants were issued for 24 people in relation to the January 12th conflict. Deborah Etienne voluntarily turned herself in the next day, only to be forced to sign release conditions that she not communicate with the 23 other community members on the warrant list or return to her home in Kanehsata:ke. Another community member was arrested in Montreal and given the same conditions.
May 3rd: 40-60 of James Gabriel’s cops, decked out in full riot gear, tried to raid Kanehsata:ke. Warriors threw rocks, forcing the police to retreat and abandon a KMP police car. Gabriel and Thompson then called for SQ and RCMP intervention. Mohawks from nearby communities such as Tyendinaga rushed to Kanehsata:ke to show solidarity and assist in preventing a full-scale siege. At the same time, the community was hit with the news of Joe David’s death.
May 5th: Masked Warriors set up camp on both sides of Highway 344 to prevent a joint intervention by the SQ, RCMP, and Gabriel’s cops. SQ cars are being allowed to drive through the reserve on the highway, as they usually do, but not to patrol or intervene in the community.
May 8th: the 24 Kanehsata:ke Mohawks on the warrants list appeared in court in St. Jerome. James Gabriel was represented by Francois Briere, who was the prosecutor against Ronald “Lasagna” Cross and other Mohawk Warriors after the 1990 Oka Crisis. The judge ruled that nine of the accused could return home on the condition that they not wear masks, carry weapons or communicate with James Gabriel. Conditions preventing three of the accused from returning to their homes were upheld.
May 28:4 police cars were set on fire outside the KMP station.
June 9: Joseph Day turned himself into the police after a warrant had been issued for his arrest in connection with the fire that burned James Gabriel’s garage in January. Day is charged with ‘intentionally or recklessly causing damage by fire or by explosion.’ He was released from custody and will appear in court in the week of June 14.
June 11, 2004:The KMP station was set on fire, and put out by the fire department within the hour. James Gabriel released a statement condemning the fire as, [Page 21] “Another deplorable criminal act which underlies the necessity to restore law and order quickly in Kanesatake,” And he promised “…to meet in the territory with the Kanesatake Mohawk Council Chiefs to over-come our differences and agree on the fundamental conditions needed to hold an open and fair election. … We must work together to let the people of Kanesatake choose the Grand Chief and Chiefs free of any fears or threats…”
27. Cutting through the Crap
Throughout the recent conflict, the corporate media played their usual role in trying to cover-up the real reasons behind the struggle, to confuse and divide the people, to portray Warriors as apolitical criminals, and to convince the public that this was merely an internal dispute between Kanehsata:ke community members. The same tactics were used during the Oka Crisis of 1990, as they’d been used for years before then.
Cigarettes and marijuana have always been used as a smokescreen by the corporate media and their masters to divert attention from the legitimate struggle of the Mohawk people for their land and freedom. As some community members have pointed out, the cigarette trade has actually lowered the crime rate in Kanehsata:ke, since people now have a source of income.
For many traditionalists, the cigarette trade is a matter of self-sufficiency and economic survival. Mohawk involvement in the tobacco trade is hundreds of years old. Tobacco is an indigenous product which the European colonizers appropriated. Massive federal and provincial taxes on cigarettes have also contributed to the trade in native communities.
The Cigarette trade through the Akwesasne reserve, which is cut in half by the Canadian-American border, has been used by Canada as an excuse for police raids and harassment. Akwesasne has been ecologically destroyed by aluminium smelters and other industrial developments which have poisoned the land and caused birth defects amongst the people, leaving the cigarette trade as one of the only ways to make a living.
The ongoing conflicts on Mohawk territory, including Kanehsata:ke, are the result of more than 500 years of colonization and resistance. The authorities are trying to hide this fact in order to discourage the kind of sovereign solidarity that made the 1990 stand-off at Kanehsata:ke a “crisis” for Canada’s ruling elite.
The Mohawk Nation has been a major thorn in the side of the corporate colony of Canada, because the armed resistance of the Mohawk people has exposed Canada as a colonial state and has awakened the Warrior spirit in indigenous peoples across the country.
No other Indian nation within Canada has engaged in armed resistance as often as the Mohawks, and no other nation has been able to maintain police “no-go zones” for as long as they have.
The fighting spirit of the Mohawks, and their ability to forcibly retain independent control of their territory is completely unacceptable to the corporations of Canada and Quebec. [Page 22]. END OF AUDIO 5…
AUDIO VI.
AUDIO VI. NO. 28: THE SOVEREIGN MOHAWK NATION
28. The Sovereign Mohawk Nation
The traditional Mohawks have always maintained their sovereignty; their independence. They rightly view the corporation of Canada as an occupying state that has oppressed the kanienkehaka Mohawk people through hundreds of years of genocide and assimilation. A major part of this process was Canada’s imposition of the Band Council system by unlawfully enacting the Indian Lands Acts on October 25, 1924 .
Grand Chiefs, band Councils and police forces are not a part of the traditional Two Row and the Great Peace. They are corporate acts enacted to steal sovereign native land which cannot be sold or conveyed.
“Corruption” is “business as usual” for Canada and its Chiefs and Band Councils, which are funded by the corporation of Canada to manage Native communities and deter resistance to corporate extraction of Indigenous resources.
The traditional Mohawk form of community organization is the Longhouse, and it is maintained to this day as an independent forum of the people, and an alternative to the Canadian Band Council system.
Women have been at the forefront of Mohawk struggles for self-determination. Traditional Mohawk culture is matrilineal; meaning that women hold a position of influence and respect within Mohawk society and pass this on to their children. Traditionally, if a Chief ever lost the esteem of their people, clan mothers could remove the offending Chiefs, and this removal was considered a permanent disgrace.
29. James Gabriel’s Regime and his KMP Militia
James Gabriel had already been ousted from the community once before, in December of 2001, when he was voted out of office. Residents were fed up with Gabriel funneling money into policing while education and social programs were ignored.
In May of 2002, a group of 15 Kanehsata:ke women prevented Gabriel from returning to his position in the Band Council, despite a federal court order to reinstate him. But Gabriel finally slimed his way back in and got back to work making trouble, signing secret deals with his buddies in the governments of Canada and Quebec. Gabriel’s use of the KMP as his personal militia has been a constant source of tension in the community.
On June 5th of 1999, Kanehsata:ke cops Larry Ross and Police Chief Terry Issac, were involved in the shooting of Joe David, a traditionalist and sovereignist who was among the Mohawk Warriors who defended Kanehsata:ke in 1990 and was one of the last holdouts in the Onentokon Treatment Center.
Joe had told a kid riding a four-wheel vehicle to get off his property, and the kid complained to the police that Joe threatened him. The KMP used this as an excuse to lay siege to Joe’s home. [Page 23]
Joe had always maintained that the establishment of the KMP was in conflict with the traditional Mohawk way of life. He was also considered to be a “squatter” on his own territory by the Band Council and the police, since he had moved into one of the 73 empty houses on the reserve, along with many other Mohawks.
Larry Ross in particular, pushed for an assault on Joe’s home, while the other cops wanted to wait it out and negotiate. Ross was well known for his hostile attitude towards Warrior Societies, which he referred to as “organized crime syndicates”, and he stated that he would “get rid of the Warriors.”
Ross ended up shooting Joe David in the back, paralyzing him.
James Gabriel has also been continuously trying to negotiate away Mohawk sovereignty. On March 27th of 2001, the Canadian government passed Bill S-24, ratifying an “Agreement with Respect to Kanesatake Governance of the Interim Land Base” between the Band Council and the Canadian government, which was negotiated throughout the year 2000. Fewer than half of the 1,000 eligible voters in Kanehsata:ke took part in the ratification vote. The final tally was 239 votes in favour and 237 opposed, with ten spoiled ballots. Despite this, the agreement passed by a “majority”.
Traditional Mohawks let it be known that they would continue to oppose the deal.
In September of 2001, Kanehsata:ke and Mi’kmaq cops, lead by Larry Ross, raided the home of former Chief Robert Gabriel, executing a search warrant for drugs. At the same time, 100 SQ officers and a SWAT team arrested Robert Gabriel in Montreal. No charges were laid against him and no drugs were found in his home. Instead, police removed a safe from Robert’s home which contained documents that he was using in a complaint he had filed against Grand Chief James Gabriel in March of 1999.
In the days after the raid, the vehicle of KMP spokesman Bobby Bonspiel was firebombed, gunshots were fired into the KMP station, forcing all the officers to flee to a nearby SQ station in Oka, and trees and power lines were cut down to blockade roads. Larry Ross was fired from the KMP in a unanimous decision by the Mohawk Council of Kanehsata:ke. Grand Chief James Gabriel defended Ross, but the community warned that there would be a war if he was not removed. [Page 24]
Joe “Stone Carver” David -born in 1957- died on May 3, 2004. (photo: Eastern Door. vol. 8. no. 20 June 11, 1999)
Ross had been previously fired from the Akwesasne police force because he was too “trigger-happy”. Before that he had been “honourably discharged” from the American army after participating in the first American war on Iraq. Ross boasted that he had “engaged the enemy”.
Mohawk life continues!
Robert Gabriel’s complaint in March of 1999 related to James Gabriel’s hiring of a known felon, Richard Walsh. Allegedly, Walsh was hired to act as an undercover agent, to find anything that could be used to discredit Robert Gabriel, in case he ran against James in the upcoming election. James Gabriel released a communiqué to the community, explaining his side of the story. In it he stated that he hired Walsh for an undercover drug operation and paid him about $74,000 dollars over 14 months.
The policing agreement which created the KMP states that no member of the police force may have a criminal record and no Band Council member may issue directions to the Chief of Police or KMP officers.
Richard Walsh had, in fact, been arrested in Kingston, Ontario, for a “breach of recognizance” issued by the Ontario Provincial Police in Pembroke.
The arresting officers found on Walsh a KMP badge, emergency vehicle headlights, hand-cuffs, a police duty belt with baton and pepper-spray, and a stolen credit card. He was subsequently charged with “impersonating a police officer” in Ontario Provincial Court. Despite all this, an SQ investigation decided not to lay charges against James Gabriel for hiring Walsh.
On March 28th of 2003, Mohawk Warriors began to block one lane of traffic on Highway 344, in anger at a new policing agreement James Gabriel had secretly signed with the Canadian government. The Band Council had no knowledge or involvement, and it authorized Cree and Mi’kmaq police officers to patrol the community.
On March 31st the Warriors expanded the blockade to both lanes of the highway, demanding that all non-Mohawk police officers leave the community. On April 2nd, the Department of Indian Affairs agreed to a meeting on the issue and the blockade came down, but the meeting did not resolve the conflict.
The Chiefs that came before James Gabriel were just as corrupt and despotic.
In 1976, Kanehsata:ke Chief Hughie Nicholas, used a little-known section of the Indian Act to abolish regular elections, public meetings and the posting of the Band membership list. He declared Kanehsata:ke a “custom band” and himself and his council as “hereditary”. He also decided that his position was a lifetime appointment. Traditional people of the Longhouse boycotted the elections, because to vote was to surrender their sovereignty as a nation and to conform to the Indian Act. In 1986, a Kanehsata:ke community group managed to oust Nicholas. [Page 25]. END OF AUDIO VI.
AUDIO VII.
AUDIO VII. NO. 29: REPORT FROM KANEHSATAKE 2004
29. Report from Kanesata:ke JUNE 2004
The events in Kanehsatake of the last six months have proven to be very confusing and difficult to explain to those people not living within the territory. This question has been posed to me on numerous occasions. This will be the first time that I provide a written response to it.
Q: “In 1990 there was cross continental support and solidarity for the actions occurring in Kanehsatake, why is there so little support with what is going on currently?”
Arihwakehte: (Arihwakehte is a Kanehsatake Mohawk. He has been staying at a support camp at Kanehsatake and has been releasing independent media reports about the police conflicts.)
What makes this crisis different –in terms of support and solidarity– is the amount of negative misinformation and smear campaigns by Canadian government funded public relations firms and that the parties involved are both members of indigenous communities. Needless to say there is a great deal of confusion about the realities of the situation here in Kanehsatake. The public relations (PR) firms would have the public believe that the crisis in Kanehsatake is one of criminals hijacking control of the community from the duly elected leader James Gabriel. Gabriel who is portrayed like a sort of Elliot Ness who is fighting a war on crime and drugs and that this criminal element has ties to organized crime, etc., this however could not be further from the truth.
What makes this crisis so different from 1990 is that the highly orchestrated media spin has painted all Kanehsatake residents collectively with the same paintbrush – as criminals. Kanehsatake like any other community has some criminal activity. Gabriel and Canada’s PR firm have made Kanehsatake out to be Sodom and Gomorrah. The stories that don’t get reported – at least not as often or loudly – is the corruption on the part of James Gabriel or the brutality of his police. In 1990 the lines were clearly drawn, indigenous people fighting colonial governments and defending their lands. In 2004 the struggle is very similar with some noted exceptions, namely the players in the game. In 1990 there were non-indigenous police and military on one side and indigenous warriors on the other.
Now however the images and stories coming out of Kanehsatake are Indigenous “criminal” elements fighting to defend their criminal interests against Indigenous police and “leadership”. The real fight in Kanehsatake is the defense of the community against brutal policing and band council corruption and secret deals that undermine Indigenous rights.
Since the inception of the Kanesatake Mohawk Police (KMP) in 1997 there has been a series of incidents of police brutality and abuse of authority on the part of the KMP under the direction and sanctioning of James Gabriel. In the first two years of the KMP’s existence there was a high level of [Page 26] community acceptance as well as pride in the establishment of this police force. However, this relationship quickly began to fade when certain members of the KMP began to employ heavy handed policing techniques against community members, such as using batons, pepper spray and stun guns instead of dialogue and negotiations.
On July 15th 1999 the KMP’s use of violence came to a head with the shooting and crippling of Joe David. Immediately the shooting of Joe was deemed politically motivated by community members including the family and friends of Joe. Especially emphasized by Larry Ross’ publicly professed hatred for members of the Mohawk Warrior Society.
On numerous occasions the KMP conducted raids on community members homes. In one particular incident the residence of Harvey Nicholas was targeted. The KMP broke down Harvey’s unlocked doors and shot at him while he was still sleeping in his bed unarmed. The raid netted approximately 10 immature marijuana plants, subsequently the case against Harvey was thrown out of court due to the abuse of authority and the excessive use of force by the KMP.
In Jan./04 James Gabriel subverted the authority of the Kanehsatake Mohawk Police Commission (KMPC) by secretly hiring 67 police including Larry Ross and Terry Isaac. The operation was to remove the former chief of police Tracey Cross and to conduct a massive raid on the community to search for marijuana, firearms and to shut down the cigarette stores operating in Kanehsatake.
In reality the operation was to secure James Gabriel’s political power by using these police as an instrument to criminalize his political opponents, Gabriel publicly stated that he wanted to “cut off the head of the opposition”. The operation was funded by the Solicitor General of Canada in cooperation with the RCMP and received $900,000 dollars to buy assault rifles, tear gas, and body bags.
Canada could now have its dirty work done by Indigenous police instead of the RCMP or Quebec’s police force the Surette du Quebec (SQ) by having Indigenous police carry out assaults for them.
The Canadian government is able to play off the 1990 crisis as an internal problem and not one of an external police force assaulting an Indigenous community as was the case in 1990 and again in 1995 in Gustafson Lake BC. Right from the beginning of the crisis-unlike the 1990 crisis-the media spin was immediate and what was being said was that a handful of criminals was holding the community hostage. The fact that the real intention of the January 12th operation was to undermine the KMPC and remove Tracey Cross as the KMP chief of police was down played by the media under the guidance of Canada and Gabriel’s PR firm.
Once Gabriel’s building was burnt by a small group of men who acted on their own, an action that was condemned by the community. All the attention has been focused on this one event and all the other contributing factors have been negated even they are important in understanding the situation in Kanehsatake. The residents of Kanehsatake fully understand the frustrations felt by those individuals who took their anger out by the fire. Kanehsatake community members as well as the KMPC were able to have a peaceful resolution to the [Page 27] crisis of January 12th and 13th by having police from Kanehsatake’s sister community Kahnawake come and assume interim police duties.
On January 2nd-a legal holiday-Gabriel and his supporters on council secretly created a new policing agreement with Canada and Quebec called the Tripartite Policing Agreement (TPA). The TPA calls for the abolishment of the existing legally recognized and sanctioned Kanehsatake Mohawk Police Commission (KMPC) and Gabriel’s Kanesatake Public Security Commission (KPSC).
The civilian KMPC is comprised entirely of community members who put in their applications and are selected by committee. The policing KPSC on the other hand is made up of Gabriel and the band councilors holding the policing portfolio with Clarence Simon at its head, and the three other [policing] commissioners are the directors of welfare, health, and education – who are all Gabriel supporters.
GET THIS! The Tripartite Policing Agreement TPA gives Gabriel total control over policing which in turn controls the civilian commission. Non-Kanehsatake residents can sit on Gabriel’s Kanesatake Public Security Commission KPSC. Further, police can be commissioners on civilian boards, supposedly to act as a buffer and a liaison between the band council and the KMP and the community and the KMP. [Page 28] END OF AUDIO VII…
AUDIOS VIII AND IX COMBINED
AUDIO VIII. NO 30: THE GIG IS UP AND AUDIO NO. IX
30. The gig is up
Ex-Minister Chagnon rips ‘illegal’ Mohawk raid. Lays blame for debacle on Ottawa Former grand chief Gabriel who made a power play with ‘mercenaries’ hired with federal funds
Jeff Heinrich The Gazette, Friday, January 13, 2006
It’s been two years since a botched police operation by 67 aboriginal police officers in Kanesatake left the grand chief’s house in flames and his Mohawk community in tatters. Now the man who was Quebec’s public security minister at the time says the raid was illegal, “Duplessis-like”, mercenary and the fault of Ottawa, which paid for it. Jacques Chagnon said he personally blames the then-grand chief James Gabriel and then-solicitor- general Wayne Easter for the January 12, 2004 operation.
“It was a totally illegal,,” Chagnon, Liberal MNA for Westmount, said during an hour-long TV interview Wednesday night at his home in Boucherville, parts of which were aired yesterday on Radio-Canada. Ottawa, and, in particular, Easter, should never have authorized a $900,000 special anti-crime subsidy to Kanesatake’s band council that made the operation possible, Chagnon said. The federal government should have heeded the advise of the RCMP and Surete du Quebec at the time, which said the raid would be a big mistake, he said.
And, Chagnon added, he would never have approved the transfer of aboriginal officers – “mercenaries,” he called them – from reserves across Quebec to take part in the Kanesatake raid. In the end, the heavily armed officers and special constables got nowhere. They stayed in the Kanehsatake police station for 36 hours, as a crowd of residents opposed to Gabriel and the operation kept watch outside. The stand-off was diffused when the police were escorted out by Kahnawake Peacekeepers on January 14.
At the time, Chagnon was criticized for appearing to cave in to demonstrators, some of whom were convicted criminals with histories of violence. Yesterday, he said he “paid the price”: He was demoted from Jean Charest’s cabinet last March.
Put on trial last fall for rioting and forcibly confining the officers, several of the demonstrators were convicted and are awaiting sentencing Jan. 20 in St. Jerome. [Page 29]. Chagnon told journalist Alain Picard he thinks Gabriel was trying to establish “absolute power” by the operation, whose goal was to replace then-chief of police Tracey Cross with one of Gabriel’s allies, former police chief Terry Isaac.
That blend of politics and policing smacked of the Duplessis era, Chagnon said. Though the media made Gabriel into a “martyr saint” after his house was burned down, the Mohawk leader’s actions were something else, Chagnon said. “He pulled off a tour de force, getting himself armed by the federal government, using totally illegal methods to bring in an army of mercenaries … into the territory to replace his chief of police,” Chagnon said.
Radio-Canada intends to air further excerpts of the Chagnon interview today. jheinrich@thegazette.canwest.com ********************************************************************
[AUDIOS VIII AND IX COMBINED CONTINUED].
31. MOHAWK LEADERS FUMING
Chagnon upbraided. Remarks by ex-minister on raid called ‘malicious’.
DEBBIE PARKES, The Gazette Published: Saturday, January 14, 2006.
Angry Kanesatake band councillors say former Quebec public security minister Jacques Chagnon should learn to hold his tongue instead of making “malicious” and “provocative” statements. They were complaining about Chagnon’s characterization of 67 aboriginal police officers who took part in a botched 2004 raid in the community as “mercenaries” and descriptions of the raid as illegal.
Those comments, made in an hour-long TV interview, were aired Thursday. In another segment aired yesterday, Chagnon said the quantity and firepower of the guns and ammunition the officers had – including, he said, anti-tank weapons – were enough “to start a war, almost.” He also said it was all “completely aberrant” for the community of 1,300 people west of Montreal.
“While rewriting history, (Chagnon) makes provocative comments that reopen wounds in the Mohawk community of Kanesatake at a time when the chiefs on council are initiating a mediation process with Grand Chief Steven Bonspille to restore a long-lasting peace,” the councillors said in a statement.
Notably, Bonspille – the only member of the current council who was not allied with former grand chief James Gabriel during last summer’s election – wasn’t among the issuers.
“Mr. Chagnon can say what he wants,” Bonspille said. “It’s a free country. For my part, I believe the RCMP should do an investigation based on what Mr. Chagnon is now saying.” [Page 30]
Bonspille acknowledged he’s irritated the council chiefs issued the statement without consulting him. Still, “I’m not going to speak against my council at all. We’re working together to make Kanesatake a better place.”
In the TV interview, Chagnon blamed Gabriel and then solicitor-general Wayne Easter for the botched raid Jan. 12, 2004, by aboriginal police officers hired from reserves across Quebec. Chagnon also said he couldn’t understand how the heavily armed officers could be held at bay by a couple of dozen unarmed demonstrators. “It was the first time in Canada that we faced a situation in which the hostages were armed,” he said dryly.
“They didn’t dare leave the police station. Why? What were they afraid of?” Jeff Heinrich of the gazette contributed to this report [Page 31] END OF AUDIOS VIII AND IX [Combined]
Unlike some indigenous nations within Canada, the Mohawks were able to maintain their Warrior Societies and traditions. Since the beginning of the colonization of North America, the Mohawks have defeated numerically superior enemy forces through the use of guerrilla warfare tactics.
In 1759, 1,000 Warriors of the Six Nations Confederacy (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora) and 4,000 British soldiers, defeated 9,000 French troops in open battle. During the war of 1812, 600 Mohawks defeated 7,000 American soldiers, defending Kahnawake. Less than half of the soldiers returned to the U.S. alive. In Upper Canada (now Ontario), 1,000 Mohawks and other indigenous warriors defeated 10,000 American troops and drove them back into the U.S.
Warriors Societies began to reform in the early 1970’s, with women playing a prominent part, as they demanded to participate in the traditional War Dance and to carry weapons in armed confrontations.
Louis Hall, whose Mohawk name was Karoniaktajeh, was a major source of inspiration to the resurgent Warrior Societies of the 1970’s. He designed the Mohawk Warrior flag, wrote the Warriors Hand Book, and was involved in the 1974 Moss Lake occupation. As a supporter of traditional armed Mohawk resistance to colonization he rejected the Handsome Lake version of the Great Law of Peace, since Handsome Lake was a Quaker and a pacifist. Hall maintained that the Great Law of Peace only prohibited the use of weapons between the nations of the confederacy, but did not forbid defence against outside enemies such as the governments of Quebec and Canada.
33. A History of Mohawk Resistance to Invasion
Constant military threats.
“To fight any kind of war one needs courage, gumption, knowledge of the enemy and strategic planning. The biggest single requirement is fighting spirit. People with fighting spirit shall not become casualties of psychological warfare.” (Karoniaktajeh, Louis Hall, The Warriors Hand Book )
In 1968, Mohawks in Akwesasne took over the Seaway International Bridge in a struggle against a government decision to levy customs duties on goods. RCMP and OPP officers stormed the bridge and arrested 48 people. The 1793 Jay Treaty between the U.S. and Britain secured the right of the Mohawks to take goods across the border, but Canada refuses to recognize it.
Stanley and Loon Islands were reoccupied in 1970, and in 1973, Kahnawake Warriors deployed weapons for the first time in recent history during a confrontation with the SQ that broke out after White settlers were evicted from houses on the reserve. SQ patrol cars were flipped over, and armed women Warriors took part in the conflict.
In May of 1974, Mohawk men and women occupied an abandoned camp at Moss Lake in New York State. They named it Ganienkeh – The Land of the Flint – the traditional name for the Mohawk homeland (The Mohawks call themselves the Kanienkehaka – People of the Flint). An armed stand-off began, [Page 32] involving hundreds of state police. The stand-off wound down after a few years of negotiations with New York State and the Mohawks exchanged Moss Lake for land near Altona, just south of the Canadian border. Ganienkeh was retained as the name for this land, liberated from the colonizer.
In 1979, Kahnawake Mohawk David Cross was shot and killed in his driveway by an SQ officer. The SQ were subsequently barred from entering Kahnawake, and the reserve essentially became a police “no-go zone.”
This provided a safe haven for Mohawks with arrest warrants. Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien commented on the situation in 1994, saying “There will be no refuge for criminals. No-go areas are not acceptable in Canada” (Globe and Mail, Feb. 9/94)
In June of 1988, 200 RCMP officers raided six cigarette stores in Kahnawake, using helicopters, riot squads and semi-automatic weapons to arrest 12 people and seize $450,000 worth in cigarettes. In retaliation, the Kahnawake Warrior Society seized the Mercier Bridge for 29 hours. The blockade was lifted when the provincial & federal governments agreed to negotiations on the cigarette trade.
In early March of 1990, roadblocks and gun battles erupted between factions for and against the cigarette trade and gambling on the Akwesasne reserve. Those opposed to cigaret sales and gambling were primarily Christian Mohawks and supporters of the government controlled Band Council, and they repeatedly requested their police intervention in the matter, but after 33 days they were driven off in a gun fight. On May 1st, two Mohawks were killed in the conflict, including one Mohawk opposed to the cigaret economy and gambling and a Warrior who mostly supported it. Subsequently, 400 Ontario police and RCMP officers, along with Canadian Armed Forces soldiers, New York State Police and U.S. National Guard troops invaded and occupied the reserve.
On March 10th of 1990 the Mohawks of Kanehsata:ke occupied the Pines (traditional lands on which the people’s cemetery is located) to oppose the Municipality of Oka’s plans to expand an adjacent golf course and to build 60 luxury homes around its perimeter.
The golf course was part of Oka’s lucrative tourist industry. For four months the community blockaded a road leading into the Pines. On July 11th, over 100 members of the Quebec Provincial Police attacked the barricades, opening fire on mostly women and children and firing tear gas and concussion grenades. Members of the Kahnawake and Kanehsata:ke Warrior Societies returned fire. One SQ officer was shot and killed, most likely by “friendly fire.”
The wind blew the tear gas back at the Surete du Quebec SQ and the officers retreated, leaving several police vehicles behind. The Warriors then used them to reinforce the defensive barricades. In solidarity, Warriors in Kahnawake seized and blockaded the Mercier Bridge, a vital route into the city of Montreal, threatening to blow it up if Kanehsata:ke was attacked again.
The stand-off lasted 78 days. 1,000 police officers and at least 2,650 Canadian soldiers (possibly as many as 4,000) were deployed, with tanks, Armoured Personnel Carriers and helicopters. It was the [Page 33] largest domestic military operation ever initiated by the Canadian government.
On September 26, the Mohawk defenders decided to move out of the Treatment Centre where the government had confined them, but not to surrender! The Canadian soldiers were unprepared for this. They attacked and beat-up Warriors, women and children as they struggled to return to their homes. A few defenders managed to get past the soldiers, but were then arrested by police. One young Mohawk woman was stabbed with a bayonet by a Canadian soldier.
The Mohawk resistance at Kanehsata:ke sparked solidarity actions across Canada. Road and railway blockades were set up, Indian Affairs offices were occupied, and sabotage was carried out against railway bridges and electrical power lines.
The potential for even greater and more widespread sabotage helped to effectively limit the government’s ability to militarily crush the Mohawk defenders at Kanehsata:ke. The events of 1990 are referred to as the “Oka Crisis” because Canada was on the verge of an Indian uprising.
On January 8th, 1991, residents of Kahnawake clashed with Quebec riot police and drove them off the reserve.
In February of 1992, Ronald “Lasagna” Cross and Gordon Lazore were found guilty of assault causing bodily harm, aggravated assault, and weapons charges relating to the Kanehsata:ke stand-off in 1990. Cross was sentenced to four years and four months in prison, while Lazore was sentenced to one year and 11 months.
They were found “not guilty” of uttering death threats to Canadian soldiers, and charges of “rioting” and “obstruction” were dropped. A third man, Roger Lazore was acquitted of all charges, as were another 34 of the Kanehsata:ke defenders in a separate trial.
On January 21st, 1994, about 60 rounds were fired at two Canadian military aircraft which flew over Kahnawake. When the aircraft landed in a field their crew was approached by residents who informed them that they had to leave.
Bloc Quebecois Member of Parliament Claude Bachand was kicked out of Kahnawake on February 10th of 1994, after going door-to-door asking residents about their attitudes towards “guns and smuggling”.
Men always ready.
In 1999, a journalist with “Le Journal de Montreal” obtained 1,599 pages of documents through the Freedom of Information Act which described plans on the part of the Canadian government to launch massive raids on several Mohawk communities in 1994. Under the pretence of cracking down on selling cigarettes, the stage was set for an invasion by 1,500 Canadian soldiers, 2,000 RCMP and 2,000 Sureté Quebec officers. The Canadian military’s elite Joint Task Force 2 unit was also prepared to be involved. Training and planning occurred over the course of a year.
The police forces were to lead an offensive strike while the soldiers secured the surrounding areas. [Page 34]
Eventually the plan was trashed when CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) warned the government of the massive bloodshed the invasion would cause and the possibility of a nation-wide indigenous uprising. [Page 35]”.
We leave you with a Pink Floyd song from their “Echoes” album, to soothe your mind after reading our disturbing story. Pink Floyd. “Echoes”. END OF AUDIO X.
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