Category Archives: Canada

REVENGE OF THE CRADLEBOARD

Posted on by

– the “500 year war” of Indigenous genocide

MNN. Feb. 9, 2009. When the Europeans invaded Turtle Island, they thought indigenous people were in their way. They pushed us west and did everything they could to get rid of us. Where did we go? 115 million were “disappeared” and the world doesn’t care.

The scum dogs of Europe set in motion a plan to dispossess us of our territories and resources. Almost all of us were annihilated in the biggest holocaust in the history of mankind. They developed “scientific theories” that claimed we were an inferior race to justify killing us off. Their motto was “the only good Indian is a dead Indian”. So there are only we mean ones left. Our ancestors sacrificed their lives at great cost so a few could be on Turtle Island today: in the beginning of the 20th century, from 60 million to 260,000 in the U.S. and less than 100,000 in Canada.

The law in Canada was that “a person was anyone other than an Indian”. We were treated like sub humans. The U.S. and Canada starved, subjugated, exterminated and then interned us on worthless land where it was almost impossible to survive. Today like guinea pigs we are numbered and catalogued more than anyone else in centralized computer information banks on all aspects of our lives.

As part of “racial hygiene” we were sterilized against our will. Our children were taken from us and put into concentration camps called residential/boarding schools. “Kill the Indian and save the man” was their motto. In Canada almost half never returned home. They were sexually abused, experimented on or murdered. Hitler’s World War II holocaust was modeled on the American Indian one.

Eugenics was part of how 10,000 French Canadians become a population of millions while we were being wiped out.

In the early days of New France, as Quebec was called, the birthrate was low because few European women were in Canada before 1663. After the English defeated them in 1760, the Roman Catholic Church’s retaliation was called the “revenge of the cradle”. They wanted to drown the English in a “bath” of French Catholic babies. The priests told the women that the ideal French Canadian mother was the one who took the first son from the cradle to replace him with his younger brother, while telling him that next year a little sister would take his place and so on. Fourteen children was the ideal. If they did not produce a child every year, they had to confess their sin. The protestants used the same fertility strategy to secure their theft of our lands. The physical strain of this policy killed the settler women and many of their babies.

The women got medals from the Pope for having at least 10 children. In 1973 a reporter from France, Andre Luchaire, wrote a story about this for La Presse. He visited a woman in the Laurentians, north of Montreal, who had over 25 children. He asked her to name her children who were running all around playing. She signaled one over and asked him, “What’s your name, son?”

In the 1970s after the “quiet revolution” when modern life hit Quebec, the French birthrate plummeted. They stampeded out of the church over this issue.

Recently technology made it possible for a 33-year old single woman in California to give birth to eight babies at one time through in vitro fertilization. She already had six. In previous multiple births the government stepped in and made assistance and funds available to help out the families. In this recent event, criticism and almost condemnation has been leveled at the mother about the cost to taxpayers, the social problems and government funds expended. Why? She is well educated and loves her 14 children. This woman is a person of color and she did not intend to have eight children. She wanted only one. All the implanted eggs survived in her womb and produced eight babies. She could not bring herself to abort any of them. She is obviously strong and so are her offspring to survive such an ordeal.

Since the invaders to Turtle Island have almost destroyed the environment that threatens to wipe out humanity, it is time to bring back the ways of Indigenous people to save mother earth.

We are not advocating that Indigenous women start having eight babies at a time. Indigenous women should be given the assistance needed to cut down our high infant death rate and to stop the theft of our children by government agencies such as social services. The survival and health of our babies means raising them in a decent standard of living to which we are entitled. Presently we are forced to live in one of the lowest life standards in the world. To take care of our children we need the same level of human rights as anybody else. Why is this being denied to us?

Yes, our birthrate is higher than the rest. This is a natural biological response to the genocide perpetrated on us. Canada wants to cut down our births. To hit us Ottawa recently made two major budget cuts to help stay-at-home mothers and provide day care for those who have to work. More will have to go on welfare which is not enough to cover decent food and shelter. Canada is deliberately creating hopelessness to lower our population by knowingly worsening conditions that will make us sick and that will make it harder for us to look after our children.

The colonists would rather hang empty cradle boards on museum walls than put live Indigenous babies in them to be raised by healthy Indigenous communities.

Ia’koha:kowa & MNN Staff Mohawk Nation News www.mohawknationnews.comiakohakowa@yahoo.ca katenies20@yahoo.com kahentinetha2@yahoo.com

Note: Your financial help is needed and appreciated. Please send your donations to PayPal atwww.mohawknationnews.com, or by check or money order to “MNN Mohawk Nation News”, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen thank you very much. Go to MNN “Canada” category for more stories; New MNN Books Available now! Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStorehttp://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews; Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updateshttp://.mohawknationnews.com/news/subscription.php; Sign Women Title Holders petition!http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois

poster: katenies

 

CANADA & BIG TOBACCO TRY TO LIQUIDATE INDIGENOUS TRADE

Posted on by

– 6 Nations and Tyendinaga illegally invaded on Feb. 5th

MNN. Feb. 6, 2009. Last summer two Canadian tobacco giants agreed to pay the largest criminal fines and civil settlements in Canadian history for their role in cigarette smuggling and tax evasion. Revenue Minister Gordon O’Conner announced the biggest “sweetheart” deal ever. Three companies were involved – R.J. Reynolds, Imperial Tobacco and Rothman. The fine is $4 billion. Reynolds and Imperial will pay $1.1 billion for mass criminal tax fraud. Where will the rest come from? Ordinary people who don’t pay their fines are harassed and jailed. But not these guys!

Nine R.J. Reynolds executives were charged. None went to jail. Ever wonder why? Paul Martin, former Prime Minister, was on the IMASCO board that owns Imperial. [See Comments Feb. 1/09http://www.cbc.ca/sunday click on image to watch video]. Tobacco industry executive, Paul Finalyson, says Imperial initially set up the operations and the rest followed. There will be no trial. The exact nature of the involvement of these companies and their executives will remain hidden from the public.

The tobacco companies planned and set up the “contraband” market in the early 1990s. They shipped truckloads of product to Buffalo and Syracuse in New York State, supposedly for sale in the U.S. No taxes had to be paid to Canada. This product was then sold to middlemen. They brought them back to Canada for sale at very low prices. Sales rose from $800 million a year to $6 billion by 1993. Everybody was involved, police, judges, stores, cigarette companies and so on.

Cigarettes became cheaper and sales and profits soared. In Canada one in three was a smuggled cigarette. The big tobacco companies taught the indigenous people how to run this business in a sophisticated way. Now successful Indigenous business people are being called “organized crime” for manufacturing and selling the very same product that Canada and big tobacco are dealing in.

In 1994 the federal government weaned itself off the “golden teat” by dropping the price on cigarettes. Overnight smuggling stopped because it wasn’t profitable.

The deal between Canada and big tobacco was a business arrangement between two partners. The Canadian government has an interest in keeping tobacco sales high to collect more taxes, while at the same professing to cut down cigarette smoking to bring down medical care costs.

Smoking is on the decline. But these big companies and their corporate protector, Canada, want to keep the money rolling in. They are trying to do this by putting legitimate indigenous tobacco manufacturers out of business.

They do not want legitimate Indigenous traders to legally sell tax free products. So they have to illegally stop our trade by bullying, charging, threatening and fining us. Big tobacco companies are waiting to start up again big time. Canada does not want to “shoot the goose that laid the golden egg” but it does want to steal any eggs laid by Indigenous people. In the meantime, the tobacco companies have moved all their assets off-shore.

British colonization of Turtle Island was founded on piracy. Throughout we have asserted our sovereignty including the duty to look after our families according to our traditional laws and governance. Tobacco trade was always a part of our traditional culture. Today the colonists want the valueless paper currency we are getting in exchange for our legitimate products. Who’s the counterfeiter here?

We are accountable to our mothers, grandmothers, aunties, sisters, clanmothers, chiefs, clans and nations. Crown employees take an oath to uphold the colonial way of life which is aimed at destroying us. They obviously want to stop us from having any means at all to look after each other and our families. Most Ongwehonwe communities in Canada are so poor that people don’t have adequate nutrition. It really sticks in their craw to see that we have found a way to feed our families and live decently.

On February 5 2009 our “smoke shops” and businesses in Six Nations and Tyendinaga came under fire. Canada decided to once again try to illegally enforce its colonial jurisdiction on us and our territory. Squads of Six Nations Police and the Tyendinaga Mohawk Police, which are set up by the Canadian government, acted under the direction of the colonial band councilors. They set out to remove all products from a smoke shop and even tried to remove the building itself. Our men and women stopped them.

Marked and undercover police hid out in Caledonia behind Tim Hortons, Canadian Tire parking lots and elsewhere. An OPP cruiser that got “lost” in Six Nations was turned back. In a former “dry run” the police would feign being lost in our community “accidentally”! The OPP were actually testing our response so they could figure out the number, type of officers, weaponry and media required to attack us and make us look bad. They are also testing their communications equipment in all these operations now. Martial law can’t be brought in until all the kinks are ironed out. The band council police told us that if they can’t “get the job done”, outside authorities will be brought in. We wanted to see proof of their rights to invade us and try to shut us down. The band council and its goons are part of the colonial “bankster” apparatus, no matter how dark their skin is under their uniforms.

The same day, on February 5th, in Tyendinaga, six rez cops, with OPP SWAT Team backup 500 ft. down the road, went into a local bar claiming to have a warrant which they refused to show. They seized some cases of beer and whisky. The owner is accused of not paying Ontario provincial taxes even though there is no agreement for us to pay any taxes to foreigners. This is really a “protection racket”. At the other end of the community towards the Trans Canada Highway 401 were parked SUVs, vans and a tactical team. They hesitate to come in as they know they have no jurisdiction over us in any way. The murder at Ipperwash and the fiasco at Sharbot Lake still hang over their heads.

We have no agreement with the colony of Canada to pay any taxes to them. By international law we require a valid agreement contracted with our full knowledge and consent, which does not exist. That can’t and will never happen.

It looks like Canada and big tobacco have made a deal to raise prices, collect the taxes and kill their biggest competitors, the Indigenous people. It isn’t gonna work, guys. Unilaterally making laws, then forcing them down our throats by sending in your para-military death squads is illegal. You know it!

Ia’koha:kowa & MNN Staff Mohawk Nation News http://www.mohawknationnews.comiakohakowa@yahoo.ca katenies20@yahoo.com kahentinetha2@yahoo.com

GLUTTONOUS SNOUTS IN THE TROUGH: Prime Minister Stephen Harper pm@pm.ca; RJ. Reynolds America http://www.rjrt.com, Salem NC; Rothman UK Holding Ltd. http://www.fundinguniverse.com 15 Hill St., London W1X 7FB 071-491-4366; Imperial Tobacco Group PLC http://www.imperial-tobacco.comP.O. Box 244, Upton Rd., Bristol BS99 7UJ +44-0-177-963-6636

poster: katenies

 

Police Target Indigenous Youth

Posted on by
SIX NATIONS: Call-out for help! Arrest of two activists Police ‘target’ Indigenous youth – bring food and phone cards. People as witnesses needed at both construction sites (ASAP) and at the courthouse today and tomorrow. To get to the construction site take the 403 west towards London, Ontario, exit off Oak Park Road. Turn left and drive over the 403. The construction site is immediately on the right hand side. Brantford City Court is on 44 Queen Street.MNN. Sept. 11, 2008. Two native activists were arrested Wednesday in a traffic stop by up to a dozen Ontario Provincial Police and Brantford city police officers. The 19-year-old son of “Boots” was arrested, along with an unnamed “young offender”. The police have disregarded the presumption of innocence by calling them “offenders”.

Boots has been living in a teepee in front of these fraudulent development projects. He is trying to remind them that we own the territory. It is a project of the “First Northwest Business Park Ontario” [John Jones 905-363-3086, jjones@firstgulf.com www.firstgulf.com; Head Office, Century Point Corporate Center, 6860 Century Ave., E. Tower, Suite 1000, Mississauga Ontario L5N 2W5 905-814-6860].

Brantford is giving illegal building permits to international corporations to build on our territory, such as:

-“Hampton Inn Hotels” which is part of the Hilton chain [we need CEO name, headquarters address and contact information];ampton HotH

-“Fen Ridge Court” [we need CEO, address and contact info]; and -Kingspan Insulation, Dublin Road, Kings Court Co., Cavan, Ireland, registration #70776 Ph. +353(0)42 9698000 admin@kingspan.ie, CE Gene M. Murtagh, Irish Stock Exchange info@ise.ie.

These companies have illegally laid claim to Haudenosaunee Territory. Some have represented that our unceded land is their collateral to raise funds on various stock exchanges. We have put them all on notice that the land is ours. They should be charged with fraud because of this knowingly willful violation of our rights and misrepresentations of their holdings in the public market. Unfortunately, the state authorities are complicit in the fraud. The city of Brantford issues the illegal permits.

Boots’ son has a bail hearing this morning, September 11th at the Brantford Court. The other youth is up for bail tomorrow at 9:00am. Both are charged with “mischief”.

Janie Jamieson gave the following report: “Today [September 10] at approximately 11:00am my one-year old son and I were leaving the “King and Benton” site of illegal construction site in Brantford, Ontario. My sister followed with the two youth. I stopped at a sign and then proceeded through. In my rear view mirror I could see my sister following close behind.

Then I saw a non-Native man with a closely shaved head pulling on her truck door with one hand while violently punching the window with a closed fist. I feared she was under attack by “skinheads” as there were several unmarked cars blocking her in.

I went ahead and turned around. When I got back all vehicles were gone, including my sister. I turned right. The same men were parked there but had changed into OPP vests and belts loaded with weapons. There were approximately 8 cruisers marked “OPP” and “Brantford City Police”. They were surrounding my sister and the two youth who were being handcuffed.

I told the police that according to our law our youth are under the authority and jurisdiction of the Ongwehonwe women and that our youth had EVERY authority to uphold our traditional laws. The police were told to cease and desist their armed invasions and kidnapping of our children. These tactics constitute declarations of war.

The cops said everything they were doing was “standard police practice” [in dealing with Indigenous people]. Why do they bother to wear uniforms? Are there any real “skinheads”? Or are they all cops trying to an end run around the law they swore to defend? Five officers then began searching my sister’s truck for “weapons”.

I put tobacco in the hands of the youth and told them to hold onto it. The police tried to stop me. The youth held onto it and were placed in separate cruisers and taken to the Brantford Jail.

Bawa Construction (Hampton Inn & Suites) has resumed illegal construction on our unsurrendered territory despite being warned by us to stop.

At no point have any of our people stepped out of the Kaianarekowa. The developers and the police continuously ESCALATE intercultural hostility by targeting our children, women (mothers and grandmothers) and men to protect the finances of local and international corporations.

We ongwehonwe will continue to uphold our great-great-grandchildren’s right to exist.

MNN Mohawk Nation News Staff www.mohawknationnews.com katenies20@yahoo.com

Please Note. Legal actions have to be taken to protect our rights. We have no funds. If you can donate anything to our cause, it will be greatly appreciated. Donate to PayPal,www.mohawknationnews.com, or “MNN Mohawk Nation News”, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen.

http://www.reclamationinfo.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=2368#p2368

Splitting the Sky, a Mohawk activist, actor and author will be one of the featured speakers at the March on Ottawa this Thursday, September 11, 2008. It is a commemoration of the massacre of thousands of people at the Twin Towers in New York city on September 11th, 2001. Mohawk ironworkers were some of the construction workers on the Twin Towers and continue to be concerned about this issue. Come hear the arguments to substantiate the allegations.
http://www.marchonottawa2008.org/ www.splittingthesky.net 

Posted by MNN Mohawk Nation News www.mohawknationnews.com Contact: katenies20@yahoo.com kahentinetha2@yahoo.com

Go to MNN “Six Nations” category for more stories; New MNN Books Available now! Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStore http://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews; Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updates http://.mohawknationnews.com/news/subscription.php; Sign Women Title Holders petition! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois

poster: katenies

 

ONTARIO COURT ORDERS VIRTUAL ALGONQUIN “NOHAWKS”

Posted on by
15.04.2008 21:30:56
ONTARIO COURT ORDERS VIRTUAL ALGONQUIN “NOHAWKS”

TO STOP SPEAKING TO MOHAWKS –

MNN. March 29, 2008. Our Haudenosaunee Territory is now infested with paper “Algonquins” and virtual “Algonquin” communities created by “Mother” Joan “Ho”lmes. She is the darling researcher, registrar, genealogist, membership clerk, judge, jury and would-be executioner of our nationality. She is the “gun for hire” by Canada or anybody that wants to become or create paper mache “Indians”. We understand she receives a large sum of money for each Indian she signs up. If the real Indigenous at Ardoch or Sharbot Lake want an Algonquin identity, according to our ways, they have to live on Algonquin land.

Mother Joan has also been known to write fake history about the Haudenosaunee that Canada uses to try to settle their phony claims to our land. She’s been hired to write the phony history of the Mohawks of Kanehsatake, Kahnawake, Akwesasne, Tyendinaga and Wahta. She even helped convince the ignorant Kanawake band council that our land was given to us by Louis XIV!!!

We are a bigger industry for these gangsters than General Motors! In the syndicates they set up, all the top jobs go to “non-natives” except for the figurehead, like Ellen Gabriel, who gets brought out for photo ops. She does not legally represent us. Only members of her organization vote for her. It’s like saying the head of the women’s auxiliary of the church represents all Canadian women.

Those Algonquin “Nohawks” who don’t follow the party line are called NLA, “No Longer Active”. We are informed that Mother Joan creates “Indians” with a five year expiry date. Is “nationality” like a driver’s permit! It looks sillier and sillier all the time. Right now about 20 people have up-to-date licenses and run the whole show. This gives them access to lots of money. They also have a “chief-in-training” who gets voted in by those few “Nohawks” who have active status. Mother Joan needs 125 virtual Algonquins for each community to be able to “conduct business” called “joint ventures”, which are run by non-native shell companies, like Coreshellgroup.

According to reports of witnesses who were in court, Judge Cunningham issued an order that the “Algonquins” cannot “speak directly or indirectly to anyone who they believe could be or is in contact with the Mohawks”!! How did this guy graduate from law school? They could get six months in jail for violating this order. How do they plan to monitor it? The Sharbot Lake “Nohawks” agreed to this condition. It apparently was requested by Neil Smitherman, the ambulance chaser [lawyer] for the uranium mining companies, Frontenac Ventures Corporation and Platinex, who want to mine in the area. An ambulance chaser for “Ardoch Algonquins”, consented to this decree. How can a court be making orders like this? It seems like they think they can do anything they want, that the law is something they can dictate.

In the meantime, Doreen “Wishbone” Davis, another “Nohawk”, is running a cigarette shop on Silver Lake, with Unity and Confederacy flags flying out front. The non-native girl working there said that the RCMP gave Doreen permission to run her store. The land is leased by a native guy from a non-native. This is not sovereignty.

The colonial perpetrators are panicking to cover-up their fraud and questionable activities. This whole scam needs to be investigated by the RCMP fraud squad and the Auditor General of Canada. They think their Shakspearean tragedy is still running, but it’s over. We’re hanging on to our vegetables that we should be throwing at these corrupt actors.

This order sounds like a prototype of the kind of controls that the colonists will try to put on the “real” Indigenous who stand up to the frauds being committed by the corporations, mining companies and colonial governments and their agencies.

We took over the Thurlow Aggregates Quarry in March 2007, to protest an age old robbery and injustice over the illegal infringement on our land without our informed consent. It is a clear violation of our authority and international law. At first the band council supported us. Then Julian “Who-was-born-in-Italy-and-thinks-he-knows-how-to-run-a-banana-republic-like-Canada” Fantino met with the Tyendinaga band councilors, Donald R. Maracle, Roy Brant, Trevor Lewis, Barry Brant and Blayne Loft. They denounced us and went to other communities and corrupted them against us.

Last April 2007 the Mohawks of Tyendinaga demonstrated on the CN Railway tracks. The trains between Montreal and Toronto were shut down for 20 hours. A Mohawk woman met with the Commissioner of the OPP, Julian Fantino. He asked her to try to get them off the rail line or “he would kill them”. They went through the police lines to speak to the demonstrators. The police pointed their weapons at the men, women and children.

Last July 2007 Randy Cota of the Ardoch “Nohawks” asked our people to go up to help them. Our men felt something was eerie about it. They went up and were alarmed when they saw the Ontario Provincial Police involved at the protest site. Cota forgot to tell our people that he was an OPP officer. It was almost like the Mohawks were being set up for an ambush by the OPP bush-wackers. There were no Indians locally, only the settlers all dressed up in their Ralph Lauren cottage wear. Something did not add up. They decided to get out. Since then these “Nohawks” have treated us with disdain.

Fantino publicly said last June 29, 2007, on the “Day of Protest”, “We want a peaceful day”. Behind the scenes he had lined up APCs, tanks, soldiers and paramilitary. He had everything ready to wipe us out.

CBC’s “The Current” got some handwritten notes by OPP officers on how Commissioner Fantino planned to raid the Mohawk demonstrators on the night of June 28 on Highway 401, Highway 2 and the CN Rail line. Actually, nothing was blocked. As promised the Mohawks removed their peaceful demonstration on June 29th. Shawn Brant turned himself in for “mischief”. The notes described how Fantino brought in the TRU Tactical Rescue Unit, SWAT team, Emergency Response and the Riot Squad along with police choppers and aircraft to watch the Mohawks. Even though nothing was going on, Itchy Fingers Fantino gave the site commander, Carson Pardy, the final call to go in, which they did not.

Mandy Smart of Tyendinaga said she saw the heavily armed OPP gathering in the area. The OPP wanted to use force. When she met with Fantino, he warned her that if the Mohawks did not leave by 6 a.m. on June 29th, there would be an attack. “He did not care if the men, women and children were behind those lines.” CN Rail which runs through disputed Mohawk land, suspended rail traffic between Montreal and Toronto for the day.

Last Monday, March 24th 2008, Shawn Brant went to court. Randy Cota has been trying to help make Shawn out to be the leader at Tyendinaga. On March 18th Cota forwarded a message to Shawn Brant from his OPP colleague, Nathan Leland. Leland had sent a memo to his operatives [JUS] to watch a video on Shawn Brant entitled, “Why has he not been arrested for terrorism?” It came from caledoniawakeupcall, a racist anti-Iroquois site run by one of their operatives, Gary Mchale.

Shawn Brant has been told that if he does not accept a plea deal of 12 years for “blocking” the railroad and the Trans Canada highway, they will put him away for 90 years. [ocap@tao.ca 416-925-6939]

We’re beginning to think it’s time for us to clean up our communities of these outside influences. It looks like this is what’s happening. We all want a clean peaceful community.

Kahentinetha Horn, MNN Mohawk Nation News

Click on “News” and see category “Sharbot Lake”

poster: katenies
 

 

“IMAGINARY LINE” ISSUE FOR ALL ONKWEHONWE OF NORTH AND SOUTH TURTLE ISLAND

Posted on by
At the request of various interests, this has been reposted to register our objection to the Haudenosaunee Task Force on Border Crossing representing us in “talks” with the US and Canadian colonial governments. We also provide more contacts at the end for you to put pressure on those who are making deals with the colonists over our heads.

“IMAGINARY LINE” ISSUE FOR ALL ONKWEHONWE OF NORTH AND SOUTH TURTLE ISLAND

MNN. Jan. 9th 2007. The international situation between Canada, U.S. and Mexico is not very complicated. There are two peoples involved. It is us (the Onkwehonwe) and them (the colonists).

We Onkwehonwe, also known as “Indigenous” people, have an inherent right to traverse Turtle Island. When human beings first appeared, Creation gave us the original instructions to be respectful, to live in harmony with the rest of the natural environment and to always adhere to the original ways.

The Haudenosaunee Task Force on Border Crossing [made up of Curtis Nelson, Oren Lyons, Leo Henry, Paul Williams, Darwin Hill and others] was set up without consultation with us. They appear to be cooperating with the colonists who want to issue “smart cards”, something like a credit card. Everything about us will be on that card. This is another straw to try to break the back of the Onkwehonwe.

Many of us who have been active and concerned for a long time found out for the first time this past weekend this committee was set up. They’ve already met with U.S. Homeland Security and Canada Customs and Immigration to work out compliance with colonial terms. We have not been allowed to question this committee. We resist their attempts to pressure us into accepting the colonial timelines and the proposed card which is a de facto recognition of the “imaginary line”.

Preamble

We Onkwehonwe face the US-Canada-Mexico border almost every day. Our nation-to-nation relationship with the colonists is through the U.S. President and the Her Majesty the Queen of Canada. It is governed by the principles of the Two Row Wampum Agreement. One condition of tolerating the presence of the colonists was that we would continue our pre-contact right to conduct trade and commerce and travel anywhere in the Western Hemisphere.

Jay Treaty (proviso)

The Jay Treaty of 1794 is a third party agreement and can have no binding effect on us. Traveling around on our homeland is a birthright, not a “privilege”. Colonists cannot interfere with our crossing of their imaginary line they call the Canada-U.S. and U.S.-Mexico borders. The Jay Treaty created the imaginary line on the 49th parallel. The Iroquois Confederacy said at the time, “It is for you, not for us”. The Confederacy would not agree to this as we were looking out for all Onkwehonwe, our friends and allies. The line between the colonies of Mexico and the U.S. was created by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. These lines allowed the colonists to illegally implement privileges and tariffs.

Article III of the Jay Treaty is a violation of international law.

“the right of aboriginal peoples (people indigenous to Canada and/or the US) to trade and travel between the United States and Canada, which was then a territory of Great Britain. This right was restated in section 289 of the 1952 Immigration and Naturalization Act: Nothing in this title shall be construed to affect the right of American Indians born in Canada to pass the borders of the United States, but such right shall extend only to persons who possess at least 50 per centum of blood of the American Indian race.

The Jay Treaty was made between two colonial corporations, Britain and the United States, to provide privileges for the colonial subjects. It did not include our political position. It contradicts itself when it stipulates that it would not be “construed” to affect who is and who is not an Onkwehonwe. In fact, it stipulates that this article applies to those who are “naturalized”. So an immigrant who becomes an American, Canadian or British is subject to the rules and privileges of the “corporation”.

Colonists and their “Indian” representatives speaking to band or tribal councils or incorporated “Indian” entities is not consultation. Once they thought they had pacified us and diminished our population, the colonists put these restrictions in place without informing, consulting or getting our consent. Now new restrictions are being imposed according to their “might makes right” paradigm.

We will tell the colonizers what we want, not what they want us to do. It tells us we can travel with personal belongings, not with “bales”. They wanted to extinguish trade and commerce between all Onkwehonwe. “Bales” referred to the fur trade. It meant anything that is more than one, and could not be resold. They set up a system of extortion to interfere with our ancient rights to sustain ourselves. It was similar to the killing off of all the Buffalo on the Plains.

The colonists have demonstrated their disregard for universal human law. Every human has the right to their existence, their own nationality, their land and their government.

The colonizers are trying to blackmail us into recognizing their borders between Canada, U.S. and Mexico. We have our own territories, our own understandings and respect for each other. We did not need standing armies to protect the borders of our territories because we practiced respect for those who inhabited the particular area. We still do.

Passports and Citizenship

Canada and the U.S. are trying to push us into getting Canadian or US passports to restrict and control our movements. We have a right to maintain a connection to our Onkwehone people throughout the Western Hemisphere. The colonizers are trying to class us as American or Canadian or Mexican “Indians” by illegally and violently forcing us to alienate ourselves from our birthright. They cannot make us something we are not. Today they tell us we need a card. Next they will tell us we need a mark on our forehead.

We are not members of any of these colonial entities. We cannot carry passports of foreign corporations of which we refuse to be members. These colonists are trying to make us commit an illegal act. As independent Indigenous peoples we have a right to deal with such issues based on our own laws. The colonizers are bound by agreements they have entered into such as the UN Charter of 1948 and the International Covenant on Cultural and Political Rights.

The concept of “citizenship” does not exist for us. We are Kanion’ke:haka, not citizens. A “city” is a corporation which one becomes a part of with privileges that can be taken away by the hierarchical governing body. No nation has a right to denationalize another nation.

ID Cards

There is no consistency as to what ID the colonists want. When we produce ID they punch our name into the computer and information comes up on that screen. Now they are pushing for us to have a specific ID which they will decide on and authorize. The advisors of the colonists are conforming and misleading our people. The colonists have already made a decision and are relying on the ignorance of our people to implement it. This violates international law because we were not genuinely consulted. Our laws do not allow us to give away the birthright of our children and future generations.

We have a right to decide how we will be identified. Phil Fontaine of the AFN [Assembly of First Nations] has suggested that we use their government-issued “Indian status cards”. Many Onkwehonwe don’t have such a card. A lot of imposters do.

The colonists want the micro chip in the card to contain our DNA, retina scan and finger prints. They will put this into a data base where a satellite GPS tracking system will know our whereabouts at all times. The European countries have rejected this and still require paper passports because the U.S. recommendations violate human rights.

Today the colonial governments are forcing us to shoulder the burden of threats to their national security by bringing us under their rules. Why should we? We’ve never carried out terrorist threats or acts of violence anywhere in the world.

More and more these border guards are bullying our people, trying to ensnare and control us. Intimidating tactics are being used to entrap our people into doing something that will give them a reason to detain or charge us. Cavity searches are being carried out by the customs goons which violates human rights.

Jurisdiction

The Two Row addresses the jurisdiction issue. We never surrendered our jurisdiction over ourselves or our land. Legality requires proper procedures. If they have cause to stop one of our people they can do so according to the Two Row Wampum Agreement. They can turn them over to us. It is our responsibility to deal with those who are in violation or committing a wrong and to restore the peace between our peoples.

The colonists have no right to order us to have these pass ports or anything by January 2008 or anytime. We will tell them whether we will do something or not. To follow the rule of law, the protocol is for them to meet with us. We must polish the Silver Covenant Chain and dust the Two Row Wampum. The Two Row Agreement governs our nation-to-nation relationships with the colonizers through their heads of state.

Conclusion

We Onkwehone are here to fulfill our duties and responsibilities as the Indigenous sovereigns of Turtle Island. The colonists are trying to kidnap our people from our canoe and force us to row their boat. We are being held hostage against our will in violation of the Two Row Wampum Agreement. We can only leave our canoe by our own free will. Those being forced to live under the illegal Indian Act and federal Indian law system are hostages forced to live under an alien social, economic, political system.

When times get rough the colonizers use these violent tactics to try to control us and make us lose confidence in ourselves and our traditional system. In the past when they could not defeat our people, they destroyed the things we needed to sustain us. They disconnected us from our mother, the earth. She is always there to sustain us. We continue to stand by her to protect her.

We are not afraid to defend our birthright and to protect the next generations. Onkwehonwe throughout the world are presently fighting to protect our children, our people and our land. This entire process to undermine us is a continuation of the genocide that the colonists initiated 500 years ago. Only the names and faces in the corporation have changed.

Kahentinetha Horn kahentinetha2@yahoo.com
MNN Mohawk Nation News
http://www.mohawknationnews.com

**Send your comments to anyone or any entity that you think is affected or should be concerned. Ask them about the action they are taking or know is being taken to protect Onkwehonwe independence:

Canada-US line: Haudenosaunee c/o haudenosaunee_online@yahoogroups.com;

Onondaga nosneaks2@msn.com;

Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force joyceking@westelcom.com

Ganienkeh Territory info@ganienkeh.net

On the US-Mexico line: International Indian Treaty Council http://www.treatycouncil.org

B.Norrell b_norrell@yahoo.com

poster: katenies

 

Prentice Power?

Posted on by

“YOUR ACHY BREAKY MIND”!
IS SIX NATIONS/CALEDONIA A DIVERSION
FOR THE INDIAN AFFAIRS MINISTER?

MNN. Oct. 12, 2006. Minister of Indian Affairs, Jim Prentice, you remind me of “Barney Fife” on that old television program “Mayberry”. He was a blowhard, smug and incompetent. You pretend to be analytical and over enthusiastic about Indigenous people. But you don’t know anything about us nor do you want to. When you look at us, all you see are oil wells sticking out of our heads. Is that why the oil industry in Calgary has you by the short hairs? Are we right? Do the dots join up the way we see them, Barney?

The Conservative Party realizes that they might lose the next election. So they need you to push some big changes through as fast as you can say, “We gotta get dem Injuns out of the way so we can get their oil”. You represent “Calgary North”. What does that tell us? You’re the Minister of Indian Affairs and you’ve got a big job to do. As your riding website boasts: “He also starts the assignment with top qualifications.” As one oil industry leader put it, “There has never been a minister who has been better qualified going into a portfolio than Prentice” [National Post, Feb. 27, 2006.] Of course, what they really mean is they’ve never had their man right in the “Tower of Power” in Hull, Quebec, like this before.

Barney, you have a lot of debts to those who put you in power. Calgary is the oil capital of Canada. There are Indian communities all around Calgary, like Tsuu tina, Blood, Piegan, Blackfeet, Stoney and others. The oil industry wants oil. They want to start explorations. Indigenous people and our land regime are in the way. They don’t like it when we keep telling the industry, “It’s our land and we won’t let you ruin it”. That’s the problem. We want to clean up the environment. They can’t stand our complaints about their emissions and pollution, which are going to double in the next ten years, along with the Prime Minister’s “double talk”. By the way, Alberta is already the most polluting province in Canada.

At Six Nations/Caledonia, Captain Gary [McHale’s navy] was begging for money just a few days ago. He practically called off his 20,000 “White Man’s March” onto the reclaimed Indigenous land of Kanenhstaton. He said he might even have to go back to work to maintain his lifestyle in Richmond Hill, the ritzy suburb of Toronto, which is also on Six Nations land. Suddenly he’s back in the “riot-and-violence-against-Indigenous-people” business in a big way. His parade on October 15th is on again. Is he a gun-for-hire and “back in the saddle again?” Only with corporate money can one get so much corporate media coverage as he’s getting. Also it’s expensive to bring in those busloads of paid stooges to start the kind of vicious attacks that we’ve been experiencing in the recent past. We are unarmed and we are on our land.

Now we see that the Six Nations/Caledonia firestorm has been built up to be a diversion. This is the two-step set up. Gary McHale is going to keep the attention focused in the East. The federal and Ontario governments and police want him to create a big racist fascist attack on the Six Nations people. It would seem the bigger the better, as far as you and your oil baron backers are concerned. Right on cue, Mayor Marie Trainer of Caledonia is going to cry, “No! No! No! No! No!” If anything happens, “I want to declare a state of emergency!” In other words, “Bring in the army”. Then martial law will be declared. And this will show what will happen to other Indigenous people who resist the takeover of our resources by the oil companies and corporations.

Must be getting pretty busy in the war room, eh Barney!

In the meantime, Barney, you’re getting what your want – a big diversion so that you can put through some draconian measures like privatizing Indian lands which you have already announced. You are putting us on the fast track for genocide. And the world is watching. This is “termination” with the stroke of a pen. In 20 years over 100 Indian nations were wiped out in the US. None ever got their land back. This is absolutely illegal. We’re not letting this happen. Everybody, get off the fence.

We see that you need to make it look like you have a justification for passing certain laws to remove our rights over our land. Stirring up violence against us is one way. Canada signed in 1948 the UN Convention on the Crime and Punishment of Genocide. You can personally be tried and convicted of genocide under international law, Barney. If you work for the oil industry, then they own you lock stock and barrel! If you remove Indigenous people and Indian title to help your corporate bosses steal our resources, you will put yourself on the fast track to jail for committing the crime of genocide.

We think we know where you get your orders from. Do they come from Texas, the oil capital of the world, to Calgary, the oil capital of Canada, to Indian Affairs in Ottawa? Do they make the decision to terminate all Indigenous people and our land rights in Canada so that the oil companies can rape us and the colonial country of Canada? We always knew there was oil involved in what’s happening to our rights. We smelled it. We didn’t get oil fever. We got wise. Yep. You just may be owned by the oil companies!

Barney, here’s what we think of your plan to lock up our communities:

There once was a minister they called “Dim”

Who carried out the oil industry’s whim

His mind was all dusty

His weapons were all rusty

That’s why he did what he was told

He sold his soul for black gold

We need solidarity support this weekend, October 15th, at Six Nations/Caledonia. So come stand with us or contact thebasketcase@on.aibn.com Do whatever you can to help.

Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News

poster: Thahoketoteh

 

Canada wants back Ahenakew’s Order of Canada medal.

Posted on by
MNN. Nov. 8, 2005. Canada wanted David Ahenakew’s Order of Canada medal, back. It’s the colonial honor they bestowed on him for being an “obedient Indian”. What they really want is a ceremony where the Governor General of Canada yanks the medal off his chest and slaps his face. That would make them feel better. Then they don’t have to look at their own disgusting behavior and actions towards Indigenous people. They like to pick faults with us. That way they don’t have to confront their own flaws or do anything about the plight of our people.Ahenakew, a WWII veteran, is the Indigenous man who uttered what the politicians, media and court decided were “anti-Semitic” remarks in a private conversation with a reporter of the Saskatoon Star Phoenix.Canada gave him the medal to signify that he had served the Queen and Canada well. Giving medals is an old colonial ploy to co-opt leaders among the Indigenous people and to pacify them while they’re stealing our property and resources.The colonizers like to imagine that Indian chiefs were keen to wear their gaudy medals and paraphernalia because they were attracted to glitter. Nothing could be further from the truth. We posed for those awkward photos just to be polite and have a good laugh. Usually the coats didn’t fit. Those scrawny malnourished hunch-shouldered Englishmen couldn’t imagine how fit and self-confident Indigenous men were.

Such a fake “honor” puts an Indigenous person above his own people. It violates the egalitarian nature of Indigenous culture. Ahenakew may even have felt uncomfortable about this honor given to him by the colonial masters. Could he subconsciously have wanted to get rid of it? (I wouldn’t take it because everybody would think I was a sell-out.) When one of our people receives this kind of “recognition”, we always wonder what Indigenous right they gave away or what compromises they made. Now he’s finding his way back without this medal weighing him down.

Nobody should make light of the suffering of the Jewish people. Is the perception they suffered more significant than the persecution suffered by anybody else? All people should be treated equally. Nobody should be persecuted.

Why is the holocaust suffered by Indigenous peoples being swept under the rug, forgotten, denied or belittled? It has been going on for over four centuries. It has never stopped. Canada killed off most of us, stole our resources and refuses to deal with us on an equal nation-to-nation basis. Why don’t Canadians acknowledge and repudiate the sins of their ancestors? They have never prosecuted anyone for constantly spreading misinformation through all their institutions about our true rights and history.

Canada made claim to Dave Ahenakew. They said he represented Indigenous people. He certainly never represented me or my independent Nation. He was a chief under the illegal Indian Act, which violates Section 109 of the British North America Act. At one time he headed the National Indian Brotherhood, now known as the Assembly of First Nations (AFN). This government-funded and controlled organization of band council puppets carries out the agenda of the Canadian government and the genocide of the Indigenous people. They make sure that the true constitution-to-constitution relationships between the Indigenous peoples and Canada is ignored.

It is doubtful that Dave Ahenakew hates Jews. Did he have to do something outrageous to lose his colonial badge? The dominant society no longer has any use for him. So they will put him back where he is comfortable, with the Indigenous people.

Why the fuss over medals? Canada is currently sending out medals to elderly World War II veterans. Once again Canada is tagging behind the United States. Both are glorifying war because they want more youth to enlist in the military. A television news item shows a woman in her office in Ottawa with shelves of plastic boxes full of new medals (probably made in China). When she gets a letter, she boxes them and sends them out to the soldiers who request them.

What can Dave Ahenakew now do with that medal? He could melt it down and make spurs for his cowboy boots!

Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News

poster: Thahoketoteh