APRIL 20 IS ALWAYS A GOOD DAY. I HOPE THIS PROVOKES A WAVE A AMERICAN
INDIAN NATIONALISM THAT SWEEPS ACROSS CANADA, LEADING TO MORE
STANDOFFS, AND EVENTUALLY SPREADS TO AMERICA. ***** AMERICA
As of noon, no police were on the site, although talk spread throughout
the community that they were regrouping in riot gear with about 1,000
reinforcements.
LET THIS GO DOWN LIKE FUCKING TIAMEN SQUARE.
Six Nations Reserve repels Ontario police Email this page Print
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Posted: April 21, 2006
by: Jim Adams / Indian Country Today
OHSWEKEN, Ontario - More than 1,000 residents of Canada's Six Nations
Reserve rushed to the site of a standoff between Native protesters and
the Ontario Provincial Police during the early hours of April 20 after
an armed police raid resulted in 10 arrests and several
hospitalizations.
According to one report, two of the hospitalized were non-Native
supporters of the protest. About 15 protesters were sleeping at the
''reclamation site'' when a caravan of at least eight police vehicles
raided and made arrests.
According to the TV report, police were armed with drawn guns, Taser
devices and tear gas, although the weapons were not used.
Protesters at the contested construction site regrouped and pushed
police back to the nearby road as the call went out for support from
the largely Iroquois community, Amos Key, director of the community
radio station CKRZ-FM, said. The Native-run station is broadcasting a
live feed from the standoff on its Internet site, www.ckrz.com.
Key said that urgent talks were now under way between the Confederation
chiefs and officials of the provincial and federal governments.
Lisa Johnson, of the Bear's Inn in Ohsweken, was following live
television coverage of the events all morning and said that residents
of the reserve poured into the site as news of the early morning raid
spread through the community of 22,000 and by 7:50 a.m. had gathered in
sufficient numbers to force the police to leave. As of noon, no police
were on the site, although talk spread throughout the community that
they were regrouping in riot gear with about 1,000 reinforcements.
The arrests could total up to 15, but protesters who had been arrested
were released after being fingerprinted and photographed, although they
were warned that they faced jail time if they returned to the site.
Several had reportedly rejoined the protesters.
The television coverage resulted by accident. An employee of Hamilton
CHTV, noticed the police activity as he drove to work and notified a
camera crew, which broadcast from the site all morning. All other
reporters were barred from the site by provincial police.
After the OPP withdrew, protesters blocked Highway 6, also known as
Plank Road, which runs by the construction site called the Douglas
Creek subdivision, and a secondary road. They set a pile of tires on
fire and pulled a large dump truck across the road. A large pile of
tires and planks were assembled at another crossing, but at last report
it had not been set ablaze.
After the roads were blocked, residents continued to reach the site by
walking to the surrounding forest.
On the other hand, police closed streets entering the nearby town of
Caledonia, although schoolchildren were bused to school early in the
morning. Both schools were closed later in the day and parents on the
reserve were still uncertain how their children would be returned home.
Haudenosaunee Confederacy chiefs had met all night before the raid.
They reportedly told provincial officials that they did not control the
protesters, but they were attempting to negotiate on their behalf.
The timing of the raid was still unexplained, but the developers of the
subdivision had reportedly threatened to start a civil action against
the OPP to pressure it to remove the protesters.
The crisis brought a rare spirit of unity to the reserve, healing a
decades-long split between the elected band council and the traditional
confederacy chiefs.
The elected council was imposed on the reserve in 1924 by the federal
Canadian government to replace the traditional leadership, but the
confederacy persisted as an institution often at odds with the elected
governments on both sides of the border.
The band council had expressed doubts about the occupation of the
Douglas Creek site, which was supported by the confederacy chiefs.
In the aftermath of the raid, however, the council delegated
negotiating authority to the chiefs.
The crisis apparently has also hardened the outlook among the
traditional chiefs.
According to Key, the chiefs originally instructed the warrior groups
in the protest to leave the site if ordered to by the OPP.
Said Key: ''It's escalated and escalated. We're all frustrated. Our
goal is to get to the quality of life second to none that Canada
espouses to the world, but we are 30 years behind.''
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