MNN Analysis: Tyendinaga Mohawk Defense of the Land

eastern ontario | indigenous | news report Tuesday April 22, 2008 19:57 by Kahentinetha Horn - MNN Mohawk Nation News

MNN. April 22, 2008, 7:00 EDT. Congratulations! Mohawks of Tyendinaga! You made the colonial apparatus show their true colors! We stopped the construction and no one got hurt. We wouldn’t have the evidence if we hadn’t stood up to colonial lawlessness. Nothing’s changed since Ipperwash! It might even have gotten worse. The Mohawks used traditional guerilla tactics. We’re there! Then we’re not there! The OPP had no one to hit. So they left.

The vigilante state of Canada says it has an urgent need to settle native claims. We don’t see what there is to settle. It’s our land and it’s our resources. What they really mean is they want to unsettle things. They want to expand the colonial land grab in their favor. These greedy gobblers just won’t be satisfied until they’ve dispatched us all and stole the last square inch of our land.

Tyendinaga is on the Bay of Quinte between Kingston and Belleville along the TransCanada Highway 401. The issue is the illegal squatting on the Culbertson Tract of 1832 that guaranteed the Mohawks would never be molested or interfered with. Since 1832 squatting, developing and contamination has not stopped. We want this to stop.

We can’t stand to see how they continue to celebrate and rejoice in their theft and attempted bondage of Ongwehonwe people with a depiction of an “Indian” tied up on their Parliament Building in Ottawa.

This whole colonial scenario is to implement the “final solution”. We are the last hold outs who stand in their way. It’s a “life and death” drama being played out all over the world on us.

Mouthy lawyers call us “crazy people”, like Chris Reid, the ambulance chaser for the Ardoch Lake “No”gonquins, likes to say. He’s part of a whole industry of ambulance chasers who ,make a big living off our backs. They’re always there with their hands out, doing the “splitt’ist” and “divide and rule” things.

The colonial government’s position was revealed for all to see. Band Council Chief, R. Don Maracle, sided with his colonial masters and the squatters. He condemned our blockade and disregarded our views on the illegal occupation of our land. The real estate agent and developer, Emile Nibourg, has no permits or rights to build. He started the construction anyway, which is the provocation. Despite the Supreme Court of Canada ’s insistence on the importance of bonafide consultation with Indigenous people, this obviously carries no weight with these people or with the Ontario Provincial Police. They went ahead. There was no negotiation. We resisted his lawlessness. Then band chief R. Don said he is for negotiation or “accommodation”. He’s throwing the rock at us and then running off to hide. Band chief R. Don made it public that, “I’m the boss and the only one to sit at the negotiating table and eat with the colonial representatives to work out a deal”.

R. Don, it’s our land. It took a long time for Canadian men to accept this, but no mean no! if you go ahead anyway, it’s rape. The same principle applies here. We said NO. We mean NO. The cops should be arresting these cultural rapists.

The OPP tried to enforce its “three monkeys” protocol: we can’t hear you, see you or talk to you. The regional negotiation unit Aboriginal Response Team ART never showed up to talk to us. They just used “might” to deal with the legitimate rights of a sovereign people.

It’s the “helter-skelter” approach. The public is seeing their politicians go against the spirit of the law to get what they want. The Mohawks of Tyendinaga and the people of Six Nations have all the paper work on our rights. Canada and Ontario ain’t got no evidence! In other words, it’s desperation time! That must be why they are behaving so irrationally. They are under the delusion that their world will fall apart if they have to start obeying the law. When a rat gets backed into a corner, it bears its teeth. I guess these rats bear their teeth even when the corner is delusional.

We don’t want our people to get ambushed. We need to link with our supporters. We need to be cautious. We have to defend our land. If they retreat, we retreat. If they come back, we return.

Phil Fontaine of the “Assembly of Colonized First Nations” signed protocols with the RCMP, OPP and SQ last year to come down hard on us if we step out of his line. We don’t recognize Phil. Is he setting us up for his “Phil Fontaine Day of handing out pamphlets” on May 29th? Whatever he signed is between him and them. Why don’t we say, “Phil, this is the law. This is our stand. We are calling on everybody, including you, to follow the rule of law and not violate it for expedience or profit for you”.

The Iroquois Caucus who call themselves the “Iroquois Confederacy” were set up by Indian Affairs, not by the clan mothers. They did not come forward and make a statement one way or another. They ran and hid in the skirt of Indian Affairs.

On Tuesday, April 22nd, the SWAT Team in full gear was quickly dispatched to Tyendinaga. They had “ghost cars”, marked and unmarked” cars everywhere. The government that can’t afford to make sure that the people they have displaced have clean drinking water and healthy food spared no expense on arms to suppress any indigenous assertion of our rights. There is a large colonial “war chest” to shut us up for speaking against corporate and government corruption. Ontario expected the police to make all the faschist decisions for them.

The Ontario Provincial Police have become the private army of the predator capitalist colonial apparatus that is trying to enforce its will on us. We don’t want development so they think we’re in their way. When we deny them the right to desecrate the environment, they see lost opportunity. They don’t want the land and resource owners to sit at any table. We’re too environmentally and morally aware.

The cops brought in agent provocateurs who got them to organize rowdy activities so they could claim their “peacekeeping” services were needed. They incited the non-native citizens against us, urging them to demonstrate racist animosity towards us. If left to themselves, most of these people would get along with us just fine. Our supporters in these non-native communities have told us they’re scared to help us. They’re scared to express their support for our rights.

The native ministries in the colonial governments need to be contacted to find out who ordered this attack on us. We defended the rule of law and the norms for resolving political differences. They are trying to “hooliganize” everything. It’s police action provoking a reaction in the form of a confrontation. We always try to resolve this peacefully as it is on native land.

In short, we resisted. It was perilous. We retreated. They retreated. We put out our position non-offensively. The government refused to listen and refused to talk to us. They catered to a privileged class of greedy opportunists who pollute the air, land and waters and don’t take anyone’s wants or needs but their own into account.

By defending our rights, we are defending everybody’s rights. It’s all in defiance of European and Indigenous enlightenment to stop the rule of law from functioning.

Police chief Ron Maracle was the go-between. He frantically brought a letter to us. “You have to take down the roadblocks”, he inarticulately told us. He’s the one who wants a $1.9 million cop shop on the territory for 4 cops! We have to watch out for these “go between” guys who don’t want to bridge the gap of understanding but want to deliver us to their higher ups.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to use this money to improve the water and remove the mould in the houses? Once the desperate and life threatening health problems have been solved, there are many other things a community would rather build than a cop shop. Like a school! How about a Kaianereh’ko:wa law school so everybody can learn what we’re about instead of hitting us. Canada is, after all, required under international law to teach its citizens our points of view.

Ontario must have spent over $1 million to spring the 400 or more SWAT Team and other cops from Toronto and elsewhere. There were cruisers, ambulances, fire trucks, cameras and cube trucks lined right down the road for miles. Big police boats putt putted in the Bay. They got out all their fancy military toys. Every angle was covered.

There will be a solidarity march on Wednesday, April 23rd, at 8:00 am in Kahnawake, on Route 138. For information call Roxanne at 450-638-8683.

Watch for their next step: is it going to the same old, same old? Jails, injunctions and fines? Or are they going to take a deep breath and try something different – like becoming law abiding and living up to their obligations to keep the peace and respect our nation-to-nation relationship? This is the law! The Bay of Quinte is a beautiful area and we want to keep it that way.

Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News

Rotiskenrekete 613-849-1314 – 613-827-4991
email davidrmaracle@aol.com

OPP Eastern Regional Headquarters 613-284-4500 fax 613-284-4597

lg.beechey chief supt. Commander, Eastern Region, Smiths Falls.

MBQ R. Don Maracle, 613-396-3089, CELL 613-391-9249 RDONM@MBQ-TMT.ORG 613-396-3424 ext. 106 info@mbq-tmt.org

Jan Hill 613-396-6742

Emile Nibourg 613-561-0984 fax 613-544-7868
enibourg@sutton.com