By Terrance Nelson
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| Oka |
Roseau River Anishinabe
Censored News
Jason Bowman (Special Assistant)
Ka-nyen-geh-ha-kah of Grand River
Ka-nyen-geh-ha-kah of Grand River
Jason,
Thanks for your email.
Back in 1990 after the "Oka" Crisis, Mark Maracle and other Mohawks
met with us in Roseau River to discuss how we reacted to the crisis. We
agreed that we were not as organized as we needed to be, that Warrior
Societies needed to be more prepared for the eventual conflict with
government. Conservatives in 1990 under Brian Mulroney had no respect
for our people and Harper is much the same way. The difference is in how
prepared we as Warrior Societies are twenty-three years later.
The Treaty 1-11 meeting in Onion Lake, Saskatchewan July 14 to 18
will be a chance for the people themselves to plan and carry out action
to meet the current crisis in Canada. AFN will have their own meeting
the same time. There is a break taking place between AFN and those First
Nations that are tired of AFN. Only the Chiefs are allowed to speak at
AFN summits.
I told Mark that the biggest event in the 1990 Oka Crisis was the
railway blockades that took place in Ontario. Two First Nations blocked
railway lines. This was the biggest economic impact of the Oka Crisis.
Mulroney gave the people in the Treatment Center 48 hours to surrender
or he would send in the Army and take them out regardless of the lives
that might be lost. We in Manitoba reacted to the Mulroney threat.
I stood up on the legislative grounds steps and announced that if
Mohawks were killed, we would target Ford, GM, Chrysler, Alcan and of
course we were talking blockades of railway lines. The Canadian army was
setting up to kill our people. Of course, we would have reacted, but
the trouble is that we were severely unprepared in 1990. Today, we are
much better prepared.
Treaty 1-11 is not government funded but AFN is and AFN has always
been used by Government to keep our people in line. Watch AFN come out
from their summit with messages of caution and calls for calm. Watch
Government offer appeasements of cash to the Chiefs. The time for the
people to have a say in this is now and Onion Lake maybe the place to do
that. We will see.
The Train Derailment is being hushed up. It is not front page news
because as Douglas Bland warned, the railway lines cannot be protected
and the oil pipelines are all in Treaty 1-11 territories.
Thanks again for your continued efforts to keep people informed.
Terrance Nelson
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