Land Defenders Statement Below
Please post and distribute widely.
MNN. Mar. 4, 2020. We peacefully took down our month-long train blockade in Kahnawake in support of our family, the wetsuweten. The people’s original fire by the CPR tracks has been moved near the highway 132 approach to the Mercier Bridge to Montreal. It is a people’s movement. Every participant everywhere equally exercised our power and voice to uphold the great peace. Our community is unified. Communities worldwide join us. Native and non-natives stopped the trains from east to west coast to support the wetsuweten. We continue to stand together.
Our people, friends and allies stood together against Canada because we all want to the same basic human right of respect, honor and truth, which is the basis of the kaianerekowa, great peace. The ongoing 500 year genocide of us and our land has to stop now. The late chief wahtahkwets [Pat Namox] said, “It is up to us to create a new memory in the minds of our children”.
This is a collision of right versus wrong. The people of Kahnawake united [Mohawk Council, the two longhouses and the Peace Keepers]. Now Canada has to deal directly with the true traditional caretakers of turtle island. It is owned by our unborn children and can never be transferred or sold to anybody.
The Quebec Police, the RCMP, even the army, CP Rail supported this blockade. CPR got an injunction but never served it because it was the right thing for them to do.
We took peaceful action. The onus is on Canada to negotiate in good faith, to respect our natural right to our land, which is to care for our mother and all life on turtle island. We cared that Canadians and people worldwide stood with us.
Even now Canada and its agents are aggressive and threatening, always ready to pull out guns and point them at us. They hope the talks will not accomplish anything. Study UNDRIP [United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People] which Canada must adopt without amendments. Once Canada respects all the sovereign rights of the wetsuweten, it is the precedent for all of turtle island.
According to the only law of ononwarekeh [turtle island], whenever there is a need, we are there for each other. The fight for the recognition and respect of Indigenous rights is a marathon, not a sprint. Our duties to turtle island and our people will never stop. As the trains pass by, we will always pursue our responsibilities, tewatatawi. We exist beyond our communities. Our actions are based on the kaianerekowa, the great peace, the only law of the land.
Fats Waller wrote the 1930 song the “Sunny Side of the Street” which reflects our victory: “Grab your coat and get your hat. Leave your worry on the doorstep. Just direct your feet to the sunny side of the street. If I never have a cent I’d be rich as Rockefeller. Gonna set my feet on the sunny side fo the street”.
MNN Mohawk Nation News kahentinetha2@protonmail.com For more news, books, workshops, to donate and sign up for MNN newsletters, go to MNN Archives. Address: Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0
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