APRIL FOOL'S DAY? ARE THE CANADIAN MILITARY AND POLICE PLANNING TO INVADE THE MOHAWKS?
MNN. March 14, 2006. "I don't trust them. We'll get ready for the
1st and they'll come in on the 2nd", said a Kanehsatake
grandmother. To help us Mohawks welcome the Spring, the RCMP and
the Canadian army seem to be planning to attack four of our
communities on Saturday, April 1st, 2006. Get ready, folks! This
is just one week away.
Tyendinaga near Belleville Ontario has found out about this from two
separate sources. Kahnawake, Kanehsatake and Akwesasne haven't been
told yet. We've all been the targets of surveillance by low flying
helicopters for some time now. They're inspecting our homes and
businesses. Why don't they drive up to our cigarette shacks in cars
like anybody else?
In Tyendinaga a chopper landed right in the middle of their runway
on Wednesday, February 8th at 8:30 pm. The soldiers got out,
stomped around for a bit, all decked out in full uniform, helmets
and night vision goggles. (Why did they land? Did someone need to
pee?) "We're just doing routine training, they told the ever-
suspicious Mohawks. Then they quickly jumped back into their
helicopter and flew away, without even waving good-bye. A week
later two army choppers flew low enough to shine bright blinding
lights right inside people's houses.
Last summer Mohawks bumped into Canadian and U.S. Special Operations
Soldiers on the CN Rail lines on Tyendinaga. The Mohawks chased
them off. Later they came across Canadian soldiers on a road near
their northern boundary. This time dozens of soldiers jumped out of
the trees on both sides of the road and scooted off like a bunch of
scared rabbits. What do you think of that?
These and other incursions over the past months and years worry our
communities. R. Don Maracle, the band council chief there, wrote to
the army on February 9th 2006. He protested the helicopter flights,
saying "further activities will be viewed as harassment and a
serious breach of protocol."
What did those guys means that it was just "routine training"?
Since when did Canadian soldiers practice on unsuspecting civilians
of another nation? This is an international incident! They
certainly don't run practice maneuvers in the middle of downtown
Ottawa or suburban Scarborough or Albany New York, do they?
Since 1994 Canada has been quietly reviving the old fashioned
Hollywood-Cowboy method for dealing with Indigenous people. What
they're doing is illegal under international law. But they're
trying to get away with it anyway.
They call it a crime for Indians to make and sell cigarettes on
reserve lands. But they still haven't resolved the boundaries
between Canadian and indigenous jurisdictions. Their constitution
says they have to respect "aboriginal and treaty rights". Their
highest courts say these rights are "inherent". That means they
have to respect our jurisdiction that predates the arrival of the
colonizers.
The trouble is they're still with cowboy and Indian fantasies. They
think we have to live like we did 400 years ago. Do they? Are they
going to go back to wearing little bloomers, frilly collars, ride
sailing ships and not bath? Not likely. But they still want us to
stay in canoes.
When you come right down to it, their decision to declare that our
business activities are crimes is illegal nonsense. They think they
have a right to raid us like a bunch of Rambos. They seem to have
forgotten about the commitment to peace and honorable negotiations
they made to our ancestors and to the international community.
They're not above trying to co-opt some of our cousins into their
deceitful schemes. James Gabriel of Kanehsatake allegedly signed a
deal in November 2003 with the Solicitor General to target all
Mohawks who are trading with their sister communities. They want to
wipe out the entire native run tobacco industry.
Canada thinks that the only way to scare the Mohawks is by launching
an overwhelming attack on us with massive military and police
armaments and weaponry. They just don't want us to become
economically self-reliant because then we would control our own
lives. Indian Affairs would be out of a job.
We Mohawks are proud of our prowess in looking after ourselves and
our people. We will not let colonial governments and their agents
criminalize us for running legitimate economic enterprises. Because
they fear our asserting our rights, Canada hires high priced public
relations firms to constantly demonize and stereotypes us
as "dangerous criminals". This is being done to condition the
public. If they think we're criminals, they wont object if we're
attacked. They won't notice that peaceful families are being
violated by armed "mercenaries". They'll think they're just
cleaning up crime.
In 1994, the Canadian army planned to invade these four
communities. It was called "Operation Scorpion Saxon". It was to
have involved some 1,500 soldiers, 2,000 RCMP and 2,000 Quebec
officers. What a great make work plan. Indian Affairs isn't the
only colonial government agency looking to justify its
existence. "They would invade at night with the forces arriving by
road, rail and air using helicopters and armored vehicles".
The soldiers would have brought tear gas, smoke bombs and pepper
spray. They were trained to use 66 millimeter rockets and M-67 type
fragmentation grenades. There would be low level helicopter flights
below power lines and shooting from flight levels of 100 feet.
There was no mention of what precautions were to be taken to protect
babies sleeping in their cradles, or to ensure that shrapnel avoided
hitting the elderly. Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2) commandos were on
standby. They figured this would cause countrywide native protests
and were prepared for multiple strikes across Canada. Obviously at
some level they knew that the public would be able to see what they
were doing was wrong.
When it was called off, the army called this "simple routine
training". Have we heard that before? Two reasons were given: (1)
CSIS advised Canada that there would be "grave political violence"
that the Canadian public would not tolerate; and (2) There were too
many leaks about the army's plans which would eliminate the element
of surprise they thought they needed. All this to stop Canadians
from smoking Native Cigarettes!
In the Toronto Star, Sgt. Martin Blais of the RCMP in Ottawa
said, "We would not confirm or deny this or any operational matter".
Maj. Mike Lagace of the Canadian Air Force Air Wings headquarters in
Winnipeg said relationships with local native communities are
important for the military, "when conducting flying exercise or
operations." So why aren't they telling us what they're up to?
What's routine about practicing military maneuvers in residential
Indian neighborhoods?
So, we Mohawks better brace ourselves just in case this is not an
April Fool's joke! Let's keep our eyes open. As one Akwesasne
resident said, "We're supposed to be watching out. But we're seeing
so many strange things these day we don't know what's out-of-the-
ordinary anymore". Maybe it's time for an email campaign to tell
the Canadian government to back off.
Kahentinetha Horn,
MNN Mohawk Nation News
See Clan Mothers Lay It on the Line
Contents
March 2006 Reports
Last updated on March 24, 2006