Mid year Newsletter of the Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada
Update and Perspectives
7 August, 2007
Unceded Coast Salish Territory ("Vancouver, Canada")
The Mad Scramble Continues ...
The Harper government was caught off guard in mid April of this year when an aboriginal Member of Parliament, Gary Merasty, stood up in Parliament and demanded the repatriation of the remains of thousands of children who died in church-run Indian residential schools across Canada.
Responding to the release of our documentary film UNREPENTANT, and to a cross-country series of public protests and vigils organized by our Truth Commission on April 15, Merasty's call on April 16 provoked the government to declare that it would investigate the fate of these children and search for documentation about their buried location.
This historic breakthrough cheered many of us at first, especially as the major media across Canada picked up the story and actually cited the fifty percent death rate in the residential schools (see the Globe and Mail, April 24, 2007, "Natives Died in Droves ..."). But predictably, the government never followed through on its investigation, and, under growing international codemnation - Cuba and Iran tabled a motion at the United Nations in May to censure Canada for its genocide of native people - Ottawa simply scrambled to bury the residential schools holocaust as quickly as possible, through its most recent "settlement offer" to survivors.
Peanuts and a Gag Order
The Canadian government has given the more than 100,000 native survivors of these "schools" until August 20 to either accept or opt out of a settlement that does the following: gives each survivor a $10,000 lump sum, if they can prove they were assaulted or harmed, in return for signing off any legal action against the government or the churches and legally "gagging" themselves so that they can never speak about their case again.
In addition, the churches that were the prime perpetrators of the rapes, tortures, murders and acts of genocide are completely exonerated from any liability for these crimes or the deaths of students in their care; and none of the descendents of survivors, who suffer the same trauma and symptoms, are included in the agreement.
"This is a one time offer" announced Minister of Indian Affairs Jim Prentice last May. "There is no other compensation formula in the works ... ". In other words, take the crumbs we toss you 'cause that's all you're getting.
While expressing "concern" that the settlement compels survivors to legally silence themselves and thereby collude in the concealment of genocidal crimes, officials of the state-funded "Assembly of First Nations" have urged native people to accept the deal, despite the recent offer by the Catholic church of over $1.1 million for each of their non-native rape victims in the United States.
"I guess we're only worth one percent of what a white person is" commented Edmonton residential school survivor Sylvester Green at an occupation of a government office on May 11.
What to do?
An informal survey of the many residential school survivors throughout our networks indicates that over 85% of them are opposed to the Harper settlement offer and plan to opt out of it. Yet the government has stated that it will not necessarily be bound by the wishes of residential school survivors and will probably proceed with the deal anyway.
Clearly, any campaign to win real restitution and justice for survivors and their families must be based on the following minimal demands:
1. One Million dollars compensation must be given to every residential school survivor, without conditions;
2. Comprehensive compensation is required for all second and third generation survivors;
3. No legal restrictions can be placed on the rights of those who accept this offer, including no gag orders or "signing off" on future legal action by survivors or their descendents against the government and churches;
4. The Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and United Church of Canada must continue to be held liable and culpable for any and all crimes committed in their Indian residential schools, including the deaths of children;
5. Full, public disclosure must be made by these churches and the government of these crimes and of the fate and buried location of all children who died in these schools and in Indian hospitals, and a repatriation process commenced, and
6. All medical bills, drug and rehabilitation costs, and counselling expenses incurred by residential school survivors and their offspring must be paid by these churches and the government.
This said, we must acknowledge that making demands on the very institutions of church and state that committed genocide on native people has proven to be ineffective. Justice cannot be expected from a colonial system, but can only be created by aboriginal people and their allies themselves, through a proactive campaign of reclamation, in which the perpetrators of genocide, past and present, are brought to trial according to traditional law and in aboriginal courts of justice.
In other words, we can't rely on or wait for answers from the "white" culture and government, since no ultimate cure for genocide can be found within a racist, colonial system like ours.
We therefore need to launch a multi-level public campaign that aims to achieve the following:
1. The establishing of a public investigative body, named The International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada,
to gather the evidence to indict Canada and its churches before the world for crimes against humanity;
2. As part of this Tribunal, the creation of sovereign aboriginal courts of justice to try and sentence the perpetrators of residential school and other crimes against native people;
3. The commencing of an international trade and tourism boycott of Canada around the world, including a boycott of the 2010 Olympics in B.C.
4. The commencing of a domestic banning and boycott campaign against the Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and United Church of Canada, and the government of Canada, which will escalate into a full-scale civil disobedience movement against these institutions.
5. Launching a land reclamation movement, similar to the one organized by the Mohawk Confederacy, that will seize back all traditional native lands and resources and nullify all so-called "treaties" between puppet native bodies and governments across Canada, and in this way declare the outright independence of the various sovereign native nations.
Starting now, and persisting ...
Obviously, such a broad campaign will have to unite many non-native as well as native people across Canada in a two-fold effort to both educate and politically mobilize them.
Though small in number, for now, our Commission and its network has the truth on its side, in the form of countless eyewitnesses and much documentation to prove the guilt of Canada and its churches. We also have international law and opinion with us, and we need to appeal to that to bring unrelenting pressure to bear on the churches and government of Canada.
Each of us needs to commence this movement, wherever we are. We have good resources to work with: an award-winning documentary film, UNREPENTANT, two books on genocide in Canada, and a growing body of evidence:
(see Hidden from History). Most importantly, we have the actual survivors of residential school crimes, living and working among us.
Monday, August 20 is the first date in our upcoming calendar of actions across Canada, since that is the cut off date for anyone wishing to opt out of the Harper settlement offer. In Vancouver, Edmonton, and Ontario, public protests and civil disobedience actions are already being planned for that day. We urge all of you to hold protests, vigils or meetings on that day outside government and church offices, and call for the six demands listed above.
Monday, September 10 is our next day of national action, when the cross-country Tribunal hopes to begin its public sessions. Please contact us to assist the Tribunal in its investigations in your community.
To help you in building towards these and other events, our executive committee will be providing to each of you the names of all our contacts in your area, as well as resources such as copies of our film UNREPENTANT, which we urge you to publicly screen in your neighbourhood. Here is the google video link to the film:
UNREPENTANT
We will also be emailing to you regular news updates and other material to help you in your public education and action.
On a personal note, I will be undertaking a cross-country organizing and speaking tour in mid to late October that will take me to the prairies, Ontario and Quebec. I hope you will help arrange showings of our film and speaking events by me during those weeks.
We are confident that the growing movement to hold Canada and its churches accountable for genocide will continue to force the truth from these bodies, as it did last April. This brealthrough took place and will continue to occur only through the direct efforts of people like you.
Thank you, and please circulate this message to groups, media and individuals in your community,
We look forward to working with you more directly,
Sincerely,
Eagle Strong Voice / Kevin Annett,
West Coast Organizer
The Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada,
on behalf of the elders of our Commission
Hidden from History
Hidden from History Email
250-753-3345
pager: 1-888-265-1007
260 Kennedy St.
Nanaimo, BC
Canada V9R 2H8
Read and Hear the truth of Genocide in Canada, past and present, at this website: Hidden from History Website ...
... and on this radio program: "Hidden from History", every Monday from 1-2 pm (PST) on CFRO 102.7 FM (CFRO 102.7 FM) (Vancouver)
"When the desire for Truth and Virtue becomes the only bias in our mind, only then can we know in ourselves what is right."
Peter Annett, Humanist and dissident, 1769 (jailed and persecuted by the Church of England for his questioning of the Bible and the church)
Contents
August 2007 Reports
Last updated on August 12, 2007