So do I. And I'm sure people appreciate and applaud your concern. So do I.
I don't wish to question your sincerity or motives, I encourage them. But I
come from Kanehsatake Territory in southern Quebec (Oka is the neighbouring
town) and the shootout at Cattaraugus is nothing like what happened there in
1990.
The 78-day standoff at Kanehsatake was precipitated by a massive raid by the
SQ (Surete du Quebec) following a three month peaceful occupation of The
Pines, common lands in the territory upon which the town of Oka wanted to
clearcut the forest and bulldoze the reserve cemetary to extend a golf
course. The SQ came in with SWAT teams and riot gear, helicopters and attack
dogs, to enforce an expired injunction to remove a two-foot high pile of sand
(the barricade) on little-used dirt road through the woods that the people in
the encampment had placed there to prevent drunken goons from the reserve
from harrassing the protesters.
Mohawks say the police shot first that morning; the police say they were
returning fire. What isn't in dispute is that the police deliberately
targetted unarmed and unresisting Mohawk women and children that morning.
Enraged Mohawks then drove the police out of the territory and built a
barricade using crushed police cruisers and riot vans, erecting the first
real barricade on the main highway at the reserve's limits. It remained
until the Canadian army move in, with more troops and arms than the country
sent to the Gulf War.
At Akwesasne near Cornwall, Ontario, the winter before, two men were killed
in a Mohawk "civil war" that erupted between supporters of the band and
tribal councils and those supporting the warrior's society, casino owners and
cigarette smugglers. Preceeding this was a long period of escalating
tensions between both the Canadian and American councils and the "free
enterprise" businessmen over control of the local economy. With millions of
dollars at stake every year, both sides drafted and employed armed "goons"
and terror to drive the other side into submission. Boths sides whipped
people into a frenzy with talk that theirs was a "holy" war against evil. In
the end, they only succeeded in polarizing the territory into two
heavily-armed camps - with no neutral ground allowed for anyone.
I suspect we are seeing something similar at Cattaraugus from the few
snatches of information I've gleaned from the news and from snippets of
conversations I've heard from people here in Toronto. It really is true that
if we don't learn the lessons of the past, we are doomed to repeat them.
But Kanehsatake was not Akwesasne. And it was nothing like what's happening
today in Cattaraugus.
Dan David
shmohawk@tvo.org