H. Henning Riebe (riebe%dtmgmbh@Germany.EU.net) writes:
> Chief Antoine Archie of Canim Lake then broadcast the message over CBC
> radio, that people coming out of Gustafsen Lake have been treated with
> dignity and respect, as will the rest of the camp occupants should they
> choose to surrender.
I heard a report about Chief Archie's broadcast message last night on the
CBC evening news ("The World at Six"). Their on-the-spot reporter made
much of the fact that the Chief had made a statement in his native language
prior to what he said in English. No one seemed to know what he had said,
but they thought it might be important.
While I'm at it, I should mention that I was incorrect in what I said a
few days ago about an interview with a schoolgirl and principal of a
school near the standoff in Ontario. I meant to say that that report
referred to the Gustafsen Lake situation in British Columbia. Someone
who wrote to correct me said:
(first quoting me)
|> (The report was done by the CBC's Kurt Petrovich from 100 Mile House,
|> Ontario.)
|
| 100 Mile House is in the interior of British Columbia, about 200 miles away
| from Lake Huron but the nearest town to the Gustafsen Lake standoff. The
| RCMP are a federal force (like the FBI) but operate as provincial police
| (like state troopers) in several provinces under contract. BC is one of
| them.
|
| In both areas there are real claims at issue that have been pressed for
| decades, but the "extended" claims of sacred sundance grounds (BC) and the
| native burial grounds (Ont.) are fairly new and involve specific tracts of
| land which had not been advanced as claimed territories until they were
| occupied. Needless to say, this only adds to the confusion and the "novel
| claim factor" makes both issues that much more difficult for either side to
| address.
In any event, it seems clear that opinion within the Native community is
divided as to whether armed standoffs are the best way to assert land
claims. I read a statement by Ovide Mercredi (Chief of the Assembly of
First Nations) expressing what sounded like a strong desire to distance
himself and the long-term land claims negotiating process of which he is
part from these kinds of demonstrations. There was also an interesting
report on the CBC "Sunday Morning" program this past weekend talking about
how there are some pretty scary characters who have become associated with
the Gustafsen Lake standoff in B.C. who are talking about conspiracies they
claim are being undertaken by Jewish bankers to upset the world economy.
Whether the following report is simply part of a government disinformation
campaign or the work of their "spin doctors" is something for the reader
to decide. Personally, I feel that it's important to collect as many of
the facts as might be available before one gives support to one side or
the other, but I hope we all want that further violence in this and in the
other armed standoff (in Ontario) can be avoided, and that peaceful con-
flict resolution will be attempted by both sides as soon as possible.
After talking about Native grievances about how natural resources are being
exploited (e.g. by logging companies) that precipitated an earlier protest
at Adams Lake, B.C., the CBC reporter said:
CBC: Seeing ... all your resources trucked away - watching more white
families build houses on "Crown land," dealing with unsympathetic
white folks - all things that got the roadblock going at Adams Lake.
After a while, it became a bit of a party - cell phones, chesterfields,
bonfires, visitors to lend support - visitors like Glen Keelie [sp?].
GK: What you're seeing today is equivalent to Jesus going to the
temple to throw out the money-changers. When the Native person says
"enough is enough, I'm throwing you off my land," that's basically the
same context.
CBC: Glen Keelie was last seen in public on Parliament Hill - not in
the House, but outside, every day for two and a half years as a self-
appointed heckler against the corruption of the Mulroney government.
There he'd stand under the Prime Minister's office window yelling
"Noriega, Ceaucesceau [sp? - former dictator of Romania], Mulroney,
two down, one to go!" Then he'd say, "Why waste money on a lobbyist
if you can bribe direct!?" He then succeeded in laying charges
against three high-ranking Members [of Parliament], the RCMP, and a
line of Tory Cabinet Ministers, and he became a sort of strident folk-
hero. He also became more radical in his beliefs. For the past four
or five years, Glen Keelie has been travelling the country, particularly
the west. That's where [Native protest leader in B.C.] Splitting-the-Sky
heard about him.
[ The report goes on to describe the basis on which G.K. gained respect
among Native leaders, on claims of their having a "common enemy."
His message includes denunciations of government out of fears including
annexation by the United States, an invasion of the United Nations, and
against an international conspiracy. ]
CBC: It's a line of thought not dissimilar from that of some of the
U.S. "citizens' militia." The Adams Lake Natives came to his [G.K.'s]
speech in Salmon Arm - about thirty of them. Also in the audience
were about thirty non-Natives, including David Lethbridge, head of the
Salmon Arm Coalition Against Racism... And David Lethbridge reaches
into his thick file on Glen Keelie and pulls out one diagram describing
the Native / non-Native system of government for Canada [proposed by
G.K.] and another CHARTING THE LAST TEN THOUSAND YEARS OF WORLD HISTORY
[emphasis mine], LEADING UP TO ARMAGEDDON.
D.L.: There is a group of people, international bankers, headed by
the Rothchild family. Their investments involve a trillion dollars
every morning on the London Stock Exchange, through the House of
Rothchild. A trillion dollars is sufficient to change the value of
any currency in the world, cause inflation, deflation, recession,
depression. They can manipulate the stock market. They can cause
crashes, they can withhold investment and therefore cause depression
over time as they did in the late twenties. They have these abilities.
CBC: The day after his speech in Salmon Arm, Keelie was invited by the
Adams Lake band to speak in their community hall. He went.
...
Norm Kilgore: Some of the people that he [G.K.] is working with are
white supremacists. That's certainly true. But at the same time,
these people are anti-Semites... Keelie is not so much a white
supremacist as he is a closet Jew-hater... The common denominator
here is the claim that there is an international conspiracy to institute
a new world order and that the people behind this are Jews.
CBC: Paul Temant [sp?] is a political scientist, respected by Native
and non-Native communities alike. He finds the involvement of Keelie
with the Gustafsen Lake barricaders fits an age-old pattern.
PT: It looks like Glen Keelie has provided at least a diagnosis of
what's wrong with the world at the present time. And that provides a
rather comprehensive, if somewhat farsical, notion of what *is* going
on. Once one is perceiving a world-wide problem - and of course that
becomes a much more threatening circumstance than simply a few
incompetant provincial officials, for example, that one might blame
on things that are more immediate circumstance - one has to find or
invent or point to some identifiable group that can be blamed for the
problems. They have to be in this circumstance a group that has
economic power, that has political power, it would seem, and itself
has some sort of world wide network, or at least can be seen to have.
And so the Jewish people come up pretty high as a potential target
for that. So Glen Keelie comes in this way. Now I think it probably
would have occurred without Glen Keelie; I don't infer that he was a
causitive force here, but once they'd heard him, the world made more
sense to them, and their activities would [...inaudible...] more
rational and they're resisting more than simply whatever local
grievances there might be within British Columbia.
CBC: The Adams Lake blockaders have long gone. They're all now up at
Gustafsen Lake. They, like other traditionalists, want their land
back. They are demanding to have their rights respected. The bands
who [sic] have bought into the treaty process are between [sic] them
claiming one hundred and ten percent of the province. There are a
number of non-Natives in B.C. getting increasingly angry. That's why
three weeks ago, Judy Kilgore [the wife of Norm Kilgore, quoted above]
became a founding director of B.C. FIRE, Foundation for Individual
Rights and Equality. When she picked up her mail this morning, there
was three hundred dollars in membership cheques, and it's like that
every day.
JK: I mean the Natives cannot expect to own a hundred and ten percent
of British Columbia - that's unrealistic! ... When it comes to Crown
property, Crown land is mine too! And it's my children's heritage.
You talk about "Native," I don't really like the word "Native." I'd
rather say "Indian" and "non-Indian" - because I'm a native of Canada.
I live in British Columbia - I'm a native of British Columbia - and
that Crown property is mine too.
CBC: In the cold light of dawn, the standoff continues at Gustafsen
Lake. Glen Keelie is back in Ottawa where he lives, watching it all
on TV. Most Native leaders have distanced themselves from the
barricaders - they don't support them. Many are angry at what they've
done for the image of the Native people. But should any Natives get
killed, the potential for martyrs and heroes is immense. And men like
Richard Manual, the Nisgometh [sp?] Band counsellor [mentioned earlier
in a portion of the report which I have not quoted] interested in his
community, worries about what could happen. His father, George Manual,
was nominated for a Nobel peace prize for his work with indigenous
people. This time Richard doesn't think of his father.
RM: If anything happens up there, it's going to be so detrimental to
the relations between First Nations and white people, it'll be put
back twenty, thirty years in our relationship - if anything violent
happens up there. We do have members up there, young members, really
young members from the family, large family, are there... I want to
see nothing happen to them, because I know where I'll have to stand,
and I'll have to stand with them.
[ voice of RCMP officer, back at their camp, heard saying , with the
sound of a police radio in the background "OK, Mike, here's your
fry-pan back..." ]
CBC: For "Sunday Morning," I'm Karen Wells, at Gustafsen Lake, B.C.
The report above is only an excerpt. The first part, which gave some
background, is omitted. Tapes of "Sunday Morning" are available from the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In Canada, call 1-800-363-1530. From
outside the country, or in Toronto, call (416) 205-3456. The cost of
tapes is CDN$14.95 plus tax and shipping. The program's Internet address
is "sundaymorning@toronto.cbc.ca"
--
Gary S. Trujillo gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,cdp}!gnosys!gst