[IPSM] {The Gazette} Gabriel's top cop rejected by rivals

[Stefan Christoff]

Gabriel's top cop rejected by rivals
Three chiefs challenge Kanesatake police pact

KAZI STASTNA
The Gazette
Sunday, March 28, 2004

Three Kanesatake chiefs put Quebec and Ottawa on notice yesterday that
they will be held solely responsible for any repercussions or injury
resulting from the implementation of a new policing agreement to take
effect Thursday.

The Mohawks of Kanesatake have not accepted the policing contract exiled
Grand Chief James Gabriel signed this month with provincial and federal
authorities, said Chief John Harding, one of three band council members
who called the emergency community meeting yesterday.

The meeting was closed to the media, but some participants spoke of
preparations for an evacuation plan should violence erupt once current
police chief Tracy Cross is replaced by David E. Thompson, the interim
chief Gabriel appointed Friday.

"They're making a community plan on how to protect the community from
potential violence. ... They're going to evacuate people - children and
elders," said one woman who refused to give her name.

Sonya Gagnier, of the community police commission that appointed Cross the
"permanent" police chief this month, denied that an official evacuation
plan was adopted.

"The community thinks it's a serious situation," Gagnier said.

"It's really something dangerous. ... They're just worried about what's
going to happen. ... There are people who are worried, and maybe they are
making plans to move out their children and elders."

Gagnier and many of about the 150 people attending the meeting accused
Gabriel of not consulting with the community about his plans.

"He's going to bring in whomever he wants, when he wants. There's no
consultation. He does what he wants. He's a power unto himself,"
Kanesatake resident Clifton Arihwakehte Nicholas said.

Some people in the community of 1,800, which is 50 kilometres west of
Montreal, fear retribution against Cross supporters and other opponents of
the grand chief once Gabriel's new police force is in place, Nicholas
said.

"What people want is to be assured by the federal government that there
will be protection for the people of Kanesatake, because as it stands,
we're being collectively punished by James Gabriel," he said.

Gabriel was run out of Kanesatake in mid-January in a violent
confrontation over his efforts to crack down on crime by replacing Cross
and the 12-member police force with a group of 55 peacekeepers from other
aboriginal communities.

Gabriel's house was burned to the ground during the conflict, which lasted
several days and ended when peacekeepers were brought in from nearby
Kahnawake.

They and Cross have been in charge of policing ever since. But the new
four-year policing contract, which replaces one that expires Wednesday,
would reinstate officers who were pushed out along with Gabriel.

The plan also would allow for the hiring of four or five new officers,
said Clarence Simon, one of the three chiefs supporting Gabriel.

Simon, who didn't attend the meeting, questioned the intentions of
Harding, Steven Bonspille and Pearl Bonspille, the three band council
chiefs and Gabriel opponents who organized it.

"If they're calling it an emergency meeting, I would ask why, when it's a
matter of officers coming in peacefully to work for the community, unless
they have something planned," Simon said.

He dismissed criticism that the interim police chief, who is to remain on
the job until elections are held in June, is not known to the community.

Thompson is a qualified Mohawk police officer who has worked in aboriginal
communities in Quebec and the United States, Simon said.

Yesterday's meeting was a cynical ploy to get people excited and incite a
repeat of January's events, he said.

"I have a gut feeling that they are preparing their people for a
confrontation," Simon said when asked what he expects to happen on
Thursday.

A Kanesatake resident who didn't attend the meeting and refused to give
his name agreed, saying he's expecting to see barricades this week.

"It's the only negotiating tool they have left. They're a humiliation to
most people around here," he said.

kstastna at thegazette.canwest.com

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