[IPSM] Grassy Narrows article in the McGill Daily

[jigsaw at resist.ca]

quick question,
is it cool to have peoples full names and actions that they (have claimed)
to have done in the media when it hasn't been proven that they have done
this?  THis might be alittle bit risky for the people involved?  Any
opinions on this?



> Below is an article published by the McGill Daily about Grassy Narrows and
> their recent visit to Montreal. Also in this issue of the Daily is an
> article about the proposed Niocan mine on Kanehsatake lands, as part of a
> series of articles on First Nations (to be found at:
> http://www.mcgilldaily.com/view.php?aid=3823)
> Cheers
>
> ---
>
> Ojibways maintain two-year blockade against Montreal-based logging company
> http://www.mcgilldaily.com/view.php?aid=3824
>
> By Simon Hodges
> The McGill Daily
>
> The people of the Grassy Narrows Ojibway reserve in northern Ontario have
> been using blockades since December 2002 in an attempt to keep Abitibi, a
> Montreal-based logging company, out of their community. Now, they are
> taking their struggle on a tour throughout southern Ontario and Quebec.
>
> According to Macho Philipovitch, a member of the advocacy group Friends of
> Grassy Narrows, accountability for the logging has been transferred back
> and forth between different levels of government. He said that the Ontario
> Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR) gave Abitibi permission to log, but
> constantly foists blame onto the federal Department of Indian and Northern
> Affairs, which in turn sends frustrated community members back to the
> OMNR.
>
> Chrissy Swain, a member of the Grassy Narrows community, said that she has
> participated in the blockade against logging in order to save her
> traditional way of life and take a stand against the injustice she has
> experienced.
>
> “I remember an elder once told me that my healing journey should start
> with myself, my family, my community, and then our nation. I never
> understood that until the day my sister, another young man, and I went to
> lay logs over the road [as part of the blockade]. We did it because we
> were sick and tired of watching our lives slowly disappear.”
>
> The blockade began in 2002 when community members barred access to logging
> roads using tree trunks.
>
> “Since that day, no logging trucks have travelled over the road. When
> forest activity has picked up, community members have organized roving
> blockades on the other access roads in the area, which last for a few days
> at a time,” said Philipovitch, who asserted that actions have remained
> non-violent.
>
> Judy DaSilva, a resident of Grassy Narrows, said in a statement that
> Abitibi’s logging would destroy the already endangered culture and
> lifestyle of the community’s residents.
>
> “The Grassy Narrows Abnishnabek [Ojibway] are clinging to the last shreds
> of their culture. The clear-cutting plans will not only destroy community
> aesthetics, but will also eliminate trapping and hunting, an important
> tradition, [source of] income, and food supply for many community
> residents.”
>
> Philipovitch argued that the logging attempt by Abitibi is the latest
> development in 100 years of mistreatment by the government and
> corporations.
>
> “The community has been under attack by the Canadian government and
> corporate sector for the last 100-odd years. They have had their children
> forced into residential schools, they have twice had their community
> relocated, they have seen their traditional wild rice harvest forced open
> to ‘free’ market forces. Perhaps most devastatingly, their waterways have
> been poisoned by methyl-mercury dumped into the river upstream by a pulp
> and paper mill in Dryden, Ontario,” he said.
>
> Members of the Grassy Narrows community and The Indigenous Peoples’
> Solidarity Movement held a Montreal protest in Dominion Square on Monday
> to protest logging by Montreal’s Abitibi Consolidated Inc.
>
> Abitibi did not return The Daily’s requests for an interview.
>
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