[IPSM] Six Nations Still Under Seige: Are Ontario and Canada Heading Towards a Police State?

[C.Ailes]

TMLD April 24, 2006 - No. 64
http://cpcml.ca/Tmld2006/D36064.htm#1

Six Nations Still Under Seige
• Are Ontario and Canada Heading Towards a Police
State? 
• Are Military Forces Operating from Hamilton Airport
in Six Nations Standoff? - Anthony Fenton & Dru Oja
Jay, The Dominion

Commentaries by Kahentinetha Horn, Mohawk Nation News
• How to Survive a Seige  
• Six Nations: Machiavellian Ghosts Haunt Canadian
Media  
• Sage Advice on "Indigenous Protests and Occupations"
from Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to Current
Prime Minister Stephen Harper  
• Erratum 

----
Six Nations Still Under Seige
Are Ontario and Canada Heading Towards a Police State?
 Solving problems through force of arms as in the case
of the Ontario Provincial Police attack on Six Nations
raises troubling questions of an incipient police
state.

It shows the necessity to combat this growing fascism
of state-organized violence, rule by decree and
injunctions, and mass media promotion of violence and
repression. The people can change the situation
through conscious participation and political
organization of themselves, for themselves and by
themselves!

Land claims, peacefully presented by Six Nations
peoples and their supporters are political and deserve
a peaceful dignified response from the federal and
provincial governments. Who gave the Ontario
Provincial Police the authority to act like hooligans
and launch an early morning surprise attack on the Six
Nations? How does such an armed violent assault during
a land claims dispute help resolve the issue? The
police aggression enflamed passions and was an attempt
to hijack discussions towards reaching a settlement by
turning a clearly political problem into a law and
order issue, which it definitely is not.

The Six Nations have a legitimate claim established in
history. They have the legal and moral right to an
acceptable arrangement with the federal and Ontario
governments without the constant threat of
state-organized violence directed against them. The
Canadian and Ontario governments at the very least
should accept a mediated settlement adjudicated by an
independent body such as the United Nations. By
ordering court-sanctioned police aggression against
the Six Nations, the federal and Ontario governments
have subverted justice and declared that their
overwhelming power and might make right, and that they
refuse to accept an arrangement that is satisfactory
to the First Nations' peoples and upholds their
dignity and needs.

What recourse does that leave the Six Nations and
their supporters? It is not difficult to imagine that
if one side to a dispute engages in force and believes
that it has superior force and can win the dispute
because of its superior force, then the other side to
the dispute must respond with its own show of force or
submit, which is not an option. In this case, the
force of the Six Nations peoples is expressed in their
unity and determination to defend their just cause and
in the overwhelming warm unity and cooperation Native
peoples receive from all justice-minded Canadians who
will stand shoulder to shoulder with the Six Nations
through thick and thin.

The Authority of the State and Control of the Police
The Ontario government seems to suggest that the OPP
acted imprudently and independently of any political
direction from the Liberal Party in power or the
federal government. If that is so, the leadership of
the OPP should be fired immediately and removed from
all responsibility for policing and charged with
breaking the peace, assault and forcible confinement
of 16 people.

The police and military are supposedly under the
strict control of the government and cannot act with
impunity on their own account. If the police and
military are not under the control of the government,
the society becomes an open police state with the
armed authority acting with impunity, serving the rich
and powerful against the will of the majority and
public good. Governments are responsible for all
activity of the police and military good and bad and
must hold leaders of the police and military strictly
accountable to the public good and take full
responsibility for their actions. The police and
military cannot be allowed to act with impunity on
their own account or the society will descend in a
self-destructive spiral towards its doom. All fascist
police and military states in the 20th century were
soon destroyed in internal violence, terror and
aggressive war, with Germany, Italy and Japan as
examples.

Confusion in the Mass Media: Who Is in Control?
The Globe and Mail quotes Premier McGuinty as saying,
"'I want to be perfectly clear in this regard, this
police action comes completely independent of me, my
office or my government,' he said."

The CBC reports, "[Premier] McGuinty said his
government had in no way influenced the police
decision to remove the demonstrators. He said he would
take as much time as needed to settle the dispute
peacefully."

The Globe also wrote, "Premier McGuinty said Wednesday
afternoon that he would take all the time needed to
peacefully resolve the long-standing protest over land
adjoining a Six Nations reserve in Caledonia, south of
Hamilton. But, by yesterday, an occupation now in its
52nd day in the quiet community had escalated into an
angry confrontation after police staged a predawn
raid."

The Premier of Ontario has publicly declared in the
Legislature and to the mass media that his government
had no role in deciding to launch a police attack on
the Six Nations. How can that be? How could the OPP
act in such an irresponsible manner, with such drastic
consequences for the Six Nations and the town of
Caledonia without the authority of the government from
which it gains its right to police? The answer cannot
be simply dismissed by suggesting it is a "law and
order" issue of enforcing an injunction or "protecting
public safety." The police cannot be allowed to take
important decisions without publicly discussing the
political considerations and gaining authorization
from the required political bodies, which should be
judged by the people freely and without intimidation.
The decision to use armed force to resolve a public
dispute offends the body politic and is a
state-organized riot against democracy. It is an
affront to the people and their desire for real
democracy and should be denounced across the country. 








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