[IPSM] Ex-Minister Chagnon rips 'illegal' Mohawk raid

[shelly]

Ex-Minister Chagnon rips 'illegal' Mohawk raid
Lays blame for debacle on Ottawa
Former grand chief Gabriel made power play with 'mercenaries' hired with federal funds

Jeff Heinrich
The Gazette

Friday, January 13, 2006

It's been two years since a botched police operation by 67 aboriginal police officers in Kanesatake left the grand chief's house in flames and his Mohawk community in tatters.

Now the man who was Quebec's public security minister at the time says the raid was illegal, Duplessis-like, mercenary and the fault of Ottawa, which paid for it.

Jacques Chagnon said he personally blames the then-grand chief James Gabriel and then-solicitor-general Wayne Easter for the January 12, 2004 operation.

"It was a totally illegal, right along the line," Chagnon, Liberal MNA for Westmount, said during an hour-long TV interview Wednesday night at his home in Boucherville, parts of which were aired yesterday on Radio-Canada.

Ottawa, and in particular Easter, should never have authorized a $900,000 special anti-crime subsidy to Kanesatake's band council that made the operation possible, Chagnon said.

The federal government should have heeded the advise of the RCMP and Surete du Quebec at the time, which said the raid would be a big mistake, he said.

And, Chagnon added, he would never have approved the transfer of aboriginal officers - "mercenaries," he called them - from reserves across Quebec to take part in the Kanesatake raid.

In the end, the heavily armed officers and special constables got nowhere. They stayed in the Kanehsatake police station for 36 hours, as a crowd of residents opposed to Gabriel and the operation kept watch outside. The stand-off was diffused when the police were escorted out by Kahnawake Peacekeepers on January 14.

At the time, Chagnon was criticized for appearing to cave in to demonstrators, some of whom were convicted criminals with histories of violence. Yesterday, he said he "paid the price": He was demoted from Jean Charest's cabinet last March.

Put on trial last fall for rioting and forcibly confining the officers, several of the demonstrators were convicted and are awaiting sentencing Jan. 20 in St. Jerome.

Chagnon told journalist Alain Picard he thinks Gabriel was trying to establish "absolute power" by the operation, whose goal was to replace then-chief of police Tracey Cross with one of Gabriel's allies, former police chief Terry Isaac.

That blend of politics and policing smacked of the Duplessis era, Chagnon said. Though the media made Gabriel into a "martyr saint" after his house was burned down, the Mohawk leader's actions were something else, Chagnon said.

"He pulled off a tour de force, getting himself armed by the federal government, using totally illegal methods to bring in an army of mercenaries ... into the territory to replace his chief of police," Chagnon said.

Radio-Canada intends to air further excerpts of the Chagnon interview today.

jheinrich@
thegazette.canwest.com 

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Mohawk leaders fuming
Chagnon upbraided. Remarks by ex-minister on raid called 'malicious'

DEBBIE PARKES, The Gazette
Published: Saturday, January 14, 2006

Angry Kanesatake band councillors say former Quebec public security minister Jacques Chagnon should learn to hold his tongue instead of making "malicious" and "provocative" statements.

They were complaining about Chagnon's characterization of 67 aboriginal police officers who took part in a botched 2004 raid in the community as "mercenaries" and descriptions of the raid as illegal.

Those comments, made in an hour-long TV interview, were aired Thursday.

In another segment aired yesterday, Chagnon said the quantity and firepower of the guns and ammunition the officers had - including, he said, anti-tank weapons - were enough "to start a war, almost." He also said it was all "completely aberrant" for the community of 1,300 people west of Montreal.

"While rewriting history, (Chagnon) makes provocative comments that reopen wounds in the Mohawk community of Kanesatake at a time when the chiefs on council are initiating a mediation process with Grand Chief Steven Bonspille to restore a long-lasting peace," the councillors said in a statement.

Notably, Bonspille - the only member of the current council who was not allied with former grand chief James Gabriel during last summer's election - wasn't among the issuers.

"Mr. Chagnon can say what he wants," Bonspille said. "It's a free country. For my part, I believe the RCMP should do an investigation based on what Mr. Chagnon is now saying."

Bonspille acknowledged he's irritated the council chiefs issued the statement without consulting him. Still, "I'm not going to speak against my council at all. We're working together to make Kanesatake a better place."

In the TV interview, Chagnon blamed Gabriel and then solicitor-general Wayne Easter for the botched raid Jan. 12, 2004, by aboriginal police officers hired from reserves across Quebec.

Chagnon also said he couldn't understand how the heavily armed officers could be held at bay by a couple of dozen unarmed demonstrators. 

"It was the first time in Canada that we faced a situation in which the hostages were armed," he said dryly.

"They didn't dare leave the police station. Why? What were they afraid of?"

jeff heinrich of the gazette contributed to this report

dparkes at thegazette.canwest.com
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