[IPSM] Genocide, International Law & Canada's "Indian Problem"

[Dru Oja Jay]

http://dominionpaper.ca/original_peoples/2006/10/12/like_weeds.html

Like Weeds in a Garden

Genocide, International Law & Canada's "Indian Problem"

by Pierre Loiselle, The Dominion

Not all of the International Convention on the Prevention and  
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) made it into the Canadian  
Criminal Code. The following parts of Article Two, which define the  
crime of genocide, were omitted when the Convention was ratified and  
became law in 1952: "Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members  
of the group" and, "Forcibly transferring children of the group to  
another group." Dr. Roland Chrisjohn, director of the Department of  
Native Studies at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, says that the  
omissions are not a coincidence. The original two omissions  
correspond directly to Canada's official policy of abducting Native  
children and keeping them in residential schools, where many were  
subject to gruesome and well-documented abuse and torture.

"Modern genocide is an element of social engineering, meant to bring  
out a social order conforming to the design of the perfect society,"  
wrote Zygmunt Bauman in his 1989 book 'Modernity and the Holocaust.'  
"This is a gardener's vision... Some gardeners hate the weeds that  
spoil their design... Some others are quite unemotional about them:  
just a problem to be solved, an extra job to be done."

As Chrisjohn explains, the glitch in Canada's garden begins with the  
problem that, according to European law, title to most of the land in  
Canada still belongs to its original inhabitants.

Canada's solution to what was once casually referred to as its  
"Indian problem" has been a strategy of social engineering known as  
assimilation which began with the 1857 ‘Act to Encourage the Gradual  
Civilization of the Indian Tribes of the Province;’ its modern-day  
equivalent is the Indian Act. Serving as head of the Department of  
Indian Affairs during the development of the residential school  
system, Sir Duncan Campbell Scott summarized the agenda of Canadian  
policy towards Native people: "Our objective is to continue until  
there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed  
into the body politic, and there is no Indian problem."

The Genocide Convention

Rafael Lemkin, who coined the word genocide and was responsible for  
drafting the CPPCG, explained in 1945 that "the term does not  
necessarily signify mass killings... More often it refers to a co- 
ordinated plan aimed at destruction of the essential foundations of  
the life of national groups so that these groups wither and die like  
plants that have suffered a blight."

"The end may be accomplished by the forced disintegration of  
political and social institutions, of the culture of the people, of  
their language, their national feelings and their religion," Lemkin  
wrote in 'Genocide - A Modern Crime.'

The CPPCG went through two drafts before it was approved by the  
United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948. Earlier versions  
of the Convention included means to establish an international court  
and many definitions reflecting the substance of genocide, including  
a provision that condemned forcible citizenship. These parts were  
removed in the final draft. According to Canada's representative at  
the UN, the Canadian stance was that, "a more limited interpretation  
of the term 'genocide' would be preferable." Objections primarily  
from Canada and the US eviscerated the final version of the Convention.

In his book ‘The Circle Game: Shadows and Substance in the Indian  
Residential School Experience in Canada,’ Chrisjohn writes that even  
in its watered-down form, Canada is in violation of the CPPCG.  
Residential schools were run from the 1800s to the 1990s where  
children were removed, by force of law, from their communities and  
sent to institutions run by the churches.

In the words of Scott, residential schools were designed to "take the  
Indian out of the Indian."

Chrisjohn explains that under the CPPCG, residential schools were  
clearly genocidal according to Article Two, which defines genocide  
as: "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in  
whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as  
such:

“a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental  
harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group  
conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction  
in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births  
within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to  
another group.”

“I could argue all five, but the fifth one is a slam dunk,” says  
Chrisjohn. “There is absolutely no way Canada can deny that they  
legislated the transference of children from their parents to the  
church authorities.”

On May 21, 1952, when Canada's Parliament ratified the Convention,  
bringing it into the Canadian Criminal Code, they omitted sections b)  
and e) of Article Two. A further amendment in 1985 removed section  
d). It was around this time when accounts of the involuntary  
sterilization of Native women began to surface.

"They left out three-fifths of International law," says Chrisjohn,  
"that specifically would make in Canadian law what they were doing to  
First Nations people, from 1948 until the present day, the crime of  
genocide."

"It's not a coincidence. This is all too convenient."

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

At first glance; a new international agreement seemed to bring about  
a means of holding those who commit genocide accountable.

"In the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights  
(ICCPR)... there is provision for establishing International Criminal  
Courts in which Crimes Against Humanity could be brought to an  
impartial judge," Chrisjohn explains, referring to the Covenant  
passed in 1966 that came into force in 1976. The covenant affirmed  
that participating countries could not "derogate in any way from any  
obligation assumed under the provisions of the [CPPCG]."

"Canada couldn't allow that to happen, so in the Covenant there is a  
little proviso..." says Chrisjohn. "That is, minority populations of  
a country are considered citizens of the country and when the country  
does something to its own citizenry, that's considered an internal  
matter...So a citizen cannot sue his own country in international  
court."

"In 1960, with nobody having asked for it, Indians were declared to  
be citizens of Canada. It wasn't an act of generosity. They were  
already working on the [ICCPR] and they wanted to make sure that the  
Indians wouldn't be able to go to an international court and bring a  
charge against the Canadian government."

“All Canadians were made ‘genociders’ by their government,” states  
Chrisjohn pointing to Article Three of the CPPCG that also defines  
complicity in genocide as a crime. “You have a responsibility as a  
citizen of the world to know what your government is up to and resist  
[their] unlawful actions,” he says. “The crime of genocide is being  
covered up. Now it’s a double crime.”