[IPSM] BREAKING NEWS: Mohawks begin blockade

[stef at tao.ca]

Breaking News

Mohawks begin blockade
VIA suspends Toronto-Montreal service

By Sue Bailey


DESERONTO, Ont. (CP) — Mohawk protesters, who said they had guns and
wouldn’t back down, have begun threatened protest blockades in eastern
Ontario.

The protesters parked an old school bus and a pickup truck loaded with
wooden pallets late Thursday across secondary Highway 2 near Deseronto and
turned back traffic in both directions.

The Mohawks had said they would begin with a “soft” target before moving
to blockade the main CN line and a key highway near this town west of
Kingston, despite widespread calls that an aboriginal day of action be
peaceful.

Men, women and children in army-style fatigues, their hair braided back or
shaved in traditional Mohawk style, began arriving at a makeshift camp
outside Deseronto just after 5 p.m.

There were reports that dozens of provincial police cruisers had amassed
in the nearby city of Napanee.

It was a call to action by protest leader Shawn Brant, a 43-year-old
militant Mohawk who has done jail time for trashing the offices of
politicians. He stands out as the lone voice calling for militancy on what
others had hoped would be a day devoted to public education about native
issues.