[mobglob-discuss] CBC: Ontario police evict aboriginal protesters

[Graeme Bacque]

http://tinyurl.com/rcps6

Ontario police evict aboriginal protesters
Last Updated Thu, 20 Apr 2006 08:20:16 EDT
CBC News

Ontario Provincial Police staged a pre-dawn raid Thursday on a
construction site in southwestern Ontario that had been occupied by
aboriginal protesters for more than seven weeks.

Protesters say the land was granted to Six Nations more than 200 years
ago and was never officially transferred to non-natives. (CBC)

Police arrived at the Caledonia site before 5 a.m. EDT in several large
rental vans with their guns drawn, and armed with tear gas and Tasers,
protester Mike Desrouches told CBC Newsworld.

"They covered the entire area within seconds. They gave virtually no
chance for people to leave at all," he said.

Desrouches said a number of people were Tasered, and that he saw about a
dozen arrested.

The protesters had been camped out since Feb. 28 on the site where new
homes are being built, about 90 kilometres southwest of Toronto. They
say the land was granted to the Six Nations more than 200 years ago and
was never officially transferred to non-natives.

The province says aboriginals gave up the land in 1841 to make way for a
new highway.

In late March, the protesters ignored an order from an Ontario Superior
Court judge to end the occupation. Talks to end the standoff broke down
on Tuesday.

Six Nations filed a land claims suit over the area in 1999.

Police did not immediately comment on the raid, but were expected to do
so later Thursday.

    * INDEPTH: Ipperwash

In 1995, another OPP raid on a native occupation made national headlines
when an unarmed protester was killed by a police sniper.

Dudley George's death at Ipperwash Provincial Park became the subject of
an ongoing inquiry, which has heard testimony from former Ontario
premier Mike Harris.