[news] Natives protest Red Hill expressway

[resist]

-------- Original Message -------- Subject:  
Natives protest Red Hill expressway
       Date:  Mon, 18 Aug 2003 09:05:07 -0400
       From:  Russell Diabo <rdiabo at sympatico.ca>
       To:  <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>

Natives protest Red Hill expressway


By Michael-Allan Marion, expositor staff

Tuesday, August 12, 2003 - 01:00

Local News - A dispute between protesters and Hamilton city hall over the 
building of an expressway through the Red Hill Creek Valley intensified this 
week after members of the Six Nations traditional Confederacy occupied the 
area.

Protesters cheered and applauded Sunday night when Confederacy members 
arrived to build a round house, and again when some clan mothers lit an 
"eternal" fire inside it Monday morning.

"We're absolutely thrilled," Ken Stone, a protest co-ordinator, said Monday 
morning near the round house.

"This is the thing that has thrown terror into the hearts of people who want 
to build this expressway."

Hamilton city councillors met Monday to discuss getting an injunction to 
remove the protesters but had no immediate comment on the entry of natives.

Protesters from a number of environmental, animal activist and citizens' 
groups have stymied contractor Dufferin Construction for more than a week 
from building a ramp at a point halfway down the valley in the east end of 
Hamilton.

The ramp is in advance of the still unconstructed expressway planned to run 
through the last remaining creek bed and large natural green space in the 
city.

The Confederacy long ago erected no-trespassing signs informing pedestrians 
that the valley is Six Nations territory. The protest groups, Friends of Red 
Hill Valley and the Showstoppers Union, were issued "permits" by the 
Confederacy to carry out a protest on the land.

The city has said it does not recognize the claim or the permits. It 
recently reached an agreement with Chief Coun. Roberta Jamieson and the 
elected band council over the issue of native grave sites in the valley 
whose location has not been revealed, but hadn't managed an understanding 
with Confederacy groups.

Protesters have camped for the past week at the entrances to the proposed 
ramp and a nearby road for construction vehicles.

Both areas have been adorned with tents and signs containing protest 
messages.

The protesters have been living under a threat issued from city hall in 
letters and e-mails that it would get an injunction to clear the pickets, 
then sue protesters for delaying construction - including seizure of their 
houses as compensation.

By last weekend the city still had not made good on its threat. Nonetheless, 
protesters were visibly relieved when Confederacy members arrived Sunday 
evening.

The natives chose a spot in the woods just off a main trail to build the 
round house. They spent a few hours chopping down some younger walnut trees, 
sank the trunks into the ground as posts, and fashioned a roof from the 
branches and leaves.

Then in a nearby clearing where the ramp is to be built, an elder spoke 
through a representative to a gathering of protesters informing them the 
Ongwehomweh (People of the Longhouse) were prepared to work with them.

Around daybreak Monday, a group of clan mothers arrived to applause from the 
protesters. They lit an "eternal" fire in a pit under the round house roof, 
sat around the flames and sent a out representative who called himself 
Thohahoken to speak to the media.

"A fire is lit to address our ancestors and to provide a place where people 
can sit and talk," Thohahoken told reporters. "A sacred fire stays lit until 
the issues are resolved."

In an interview he said the occupiers are concerned about preservation of 
the wildlife habitat and burial sites.

"They require to be protected. How much green space do you get rid of before 
you can't pollute any longer?"

Thohahoken took members of the media through a series of treaties and 
historical events which he said show Six Nations is still a "sovereign 
people" which has legally ceded only 32 square miles of territory. All the 
rest has been taken illegitimately, he said.

He said Six Nations is quite aware of the long-running dispute over the 
expressway, which has consumed Hamilton politics for nearly five decades. 
But Confederacy members considered their move for some time before taking 
action, he insisted.

"The thought that went into this wasn't cavalier. There was a lot of talking 
about it."

Thohahoken said natives were willing to talk with city officials, but 
acknowledged: "We haven't been approached yet."

Hamilton councillor Larry Di Ianni, chairman of the expressway 
implementation committee and a candidate for mayor in the November municipal 
election, visited the site and talked to protest leaders.

The expressway has been on Hamilton's books since 1957. It received approval 
in the mid-1980s. Amid protests and angry debate, the city completed the 
east-west Lincoln Alexander Parkway portion on Hamilton Mountain six years 
ago.

But the most sensitive part of the project stalled during the permit process 
and an environmental challenge from the federal government, which was beaten 
back.

Until now the debate has been carried on locally between two disparate 
groups. Developers, trucking interests and east Hamilton residents want it 
to provide easier access to the QEW and Highway 403, and to relieve 
congestion in east Hamilton.

Environmentalists and citizens' groups decry what they consider the 
destruction of an ecosystem, including the cutting of more than 40,000 trees 
(which Hamilton planners say will be replaced by at least triple the number 
planted). Animal activists are concerned about the loss of habitat for a 
colony of flying squirrels and salmon which spawn upstream in the creek.

Stone, protest co-ordinator with the Showstoppers group, deplored the city's 
use of "old colonial divide and conquer tactics" in getting an agreement 
with the Six Nations elected council, but not securing agreement with the 
Confederacy.

"They know the Confederacy would never agree to the expressway."