Mohawks Under Police Siege a School Boy, Age Ten, Cuts Model Or "Sounding Board" for the Students Each Day in School Is Not Easy
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One sun-burnt face, N one ll-told-you-so, a few ABBA songs, and a side order of veg etarian orgasms to THEUBSSSEY go, please. Founded in 1918 Vancouver, B.C., Tuesday, March 31,1992 Vol 74, No 44 Mohawks under police siege A school boy, age ten, cuts model or "sounding board" for the students each day in school is not easy. his finger to dab blood on a draw "I'm still having a hard time myself ing of his people, who are all coming to terms with what happened here," dead. In his words, "that's what she says. "We, as teaching staff, are going through stress therapy to work it out for the police want." ourselves." A 17-year-old grabs a broom in a fit of rage and turns his RACIST RAGE classroom into a mock battlefield. There is also the memory ofthe anti- Mohawk rage that shook the adjacent He machine-guns invisible po francophone suburb of Chateauguay during lice and politicians while his the standoff. The Kahnawake Mohawks classmates cry. occupied and barricaded the Merrier Bridge in solidarity with the Mohawks at A four-year-old girl in the Kanesatake, preventing many Chateauguay front seat of a car routinely ducks residents from getting to their jobs in her head at the sight of any po Montreal. lice cruiser. She asks her mother Mohawks were beaten up outside their territory, chased from local shopping malls if the police have gone so she can by gangs of non-Natives, and picked up and sit up. tortured by the SQ. Mobs tried to storm the barricades and called for an all-out army by Norman Nawrocki assault on Kahnawake. reprinted from the McGill Daily "The children don't understand the Canadian University Press burning of effigies, the stoning of their people, of their families [by Chateauguay The stories go on. But these are not car that had bought gas on the reserve. They stopped for one reason or another." residents]," Lahache says. children from Belfast or South Africa. They pulled over the driver and asked her if she Lahache says one Mohawk refused to Nor could the children understand he are from Kahnawake, the Mohawk commu knew she had bought gas from Native peopl e. give his name to police when he was stopped licopters full of soldiers with guns ready, or nity not far southwest of Montreal. They are "They asked her if she realized she while walking down a road. military jets flying low over the community. the survivors of what some Natives call "the could have been raped or robbed by the "He was hauled off to the police station, Deer thinks the unrelenting police in Canadian crisis at Oka." Indians," Deer says. "They didn't realize held over night and charged with assaulting timidation is meant to break Kahnawake's Two years after the explosive 78-day she was Native." The RCMP has denied the a police officer," Lahache says. "He's still in spirit. standoff over Mohawk land at nearby story. court over it." "When we reported the incidents to Kanesatake, the 5,000 Mohawks of In another incident, the RCMP pulled Lahache says the 34 teaching staff at Claude Ryan [Quebec's public security Kahnawake now live under a virtual police over a volunteer human rights observer the school are trying to make the school day minister], he wouldn't believe us,"Deer says. siege. They face unrelenting harassment by working with the Mohawks. When she asked as normal as possible for the children. But "All he wants is for us to take down our the RCMP and the Surety du Quebec (SQ) for the officer's name, he refused. the constant police presence make it hard to checkpoints." who patrol their territory. "But when she pulled down her visor to get their minds off what happened two There are nowfour Mohawk checkpoints Although the community itself is a "no- show him her official papers, he told her summers when Quebec called the army in ringing the entrances to the village of go zone" for the police, Mohawks say the that he just had to give her a ticket for doing after the SQ botched a raid on the barriers Kahnawake. Each consists of a little wooden RCMP and the SQ have turned Kahnawake 70 in a 70 km/h zone." at Kanesatake. And only now are teachers guardhouse, a concrete roadway barrier, into a pressure cooker of institutionalized Deer says the incident is only one of noticing that students are experiencing the and a handful of Mohawks standing guard. racism by terrorizing the population. dozens of stories told every week by after-effects of Oka. Hand-painted signs nearby warn, "No RCMP Kenneth Deer, the editor and publisher Kahnawake residents. "Students are drawing pictures of sol or SQ access allowed." Visitors to the village of the Kahnawake community paper, The But SQ spokesperson Andre Blanchette diers and cops, guns, knives and graveyards are politely asked about their destinations, Eastern Door, says the three highways that says only seven per cent ofthe people stopped all the time," she says. "They aren't turning the purpose of their visit and how long they cut through the 25-square-mile community by police on the three highways are Mohawk. to violence against each other, but they're intend to stay. are "the most heavily-patrolled roadways He could not provide the exact number of SQ angry with themselves for not being able to Deer says the checkpoints, though anywhere in Canada, if not in North officers patrolling the Kahnawake territory. do something." symbolic, are an assertion of Mohawk sov America." Lahache saw her 17-year-old son ereignty. "Butfor the Canadian government, Deer says police constantly stop SCHOOL'S OUT grapple with a Canadian soldier during one theyYe a pain in the side." Mohawk vehicles for random roadside Pauline Lahache, a Mohawk artist and of the army's forays into Kahnawake in The police used to try to get past the searches. teacher at the 200-pupil Kahnawake Sur 1990. She heard him yell at the soldier, "You checkpoints, but they don't often bother "Ifs "put your two hands on the wheel vival School, says it takes her five minutes tear-gassed my mom, you're trying to kill anymore, Deer says. Instead, they throw and don't move,"" says Deer. "The police will to drive to work. Every day, she sees four my mom." the Canadian Criminal Code or traffic laws then ticket Mohowks for low air in the tires, patrol cars in either direction. "In his eyes," says Lahache, "he was at the Mohawks every chance they get. for dim taillights, for snow on the windshield, "Every day, no less than two or three trying to protect me." Meanwhile, negotiations with the gov for anything." Mohawks are pulled over in their cars by the In her classroom, students will some ernment over land claims are at a standstill Anyone who passes through the terri RCMP or the SQ," she says. "They're parked times break down crying, talking about how and Mohawks are on trial for the Oka crisis. tory or stops at any business is a likely all the time across from the school. Every they are willing to die to defend their land. And the police will not go away. target. Deer says the RCMP once followed a one, students and staff, is afraid of being Lahache says the pressure of being the role When it's just one more night of police violence by Norman Nawrocki "I got out of our car to ask the driver [of husband kept yelling at them to leave her Lahache and Deer were both charged MONTREAL(CUP)—Herthree-day-oldbaby the SQ car] why he was driving like that, alone, as they beat him. with assaulting a po lice officer and obstruct girl in her arms, the 31-year-old mother was trying to kill us," she says. "He yelled at me, Finally, she was shoved into a police car ing an officer in the line of duty. On January homeward bound after leaving the hospital pulling at my arm. I told him I had a baby in and it spun off, siren wailing, the driver 6, after several court appearances, she and behind. Beside her, at the wheel ofthe car, my arms, that I had just got out of the occasionally slamming on the brakes so she her husband were both tried and convicted. her husband was beaming at the newest hospital. I showed him my hospital bracelet, would lurch forward in the back seat. One of They were both sentenced to 15 days, "ex family member. but he kept yelling at me, hitting me." the SQ officers took his gun, turned around parte"—neither they nor their lawyer were But what should have been a joyful "My husband yelled at him not to hit me, and waved it in her face, saying he would use present in the Longeuil courtroom (their occasion for Wilma Lahache and Philip Deer not to touch me or the baby. But the SQ it on her. She did not know if she would live lawyer had given them the wrong trial date). turned into another scene of police violence. officer said, "What do you expect? You're or die. Two days later, they were jailed. After On the night of October 29,1991, they Indian."" "Outside the station," Lahache says, filing an appeal, both were released on bail. were driving home to Kahnawake through Lahache says he tried to hit the baby, "they beat me, lifted me by the cuffs and left The Montreal judge said she was astonished Chateauguay when the police tried to cut off but she moved out ofthe way and he hit her me on the ground.