The Militant - July 10, 2006 -- Canada: Natives fighting for land push back rightist attacks

Vol. 70/No. 25 July 10, 2006

Canada: Natives fighting for
land push back rightist attacks

BY JOE YOUNG
AND JOHN STEELE
CALEDONIA, Ontario—Since February 28, members of the Six Nations Confederacy have been occupying a housing construction site here on land that they consider theirs. Despite attacks by Ontario’s provincial government and rightist forces, the Natives have stood their ground. Six Nations includes Natives belonging to the Mohawk, Cayuga, Tuscarora, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca nations in Ontario. On June 23, Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty for the first time called for ending the occupation. It “is just not helpful, and it really constitutes the remaining potential for danger,” he said.

On June 16 the Ontario government signed a framework deal to buy the land for Can$12.3 million (US$11 million) from Henco Industries Ltd. The government intends to hold the land in trust while negotiations to end the occupation continue. On the same day, more than 1,000 people attended an all day solidarity concert in support of the Six Nations occupation site, now referred to as “Kanenhstaton—the protected place.”

On May 22, in a goodwill gesture, Six Nations lifted the barricade they had erected across Highway 6 in Caledonia. In response, a group of rightists, who had erected their own barricade, began blocking Natives from entering the town.

Physical attacks by the right-wingers were met firmly by Native defenders, who then threw up a new barricade on the highway, using part of a massive hydro tower, and dug a trench in the thoroughfare with a backhoe. About 200 provincial police were called to the scene. At the same time electricity to the town was cut off, reportedly as a result of fire damage to a hydroelectric station. The following day, the Native occupiers once again lifted their barricade and Highway 6 is now open.

Anti-Native forces carried out another provocation June 8 following incidents that resulted in arrest warrants for six Native people. On June 13, in another goodwill gesture, the Six Nations removed a number of other barricades.

The Natives first erected the barricade on the highway April 20, in response to a failed pre-dawn attack by the Ontario Police to enforce a court injunction ordering an end to the occupation.

The construction site is part of a large parcel of land that was granted to the Six Nations Confederacy by the British rulers in 1784. The Six Nations Confederacy chiefs have been demanding a moratorium on construction at the site; the dropping of charges against those arrested April 20; and negotiations with the federal government to settle their historic land claims. The Six Nations reserve now occupies only 5 percent of the original 950,000-acre grant.

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