Retyped for your information are some articles about the latest developments in Mohawk Territory. A sympathy blockade went up last night in Kahnewake blocking at least one access road to the Mercier Bridge. According to the Sept. 27 evening news on CBC that road blockade was removed again today by the Mohawks themselves. Native people need all the support they can possibly get. A contact of mine in Sweden confirmed that the only conference available to him on PeaceNet Sweden is gn.tribalsurvive. According to him they have no access to web.native, gen.nativenet, etc. I know from experience that there is a lot of support for aboriginal peoples in Europe. The postings on the Mohawk crisis were plentiful in some conferences, but the bulk of the information never reached interested parties in Europe. I suggest that people who post messages on conferences like web.native or gen.nativenet also consider posting to gn.tribalsurvive to spread the vital information to our friends in Europe. ************************************************************************ The Globe & Mail, Thursday, September 27, 1990 MOHAWK WARRIORS SURRENDER TO MILITARY 'Honorable disengagement' turns ugly as soldiers fix bayonets, tackle women and children by Andre Picard and Geoffrey York MONTREAL - After 77 days of armed confrontation near Oka, 31 Mohawk Warriors surrendered to the military last night, but the "honorable disengagement" collapsed into chaos as violence erupted one last time. Shortly before 7 p.m., the holdouts, including 22 women and children and 10 journalists, began leaving the Kanesatake drug and alcohol treatment centre. But as they crossed the razor-wire fence, shoving matches erupted between Warriors and soldiers. When the smoke cleared one hour later the group, which has been holed up since Sept. 1, was loaded onto buses. They were transported to a military base in Farnham, so the Canadian Forces could "figure out who's who and to release those who have not committed any criminal acts," said Major Alain Tremblay, a military spokesman. Joe Deom, a Mohawk negotiator, said the holdouts were looking for better conditions for their "honorable disengagement" but decided to give up out of fear of falling into the hands of the Quebec provincial police. The army was scheduled to pull out today. In Ottawa, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney praised the army and stressed that the government had not made any concessions. "The rule of law has prevailed. There has been no compromise with those who sought change through armed violence," he said in a written statement released by the Prime Minister's Office last night. Federal Indian Affairs Minister Thomas Siddon told a news conference last night that the crisis would leave scars that would last for decades, and perhaps even generations. He said there is a need for "healing, learning to trust and restoration of goodwill." The Warriors and their supporters were supposed to leave the encampment one-by-one, but instead they left as a group from various points in the bush. The action caught the army by surprise, and soldiers were ordered to fix their bayonets to intimidate the unarmed Mohawks. Fistfights erupted. In the ensuing confusion at least six people, led by a Warrior who calls himself Noriega, walked down the highway and into the village of Oka. Soldiers and police chased the Mohawks down, tackling Warriors, women and children and wrestling them to the ground. One man was heard yelling "Where's my baby?" as soldiers pinned him to the ground. It was unclear last night whether any of the holdouts had slipped by the security forces. Earlier in the evening, there was an emotional scene at the besieged Warriors' headquarters as they packed their bags. The Warriors and a dozen Mohawk women hugged and kissed, congratulated each other on their fight and waved their flags as military helicopters hovered overhead. The Warriors had taken down their flag at 5:45 p.m. and held a tobacco- burning ceremony to mark an end to the standoff. All afternoon, the Warriors held meetings to persuade a handful of determined hard-liners to give up their weapons. When consensus was reached, they built a huge bonfire behind their headquarters to burn sensitive documents and radio equipment they did not want to be picked up by police. Weapons were neatly placed in a pile. The army said the compound will be searched today for weapons, and five Indian observers will be allowed to retrieve religious artifacts, such as pipes and sacred tobacco. There were also observers on the buses that took away the Warriors last night. The buses had sat idling very close to a small road where the crisis began on July 11. On that day, provincial police moved in to forcibly dismantle a roadblock set up by the Mohawks to prevent the expansion of the Oka golf course onto land they considered their own. A gunfight ensued and one police officer was killed. Earlier yesterday, Robert Skidders, a Warrior leader who is known as Mad Jap, said the Warriors were convinced that they had made gains in public opinion by raising the profile of Indian issues. "Our mission is accomplished." Last night's dramatic surrender followed a written statement by the pro- Warrior Iroquois Confederacy that the holdouts would surrender unconditionally at noon today. The only glitch in the plan seemed to be the reluctance of a couple of Warriors to give up peacefully, notably Ronald Cross, a Warrior known as Lasagna. "After several attempts at trying to find a peaceful and creative solution to the situation we have all realized that we are dealing with an essentially neanderthal attitude on the part of the Quebec and Canadian governments." the statement said. On Tuesday, the confederacy asked for a special prosecutor to handle all criminal charges, a demand rejected out-of-hand by the Quebec government. THe same day, the Prime Minister announced a series of measures to address native grievances, and the Warriors took credit for forcing the announcement. Mohawk negotiator Bob Antone said the holdouts would "take whatever comes," including criminal prosecutions and jail sentences. He said, however that the laying down of arms should not be interpreted as meaning the holdouts have given up on their landclaims and demands for self-government. In other developments, Stanley Cohen, a New York civil rights lawyer who left the Warrior encampment Monday night, was released on $3,000 bail. He is charged with possession of a firearm for purposes dangerous to the public peace, participating in a riot, and obstruction of justice. ************************************************************************ The Globe & Mail, Thursday, September 27, 1990 ANALYSIS - MOHAWK WARRIORS ARE NOT DEFEATED PUBLIC PROFILE RAISED by Geoffrey York After two months of frustration, the Mohawk Warriors of Oka reached the conclusion that they could not extract any official concessions from the federal and Quebec governments until the armed standoff was over. Throughout the lengthy negotiations to end the 77-day standoff, the Mohawks steadily reduced their demands to just one: a special independent prosecutor to review the criminal charges against them. But that, too, was immediately rejected by Quebec. The surrender of the Mohawk Warriors is an implicit admission that their bargaining position was to weak to make any gains at the negotiating table. Surrounded by 400 soldiers and dozens of military helicopters and armored personnel carriers, the 25 Warriors could not apply any pressure on the federal or provincial governments. Because the governments were prepared to simply outwait them, the Mohawks realized they must eventually surrender. Yet their surrender is not a defeat. Although gains were impossible to achieve at the bargaining table, the Mohawks did succeed in producing some important benefits for aboriginal people. Their blockades at Oka and Kahnewake - combined with dozens of sympathy blockades and other actions by Indian bands across Canada - have forced Ottawa to put aboriginal issues at the front of its agenda for the future. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's announcement on Tuesday of an infusion of new money for Indian land claims would have been highly unlikely if the Oka crisis had never occurred. Although public opinion in Quebec was squarely against the armed Warriors, the Mohawks did succeed in raising the public profile of their demands. They had sought recognition of their sovereignty for decades with little public awareness. The Oka crisis helped Canadians understand the Mohawk belief in full sovereignty for their people. With their guns laid down, the Mohawks are now counting on public pressure to force Ottawa and Quebec City to begin direct negotiations on the key issues in the dispute. ************************************************************************ The Globe & Mail, Thursday, September 27, 1990 ERASMUS TAKES ISSUE WITH PM Not all of Canada's laws apply to Indians, leader says by Graham Fraser and Rudy Platiel OTTAWA - Georges Erasmus, Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, reacted with a mixture of frustration and cautious optimism to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's statement Tuesday that the law must apply equally to all Canadians. "We do have rights that put us in a situation that not all of Canada's laws apply to us as they do to others," he told reporters yesterday. "...In the same way that U.S. courts have recognized that treaties were (negotiated) nation to nation, government to government, we were governments, we were nations when we signed those treaties, and we still are. We did not relinquish or surrender our sovereignty; there's no doubt about that." In the Commons, Liberal MP Ethel Blondin urged abolition of the policy calling for native people to extinguish their rights as part of land- claims settlements. "What the Prime Minister indicated was that he wanted to restore trust and dignity to the process of negotiating, and have aboriginals be consulted and participate," she told reporters later. "That's not going to happen if they maintain this policy. Clearly it has divided my people." Mr. Mulroney told the house on Tuesday that the agenda will have four aspects: land claims, the economic and social conditions on reserves, the relationship between aboriginal peoples and governments, and concerns of aboriginal peoples in contemporary Canadian life. But he rejected any notion that the concept of self-government meant that Canadian laws would not apply to the Mohawk Warriors. "I will be very clear on this point: native self-government does not now and cannot ever mean sovereign independence," he said. "Mohawk lands are part of Canadian territory, and Canadian law must and does apply. Everyone in Canada, Warriors included, is subject to the Criminal Code of Canada." In taking exception to this, Mr. Erasmus said that as a result he found unacceptable the statements by Mr. Mulroney, Indian Affairs and Northern Development Minister Thomas Siddon and Solicitor General Pierre Cadieux. The Assembly of First Nations agrees with the need to re-examine the Indian Act, he said, but fears the government is going no further than the concept of delegated authority. He challenged the Prime Minister's assertion that the federal government spends $4-billion on native people every year, arguing that the only way the government could reach this figure would be by including all the funds for the territorial governments in Yukon and the Northwest Territories. "The worst cut of all," Mr. Erasmus said, is the financing available to Mr. Siddon and deputy minister Harry Swain "for their own bureaucracy to fight us on every issue." Meanwhile, Ontario Ombudsman Roberta Jamieson has written to the 99 Ontario MPs asking them to support a resolution by provincial ombudsmen calling for a special parliamentary commissioner to deal with aboriginal issues. ************************************************************************ For more information contact web:car by e-mail or in writing Aboriginal Rights Support Group Committee Against Racism P.O. Box 3085, Station B Calgary, Alberta T2M 4L6