Six Nations Youth Statement – Reclaiming the Old Police Station in “Ohsweken”
Sunday, May 22, 2011 – In the spirit of our ancestors, honoring the memory of all those Youth who have died unjustly and in respect to all our relations, We the Six Nations Youth Movement are TAKING ACTION and RECLAIMING the old Police Station as the temporary site of the Onkwehon:we Youth Centre. This action declares: NO ONE SPEAKS FOR THE YOUTH BUT THE YOUTH, no matter their level of education or claim to knowledge, the wisdom and voice of the Youth can only be found in the Youth. We declare that the Band Council superstructure (including its services) cannot handpick our representatives nor determine the direction of the Six Nations Youth Movement. WE are the Six Nations Youth Movement, ALL of us together – not any one group or any one person alone.
Watch our 30-sec promotional vides for the upcoming march to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racism. Thank you to Isaac Oommen and Alejandro Zuluaga for the videos! The march is on Sunday March 20th at 2pm at Waterfront Skytrain Station. Details on the march here.
Video: Self-determination and end all racist wars and occupations!
Peter Kulchyski | March 1st 2010 | Canadian Dimenision
Early this fall, an event largely ignored by the mass media in Canada, took place in northwestern Ontario. A floatplane filled with equipment and staff from the Platinex mining company attempted to land on Big Trout Lake, known as Kitchenuhmaykoosib to the local Inninuwug. The chief and other members of the community got in their boats and played a game of “chicken” with the plane, maneuvering their boats in front of its landing trajectory to keep it from being able settle onto the lake. After making several attempts, the pilot turned around and returned south. A few months later the community heard the news that the Ontario government had bought out Platinex’s interest in the disputed territory (part of Treaty 9) and announced that the platinum mining development in the region would not proceed.
By Jessica Smith, Turtle Island News. December 15, 2009
The Olympic Torch is coming to Six Nations next week but a group opposing the run say they plan to protest it, but wont provide details and told the media to leave their meeting after claiming it was a public meeting. The sent out a declaration Monday claiming they would peacefully protest the torch run. Turtle Island News sources said the protesters plan to be at Highway 6, Middleport and along Chiefswood Road when the torch arrives, The group met at the old council House last Wednesday. They said they were opposed to the run and some claimed it was dividing the community.
By Shiri Pasternak. 06/04/2009. Indypendent Reader
Indigenous peoples in Canada have marked the geographical limits of capitalist expansion through more than five centuries of permanent resistance. Due to the geography of residual Aboriginal lands, they form a final frontier of capitalist penetration for natural resource extraction, agribusiness, and urban/suburban development. While much of the focus of the economic crisis has centred on foreclosures and job losses in the manufacturing and service sectors, a renewed push for resources – e.g. tar sands, timber, fisheries, mining, suburban sprawl – may tread in the old vices of colonialism, but it has also been ushered in by a new political economy of indigenous dispossession, and with it, spurred a new phase of resistance.
By Brendan Kennedy, The Ottawa Citizen; with files from The Montreal Gazette. May 22, 2009
The arrest Wednesday of six First Nations protesters near Pembroke could be a part of what is shaping up to be a summer of discontent among Ontario natives frustrated over a growing list of outstanding issues. The protesters, led by Grant Tysick, chief of the Kinounchepirini Algonquin, were arrested in the early morning after a 34-hour blockade of a gravel quarry west of Pembroke. The blockade at Eastway Developments on Henan Road was broken up by Upper Ottawa Valley OPP officers and members of the OPP’s Emergency Response Team around 5:30 a.m. Wednesday. The men were arrested without incident and there were no physical confrontations of any kind, police said.
‘They don’t understand what they’re in for,’ native says. Protester arrested at northwest construction site. Brantford Expositor
Six Nations protesters promised a full-fledged land occupation in Brantford following the arrest of a native protester by city police on Monday. “They’re going to have one hell of a fight now,” said Steve Powless, who spoke on behalf of the protesters. “This is going to be Caledonia Part 2. They don’t understand what they’re in for.”
My name is Skyler Williams. I am a Mohawk, Wolf, from Six Nations of The Grand River Territory. I am speaking on behalf of myself and several others that have been charged with criminal offences in connection with defending our land rights at Six Nations. We have instructed our lawyer today not to proceed with our legal defence, so long as police have guns turned on our brothers and sisters in Tyendinaga. Over the past months, Canada’s efforts to criminalize those of us who are standing up for our land rights has reached epic proportions. The message is clear: participate in negotiations that go nowhere as our lands are developed and destroyed – or go to jail.
Trevor Miller was one of our Mohawk men arrested for the CH incident over a year ago. For months he was held without bail at barton st jail in hamilton. In February 2007 he was released after pleading guilty to some of the charges. A few days ago he was crossing into the United States with his wife. He was then arrested by US customs for the theft of a US BORDER PATROL vehicle in Caledonia in June of 2006. He is being transported from Wisconsin to Buffalo NY. He will be making an appearance in Buffalo court on Monday April 7th, 2008. More to follow.
CALEDONIA November 7, 2007 Community Friends spokesperson Jan Watson condemned the arson attack which destroyed the gate house at Kanonhstaton and a painting donated to the reclamation site by Six Nations artist Arnold Jacobs on Monday, November 5. Despite the best efforts of Watson and the Community Friends group, attempts to secure statements condemning the arson have been rejected by elected at all levels of government. The mayors office has refused to return phone calls, while Toby Barrett MPP has refused to make a statement altogether. Councillor Craig Grice similarly refused to make make such a statement unless the band council and confederacy would make the statement with him.
