What is it like to stand behind the Six Nations barricade - facing a wall of Angry White agitators. Your fighting for your rights, your land, and your very way of life, while receiving threats to your life.
Credits: Producer/Host Maggie Hughes, the Other Side radio show - cfmu 93.3 fm
Six Nations land reclamation May 22
This morning was supposed to be the end of the barricade. By 10 am the road was opened, but no sooner was traffic allowed through on Highway #6, Argyle St., then the citizens supposedly from Caledonia made a human blockade to stop the Native cars from driving through.
Talk about childish boorish behavior.
Things just disintegrated after that, name calling was just the start of it; people turned into mob rule and fists started flying. The CBC newsworld camera made it clear where some of the fighting started, when they showed a young white man holding a base-ball bat arguing with the OPP and calling them names. People around him tried very hard to hide the bat from camera view, but it was still evident that this person came with a metal bat ready to met out his solution.
The OPP were hard pressed to form a human chain in between both sides to keep more fights from breaking out. From what I could hear over the phone when I contacted ckrz's Al Sault on location, women were screaming, someone was yelling that the white people had guns, and another woman was clearly in pain from tear gas.
Did the citizens of Caledonia get tear gassed? It didn't seem apparent to me from what I heard and from what I was watching on CBC newsworld.
I was perplexed to hear Nil Kocksal, the CBC reporter on location continuing to give the history of events that lead up to this afternoons punch up. She repeatedly failed to mention that the roadblock appeared only after the OPP had performed a before dawn raid and take down on Thursday April 20th.
Just to remind people of the correct sequence of events, on the evening of Wednesday April 19th, police were telling native leaders that they would not come in to arrest without warning, that they would not raid and arrest in darkness, and that as long as talks were continuing the police had no intention of arresting any of the protesters.
That was Wednesday night. Pre-dawn of Thursday morning proved once again to the Natives, that the White man's word meant nothing.
The OPP rushed in, overpowering in numbers of five to one. Tasers were used, and vans were parked all through the Douglas sub-division, with what one independent reporter managed to film; heavily armed police.
In light of this behavior and with reasonable fear for their safety, the Natives were obliged to block off the roads. If the OPP had kept to their word and did not forcefully move in and try to drag the protesters off the campsite, there would not have been a roadblock.
This was the main point in the sequence of events that the CBC reporter on location failed to mention. After repeated calls placed to various CBC staff in an attempt to get a correction, it became clear that even the CBC reports were tinged with mis-information.
Again, it was the First Nations people that pulled back to regain reason, not the Citizens of Caledonia, (if indeed most of them were). In fact more non-natives were gathering to watch the action as a spectacle of entertainment.
David Peterson drove himself to Caledonia and was working his way to the barricade area at five p.m. as I listened to CH11 give their usual fair handed interviews. There was the ringleader Ken Hewitt, always quick to use adjectives that painted the First Nations People as the ones committing illegal acts. Then there was the MPP of the Caledonia area who managed to spark up the non-native crowd with hints that the army might be needed.
The journalism I was taught made it very clear that giving reports that incited violence was a no, no, but as far as I can see, CH11 sees only one side to many news issues. Shameful, and embarrassing to the rest of the citizens in the area this media serves.
Now a new metal barricade has replaced the one removed this morning, the hydro is out in most of the Caledonia area, and there are still plans to shoot fireworks off at the fairgrounds. At this time it remains to be seen if a curfew will be put in place instead.
For more up to date news watch indy media or tune into ckrz radio 103.3 fm.
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