Mohawk community divided

Page 8

Kanesatake, the Mohawk settlement located at the halfway mark between Montreal and Ottawa on the edge of the Quebec town of Oka, is in turmoil-again.

Many will remember that this community was the site of the Oka Crisis, a 78-day stand off with the Canadian military in 1990 that brought worldwide attention to the land claim complaints of the 1,200 people who live there.

Some may not remember, however, that later that same decade, fields of marijuana crops allegedly planted in co-operation with biker gangs based in Montreal were discovered on the territory.

Today, the band council stands divided, some say irreparably. Grand Chief James Gabriel claims he is cracking the whip on the criminal element that continues to flourish in his community. His critics accuse him of being the willing pawn of a colonial master, the federal government.

Gabriel is working out of the Hilton hotel in the Montreal suburb of Laval, located an hour from Kanesatake. He hasn't been back to the territory he presides over since he was burned out of his home there on Jan. 12.

He attempted to bring in a group of First Nations police officers from surrounding communities to displace the existing police service, one he said was not dealing with criminal activity on the territory. That move ended with people rioting outside the police station, trapping the newly placed police officers inside; the same night protesters set Gabriel's home ablaze.

The present-day Mohawk territory is unique in Canada since the lands are not reserve lands. In the past, as federal and provincial authorities bickered over whose jurisdiction should apply there, Kanesatake was placed in the unfortunate position of being a place where those who wished to conduct illegal activities could do so safely.

As tax increases in Ontario and Quebec drove up cigarette prices, cigarette huts offering tax-free smokes began to appear on the territory. During the last cigarette boom, which peaked in the 1990s, band councils in communities up and down the St. Lawrence River saw their communities overrun with traffic from off the territory as non-Native people sought to evade the taxes placed on cigarettes.

Those on the reserves who were not making money in the trade complained that the roads were being worn down at community expense so that a few individuals could prosper. They also complained that a collective right to be tax exempt was being exploited by a few individuals who weren't above intimidating or attacking others who might try to compete with them in the market.

It was also revealed that organized crime was providing a lot of the cigarettes required to keep up with the huge demand.

Gabriel's opponents, chiefs John Harding, Stephen Bonspille and Pearl Bonspille, say the community has no more of a crime problem than any other community.

The latest crisis in Kanesatake, they say, was started because Canada and Quebec pressured Gabriel to cut out the cigarette trade in the community.

"That's what started the raid in January, when they came in, to justify the raid," Pearl Bonspille said. She was interviewed with Harding by telephone from the Kanesatake band office.

Community sources who spoke on the condition they not be named say the chiefs who oppose Gabriel have family ties to the half-dozen or so main players in the cigarette trade.

Chief Pearl Bonspille didn't deny it. "I'm related to half the people in this community. We all are. We have over 15 [cigarette] shops," she said. Harding agreed.

"And we're not on the take. I know Mr. Gabriel has said that, and the media too. I don't take any money at all from anybody. That's absolutely false," he added.

Bonspille and Harding both said that cigarette merchants give money back to the community.

"The only monies that come from the shop go back to our community, the Elders' centre, the donations that [the cigarette merchants] give, themselves. And services that are short, like our ducation. James has spent millions taking us to court and in the meantime our school didn't have paper, so the cigarette people donate once a month to the shortages here," Bonspille said.

James Gabriel said the chiefs' claims that the cigarette merchants were giving back to the community are intentionally misleading. He said the cigarette merchants put back perhaps $100 per store a week while making $4,000 or $5,000 in a weekend. He called this "a pittance" and suggested it was done simply so they could tell people that they were sharing the wealth and not taking personal advantage of a collective right.

"The issue is not the cigarette trade per se itself," said Gabriel, adding that it's about government being able to regulate the trade.

The handful of people making big money selling cigarettes have acted as if they're above the law and have fought with every means at their disposal whenever the council sought to rein them in, Gabriel said, addinga that since the marijuana fields were detected and disposed of in the 1990s, the growers have taken their operations indoors, a move that allows them to grow a more potent and profitable product. He said hundreds of pounds of marijuana, at about $5,000 per pound, is produced each year on the territory.

Several years ago, he said, a police plane flew over the community with an infrared camera. Of the approximately 400 homes on the territory, between 40 and 50 "lit up" under the infrared, suggesting the bright, hot lights used in hydroponics grow operations.

Bonspille and Harding say that information is tainted since it was provided by one of the police officers loyal to Gabriel.

Harding said, contrary to the grand chief's allegations that criminals rule the territory, things have been peaceful since the night of the rioting.

"The community's very peaceful. In fact, I don't have any word that there has been a requirement for police intervention over the 47 days that they've not been here," he said

"The public security minister's been through here and he's even said it. The only time there's trouble is when the goon squad tries to force their way in and they're pushed out. The people won't allow them in," Bonspille added.

Gabriel answered by saying that, based on the analysis of the public security minister that everything was calm, Aboriginal police officers went to Kanesatake on May 3. But they were prevented access to the territory by a group of 50 armed and masked individuals. "Does the public security minister have another definition of order, safety and peace?" Gabriel asked.

As for claims that there is no criminal activity on the territory, Gabriel pointed out that "people who've spent the last 10 years on social assistance have four-wheelers for every member of their family. Boats, sea-dos and some of those big pickup trucks that we've seen on the news over the last little while that are worth anywhere between $40,000 and $60,000. And we have a couple of members that are driving Hummers right now. My guess is they're worth anywhere between $125,000 to $160,000. And again people who have never worked an honest day in their life."

Both sides accuse the other of distorting the truth to gain an advantage for control of the territory.

"The feds are paying, through land negotiations, a PR firm for Mr. Gabriel and they're spinning things wild," said Harding.

"There's a lot of spin happening," said Gabriel. "Everybody's lost focus. We're four months past the events of Jan. 12 where the goal was to rid the community of organized crime. We've got activists from other communities like [Tyendinaga Mohawk activist] Shawn Brant, a professional activist by the name of Jaggi Singh, who's come in to man the barricades with our home-grown criminals, and basically they're experts at spinning a story in regards to demonstrations."

Bonspille and Harding accuse the grand chief of keeping secrets from them even though they're members of council.

"It's as if we don't exist here. I'll give you the classic example. The agreement that was signed in November for the $900,000 [for the new police force], we learned about it on Jan. 12 when the police officers arrived in the community, because none of that was discussed. He doesn't even bother to really hold council meetings anymore because [Gabriel and the three chiefs who remain loyal to him] enjoy unequivocal support. It's been said in a recent press release by Anne McLellan and Andy Mitchell that James Gabriel enjoys the unequivocal support of the federal government," Harding said. "That includes denying, never mind the community, but the three other chiefs here, myself, Stephen and Pearl, involvement in any discussions relating to the business of the band. James will tell you different. He'll tell you he invited us to two meetings in Laval. It was stated to us by our Elders and by our community that the business of the band is in Kanesatake and James Gabriel has no business calling us to Laval to do the business of the band and he has no legitimacy there."

Gabriel rejects the accusations of secrecy as "absolutely false."

"The forum for public meetings has become extremely violent and an extremely improper way to seek out public opinion. What we've been doing over the years is go through the workshop process where everybody gets an opportunity to speak because the same group of people that were rioting outside the police station that burned me out were the same ones that controlled the public meetings," he said. "If you don't agree with them, you never get a chance to talk. You get threatened, you get intimidated or you get heckled. So people just stopped going to public meetings other than the gang of thugs that are there now. Going along the line that I've just been asking for this kind of trouble by my autocratic or dictatorial approach, nothing could be farther from the truth."

Harding and Bonspille condemned the burning of the grand chief's h