Post-Oka crisis package on the road

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After a three year delay, a program to heal the wounds left by the Oka Crisis is finally getting off the ground at Kanesatake.

Breaking all Barriers, a $1.5-million project funded jointly by the federal government department of Indian Affairs and Health and Welfare, is slated to begin this month and run three years.

The program's goals are to restore a sense of community, rebuild bonds between families and clans, and establish better relations between natives and non-natives.

Kanesatake council Chief Michelle Lamouche shares responsibility for the program with council Chief Sheila Jacobs. Lamouche said they will look for an Aboriginal person to head the program.

"Our first goal is to get native (healers), then we look around for non-natives

that have worked in positions giving help to native people," he said.

A co-ordinating committee with representatives from Indian Affairs, Health and Welfare, the Kanesatake band council and Joint Services Council will oversee the program's finances to ensure original goals are met.

Similar programs arrived at other Mohawk communities soon after the Oka Crisis. At Kahnawake, Reopening the Bridges, a $552,417 federally-funded outreach program, ran from March 1990 to September, 1991. Put on by Kahnawake Shakotiia Takehnhas Community Services, the program involved psychologists, social workers and other professionals working to help community members overcome problems with stress.

At Akwesasne, $1.2 million in federal funds led to the implementation of Sken Nen Kowa, a conflict resolution centre, from October 1990 to the spring of 1992. Established to address divisions over casino gambling, the centre studies conflict resolution techniques and offered programs and activities to members from different factions to find ways of resolving problems together.

But while sister reserves got funding, community divisions delayed the setup of a program at Kanesatake. The Kanesatake Emergency Measures Committee, a non-political entity, originally conceived the project for the Joint Services Council and the Mohawk Council in fall 1990.

According to Lamouche, an interim council appointed after the Oka crisis voted the healing project down. But a new band council, led by current Grand Chief Jerry Peltier and elected in June 1991, supported the project. By this time, says Lamouche, Kanestake band councilors and other representatives had to convince Health and Welfare officials the project was still necessary so long after the crisis.

Many at Kanesatake would agree with council Chief J. Robert Cree that "every person has psychological problems on account of the crisis," but reaction to the program is mixed. Some followers of the traditional Longhouse are wary of the elected band council, which they view as an arm of Indian Affairs, and are skeptical about the project, because the council is involved.

"It's a foreign political system, not a Six Nations Confederate system. If you're a traditionalist, a true Mohawk, you'll stick to your traditionalist system" said a man who wished to remain anonymous. The man questioned whether hiring an aboriginal person to run the program would make a difference. "The money is going to the Mohawk council. They don't understand traditional beliefs. The fact that the person is native is not enough; it has to be more than plugging a hole."

Wanda Gabriel, a traditionalist who was part of Kanestake's military liaison team during the Oka Crisis, thinks Mohawks have every right to federal money. "Any monies made to native government, monies for education, monies for healing - it's our right to receive these monies because of use of our land. We have to forget it (money) comes from the federal government and turn it around to our benefit."

Gabriel called the program long overdue. But opposition to the program does not surprise her. "I don't know if it will heal everybody. There will be people from all camps. If there's one person from each group who can beneit from the program, it will have done something," Gabriel said.

Lamouche is equally optimistic. "If you reach one person, that's one person. They may pass what they know to others. That's where the healing starts. We're confident that healing with happen."