Native protesters expect police will evict them

CBC News
Last updated: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 12:34:56 EST

[SISIS note: The following mainstream news article is provided for reference only, as an example of how mainstream media treats indigenous resistance to genocide. Mainstream media often presents biased and distorted information, lacking pertinent facts and/or context. Inclusion of this article on our site should not be considered an endorsement by SISIS.]

Native protesters occupying a housing site near Caledonia, Ont., expect police will evict them Thursday.

The barricades they have set up won't stop police for long, protester Janie Jamieson said.

The protesters have halted construction on a new suburb with 10 partially built homes since Feb. 28. They say the land was granted to the Six Nations more than 200 years ago and was never officially transferred to non-natives.

Ontario Provincial Police told reserve officials Tuesday night they didn't plan any arrests on Wednesday, although a judge had set a deadline on that day for the protesters to leave.

The developer, Henco Industries, won an injunction ordering the protesters off the Douglas Creek Estates site two weeks ago, but they ignored it.

The demonstrators want to start negotiations with the Department of Indian Affairs, but the government is ignoring the situation, said Sandra Muse, the editor of a reserve newspaper.

On Tuesday, more than a 100 native women locked arms in a human chain to block the police, who never arrived. Protesters carried signs reading "Canada have you no shame" and "Six Nations Land."

The protesters, from the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory reserve near Brantford, say the 380,000-hectare Haldimand Tract along the region's Grand River was granted to them in 1784.

Six Nations filed a land claims suit over the area in 1999.

Caledonia is about 20 kilometres from Hamilton.