It has become crystal clear that the Government of British Columbia is not taking us seriously. For months now our Chiefs and Deputy National Chief Ray Hance have been telling every cabinet Minister and senior policy level bureaucrat we meet with that we are on a collision course with outright confrontation if they don't start really paying attention and acting on our outstanding grievances.
Instead, the government has sent us a pack of spin doctors - both to probe us and to gloss over our concerns. We find that attitude despicable. It echoes the hangings of 1864 when our Nation's negotiators and front line warriors were deliberately entrapped, chained up, run through a kangaroo court and publically hanged as common criminals. Our leaders had been invited to a peace parley to resolve the issue of illegal invasion of our traditional territory by alien intruders.
We will never forget that betrayal of honour and trust. How can we? Exactly the same methods are still being used by the latter day version of that colonial regime backed by its militia. As we've said before, they think they can get away with it now by using paper instead of gun powder. But we know that ultimately they will back up that paper war with guns and tanks just like they did at Gustafsen Lake. It's the same way they dealt with Louis Riel in Manitoba, the Mohawks at Oka in Quebec, and is leading to the way they dealt with the Beothuks in Newfoundland. They killed them all off.
Yes, we do consider paper-generated resource theft and cultural genocide to be just as potent as front-on military confrontation or the intimidation of the constant threat of it. The Tsilhqot'in Nation and the rest of the tough native nations who will never surrender their rightful ownership of our lands and resources are standing by to back us if the going gets nasty. But the leaders of this government that has directly authorized its insidious bureaucrats to steal our resources and try to buy us off with patronizing crumbs and PR slogans had better get real busy undoing the damage their trifling with us has caused THEM.
Because the Tsilhqot'in Nation is poised to exercise its jurisdictional muscle backed by a formidable force quite capable of wreaking havoc on a badly tarnished Crown...
S.I.S.I.S note: A subsequent report from Wolf Howls informs that the Tsilhqot'ins:
Solidarity with the TNG has been expressed by other
Tsilhqot'in National GovernmentMore information on the BC Treaty Commission (BCTC):
102-383 Oliver St., Williams Lake
Chilcotin Territory
via BC, Canada V2G 1M4
Phone: (250) 392-3918
Fax: (250) 398-5798