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The Wright Perspective℠
Social Commentary from the C-Suite to Main Street℠
A Blog by Gary Wright II
Advanced Strategies on Stealing Indigenous Resources
Sunday, March 9th, 2008
I ran across this article and found it interesting.
-- Gary Wright II
Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News
Mar. 4, 2008
All the tricks of the colonists are now revealed, sayeth the infamous Indigenous sage, Red-X. It is a manual on how to cash in on our land and resources. It was used at Dehcho and it looks like they're using it at Sharbot Lake too. Here are some of the key hints on their dirty tricks and how to counter them.
Colonial Dirty Trick(CDT) 1. Call it democracy, and make sure you keep control. Invite the Indigenous to conferences on self-governance. Make sure they go to lots of fancy cocktail parties with open bars, with colonial big-wigs like Michaelle Jean and other heavies. Give them tiaras to try on and a taste of life in the fast lane. Lead them down the garden path. Make sure they are too drunk to notice they have sold out their people.
CDT 2. Make sure we are outnumbered three to one at every meeting. Red-X says, Do not go to Ottawa , Vancouver or Kingston or any big city. Hold them meetings at home in your tipi, longhouse or your condemned Indian Affairs bungalow with the cracked window panes and asbestos contaminated floors and walls.
CDT 3. Put out colonial law as if it is Indigenous law. Announce that Canada recognizes the rule of law and affirms aboriginal tradition. But ignore Indigenous legal processes. Only look at what counts according to the colonial Supreme Court. The Red-X says, Let us take a look at how two colonial reptiles played out the life and death game against our people of the Northwest Territories. Red-X goes on to reveal the Colonial Cheat Sheet used to try to pull the wool over our eyes.
CDT 4. Information is power the colonists have two control strategies: collect, horde and keep it to themselves. When necessary they make it disappear. The other option is to put out a whole lot of lies, like false history and myth making.
CDT 5. Put some heavies at the table. The bigger the title, the longer the resume, the fatter, the better. At the talks with our Dehcho brothers and sisters, the heavy, Minister of Indian Affairs, Robert Nault, said, "The signing of these agreements is an acknowledgment of a new relationship between the Deh Cho, Canada and the GNWT."What he really said was, I hope I confused you because I am confused myself. Michael Nadli, a sell-out band councillor, said, "We look forward to Phase II to begin substantive negotiations on the more fundamental elements of Deh Cho Governance." Translation: i am being played. They are making me read a script I do not understand.
CDT 6. They try to use hierarchical colonial criteria with them sitting at the top seeing themselves with guns and money in hand. We are supposed to be down there somewhere out of sight. They never come right out. They always beat around the bush.
CDT 7. They design an extreme offer-concession strategy to bowl us over if we start kicking up a fuss or raise awkward questions, like, How are you gonna clean up your filthy mess That is when they throw the chair back and pull away from the table. We can stop these sleazes even when they threaten to take the bribe money with them.
CDT 8. They will walk out if they lose control. That is when you know the whole is falling. Translation: We are not playing with you bad Injuns anymore!
CDT 9. Look for weaknesses. They may even use a good cop/bad cop strategy to throw us off balance. We all know there is no good cop, they are all bad. They then threaten illegal injunctions, jail time and law suits. At the January 6, 2008 Kingston meeting ODB?, Reid's pal, Algonquin Would-be, Robert Lovelace, was sent back in to talk to the Mohawks after the carpetbaggers walked out in a huff. Would- Be's job was to side track the Mohawks with his Cointelpro charm. The next day these air punching carpetbaggers disappeared to a secret hideaway. The Mohawks found them and once again they slithered off into the darkness.
CDT 10. The carpetbaggers don't like the people you bring along. They will suggest taking your sell-outs into another room to make a deal behind closed doors. ODB Reid was overheard telling Need-to-be-Algonquin-to-settle-a-phony-land- claim, Lovelace. The next time we should meet with George White of Frontenac Ventures alone with no lawyers They are trying to make a deal on uranium mining on Haudenosaunee land at Sharbot Lake. When we tried to ask questions, they fled again with their coat tails flapping.
CDT 11. They want the same targets. In the 1990 Mohawk-Oka Crisis at Kanehsatake, we sent in different spokespeople every day. Alex Patterson and Bernard Roy, the negotiators for Quebec and Canada, got spitting mad. Their threats were ignored. They picked up their toys and left. Negotiations broke down.
CDT 12. Don't let the colonial agents stuff their side with know-it-alls. Warns the Red-X, this does not intimidate us. We just have more foul smell to cut through. Just keep telling them this is all our land, we are sovereign and that they are trespassers.
Our Basic Way is simple: Report daily to the community. Get their instructions. Select new negotiators each day to avoid getting targeted and becoming too cozy with the adversaries.
Indigenous men cannot meet with adversaries without consulting the women. We all have diverse knowledge, abilities, expertise and responsibilities. We have to use the Great Law traditional decision making process to bring in everybody ideas. Separate private "tete-a-tetes" are meant to force us into making secret deals with the devil.
The meetings must be 2 sided the Indigenous People on one side and all the pirates on the other side with a neutral third party approved by both sides to mediate. This is required by international law.
The Dehcho Coercion Process developed by Chris Reid and Robin Aitkin.
The Dehcho Nation is in the southwest corner of the land known to the colonists as the Northwest Territories. It covers roughly 210,000 square kms. There are 10 communities. The colonial vipers wanted their land and resources and to put a pipeline through their territory. It's not a place where the vipers themselves dream of living or raising their families. But they sure do salivate after the resources.
Red-X warns, Watch out for this Chris ODB Reid. He was the double dipping negotiator and lawyer for the Deh Cho [(867) 695-2355 or (416) 466-9928]; look out for Robin Aitken who was the Chief Federal Negotiator from Indian Affairs [(819) 953-1018]; and don't let Bob Patterson slip away. He was the Chief Negotiator for the Northwest Territories [(867) 873-7167]. They brag about their prowess with Indigenous people. Check out their websites. See what they think of themselves. Their using their old dirty tricks in the current mining and land claim strategy at Sharbot Lake.
The Deh Cho process started in 1998 when former Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart sent in her patsy, Dr. Peter H. Russell, to look at colonial Dehcho lands, resources and governance on behalf of industry. She's now trying to organize Six Nations according to this Manual.
'Patsy' Russell teaches political science at the University of Toronto [phruss@aol.com] and speaks on the Lessons of Ipperwash and Caledonia Learning to be Treaty People. [This title is sooo patronizing! Try not to barf!] He works at the C.D. Howe Institute, a Conservative think tank, that plans and schemes against us. He also spent time among the Australian Aborigines. After his visits to Dehcho, agents were sent in to start managing them. George Erasmus, who gets put on all kinds of government boards and commissions, was put in as chief negotiator for Dehcho.
First there was an Interim Measures Agreement, signed in May 2001 to let the Dehcho take part in their own land and resource management. Wow! What progress! [They have been managing their land for thousands of years!]
Canada wanted an Agreement-in-Principle in five years and a final agreement two years later so that industry could get their claws on the resources, oil, gas and diamonds and to put in the pipeline. They were in a hurry. Dr. Russell recommended something called 'interim measures' and then an 'Agreement-in- Principle'. There's no science behind their spin on names for their theft!
On May 21, 2001, Dehcho, NWT and Canada signed something else called a 'Framework Agreement' that was supposed to be based on the fraudulent Treaty 8 of 1900 and Treaty 11 of 1921 and 1922 with Canada . If the Dehcho scrutinized these treaties, they might find they don't meet international law standards.
Some other fancy names to awe us into being coerced that you may run into include "Land Use Planning" funded by Canada; "Interim Land Withdrawal" to temporarily protect lands not presently needed by industry; involve the Dehcho in the "Mackenzie Valley Resource Management" to make them feel important, meaning, "we'll let you talk to us but we don't have to listen to you; National Energy Board, an outsider, will authorize oil and gas activities with a benefit plan for someone; Canada will let Dehcho watch them turn their land into a park; and joint ventures projects called "Interim Resources Development Agreements" will let Canada and industry steal the resources and give a few pennies to the Dehcho.
Resources like wildlife and fish will be used, managed and protected without specifying by whom and at whose cost.
In August 2003 the Dehcho stopped surface and sub-surface development for five years, probably on the land that has no resources that industry wanted them. The mining companies, environmental groups, prospectors and oil and gas companies were probably involved in deciding which 34% of the lands were withdrawn.
In the Interim Resource Development Agreement of April 2003 the Dehcho would benefit only if there was oil and gas development. Dehcho got 12.25% of the first $2 million ($250,000) that Canada collected in resource royalties from the Mackenzie Valley each year, and 2.45% of any more royalties. The Dehcho could only get up to 50% each year to a maximum of $1 million. "You'll get an allowance if you behave yourselves", Canada told them. Canada will hold the balance in trust so that they can dip into it for their own needs. This is an old trick. At the final agreement in 2005/06 the Dehcho got $1 million. The oil and gas companies are taking out at least $1 million a day if not an hour from their land.
Dehcho had to agree to issue oil and gas exploration licenses and prospecting permits the first year and every two years after that. Mining companies can go to individual Dehcho communities to make separate deals. This is all so underhanded.
Canada says they are giving the Dehcho a chance to "hit the ground running" when a final agreement is completed. Yes, we'd better all run away from these salivating reptiles! This means they will give the Dehcho an advance on their allowance which will be deducted from the final settlement. If it doesn't go through, the Dehcho may have to pay it back.
In September 2004, the Dehcho sued the Mackenzie Gas Project, suspending land, resources and governance negotiations. In the out-of-court settlement of July 2005 Canada agreed to pay Dehcho $31.5 million over three years through program funding and new funding which the Dehcho have to get anyway. It ended up as $3.5 million per year to make it look like the Dehcho were taking part in the Environmental Assessment and regulatory review of the Mackenzie Gas Project.
The "Framework Agreement" sets out how Canada would set up an illegal municipal government to avoid legitimate nation to nation relations. Yeah, we'll let you regulate your own land and water as long as you go by our "rules, which are in the best interests of industry!
The Dehcho role in the Mackenzie Valley Land & Water Board was to bring their land and resources under the same overall controlling regulations. We hear they got two jobs from the oil and gas exploration. ODB Reid was able to get this for them.
Derek Neary of the Deh Cho Drum, Fort Simpson, wrote about the distrust of federal negotiator, Robin "Rotten-Egg" Aitken. Rotten Egg repeatedly said that Canada doesn't have anything up its sleeve! He said that the Dehcho made him push the negotiations. Do we believe that? It's always the other way around.
An Old Indian Trick We Learned from a White Man: Canada made agreements with "metis" to put pressure on Dehcho to go along with the land and resources giveaways. Who are these metis? Anybody who wishes to be native, like the paper Algonquins at Sharbot Lake who are negotiating away Haudenosaunee land? The Congress of Aboriginal People(CAP) is the federal government creature that signs up anyone who wants to be an Indian. If this keeps up, every Canadian could sign up and be part of this subterfuge. As Red-X said, They can never be Ongwehonwe! The Red-X advises, Brothers and sisters, we must use our natural world strategies against these beasts.