Mohawks remove rail blockades
Land defenders lifted rail barricade to help ease tensions
MONTREAL — In the end it wasn’t force that drove them from the tracks; not a military raid or convoy of police cruisers sent to smash through the Mohawk lines.
In the end, the Mohawks themselves gathered their camp Friday and lifted the rail blockade at Kahnawake. They didn’t do so at the behest of the federal government or provincial police, they left on their own terms after holding the railroad for nearly one month.
“It is a gesture of good faith,” said Joe Deom, a spokesperson for the Kahnawake Longhouse. “The (Mohawk) nation would like to express its gratitude and praise with the Kahnawake land defenders — these ladies — who have endured the elements to stand their ground for 27 days in solidarity with the people of the Wet’suwet’en nation.”
Tensions flared last week when Premier François Legault said provincial police would not make a move on Kahnawake because the Mohawks are sitting on a stockpile of assault rifles. Legault’s words sparked columns by some of the province’s most read commentators, claiming the community was a lawless place held hostage by masked, guntoting warriors.
But on Friday, as the land defenders marched out of their camp, there were no warriors in sight.
There was Tommy Deer — a professional artist, amateur boxer and father who draws Transformers robots and takes his children to see Star Wars movies when they come out.
Raven Swamp cradled her baby at the back of the crowd, smiling at the boy as she secured a tuque over his ears. Swamp is a schoolteacher who won the Miss Indian World pageant in 2017.
Towards the end of the march, Kaniehtiio Horn asked a friend to walk her mother back to her car across the highway.
“Make sure nothing happens to her or you’re dead meat,” said Horn, an actress who records a podcast with her mom. Horn was four years old during the 1990 Oka Crisis and remembers seeing her older sister stabbed by a soldier’s bayonet that summer. Now she uses her platform to educate non-Indigenous Canadians about the issues affecting her community.
The Mohawks began meeting about the blockade’s future Sunday after the federal government and Wet’suwet’en reached a tentative agreement that would end the land dispute at the heart of the protest. They decided, late Wednesday, to take their camp and move it to an embankment that overlooks Highway 132.
Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs are defending their territory against the construction of a natural gas pipeline approved by the First Nation’s elected chiefs. When the RCMP moved in and began removing Wet’suwet’en land defenders from their camp in the British Columbia wilderness, protests sprang up across the country.
The two most notable were rail blockades at Kahnawake and in their sister community of Tyendinaga, near Belleville, Ont. In the subsequent weeks, the Mohawks stopped nearly 1,000 freight trains and cost the Canadian economy hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the federal government.
The camp at the CP Rail tracks was set around a fire that has been burning since the protest began in early February. That fire was moved across the highway and will keep burning as the Wet’suwet’en meet to deliberate on the government’s proposal.
But while the tracks are clear, the Mohawks say they could resume the blockade at any moment.
“We are here to stay as long as the Wet’suwet’en need us,” said Roxann Whitebean, one of the land defenders. “We expect the government of Canada and the premier of British Columbia to continue respectful negotiations.”
Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller says that, in negotiating with Mohawks in Tyendinaga and Kahnawake, he was never once misled. Through relationships he cultivated learning the Mohawk language, the minister was able to maintain direct lines of communications with the protesters.
“They may have said things I didn’t agree with, but they never once told me something that wasn’t true,” Miller said during a telephone interview with the Montreal Gazette. “We’re used to having bureaucrats or intermediaries speak on our behalf, but what this taught me is that, as a government, we have to be willing to engage at the highest level.
“The relationships need to be nurtured because the trust just isn’t there. And every time it’s been granted, it’s been broken. Usually by the government.”