Ottawa: Non-Natives and Natives march in support of Six Nations

Friday solidarity demonstrations occurred in Ottawa and many other communities across the country. The demonstrators were standing up in support of the Six Nations people in Caledonia, Ontario who have been engaged in direct action against the development of what they say is their land that they leased, not sold to the government. The government takes a different approach looking as the land was their property and therefore their property to sell to developers. The standoff has been going on since February 28th of this year. On April 20th, in the wee hours of the morning police raided the standoff with M16s, pepper spray, tear gas, batons, and tasers despite the protesters being unarmed. They arrested 16 individuals, but instead of this causing the demonstration to end Warrior societies were called in and many more people went to support the standoff.

The Demonstration in Ottawa had many different speakers on the open mike, most of which from First Nations groups. Many different groups were represented within the group of 80 or so people who came and went at different points. The most compelling speaker was Mohawk and talked about human rights in our society. He talked about how society cannot know human rights when women are still oppressed. He also mentioned that in Caledonia during the raid one person who was arrested refused to give his name or identification and the OPP actually stabbed him with a needle to get his blood to identify him by DNA. He continued to say that the government knew nothing of human rights due to what the government was doing at home and abroad.

Tags: protests, Ottawa, First Nations, Six Nations, Solidarity, Police