"Justice Being Sought by Mohawks"

OHSWEKEN - Things are becoming more and more unreal in Mohawk country. Now the Quebec provincial police want to buy three army tanks equipped with 105 mm cannons and 7.2 mm machine guns. Then they could crack down on Mohawk demonstrators just like the Soviets did when they killed 14 people in Lithuania. One of those killed was a young woman run over by a tank. Next year it could be a Mohawk girl.

The main problem on the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve at present seems to be that the Quebec police are more interested in revenge than in keeping order. If the Kahnawake Mohawks had not come to the aid of their fellow Mohawks at Oka last summer, the Quebec provincial police would have had an easy victory. However, instead of a chance to club a few defenseless demonstrators, arrest a few ring leaders and then return as heroes, they ended up choking on their own tear gas and losing their police cars. It was better than a Keystone Cops movie.

Before you start feeling sorry for this group consider this. In the mid-1980s the native people of another Quebec community were the victims of a similar raid. Russell Diabo, a Mohawk who works for the Barriere Lake Bank of Quebec, spoke at McMaster University last spring and told the story. Like the natives of Temagami, they found their land and resources being sold from under their feet with no consultation or compensation. After numerous appeals to all levels of government, they set up a road block to stop further tree-cutting, dam-building and poison-sraying of their forests.

All they wanted to do was to talk. That is what civilized people are supposed to do before they fight. The Quebec provincial police came in their riot gear, teargassed them and threw some of them in jail after clubbing them into submission. That's what the police wanted to do to the people of Kanasatake (Oka). The Mohawks of Kahnawake prevented this from happening by giving them more manpower and by closing the Mercier Bridge on their territory. This created a diversion and kept the provincial police from concentrating on the Oka Mohawks. It was a bold and brilliant strategy and it had the desired effect.

But now the Quebec police seem intent on provoking the Kahnawake Mohawks, Chief Alvin Delisle said: "Since November, everybody's been getting $40 warning tickets about worn-out wiper blades and burned-out tail lights." It sounds more like harassment than keeping order.

The Kahnawake Mohawks have have their own Peacekeepers. They even have their own official cars but the Quebec police will not cooperate with them. The Mohawk Peacekeepers could provide service and protection to the Mohawk community much better than an outside force at this time.

However, they will not be permitted to do this as long as some people in Quebec are more interested in getting even.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for law and order. But before we can have law and order, there has to be justice. Sometimes, they are not the same thing. Ask the Lithuanians.