Jacqueline House on Recent Events in Six Nations

From Jacqueline House, regarding the September 13th fight which left Sam Gualtieri unconscious in Caledonia:

What has been happening here on Six Nations?

Scano

Tonight, my heart is heavy. However, I thought I would write a little of the past few days. First of all, there have been a few of us gathering on a daily basis discussing Unity for our people, to find a way to come together. We came up with an education march. We feel education is what is lacking and if we could learn to reach out to one another and share knowledge with one another, we can start building some gaps. There are two governing bodies; one is our customs through our traditions. We are born into this; therefore, are our inherent rights. The other has been illegally placed upon us to divide and conquer our existence. We are not saying or trying to convince anybody to believe where we are coming from, but to learn the truth of what has happened to us. We came up with doing three themes, the first one we did on Thursday September 13th, “Where We Were” which consists of who we are. The second we are doing October 19th will focus on, “Where We Are”. The third one we not have set a date but will target, “Where We Are Going”.

A few of us marched from Polytec into the front yard of the Band Administration Office where we placed our signs all over the front yard. We had a lot of support and quite a few people coming up to us and asking what we were doing and they felt it was a great idea. Other’s were giving us information such as the construction in Caledonia and another informed us that Elected Dave General was holding a private meeting of governance and it was his second gathering with other elected officials as far as Rochester New York, and some thought there was a parade of some sort. After spending a little time on the front lawn, we decided to take our sign and mobile ourselves taking us into Mr. General’s meeting where we held up our signs so the delegation can see them clearly. We were so nonchalant as we just stood there holding our signs. We did share the mike with Dave; after all, he was the entertainment. He and his elected buddies got to hear the Declaration of Independence for the first time. They got to here our concerns of how they are misusing our money, how they don’t care for our elders, how they are arms to the government and how they are a part of committing genocide on their own people.

We then drove over to the development and enforced our stance; which is, no development on the Haldimand Proclamation as we are in a process of a resolution. Everything was fine until one of our young men started putting up our Hiawatha flag and the developer got hostile, so angry that he climbed up the scaffold cussing and then began throwing things such as the board with the cement mix on it and tried ripping down our flag. The developer then gave a press release and after about 10 minutes everyone left. Two and half hours later five men sit and watch waiting for the perfect opportunity to express their anger and hatred for what, a flag? The baseball bat that they carried was an assault weapon as they had every intention on using it to inflict pain. Instead, one of their own was hurt and by no means, do not put words into my mouth, as I am so relieved he is alright because this isn’t about hurting one another it is about respect. We have customs and we have laws and we need ours respected just the same as one wants there’s. We have shown this all of our lives for hundreds of years and now is the time to show the host the courtesy of having visitors. I also want to stress, there are two sides to a coin, and one does not override the other just because of the color of one’s skin.

With this note: I am calling on Marie Trainer of Haldimand County and hold her accountable as she is well aware of a “Notification Agreement” regarding; development, land, water, animals, and most importantly there is an emergency phase where she could have called all parties that are involved to the table, to try defuse the situation. In fact, I have tried to meet with her and talk so that Peace begins to roll off her tongue as it is significant to uphold the Treaty of Peace. The community of friends have requested to meet with her, only to be ignored. Again I hold Mayor Marie Trainer and the OPP accountable for the terror that has been inflicted upon our people as they continue to tarnish Her Honor by not helping to keep the peace by not helping to protect Her Majesty’s interest.

This day will be burned in our heads forever as we were forced to stand there and watch our people again being pepper sprayed, hand cuffed and thrown into jail when we have done nothing wrong. We just got thrown back to a time where we are being robbed and molested of our lands. What’s next – Residential schools? Oh yeah they have there puppet government working on that as our language was just cutback. Is it me or does it seem we are taking a step back into a dark history where our people were physically attacked and our children kidnapped?

P/S Thanks for modern technology for without camera’s and video’s, people might not believe what we are saying.

Also I send my best wishes to the family that is involved.

Nya weh
Always Jacqueline