Ipperwash

Tue, 20 Jan 2004
TORONTO - New details are emerging about events surrounding a native protest at Ipperwash Provincial Park in Ontario, in the late summer of 1995.

Dudley George

About 30 native protesters erected barriers blocking access to the park in a dispute over land. During a confrontation one of the native protesters, Dudley George, was shot and killed.

Now a videotape has emerged that gives some insight into the events leading up to the incident. A handful of Ontario Provincial Police officers posing as a media crew, were caught on tape having a shocking conversation.

"Is there still a lot of press down there," one officer is says.
"No, there's no one down there. Just a great big fat fuck Indian," replies another.
The camera's rolling, eh?"
"Yeah."
"We had this planned, you know. We thought if we could get five or six cases of Labatts 50, we could bait them."
"Yeah."
"Then we'd have this big net at a pit."
"Creative thinking."
Works in the (U.S.) South with watermelon."

It's a conversation rife with racist remarks, recorded just a day before the land dispute ended in gunfire. It was only released after an access to information request by a producer with The Fifth Estate.

The request was for police surveillance material taken during the standoff, to provide insight into why it ended in the shooting death of Dudley George.

The OPP says it doesn't condone the remarks and that the two officers in question have already been disciplined.

One underwent native sensitivity training. The other was working on a contract that was not renewed.

"The words were shameful and offensive and they should never have been said, and I can tell you our position with regards to this is pretty clear. It's just not acceptable behaviour," said OPP Superintendent Bill Crate.

But the George family says the conversation points a damning figure at the OPP. "I think once they start to think like that then they start to downgrade a person to a certain extent. Then they start to feel that that person's not worth nothing. Then maybe it's all right to shoot them," said Sam George, Dudley George's brother.

OPP Sgt. Kenneth Deane was convicted of criminal negligence causing death in 1997 shooting. A judge also determined that George and two other protesters were unarmed during the incident, in spite of police allegations to the contrary. Those allegations have added to persistent and lingering charges that police were under political pressure by then premier Mike Harris to take action.

George family lawyer Murray Klippenstein has spent nearly a decade researching events at Ipperwash and pushing for a public inquiry - something the new Liberal government in Ontario finally announced last fall.

But Klippenstein calls the conversation toxic and poisonous and says it adds a whole new dimension to the case.

"This kind of attitude ... makes it pretty easy to shoot an Indian, and if an Indian has legitimate grievances about burial grounds you can joke about them and demean them. Shooting them not such big deal," he said.

Klippenstein says this conversation will play a large part in the public inquiry into the death of Dudley George, which is likely to begin this September.

CBC News Online staff http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/01/20/ipperwash040120

BY STEVE PENNER AND AHMAD HAGHIGHAT

IPPERWASH, Ontario - The September 6 killing of Native protester Anthony George by Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) here, and the September 11 armed assault by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) on Native protesters at Gustafsen Lake in British Columbia that left at least one wounded, represent a major escalation of the attacks on Native people by this country's capitalist rulers and their police agencies.

The OPP assault on a group of unarmed Native rights activists also seriously wounded 16-year-old Nicolas George. Bernard George, who was savagely beaten by police, had to be hospitalized.

Hundreds of OPP and RCMP cops armed with assault rifles, stun grenades, and other weapons surrounded Native protesters at the two occupations. At Gustafsen Lake, the Canadian army drove the RCMP in armored personnel carriers. The provincial governments, with the complete backing of Ottawa, have both threatened further police action against the protesters who they characterize as "lawless criminals."

Native rights fighters across the country have begun to mobilize against the government's attacks. Over 1,000 Native people from across Ontario, from other provinces, and from the United States attended the September 11 funeral of Anthony George to express their solidarity. Demonstrations protesting the cop attacks were held in a number of cities including Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Ottawa. A round the clock vigil numbering up to 100 people at any one time is being held at Queen's Park in Toronto at the Ontario provincial legislature.

Anthony George, 38, and other Native rights activists began an occupation of 907 hectares of the Ipperwash Provincial Park on September 4, Labor Day, after the park had been closed for the season. They demanded that the Ontario government return the land which it had taken over in 1942. They consider it a sacred Native burial site.

The park sits next to the Ipperwash Military Reserve, about 25 miles east of Sarnia on the shores of lake Huron. On July 29, Native activists took over the main buildings on the base. Natives have been fighting the Canadian government for over 50 years over return of the land, which was taken from them in 1942 under the War Measures Act.

The provincial cops tried to justify the cold- blooded murder of George by claiming that the "occupants... of two vehicles fired on police officers and subsequently police returned fire."

Expressing skepticism of the government's story, the Toronto Star pointed out, "OPP Chief Superintend Chris Coles has refused to say how many shots were fired at police, nor have the OPP shown any weapons that they say were used in the shooting, or any damage caused by the alleged shooting by Chippewa."

"Our people had no weapons," Steve Wolfe, a Kettle and Stony Point First Nation band councilor told the Militant. "They only had sticks and stones to defend themselves against the cop attack."

"One of our band councilors (Bernard George) was beaten even before they started shooting," said Wolfe. The cops knocked him to the ground, kicked and beat him while calling him a dog and a savage. He was hospitalized for three days.

Wolfe also explained that the cops had called in ambulances just before they launched their attack. They refused to use the ambulances, however, to transport the wounded for medical care after the shooting. Anthony George's sister Carolyn had to take him to the hospital by car." The OPP wouldn't even help me lift him," she explained. She believes he might have survived his wounds had the police provided aid.

On arriving at Strathroy Hospital, Carolyn George and another woman were jumped on by police, pushed to the ground, handcuffed and arrested on charges of the attempted murder of her brother. They were released from jail only after doctors confirmed that the bullet that killed her brother came from a police rifle.

Ontario gov't refuses to negotiate

Following the shootings, Ontario Conservative premier Mike Harris, rejected the demand of Ovide Mercredi, head of the Assembly of First Nations, that the government negotiate with the Native protesters occupying the park. The federal government has taken the same position against those occupying the military base.

Harris labeled the Native protest an "illegal occupation" and a "criminal matter for the police."

Harris's racist attitude towards native people is well known. In 1994, before he became premier in last June's provincial election he stated that "too many [Natives] spend all their time on courts and lawyers and they just stay home and do nothing."

Harris has stated he won't talk to any of the Native people until the occupation is ended. Mercredi accused him of wanting to negotiate "out of the barrel of a gun."

Contrary to the impression given by the capitalist media that non-Native residents don't support the protests, a peace march was called for September 11. At the request of the George family it was postponed until after the funeral.

Scott Ewart, one of the peace march organizers, explained that the rally would have laid the responsibility for the confrontation on Ottawa. "They had 50 years to solve this problem. What we see today is the result of 50 years of frustration." While a number of non-Native residents explained to Militant reporters their support for the OPP actions others expressed their anger at the massive police presence in the area.

Following the cop assault at Gustafsen Lake in British Columbia, the RCMP claimed they were only returning fire after being attacked by three Native protesters in a truck. However, there is no evidence that this is what happened. The Natives explained that their truck was disabled by a land mine as they attempted to break the tight police siege of the occupation in order to get fresh water. As police using armored personnel carriers opened fire, the truck burst into flame and the protesters fled into the woods.

The day after the killing of George at Ipperwash, British Columbia premier Mike Harcourt called on the protesters at Gustafsen Lake to "surrender" and warned that if they didn't their protest could end in a "tragedy" like the death of Anthony George at Ipperwash.

Ahmad Haghighat is a member of Local 1295 of the International Association of Machinists. Steve Penner is a member of Local 5336 of the United Steelworkers of America.

http://www.themilitant.com/1995/5935/5935_6.html

Harris says officer misunderstood gov't position

Mike Harris has vigorously dismissed comments made by a police inspector who described his government as indifferent to the welfare of native protesters during the Ipperwash crisis.

Ontario provincial police Insp. Ron Fox was in attendance when then-Ontario premier Harris and other senior government officials gathered at an emergency meeting to discuss how to handle the escalating standoff between natives and police at Ipperwash Provincial Park in September 1995.

Shortly after the top-level meeting, Fox had a tape-recorded conversation with Insp. John Carson, the incident commander at Ipperwash, and said authorities were dealing with "a real redneck government" and that "There's no question. They don't give a shit about Indians."

Hours later, the police began their advance on the park and Dudley George was fatally shot by a police sniper.

On Wednesday, Harris told the judicial inquiry into George's death that Fox completely misunderstood the government's stance.

"I would say it's 100 per cent the wrong view," Harris said under cross-examination on his second day of testifying at the inquiry in Forest, Ont. "I can't imagine that anybody would think that this would be the view of the government."

Harris said he left the meeting with the understanding that a court injunction would be sought the next day to allow police to remove the protesters.

Harris also admitted he wanted Indian protesters out of Ipperwash because he considered the occupation illegal.

But he said he didn't think Fox's conversation with Carson influenced police action.

"It would be a concern if ... somebody received that information and then acted inappropriately," said Harris, who has testified he wasn't aware at the time that Fox was a police officer. "The OPP doesn't appear to have done that."

Under cross examination by OPP lawyer Mark Sandler at the Ipperwash inquiry on Wednesday, Harris admitted he was frustrated with the occupation.

The extent to which Harris directed police is a key issue at the judicial probe into George's death.

Throughout the inquiry, suspicion has lingered that pressure from the Ontario government was behind the police decision to move on the park on the night of the shooting.

On Tuesday, Harris denied uttering an obscene slur when he said he wanted the occupiers out of the park.

Former Ontario attorney general Charles Harnick stunned the inquiry when he testified in November that he heard Harris say "I want the fucking Indians out of the park" during a meeting with senior government hours before George's death.

"I absolutely did not say that, or words to those effect, or use that adjective at any time during this meeting," Harris said Tuesday.

Harris is expected to be cross-examined further on the issue over several days of testimony.

George, 38, was unarmed when he was shot and killed by two bullets after the OPP moved in on the group of protesters.

Sergeant Ken Deane was later convicted of criminal negligence and resigned from the force.

The parkland, which had belonged to the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation, was turned into an army camp during the Second World War. It contained a burial ground that natives, including George, considered sacred.

The inquiry, led by Justice Sidney Linden, is expected to deliver its final report in late 2006.

TORONTO - The public inquiry scrutinizing the death of Dudley George has lost a central witness to the decade-old event in Ipperwash Provincial Park, with the weekend death of the former police officer who fatally shot the aboriginal protester.

Kenneth Deane was to testify within weeks at the judicial probe into George's death. He was killed Saturday [February 25/06] in a car crash in eastern Ontario, an event the George family said could leave some key questions unanswered.

Deane is the third provincial police officer involved in the crisis to die before testifying before the inquiry.

[Article from Victoria Times Colonist paper, page A4 of February 27/06]

So there it is folks - not only one convenient death of a police officer involved in government directed terrorism against sovereign 'first nations' people, but THREE. This seems just a bit too convenient to be mere chance - especially given all the high profile names involved in this disgraceful crime.

See how evidence suggests police may have killed four of their own to hype draconian anti-grow-op legislation, and invoke sympathy toward a police force wallowing in corruption and the unlawful intimidation of law abiding Canadians.

Imagine going down to the ocean to get food for yourself or your family, and being told by one of your own government servants that what you are doing is "illegal"? Strange but true.... watch video for actual proof!

Did not the governments of Canada acknowledge in the Constitution that God is sovereign; therefore the fish are His, and we (the people) are the grateful beneficiaries of his provision. Just what does the government think it is doing telling its boss (the public they allegedly work for) that we can't gather our own food to eat? Bare in mind, also, that this same government sells commercial fishing licenses and makes tens of millions from these same fish - so who is actually to blame for any over-fishing, if it exists!

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