An 8 part video series about the Gustafsen Lake siege including eyewitness testimony and surveillance footage. Ts'Peten (Gustafsen Lake) is located in the homeland of the people of Stswecem'c / Xgat'tem: Canoe Creek Band. The notorious "Indian War" at Ts'Peten began with an occupation and ended 31 days later, on 17 September 1995, with the surrender and arrest of fourteen indigenous sovereigntists and four non native supporters. A leader was the 65 year old Wolverine (Jones William Ignace), a member of Adams Lake Indian Band (left). To end the First Nations standoff, a huge paramilitary operation was launched. Said to be the largest in Canadian history, it included 400 officers, nine armored personnel carriers, two surveillance airplanes, five helicopters and an unbelievable 77,000 rounds of ammunition.Following a long 13 month trial, Wolverine was sentenced to prison. After four years of incarceration, he was released on 4 February 1999 (right). Listen to Wolverine speaking on 28 July 2002 during a Native Youth Movement Freedom Tour: Lies and State Repression (7MB). Watch a video of Wolverine lecturing at Globalization Studies (Lethbridge University), 25 February 2004: The Wolverine (164MB). READ MORE: SOURCE
In 1995, after a long history of peaceful attempts to have Shuswap sovereignty respected, indigenous people from the Shuswap and other nations and a few non-indigenous supporters took a stand on sacred Sundance lands at Ts'Peten, aka Gustafsen Lake. People came to the Sundance grounds after a call for help went out, in response to threats made by a local rancher and his hired goons. Shortly afterwards the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) surrounded the Ts'Peten Defenders and held the people there under siege. Over the next month police, politicians, and media escalated the situation to make the siege the most expensive domestic military operation in Canada's history. Miraculously, there was only one casualty -- a dog deliberately killed by a police sniper firing at two unarmed people and the animal as they fled from police gunfire and armored personnel carriers.OVERVIEW OF EVENTS
It could well be argued that there was another casualty at Ts'Peten: justice. The people inside the encampment were forced to endure the longest criminal trial in Canadian history. After over a year of astonishing testimony by police (including open admissions of a "smear and disinformation campaign" against the Ts'Peten Defenders and lawyer Bruce Clark), thirteen of the Defenders received jail sentences.
Three of the Defenders appealed the verdicts on the grounds that the land where the siege took place is native land, and therefore the settler (non-native) courts have no jurisdiction. In early November, the BC Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal. From the beginning of the standoff, Defenders have for an impartial, independent inquiry into the ongoing usurpation of native jurisdiction. Since the end of the standoff, Defenders have called for an additional inquiry into the government and military siege of the Sundancers and their supporters, and the ensuing cover-up.
SOURCE: TS'PETEN (GUSTAFSEN LAKE) ARCHIVES
http://sisis.nativeweb.org/gustlake/00arcmai.html
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2. This is where BILL is explaining the no-shoot zone
3. STS starts using the court testimony to reveal that the RCMP lied and attempted murders.
4. They start talking about the "red truck", and tell of the RCMP version and mass media "manufacturing consent" for a massacre.
5. Here the actual "eye in the sky" video of the RCMP attack and attempted massacre is shown.
6. STS and SHEILA continue to reveal how the RCMP testified in court about how their massacre plan went down, totally contradicting the mass media that spread a completely different "lie version", also concocted by the RCMP.
7. This is where the RCMP try to sniper shoot an unarmed man. The "eye in the sky" video shows that they totallylied about it in court and tried to coverup their attempted murder.
8. The second part of the "sniper" video and STS assessing the situation; calling for a public enquiry, and stating the obvious that there is clear evidence of genocide, perpetrated by the Canadian state and their hired guns.
Thanks to Kevin Nevik for posting these!
Ts'Peten, 1995
Standoff at Ts’Peten /Gustafsen Lake, 1995
“We cannot call ourselves a nation if we don’t want to defend what is rightfully ours.” Wolverine, Defenders of the Land, 1995
In the summer of 1995, a month-long standoff occurred between Indigenous peoples & police near 100 Mile House, in the BC southern-interior. This land is the ancestral homeland of the Secwepemc (Shuswap).
Altogether, over 450 heavily-armed officers from various RCMP Emergency Response Teams (ERT), with military assistance, including 9 armoured personnel carriers, were deployed against some 24 defenders (many of whom were women & children).
In the end, it would be the largest RCMP paramilitary operation in Canadian history, costing over $5 million. Nearly half of this, $2.3 million, was for RCMP overtime.
The incident began after a local white rancher began demanding that a Secwepemc Sundance camp leave land to which he claimed ownership. Despite harassment from the rancher & his cowboys, members of the camp were determined to stay.
Although local Native RCMP officers regularly visited the camp on patrols, they saw little need to intervene and viewed the dispute as a civil matter between the Natives & the rancher. The title of the land itself was in question, not just by Indigenous sovereigntists: had James bought the land, or did he lease it, making it ‘Crown land’?
These cops advised their superiors there was no need for armed intervention, and believed the dispute could be settled through negotiations.
Senior RCMP officers, however, saw it as an opportunity to carry out a major paramilitary operation. All through the spring there had been road-blocks, at one location or another, in the province.
Read More at: http://www.warriorpublications.com/?q=node/39
RADIO INTERVIEW WITH DR. BRUCE CLARK (Lawyer for the Defendants)
CBC RADIO - EARLY EDITION WITH HAL WAKES October 19, 1995 (transcript)
"The charges against me resulted from the fact that I accused the judge of
misprison of treason, fraud and complicity in genocide, which is a charge
I can substantiate in terms of hard law.
In response to that charge, the judge became hysterical and had the police
officers assault me at the counsel table in court. I defended myself. Now,
having sort of clarified the factual basis for the charges, the reason I'm in exile
is because in order to cover up the crimes in which our Canadian judiciary
are engaged, this one judge has cited me for contempt of court. That is,
basically, he is insisting that I recant the truth, apologize and, if not, the
threat is, I will be kept in jail until I do that. This is absolutely an outrageous
overturning of every principle on which the rule of law is based.
I don't propose to sacrifice the interests of my clients in pursuing justice by allowing
the criminal court, and that is the judges who are behaving in a criminal fashion, to
essentially silence the messenger by keeping me in jail indefinitely.
That's why I'm in exile." (He fled to Amsterdam)
(...continues)
My point is that in order to address the law you have to look at the whole law, the same
as when you look at the facts, you have to look at the whole truth. Now the whole law in
this case consists of the constitutional law and the criminal law. The constitutional law
upon which this country was founded since the 18th century says that where judges assume
jurisdiction in unsurrendered Indian territory by definition they are guilty of misprison of
treason and fraud. The fact is that occurred in British Columbia, notably in 1864, Judge
Begbie had hung a group of Chilcoltin Indians. In hard constitutional law, that was an act
of murder by the judge. Now when you say we must look at the law and we must follow
these judicial processes - that is exactly my point.
Read More: http://www.kstrom.net/isk/canada/gust/gus12.html
Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attormey General
The Autobiography of Dacajeweiah [Splitting the Sky] John Boncore Hill: From Attica to Gustafsen Lake — Unmasking the Secrets of the Psycho-sexual Energy and the Struggle for Original People’s Title - By Dacajeweiah (Splitting the Sky) aka John Boncore Hill with She Keeps the Door (Sandra Bruderer)
Paperback: 653 pages
(Published by John Pasquale Boncore, 2001)
IBSN: 0-9689365-0-4
Dacajeweiah (Splitting the Sky), or John Boncore Hill, is a Kanien’keha:ka (Mohawk) warrior who has experienced extraordinarily much in his lifetime of struggle for justice. He was a central figure in two of the major standoffs in the twentieth century. Therefore, it is not surprising that his autobiography, From Attica to Gustafsen Lake — Unmasking the Secrets of the Psycho-sexual Energy and the Struggle for Original People’s Title, written with his wife Sandra (She Keeps The Door) Bruderer, is a hefty book at 653 pages.
(from an article by Kim Petersen / April 7th, 2008)
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/04/the-struggle-for-original-peoples-title/
This book can be purchased by writing to me at:
splitting_the_sky@yahoo.com
The asking price is $50.00 CDN - however, special consideration will be given to those with financial difficulties.
Thank you for your support!
STS
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