Willfull Blindness, Law and Order or Just Plain Aparthied, BC Style - Arthur Manuel

Yesterday, September 7, 2004 late afternoon and early evening I had the

opportunity to sit with some Secwepemc and white supporters at the

Skwelkwek'welt Protection Center as they talked about what has been

happening as they wait for their impending doom to sooner or later be

arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The people sit at fairway 16 at the Sun Peaks Coutry Golf Course and over

look the Mount Morrisay Ski Run and some of the town houses and condominiums

being built by Sun Peaks.  The place is an environmental mess as Sun Peaks

is chopping up the McGillivray Creek water shed that has been there for

thousands of years, to make into a golf course, ski area and exclusive hide

out for the rich.  The court order is kind of a BC form of legitiamte

aparthied.

They sit their like committed soldiers understanding their mission to save

Mother Earth but caught out there all alone.  Society based upon fantasyland

type enjoyment and a quick cash satisfaction to a stressful world have

endorsed Frank Quinn's plead for a injunction so he can build 60

condominiums and 48 townhouses at Sun Peaks over preserving the traditional

values, language, knowledge aand activities of the Secwepemc peoples,

It is clear that the Secwepemc peoples have legal and constitutional rights

at Sun Peaks but they are being willfully ignored by the federal and

provincial governments and by Sun Peaks.  The Skwelkwek'welt Protection

Center pled their case before Justice Satanov on September 3, 2004 but Irene

Billy, Sarah Deneault, Janice Billy, Arnie Jack and Arthur Manuel were not

heard.  Sun Peaks and the province pled  before the BC Supreme Court to

continue the willfull blindness, and the federal government was no where to

be seen.

The failure of the federal policy to reconcile the differences between

Secwepemc peoples, the province and Sun Peaks will more than likely lead to

arrests, tonight, tomorrow or the day after.  The RCMP will again be used as

a political force to fill the gap for the Canadian government's outdated and

internationally condemed Indian Aboriginal Title extinguishment policy.  It

is clear that Secwepemc culture and language are linked to their land and

cannot be extiguished without extinguishing themselves, therefore it is a

cruel and genocidal policy, therefore is not accepted by us, so standing out

there is really the only solution for a peoples pushed hard against a rock

and hard place.

They call for your support and solidarity in their struggle.  They ask for

your prayers and for your support, whatever it maybe to stand up to the

Canadian Liberal Government in their effort to crush them, with silence and

adherence to extinguishment of their Aboriginal Title at Sun Peaks.  Put

pressure on the NDP and Bloc Quebecois to force the minority Liberal

Government to come up with a new policy that recognizes Aboriginal Title and

not extinguishes it.

Canada must live up to the promise of the Supreme Court of Canada in the

Delgamuukw that "we are all here to stay".