Inferno: Fw: Opening the Border for FTAA (fwd)

[Jim Choate]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 20:54:23 -0500
From: Any Mouse

the regional convergence towards Quebec is audible...

----- Original Message -----
From: "moose" <moose000 at earthlink.net>
To: "* Anti IMF" <antiimf2000 at yahoogroups.com>; "* AAC" <aac at lists.tao.ca>; "*
Yaba East" <yabastaeast at topica.com>; "* Bay Area DAN"
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Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 1:38 PM
Subject: Opening the Border for FTAA


> Opening the Border for FTAA
>              by CARLYN ZWARENSTEIN 11:27am Tue Mar 20 '01
>
>  Americans coming north to protest free trade
> talks in Quebec City next month will find the
> border open, if Shawn Brant has his way.
>
>
>         A Mohawk from the community of Tyendinaga and an
> organizer with the
> Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), Brant will take
> part in a plan to
> open the international border near Cornwall, Ont., on the
> weekend of the
> Free Trade Agreement of the Americas talks in Quebec City
> (April 20-22).The
> border cuts through the Mohawk territory of Akwesasne, which
> overlaps
> Ontario, Quebec and the United States.
>
>         "My motivation is to assert and reinforce the
> sovereign integrity
> of Mohawk people within the Mohawk nation and to bring the
> organizing
> bodies together so we can stand and fight in preparation for
> the fall," he
> says, referring to a series of actions with which OCAP and
> allied groups
> plan to confront the Ontario government. "We will engage in
> attacks against
> the provincial economy, the provincial infrastructure. We
> will shut down
> highways, roadways, bridges until this government is brought
> to its knees."
>
>         As Brant describes it, people will assemble in
> Cornwall on April 19
> and then move into Akwesasne, while supporters from the US
> will gather on
> the American side of the border. And then?
>
>         "The Mohawks of Akwesasne will have pre-secured the
> bridge," says
> Brant, though he is reluctant to go into details. "That's
> probably
> something that wouldn't be best to publish, tactically," he
> says. "We are
> preparing for every possible scenario. Certainly an
> aggressive stand by the
> state would not stop us from pursuing our objective -- we'll
> respond to
> force with force and to opposition with opposition."
>
>         Meanwhile, OCAP is forming networks with Mohawk
> communities in the
> area. A recent OCAP tour raised interest among Oneida,
> Cayuga and Seneca
> communities south of the border.
>
>         The action has been endorsed by the Cornwall Labour
> Council (CLC),
> the Kingston-based People's Community Union (PCU) and
> members of the Mohawk
> communities of Akwesasne and Kahnawake. The CLC has sent
> letters to the
> elected leadership in Akwesasne, requesting their support.
>
>         Brant maintains that although some members of the
> Akwesasne Mohawk
> community may oppose a potentially explosive action, none
> oppose opening
> the border. "The border is a barrier to community life in
> Akwesasne," says
> Brant, who must submit to car searches and ID checks at
> Customs in order to
> visit relatives who live in the same Mohawk territory, but
> across the
> border. "It is the right of the Mohawk nation to determine
> who can cross
> the border," he adds.
>
>         According to Darren Bonaparte, the Akwesasne author
> of A Line on a
> Map: A Mohawk Perspective on the International Border at
> Akwesasne, the
> Mohawks have had a love-hate relationship with the border
> over the years.
> During Prohibition it provided opportunity for illegal
> profit through
> alcohol trading, and more recently cigarettes and foreign
> nationals have
> illicitly traveled north and south, respectively.
>
>         The border action was news to Canada Customs
> spokesperson Collette
> Gentes-Hawn. "Have we been officially notified?" she asks.
> Still, she's not
> surprised. "This wouldn't be the first time there are
> demonstrations on
> this bridge," she adds, noting that a court case relating to
> the border is
> outstanding. The case, launched by Grand Chief Mike Mitchell
> and the Mohawk
> Council, alleges that the feds knew about cigarette
> smuggling across the
> border, but used the Mohawks as scapegoats rather than
> acting against the
> tobacco industry.
>
>         According to Brant, the action is really about the
> free-trade-friendly policies of the Ontario government,
> which are of
> concern to poor people and First Nations alike: "[Free
> trade] does
> everything to help corporations, and absolutely shit to help
> people in
> poverty."
>
>
>
>