LETTER

 

----  Worsening tensions in Oka

 

Following an altercation with the Mayor  of Oka, close to the Pines, Kanienkeha:ká Land Defenders denounce continuing aggression by the Oka municipality against their community and express concerns about escalating tensions. They call on the Canadian and provincial governments to intervene to stop the pattern of aggression and meet with land defenders in the presence of impartial observers. 

In December, 2020, the Oka municipality mounted an unprovoked aggression against the Mohawk people by moving to seize a traditional burial ground on unceded land, the Oka Pines, and making it its own cultural heritage. This move is the latest in a decades-long series of provocations and racist attacks by the municipality.

We have a legal right as a self-determining people to protect our land. And yet the government of Canada does nothing to enforce this right, leaving the racist trolls of Oka Municipality free rein to harass the Kanienkehá:ka unabated. We are worried about escalation. This situation is a powder keg.

Over the last thirty years, the Oka municipality has seized multiple parcels of unceded land, with the latest example being selling the Golf Course, the subject of the 1990 Siege of Kanehsata:ké, for real estate development. The Mohawk are over-policed, systematically disrespected and insulted by the municipality, all of this for asserting their right to existence. 

Louis Ramirez,  Kanienkeha:ká Land Defenders

KANEHSATA:KÉ, Qc