Residential School Survivors Occupy Vancouver Church

International Media Statement, For Immediate Release

The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (Vancouver)

Sunday, February 15, 2009 - on Squamish Nation territory ("Vancouver, Canada")

Residential School Survivors Occupy St. Andrew's Wesley United Church to Protect the Remains of Children Killed at the Alberni Residential School

Two dozen aboriginal survivors of the Indian residential schools non-violently occupied St. Andrew's Wesley United Church in Vancouver today to stop the destruction of the grave sites of children who died at the former Alberni Indian Residential School.

The protestors entered the church sanctuary as the worship service commenced and unfurled a banner declaring "All The Children Need A Proper Burial". After leafletting the congregation and making a statement, the protestors left, vowing to return if the United Church did not surrender the remains of native children who died under their care and halt further destruction of their burial sites.

The occupation was prompted by the partial destruction this week of the last building of the United Church's former Alberni Indian residential school, where eyewitnesses claim that the remains of former students are buried.

"They're destroying the evidence of their crime, and under the law, that's a crime" said Bingo, a survivor of the Alert Bay residential school. "We're not listening to their bullshit anymore. We'll be back with more people next time."

Squamish hereditary Chief Kiapilano, who legally evicted the United Church from his territory last March, endorsed the occupation and called for similar actions by other residential school survivors. These occupations of United Churches during their Sunday services will continue and will escalate until the fallen children are brought home, their killers are brought to justice, and the residential school crime sites are all protected.

Issued by The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (Vancouver)

Contact: 1-888-265-1007 or 250-753-3345 http://www.blogger.com/www.hiddenfromhistory.org

Note: A video transcript of today's occupation will be posted this week on the website, above, and is available on request.

Read and Hear the truth of Genocide in Canada, past and present, at thiswebsite: http://www.blogger.com/www.hiddenfromhistory.org

"Kevin [Annett] is more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than many who have received it in the past."- Dr. Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"A courageous and inspiring man." (referring to Kevin Annett)- Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Belfast, Northern Ireland"

The very lands we all along enjoyed

they ravished from the people they destroyed ...

All the long pretenses of descent

are shams of right to prop up government.

'Tis all invasion, usurpation all;

'Tis all by fraud and force that we possess,

and length of time can make no crime the less;

Religion's always on the strongest side."

- Daniel Defoe, Jure Divino (England, 1706) From: Eagle Strong Voice

__________________________________________________________

Story Source: The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (Vancouver)

Image Source: www.hiddenfromhistory.org

Native Rights News is making this material available as the result of a press release issued by The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (Vancouver). We are publishing the image from http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org in accordance with the Fair Use Doctrine codified at Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107: This article is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information. Distribution of this material is for research and educational purposes that will promote social and economic justice and benefit society.

Twelve Months of Broken Promises Since Rudd's Apology to the Stolen Generations

Australia Day: a racist celebration

By Simon Butler
Source: Green Left Online, 4 February 2009

Members of Tasmania's Aboriginal community didn't mince their words about how they feel about the celebration of Australia Day.

"You stole our land, you stole our rights and we won't celebrate invasion day", the protesters chanted as they marched through the streets of Hobart. Symbolically, they carried three coffins with them to the steps of the state parliament on January 26.

The following day, the Hobart Mercury reported that the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre state secretary, Nala Mansell-McKenna, told the crowd that celebrating Australia Day on January 26 was undeniably racist.

She compared the offence many Indigenous people feel regarding Australia Day to the imaginable offence were Aboriginals to "celebrate" on Anzac Day.

According to the Mercury Mansell-McKenna said: "There can never be reconciliation between white and Aboriginal Australians while Australia Day is celebrated on January 26 … To us it marks the start of assimilation, land theft, murder, poisoning and death — how can any reasonable person celebrate that?"

Just minutes after he became the 2009 Australian of the Year, Aboriginal leader Mick Dodson used his first public address to also criticise the celebration of Australia Day. He said that for many Aboriginals January 26 is not a day for celebration but "a day of mourning" and "the day in which our world came crashing down".

Australia Day is marked as Invasion Day or Survival Day by many Aboriginal Australians and their supporters, Dodson pointed out. He called for a "national conversation" about changing the day to a more appropriate date. He also said the issue of compensation to the Stolen Generations still needs to be addressed — an option already dismissed by the federal ALP government.

The government hurried to rule out any idea of changes to Australia Day. "To our Indigenous leaders, and those who call for a change to our national day, let me say a simple, respectful but straightforward no", said PM Kevin Rudd on January 26, in reply to Dodson's speech.

A racist celebration

Worldwide, Australia is one of only two countries colonised by Europeans that celebrate its national day on the anniversary of white settlement. The other country is the apartheid state of Israel, whose national day coincides with the commencement of Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in 1948.

Australia has little to be proud of in maintaining January 26 as a national holiday. It marks the beginning of a brutal invasion and genocide carried out against the original inhabitants.

For decades, Australian authorities subjected Indigenous people to systematic discrimination and the theft of their land. These policies were considered justified on the patronising and racist assumption that Aboriginal people constituted an inferior, dying race.

In 1901, attorney-general and future prime minister Alfred Deakin even called for Aboriginals subjected to Australia's apartheid-like laws to be grateful: "if [Aboriginals] be a dying race, let us hope that in their last hours they will be able to recognise not simply the justice, but the generosity of the treatment which the white race, who are dispossessing them and entering into their heritage, are according them."

Abandoning January 26 as a national celebration would be a progressive step — part of a bigger campaign for full equality and justice for Australia's Indigenous people.

The racism associated with Australia Day is not only a thing of the past. It also plays a role in stoking racist nationalism among white Australians today. This year, hundreds of white youth rampaged in the Sydney suburb of Manly on January 26, targeting non-white shopkeepers, in their own, appalling assertion of "Aussie pride".

AAP's Justin Vallejo reported that the white rioters attacked and injured an 18-year-old Asian woman, a Sikh taxi driver and an Asian shopkeeper in scenes that had "the potential to resemble Cronulla Beach in 2005".

Nina Burridge, an academic at the University of Technology, witnessed the Manly riots. She ridiculed police suggestions that racism was not a factor in the rampage, telling the January 27 Sydney Morning Herald there was definitely "an underlying element of racism dressed up as nationalism".

In the weeks after the racist Cronulla riots in 2005 — involving hundreds of white Australians rampaging through the suburb indiscriminately attacking non-whites — the ABC's 7.30 Report interviewed some of the participants.

Being part of riots "was better than Australia Day", said one unrepentant racist. "I went home at 10 o'clock at night and my eyes were like this. I had the best time of my life. Not because we were there fighting Lebos, but just the atmosphere, you know. Everyone has had enough of them."

Broken promises

Along with its racist and nationalist associations, there is a further reason why the ALP government should move Australia Day. It was one of the election promises made at its 2007 national convention. The 2004 convention had also adopted this policy.

Chris Graham, from the National Indigenous Times, explained in a January 22 editorial that the ALP went into the 2007 election with a policy of implementing the recommendations of a report from the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. One of those recommendations is to move Australia Day to a less offensive day.

Graham labelled Rudd's refusal to implement his own party's policy as consistent with his entire first year in office, "which is littered with broken promises to Aboriginal people". He listed some of these broken promises.

Before the election, Labor promised to boost funding to Aboriginal legal aid but actually cut funding in its first budget. Labor attacked the previous government for not bridging the Indigenous health gap, yet since taking office it too has failed to make up the funding shortfall.

In opposition, the ALP promised to revitalise Indigenous languages and endorse the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In government, it has backed away from both of these things.

Labor professed to be critical of the Howard government's NT intervention and promised a review if elected. The review went ahead but Labor simply ignored the major recommendations: the intervention continues largely unchanged.

Rudd has also broken a pre-election pledge to respond comprehensively to the Bringing Them Home report into the Stolen Generations. A major recommendation of the report was compensation, yet as PM, Rudd has ruled out any compensation scheme.

On February 13, it will be 12 months since Rudd made the moving apology to the Stolen Generations, raising hopes of real change among many. The reality of his government's record since then led Graham to conclude: "Labor is the party that says one thing, and does another. It is the party that pretends to be the friend of the blackfella, but stabs him the back regardless of whether or not he's looking."

Alternatives

According to the January 27 NIT, Dodson has proposed February 13 — the anniversary of the apology — as one alternative date for Australia's national day. Mansell-McKenna has also raised the idea of shifting the holiday to that day.

Queensland Aboriginal leader and Socialist Alliance member Sam Watson also supports the call to change the date of Australia Day. According to another January 27 NIT report Watson argued: "It needs to be [changed] because January 26 is only the day in 1788 when the First Fleet arrived to set up the colony of New South Wales. It's got nothing to do with Aboriginal people or the nation of Australia as it stands today."

Watson's suggestion for an alternative date was June 3 — the day the Mabo decision recognising native title was handed down in 1992.

The January 27 Mercury also reported Tasmanian Aboriginal leader Michael Mansell has a third alternative proposal for moving Australia Day — the day should coincide with the future date when the government finally signs a treaty with Aboriginal people.

Another view is held by South Australian Aboriginal elder Aunty Josi Agius who argued that she doesn't believe Australia Day should be changed, but felt strongly that the government still had to do more to recognise the struggle of Indigenous people.

According to ABC Online, Aunty Josi said, "Australia Day is good for non-Aboriginal people and for us it's our survival day. Another day for Aboriginal people should be brought in, or the government should do something to recognise us."

Debate and discussion within and without the Indigenous community will widen in the context of Dodson's remarks. But this discussion must be combined with ongoing campaigns in solidarity with Indigenous people, taking up government attacks.

Watson told the ABC on January 26 that he hoped Dodson would continue to use his position to speak out for Indigenous rights. Many others will also need to speak out and take action.

Despite the apology, despite the rhetoric, despite the awarding of Australian of the Year to an Aboriginal leader … the Rudd government is systematically attacking the rights and past gains of Indigenous people.
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Copyright 2009 Simon Butler

Native Rights News is making this material from Green Left Weekly available by permission of the author as expressed through the copyright policy statement of Green Left Weekly. This article is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information. Distribution of this material is for research and educational purposes that will promote social and economic justice and benefit society.

--
Posted By Perry Chesnut, Editor NRN to Native Rights News at 2/03/2009 10:51:00 AM

Thanksgiving: A National Day of Mourning for Indians

Thanksgiving: A National Day of Mourning for Indians
Published Nov 24, 2008 9:19 PM

Following are excerpts from a statement written by Mahtowin Munro (Lakota) and Moonanum James (Wampanoag), co-leaders of United American Indians of New England. Read the entire statement at http://www.uaine.org/.


Every year since 1970, United American Indians of New England have organized the National Day of Mourning observance in Plymouth at noon on Thanksgiving Day. Every year, hundreds of Native people and our supporters from all four directions join us. Every year, including this year, Native people from throughout the Americas will speak the truth about our history and about current issues and struggles we are involved in.

Why do hundreds of people stand out in the cold rather than sit home eating turkey and watching football? Do we have something against a harvest festival?

Of course not. But Thanksgiving in this country—and in particular in Plymouth—is much more than a harvest home festival. It is a celebration of pilgrim mythology.
According to this mythology, the pilgrims arrived, the Native people fed them and welcomed them, the Indians promptly faded into the background, and everyone lived happily ever after.

The pilgrims are glorified and mythologized because the circumstances of the first English-speaking colony in Jamestown were frankly too ugly (for example, they turned to cannibalism to survive) to hold up as an effective national myth.

The pilgrims did not find an empty land any more than Columbus “discovered” anything. Every inch of this land is Indian land. The pilgrims (who did not even call themselves pilgrims) did not come here seeking religious freedom; they already had that in Holland.

They came here as part of a commercial venture. They introduced sexism, racism, anti-lesbian and -gay bigotry, jails and the class system to these shores. One of the very first things they did when they arrived on Cape Cod—before they even made it to Plymouth—was to rob Wampanoag graves at Corn Hill and steal as much of the Indians’ winter provisions of corn and beans as they were able to carry.

They were no better than any other group of Europeans when it came to their treatment of the Indigenous peoples here. And, no, they did not even land at that sacred shrine called Plymouth Rock, a monument to racism and oppression which we are proud to say we buried in 1995.

The first official “Day of Thanksgiving” was proclaimed in 1637 by Governor Winthrop. He did so to celebrate the safe return of men from the Massachusetts Bay Colony who had gone to Mystic, Conn., to participate in the massacre of over 700 Pequot women, children and men.
About the only true thing in the whole mythology is that these pitiful European strangers would not have survived their first several years in “New England” were it not for the aid of Wampanoag people. What Native people got in return for this help was genocide, theft of our lands and never-ending repression. We are either treated as quaint relics from the past or are, to most people, virtually invisible.

When we dare to stand up for our rights, we are considered unreasonable. When we speak the truth about the history of the European invasion, we are often told to “go back where we came from.” Our roots are right here. They do not extend across any ocean.

National Day of Mourning began in 1970 when a Wampanoag man, Wamsutta Frank James, was asked to speak at a state dinner celebrating the 350th anniversary of the pilgrim landing. He refused to speak false words in praise of the white man for bringing civilization to us poor heathens. Native people from throughout the Americas came to Plymouth where they mourned their forebears who had been sold into slavery, burned alive, massacred, cheated and mistreated since the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620.

But the commemoration of National Day of Mourning goes far beyond the circumstances of 1970.

Can we give thanks as we remember Native political prisoner Leonard Peltier, who was framed up by the FBI and has been falsely imprisoned since 1976? Despite mountains of evidence exonerating Peltier and the proven misconduct of federal prosecutors and the FBI, Peltier has been denied a new trial.

To Native people, the case of Peltier is one more ordeal in a litany of wrongdoings committed by the U.S. government against us. While the media in New England present images of the “Pequot miracle” in Connecticut, the vast majority of Native people continue to live in the most abysmal poverty.

Can we give thanks for the fact that, on many reservations, unemployment rates surpass 50 percent? Our life expectancies are much lower, our infant mortality and teen suicide rates much higher than those of white Americans. Racist stereotypes of Native people, such as those perpetuated by the Cleveland Indians, the Atlanta Braves and countless local and national sports teams, persist. Every single one of the more than 350 treaties that Native nations signed has been broken by the U.S. government. The bipartisan budget cuts have severely reduced educational opportunities for Native youth and the development of new housing on reservations, and have caused cause deadly cutbacks in healthcare and other necessary services.

Are we to give thanks for being treated as unwelcome in our own country?
When the descendants of the Aztec, Maya and Inca flee to the U.S., the descendants of the wash-ashore pilgrims term them “illegal aliens” and hunt them down.

We object to the “Pilgrim Progress” parade and to what goes on in Plymouth because they are making millions of tourist dollars every year from the false pilgrim mythology. That money is being made off the backs of our slaughtered Indigenous ancestors.

Increasing numbers of people are seeking alternatives to such holidays as Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. They are coming to the conclusion that if we are ever to achieve some sense of community, we must first face the truth about the history of this country and the toll that history has taken on the lives of millions of Indigenous, Black, Latin@, Asian, and poor and working-class white people.

The myth of Thanksgiving, served up with dollops of European superiority and manifest destiny, just does not work for many people in this country. As Malcolm X once said about the African-American experience in America, “We did not land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us.” Exactly.

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Mass Graves of Residential School Children Revealed in Canada

Friday, April 18, 2008

http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/
via Mohawk Nation News


Independent Tribunal Established

At a public ceremony and press conference held today outside the colonial "Indian Affairs" building in downtown Vancouver, the Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (FRD) released a list of twenty eight mass graves across Canada holding the remains of untold numbers of aboriginal children who died in Indian Residential Schools.

The list was distributed today to the world media and to United Nations agencies, as the first act of the newly-formed International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC), a non-governmental body established by indigenous elders.

In a statement read by FRD spokesperson Eagle Strong Voice, it was declared that the IHRTGC would commence its investigations on April 15, 2008, the fourth Annual Aboriginal Holocaust Memorial Day. This inquiry will involve international human rights observers from Guatemala and Cyprus, and will convene aboriginal courts of justice where those persons and institutions responsible for the death and suffering of residential school children will be tried and sentenced. (The complete Statement and List of Mass Graves is reproduced below).

Eagle Strong Voice and IHRTGC elders will present the Mass Graves List at the United Nations on April 19, and will ask United Nations agencies to protect and monitor the mass graves as part of a genuine inquiry and judicial prosecution of those responsible for this Canadian Genocide.

Eyewitness Sylvester Greene spoke to the media at today's event, and described how he helped bury a young Inuit boy at the United Church's Edmonton residential school in 1953."We were told never to tell anyone by Jim Ludford, the Principal, who got me and three other boys to bury him. But a lot more kids got buried all the time in that big grave next to the school."

For more information: http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/, or write to the IHRTGC at: genocidetribunal@yahoo.ca

Issued on Squamish Territory, 10 April, 2008, under the authority of Hereditary Chief Kiapilano ............. ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... .......

Press Statement:
Mass Graves of Residential School Children Identified – Independent Inquiry Launched

We are gathered today to publicly disclose the location of twenty eight mass graves of children who died in Indian Residential Schools across Canada, and to announce the formation of an independent, non-governmental inquiry into the death and disappearance of children in these schools. We estimate that there are hundreds, and possibly thousands, of children buried in these grave sites alone. The Catholic, Anglican and United Church, and the government of Canada, operated the schools and hospitals where these mass graves are located. We therefore hold these institutions and their officers legally responsible and liable for the deaths of these children.

We have no confidence that the very institutions of church and state that are responsible for these deaths can conduct any kind of impartial or real inquiry into them. Accordingly, as of April 15, 2008, we are establishing an independent, non governmental inquiry into the death and disappearance of Indian residential school children across Canada.

This inquiry shall be known as The International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC), and is established under the authority of the following hereditary chiefs, who shall serve as presiding judges of the Tribunal:Hereditary Chief Kiapilano of the Squamish NationChief Louis Daniels (Whispers Wind), Anishinabe Nation Chief Svnoyi Wohali (Night Eagle), Cherokee Nation Lillian Shirt, Clan Mother, Cree NationElder Ernie Sandy, Anishinabe (Ojibway) NationHereditary Chief Steve Sampson, Chemainus NationAmbassador Chief Red Jacket of Turtle Island.

Today, we are releasing to this Tribunal and to the people of the world the enclosed information on the location of mass graves connected to Indian residential schools and hospitals in order to prevent the destruction of this crucial evidence by the Canadian government, the RCMP and the Anglican, Catholic and United Church of Canada. We call upon indigenous people on the land where these graves are located to monitor and protect these sites vigilantly, and prevent their destruction by occupational forces such as the RCMP and other government agencies. Our Tribunal will commence on April 15 by gathering all of the evidence, including forensic remains, that is necessary to charge and indict those responsible for the deaths of the children buried therein. Once these persons have been identified and detained, they will be tried and sentenced in indigenous courts of justice established by our Tribunal and under the authority of hereditary chiefs.

As a first step in this process, the IHRTGC will present this list of mass graves along with a statement to the United Nations in New York City on April 19, 2008. The IHRTGC will be asking the United Nations to declare these mass graves to be protected heritage sites, and will invite international human rights observers to monitor and assist its work.

Issued by the Elders and Judges of the IHRTGC. Interim Spokesperson: Eagle Strong VoiceEmail: genocidetribunal@yahoo.ca pager: 1-888-265-1007IHRTGC

Sponsors include The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared, The Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada, the Defensoria Indigenia of Guatemala, Canadians for the Separation of Church and State, and a confederation of indigenous elders across Canada and Turtle Island............. ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... .......

Mass Graves at former Indian Residential Schools and Hospitals across Canada

A. British Columbia
1. Port Alberni: Presby
terian- United Church school (1895-1973), now occupied by the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council (NTC) office, Kitskuksis Road. Grave site is a series of sinkhole rows in hills 100 metres due west of the NTC building, in thick foliage, past an unused water pipeline. Children also interred at Tseshaht reserve cemetery, and in wooded gully east of Catholic cemetery on River Road.

2. Alert Bay: St. Michael’s Anglican school (1878-1975), situated on Cormorant Island offshore from Port McNeill. Presently building is used by Namgis First Nation. Site is an overgrown field adjacent to the building, and also under the foundations of the present new building, constructed during the 1960’s. Skeletons seen “between the walls”.

3. Kuper Island: Catholic school (1890-1975), offshore from Chemainus. Land occupied by Penelakut Band. Former building is destroyed except for a staircase. Two grave sites: one immediately south of the former building, in a field containing a conventional cemetery; another at the west shoreline in a lagoon near the main dock.

4. Nanaimo Indian Hospital: Indian Affairs and United Church experimental facility (1942-1970) on Department of National Defense land. Buildings now destroyed. Grave sites are immediately east of former buildings on Fifth avenue, adjacent to and south of Malaspina College.

5. Mission: St. Mary’s Catholic school (1861-1984), adjacent to and north of Lougheed Highway and Fraser River Heritage Park. Original school buildings are destroyed, but many foundations are visible on the grounds of the Park. In this area there are two grave sites: a) immediately adjacent to former girls’ dormitory and present cemetery for priests, and a larger mass grave in an artificial earthen mound, north of the cemetery among overgrown foliage and blackberry bushes, and b) east of the old school grounds, on the hilly slopes next to the field leading to the newer school building which is presently used by the Sto:lo First Nation. Hill site is 150 metres west of building.

6. North Vancouver: Squamish (1898-1959) and Sechelt (1912-1975) Catholic schools, buildings destroyed. Graves of children who died in these schools interred in the Squamish Band Cemetery, North Vancouver.

7. Sardis: Coqualeetza Methodist-United Church school (1889-1940), then experimental hospital run by federal government (1940-1969). Native burial site next to Sto:lo reserve and Little Mountain school, also possibly adjacent to former school-hospital building.

8. Cranbrook: St. Eugene Catholic school (1898-1970), recently converted into a tourist “resort” with federal funding, resulting in the covering-over of a mass burial site by a golf course in front of the building. Numerous grave sites are around and under this golf course.

9. Williams Lake: Catholic school (1890-1981), buildings destroyed but foundations intact, five miles south of city. Grave sites reported north of school grounds and under foundations of tunnel-like structure.

10. Meares Island (Tofino): Kakawis-Christie Catholic school (1898-1974). Buildings incorporated into Kakawis Healing Centre. Body storage room reported in basement, adjacent to burial grounds south of school.

11. Kamloops: Catholic school (1890-1978). Buildings intact. Mass grave south of school, adjacent to and amidst orchard. Numerous burials witnessed there.

12. Lytton: St. George’s Anglican school (1901-1979). Graves of students flogged to death, and others, reported under floorboards and next to playground.

13. Fraser Lake: Lejac Catholic school (1910-1976), buildings destroyed. Graves reported under old foundations and between the walls.

Alberta:
1. Edmonton: United Church school (1919-1960), presently site of the Poundmaker Lodge in St. Albert. Graves of children reported south of former school site, under thick hedge that runs north-south, adjacent to memorial marker.

2. Edmonton: Charles Camsell Hospital (1945-1967), building intact, experimental hospital run by Indian Affairs and United Church. Mass graves of children from hospital reported south of building, near staff garden.

3. Saddle Lake: Bluequills Catholic school (1898-1970), building intact, skeletons and skulls observed in basement furnace. Mass grave reported adjacent to school.4. Hobbema: Ermineskin Catholic school (1916-1973), five intact skeletons observed in school furnace. Graves under former building foundations.

Manitoba:
1. Brandon: Methodist-United Church school (1895-1972). Building intact. Burials reported west of school building.
2. Portage La Prairie: Presbyterian- United Church school (1895-1950). Children buried at nearby Hillside Cemetery.
3. Norway House: Methodist-United Church school (1900-1974). “Very old” grave site next to former school building, demolished by United Church in 2004.

Ontario:1.
Thunder Bay: Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital, still in operation. Experimental centre. Women and children reported buried adjacent to hospital grounds.

2. Sioux Lookout: Pelican Lake Catholic school (1911-1973). Burials of children in mound near to school.

3. Kenora: Cecilia Jeffrey school, Presbyterian- United Church (1900-1966). Large burial mound east of former school.

4. Fort Albany: St. Anne’s Catholic school (1936-1964). Children killed in electric chair buried next to school.

5. Spanish: Catholic school (1883-1965). Numerous graves.

6. Brantford: Mohawk Institute, Anglican church (1850-1969), building intact. Series of graves in orchard behind school building, under rows of trees.

7. Sault Ste. Marie: Shingwauk Anglican school (1873-1969), some intact buildings. Several graves of children reported on grounds of old school.

Quebec:
1. Montreal: Allan Memorial Institute, McGill University, still in operation since opening in 1940. MKULTRA experimental centre. Mass grave of children killed there north of building, on southern slopes of Mount Royal behind stone wall.

Sources:- Eyewitness accounts from survivors of these institutions, catalogued in Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust (2nd ed., 2005) by Kevin Annett. Other accounts are from local residents. See http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/ - Documents and other material from the Department of Indian Affairs RG 10 microfilm series on Indian Residential Schools in Koerner Library, University of B.C.- Survey data and physical evidence obtained from grave sites in Port Alberni, Mission, and other locations. This is a partial list and does not include all of the grave sites connected to Indian residential Schools and hospitals across Canada. In many cases, children who were dying of diseases were sent home to die by school and church officials, and the remains of other children who died at the school were incinerated in the residential school furnaces.

This information is submitted by The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (FRD) to the world media, the United Nations, and to the International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC). The IHRTGC will commence its investigations on April 15, 2008 on Squamish Nation territory.

For more information on the independent inquiry into genocide in Canada being conducted by the IHRTGC, write to: genocidetribunal@ yahoo.ca

10 April, 2008 Squamish Nation Territory (“ Vancouver, Canada ”)

Posted by Mohawk Nation News
poster: katenies
PR Photos hid the truth of genocide in residential schools:
Photo 1: Mi'kmaq girls in sewing class at the Roman Catholic-run Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, 1929: Library and Archives Canada Photo 2: A group of nuns with Aboriginal students - ca. 1890: H.J. Woodside/Library and Archives Canada