by Brenda Norrell
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| Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, hospitalized with a heart attack on June 14, 2008, after being attacked by special forces in Canada at the Cornwall/Akwesasne border. Photo by Sagowaiaks. |
Kahentinetha described the media boycott of the attack by Canada Border Services Agents and her history of resistance, during a radio interview with Kevin Annett on HIddren from History.
Kahentinetha described how Julian Assange of Wikileaks exposed the truth through documents. She exposed the truth of the Canadian government and colonial powers through her writings and her life.
The imperialists try to eliminate these people.
The media boycotted the attack of Kahentinetha and another Mohawk grandmother who were peacefully crossing the border. “They beat up the other woman first.” Kahentinetha described the stress hold performed on her inside the customs house to induce a heart attack.
The handcuffs behind her back were tightened until there was no circulation. Then she experienced pain up her arms and across her chest and upper back which was the start of the heart attack. Then her head was pushed forward to cause death. She was close to death when her brother arrived on the scene. He called an ambulance and saved her life. She has since been in Kahnewake under medical care.
She said at least 300 Mohawks have been assaulted by border guards. Many others have not reported the beatings. One young man was rammed on the St. Lawrence River and was left paralyzed.
She was never notified of two charges and two Canada wide warrants for her arrest until recently. She remained homebound for the past two and a half years. On July 7, 2010 she was driving to the motor vehicle department to pay her registration. She was pulled over immediately. “It looked like a setup,” she recalls. She was arrested and the Chateauguay Quebec officers made arrangements to transport her to
“parts unknown.” She was not allowed to call her family.
The patrol car was hot. She began having heart palpitations, sweating and shortness of breath. She waved her nitrate stick. The officers called an ambulance and she was taken to the hospital. Kahentinetha said she does not have enough money to defend herself against Canada’s charges. She lives on a pension and has to make a
difficult choice. “If I go ahead, I need a lot of money. If I plead guilty, we could ask for leniency, or something.”
At the time of the 2008 attack Kahentinetha had a large audience for her articles at Mohawk Nation News. With a background in research, she documented the facts. After the attack, her website was hacked. Her large list of subscribers was lost. She did not have the energy to rebuild the site.
“I’ve written and posted almost 929 articles,” based on facts and her right to freedom of speech[ http://www.mohawknationnews.com/]. “I think Indigenous Peoples are the canary in the mine. We have withstood brutal treatment through the centuries … other people will now be getting the brunt of cruelty we have endured for 500 years”.
As a traditionalist Kahentinetha said she was raised with knowledge of Indigenous inherent rights. Describing her life of resistance, she recalled the 1968 public protest at the Akwesasne border, the same checkpoint where the assault incident occurred 40 years later, in 2008. After this protest, Kahentinetha, small in physical frame, was charged with beating up 23 Cornwall policemen. “They were a lot bigger than me.” As the names of the supposed victims were read in court, everyone started laughing. The charges were dropped except for two, which were also eventually dropped.
A film about this incident was made and is available on the Internet: “You are on Indian land," by the National Film Board.
Three years earlier, the Civil Rights Movement brought her together with American Indian leaders. She knew the people in the American Indian Movement, Dennis Banks and Russell Means. She was the only indigenous from Canada to attend the Indian Conference on Poverty in 1965. “We discussed our role in the Movement.”
They decided to support Black people, “Their objectives were different from us”. Blacks wanted to become equals in mainstream society, with the same access. “We wanted to stay separate, protect our land, language, elders and children and maintain our culture.”
“We supported the Blacks but told them to honor our right to speak for ourselves”.
After Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed, Rev. Ralph Abernathy was speaking in Washington, on issues including native issues. The Native Americans wrote a letter to Rev. Abernathy. Kahentinetha and a Mexican American, delivered it. Rev. Abernathy was reminded of the position of Native people and respected it. In 1968 Kahentinetha was selected to be at the gravesite of President Robert Kennedy.
Kahentinetha points out that “half of North America is the territory of the Haudenosaunee and our allies.” The Iroquois Confederacy signed agreements on behalf of about 300 other Indigenous nations.
Kahentinetha spent 20 years raising her five children. In 1990, she rose once again to defend sacred land. “The Oka golf club wanted to increase their golf course to 18 holes on top of our burial grounds and ceremonial site." She was studying for her master’s degree at the time. “We resisted.” On July 11 1990, the Quebec para-military police came in and started shooting. “One of their policemen was killed.” It led to a 78-day siege.
“In the end, the Canadian army was sent in,” and surrounded Kahnewake, Kanesatake and Akwesasne. The Mohawks of Kahnewake shut down the Mercer Bridge, which connects Montreal with the south shore communities.
After Canada’s Prime Minister Mulroney met with President Bush, Sr., he announced in Parliament that the army would be brought in. Kahentinetha and two of her children were stuck behind the army’s razor wire. “We thought they were going to shoot us.”
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“We got badly beaten up by Quebec police and Canadian soldiers,”Kahentinetha said. There were about 4,000 soldiers with tanks, weaponry and snipers.
“Apparently I was one of those who was supposed to be taken out by a sniper," she said.
Mohawk women prevented shooting from both sides. If one shot had been fired, it would have meant “the slaughter of our people.” There were choppers flying over their heads and they stopped them from getting food. The army put three levels of razor wire around them. “I’ll never forget that, standing there and being put inside razor wire on my own land”.
On Sept 26, they came out. “We were very badly beaten up.” A soldier stabbed her daughter in the chest.
The first group went to trial for one year. Then the second group, with Kahentinetha, went to trial for another year. Mohawks were fired from their jobs in Ottawa. It was almost impossible for them to find work, even cleaning floors.
“We have a reputation of resistance. It is our right to resist and
defend ourselves,” Kahentinetha said. Later, the Canadian Army put in
their training manual that Mohawks are insurgents, terrorists.
Kahentinetha said that women are the foundation of the communities,but the government and media portrays them as sexual objects or street workers. They are not protected. Currently, there are about 600 indigenous girls who have disappeared. Police refuse to investigate. She believes they are killed because they have too much information on the ruling class.
“Maybe when they abuse these girls, they have to kill them.”
Kahentinetha said the abuse at the border is part of the larger picture. The government wants to abuse, criminalize and arrest her people, especially the young men who want to protect the people.
“When is the outcry for us?” she asked. “They tried to kill me,” she said of the heart attack induced by the Border Guards. “I had the first pangs of death. Then I came back.”
She described a natural justice and unnatural justice. With unnatural justice, people are trying to rule the world with killing and cruelty.
She looked into the faces of the border guards when they were assaulting her. “There was no empathy.”
Natural justice is the connection between our intuition, which is the natural world, and our intellect.
She pointed out that the police, courts and military have been used against her and her people. The Border Guards routinely pull the people out of their cars by twisting the arm and trying to dislocate it. Many of these injuries remain with people for the rest of their lives.
“The enemy of the enemy is not our friend,” she said.
In closing, Kahentinetha told a traditional legend of the two headed serpent. One head was gold and the other was silver. The skin was hide of many colors. One head was peaceful and the other was violent. The people found the sickly serpent and cured its diseases. Everyday the serpent got stronger and wanted more. He multiplied, began killing and taking everything the people had. The serpent needed the constant flow of murder and the land was stained with blood. The serpent only wanted those that could be enslaved.
Then, a young boy made a bow with a hair of the clan mothers. The serpent was slain. The boy climbed on top, cut the serpent open and released what had been devoured.
Kahentinetha said, “We have to stay out of this fight.”
Brenda Norrell is publisher of Censored News, focused on Indigenous Peoples and human rights, http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com, and a human rights columnist for Sri Lanka Guardian.
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