Gustafsen Lake Miracle

A powerful case can be made, I believe, that the mobilization of such
massive police and military force in the Gustafsen Lake affair
represents the logical successor to the so-called "Riel rebellions" in
terms of the zeal of government officials to commit so much logistical
and political capital towards quelling a Native resistance movement in
Western Canada. Moreover, I believe the subsequent treatment of the
Cree leaders, Big Bear and Poundmaker, as political prisoners bears a
remarkable resemblance to the aftermath of the Gustafsen standoff. (John
L. Tobias, "Canada's Subjugation of the Plains Cree, 1879-1885," The
Canadian Historical Review, Vol. 64, no. 4, 1983, pp.519-548)

When I look back over the course of Bruce Clark's career, I see a man
that elites in Canada have learned to revile, much as Louis Riel grew to
be hated especially in Protestant, Anglo Ontario. This outcome seems so
at variance with how Dr. Clark so smoothly began his successful early
law practice. He was able to afford a large and comfortable home as
well as a bush plane to serve his northern Ontario clientele.

Being one of the pioneers of the modern era of Aboriginal-rights
litigation in Canada, Clark was in a position to have made a fortune in
his chosen profession. Instead of using his expertise and talent for
personal advantage, he chose to wade into the deep waters of the UN's
Genocide Convention of 1948 (which the US stubbornly refused to ratify
until the end of the Cold War) and to clarify the jurisdictional
shortcomings of the court system. This system, Dr. Clark has
convincingly argued, is ill-suited in both the United States and Canada
to addressing credibly the assertions of First Nations sovereignty or of
interpreting or defining the existence and the character of Aboriginal
title, especially in constitutional and international law. That
political and legal contention, having to do with the jurisdictional
capacities of the domestic courts, was absolutely central to the stand
of the protesters at Gustafsen Lake, who withstood such a huge onslaught
of state violence and psychological warfare to demonstrate the depth of
their convictions.

When I imagine how a Bruce Clark might best be employed, I picture him
perhaps at the Hague working for an International Tribunal. I imagine
him working through the problems of who did or did not commit ethnic
cleansing in the Balkans and who is or is not responsible for having
commited crimes against humanity. Before such a use could be made of
Bruce Clark, however, he would insist that the logic of equal treatment
before the law would necessitate some fundamental grappling with these
same issues in the context of the history of our hemisphere since 1492.

In my estimation what happened at Gustafsen Lake illustrates
compellingly that the Indian wars in North America never ended. The
difficulties in the way of getting at the full truth of what actually
transpired at Gustafsen Lake demonstrates further the need for edified
international agencies to undertake the investigation of certain kinds
of alleged human-rights violations, even in North America. Without the
benefit of the perspectives of outside, third-party observers and
arbitrators, there are few checks against the tendency of domestic
officialdom to dress up political turmoil in the clothes of criminals
and law enforcers. The case of James Pitawanakwat, I believe, admirably
captures some of the main outlines of many of these problems and issues,
ones Dr. Clark has endeavoured against powerful odds to illuminate and
elaborate.

There is yet another key player named Clark who identified himself so
closely with the Gustafsen protesters that he made himself for all
intents and purposes on of them. That Clark is Ramsay Clark, former
Attorney General of the United States during the regime of Lyndon
Johnson. Ramsay Clark is pictured in Above The Law, Part 2 declaring
that it was a "despicable act" act for Judge Nicolas Friesen of British
Columbia to have sent Bruce Clark, the Gustafsen protesters' lawyer of
choice for a mental examination.

It is my impression, although I would have trouble documenting it, that
Ramsay Clark intervened directly with Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh,
imploring him not to let looses another WACO-style horror. Ramsay Clark
has, I understand, been deeply involved in sorting out the legal mess of
Waco, and I imagine his invocation of the Waco comparison at the height
of the Gustafsen standoff might have raised a few heads in the British
Columbia government. Ramsay Clark may well be the person most
responsible for the fact that no one was killed in the Gustafsen affair.

I shall quote at some length Ramsay Clark's letter concerning the
treatment of Bruce Clark, a saga that is very suggestive of just how
politically overcharged the court proceedings were during the immediate
aftermath of the standoff. In a letter from his New York offices dated
26 September, 1995-- a letter copied to the Chief Justice of British
Columbia Allan McEachern, Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh, and the Law
Society of British Columbia, Ramsay Clark wrote to Judge Nicholas
Friesen as follows,
The arrested Indians were being humiliated by the police to whom they
surrendered, deprived of their clothing and brought into the court in
paper garments. Your partisan support for the police created new
tensions and the perception of injustice.

By denying the Indians representation, you subjected them to lengthy
interrogation under extremely coercive conditions by the police. Any
lawyer worthy of the calling would plead zealously for the right of
individuals at such a critical stage of criminal proceedings to be
represented by counsel of choice. When Bruce Clark did so, you brushed
aside the legal issues he sought to raise and he was physically subdued
by officers of your courtroom.... Now Clark is threatened with assault
charges, though the real charge would seem to be "resisting assault."
This was a common law enforcement practice during the civil rights
struggles in the 1950s and 1960s in the U.S.

Bruce Clark was returned to your court after arrested Indians had
directly informed you they wanted him as their lawyer. On your own
initiative you ordered Mr. Clark to undergo a psychiatric examination to
determine if he is mentally fit to be charged and stand trial for
contempt of court, thus punishing him severely without any
adjudication. The meaning of this could hardly be lost on the Indians,
or counsel who might agree to represent them. It is so inherently
improbable that you could have doubted Mr. Clark's mental competence
that you have created the appearance of an outrageous abuse of judicial
power to deprive persons accused of crime of their counsel and to
deliberately humiliate that counsel and his clients....

You were unwilling to address, analyze and explain the law, resorting
to pejorative exclamation instead of reason and judicious comment. Not
content with confining Bruce Clark for a mental competence examination,
you taunted him in a public courtroom where you had him brought in in
ankle and wrist chains after being deliberately deprived of sleep over
the weekend.. Do you expect Indian peoples to believe they can receive
justice in your court? And where will Indians obtain independent,
courageous and effective counsel to represent them in your court?

It seems to me such engaged involvement by a former Attorney General of
the United States adds substantially to the case that there was nothing
frivilous, ephemeral or marginal about the political and ideological
substance of the Gustafsen protest. I believe that decades ago Ramsay
Clark parted company with many of his colleagues in government over the
issue of the role of the US military in the Vietnam Confict. I believe
what happened in Vietnam was never dignified by the USA with an official
Declaration of War, much like the commitment of the Canadian military to
quell an Indian uprising at Gustafsen Lake was never dignified through
an invocation of those legislative and constitutional provisions meant
to attend such a significant act.

 

Well, the restrictuon, unique to the NDP, that one cannot be a member of any provincial party but the NDP and be allowed to be a member of the federal NDP, and vice versae, tends to indicate the contrary.