RevKev's UPDATE: International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada

from Kevin Annett

May 29-30, 2007
Unceded Coast Salish Territory

Dear friends,

Just back from a tremendous tour of the Six Nations in eastern "Canada", I want to share some of the great changes that are happening, small and large, as we step closer each day to full disclosure and justice for the living and the dead.

Two Upcoming Events of Great Importance:

National Week of Action for Sovereignty and Justice -
June 22-29, 2007:

During this week, Indigenous Nations across the continent will be conducting road and railway blockades and other protests to win back their land and declare full sovereignty from the colonial state of "Canada". As part of these actions, native people and their allies will be taking steps to recover the remains of their relatives who died and were killed in church-run "Indian residential schools", and bring them home for a proper burial. They will also be bringing to justice those responsible for their deaths, and launching a sustained campaign of domestic civil disobedience and international boycott of Canadian trade and tourism, prior to the convening of an International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada this fall.

International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada - Commencing September, 2007

The need for a fully independent and international inquiry into the growing evidence of intentional genocide by governments and churches in Canada has been made urgent by the recent efforts by these criminal bodies to contain and bury this evidence, and exonerate themselves, through their own pseudo "inquiry" into the deaths of children in residential schools run by themselves.

The so-called "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" established by Canada's Department of Indian Affairs has no mandate to bring to justice the actual perpetrators of residential school crimes or uncover the buried remains of their victims. We therefore urge all people, aboriginal and otherwise, to shun its proceedings as fraudulent and self-serving.

Instead, indigenous people, residential school survivors and their allies are establishing their own inquiry whose aim will be to document the full story of genocide in Canada, bring to aboriginal justice those responsible for the deaths and torture of children in residential schools, and mobilize other nations to impose sanctions on Canada and its churches for their crimes against humanity.

The International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC) will be a mobile, public inquiry that will visit communities across Canada and will include human rights observers and media from around the world.

A formal notification and endorsement form will be sent to you soon to allow you and your organization to help co-sponsor this event and help with its operation. The success of the IHRTGC depends entirely on the invovlement of residential school survivors and indigenous nations in its deliberations. Please let us know immediately if you or your nation or organization wish to co-sponsor and help organize this Tribunal.

And lesser but no less important events ...

CBC exposure (finally!) :

After ignoring the issue of deaths in residential schools for years, the CBC is finally making motions to cover the growing public furor. Yesterday, I was interviewed on national CBC radio's As It Happens program, along with Bob Watts, the interim head of the government's so-called "Truth and Reconcilation Commission".
I hope to have this interview posted on my website this week. (See
[url=http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org)]www.hiddenfromhistory.org)[/url] .

I was pleased with the interview, especially by the fact that it wasn't edited at all. As a result, I was able to describe over the national airwaves some of the crimes of genocide in the schools - like involuntary sterilizations - the fact of massive deaths, and the illegitimacy of any government-run "investigation" into residential schools. I also made the point of the general lack of credibility of the Assembly of First Nations in the eyes of many native people.

This was the best exposure this issue and I have ever had on the CBC. I urge all of you to follow up quickly on this success by contacting As It Happens' call back number, where audience feedback is considered, and ask them to conduct more interviews with me and residential school survivors in our Truth Commission network. The number is toll free: 1-866-481-5718.

And last but not least ... Our film UNREPENTANT :

Many people have commented how the present "mainstream" attention on the deaths of residential school children has largely been generated by the wide-spread exposure of our documentary film UNREPENTANT, which has won two American film industry awards since it was released last November. UNREPENTANT is downloadable from the internet, off google video and You Tube, and we urge everyone to tell others about it, order hard copies from us, and arrange showings in your local community.

Copies can be ordered, free of charge or by donation, from me at:
260 Kennedy St., Nanaimo, BC Canada V9R 2H8, or through this email address.

My personal plans over the next few months include travelling across the country starting in mid June, to help organize the Week of Action and the International Human Rights Tribunal described above. I will be stopping in a dozen or more cities on the prairies, Ontario and Quebec, and the same number in B.C., and so contact me if you want me to speak and show the film in your community.

Thanks to each of you, and carry it on, brothers and sisters!

respectfully,

Kevin Annett / Eagle Strong Voice
Secretary, The Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada
hiddenfromhistory@yahoo.ca
bring to aboriginal justice