First Published: People’s Canada Daily News, Vol 6, No. 35, March 9, 1976
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
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On September 18, only two days after the Native Indian Brotherhood of Canada exposed yet another criminal attack on the Native people by the Canadian state, the capitalist press and news media trotted out a monstrous string of lies and distortion’s. These were concocted by one Douglas Durham, traitor to the Native Indian people and an agent of the FBI. Durham had infiltrated the American Indian Movement (AIM) in 1973 and 1974 on behalf of the FBI and was paid a great deal of money to spew his lies in “testimony” before a U.S. Senate committee hearing held over six months ago. The timing of the release of the venomous lies of Durham is no accident. The Canadian state is presently engaged in a massive sellout of the lands of the Native Indian people to the U.S. imperialists and is engaged in a barbaric campaign of genocide against Native people to suppress their just struggle.
The content of the just struggle of the Native Indian and other Native peoples is armed struggle in defence of their lands and for the restoration of their hereditary rights. It is this content which police agents like Durham are paid to distort and mystify. Durham claims that the Native people’s struggle is not a just struggle of Native people themselves. but is the product of “outside agitators”. He proceeds to say that these “outside agitators” are the Irish Republican Army, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the People’s Republic of China, and the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), which he says “funded the armed occupation of Anishinabe Park in Kenora.” This armed occupation that Durham refers to was led by the Ojibway Warriors Society in July and August of 1974. It was an entirely just struggle. By means of the correct path of armed struggle, a small section of the land of the Ojibway people which had been stolen by the Canadian state was won back.
Durham was present at the Anishinabe occupation. He was also present during the Native People’s Caravan which won great support from the Canadian working class and people. He travelled in the company of certain notorious anarcho-fascists who set out to undermine genuine support for the struggles by promoting racism and by whining that “armed struggle turns people off.” In his “testimony” Durham lied that, “the American Indian Movement jumped the American-Canadian border to stage a spectacular seizure of Anishinabe Park in Kenora.” As well, he claimed that the “leader of CPC(M-L) attended the occupation”. The name he uses for the “leader” is an absolute absurdity.
The issue of “outside agitators” and of “CPC(M-L)” was raised by the Canadian state, which itself paid Durham to sabotage the Native people’s struggles and by an anarcho-fascist sect called the Western Voice Collective with whom Durham kept company. The Minister of Indian Affairs Buchanan at the time, “attached much of the blame...on a group of CPC(M-L) agitators.” The anarcho-fascists stated in their newspaper that posters issued by the Committee to Support the Native People’s Struggle which “hailed the armed struggle will, no doubt, turn some people off.” These anarcho-fascists raised the question of CPC(M-L)’s participation on the Committee in order to divert people’s attention away from the just nature of the Native people’s struggle. Western Voice only mentioned the content of the struggle once in six articles on the question. They found lots of space in their rag to imply through innuendo that Canadian people did not support the Native people’s struggle. Western Voice wrote: “For local whites, the Native people are there – as Indians – but invisible in terms of goals, hopes, demands.” This is essentially the same line as promoted in the outright capitalist press which claimed that Kenora has been “compared to racial hot spots in the U.S.”and that it has a “reputation” for “racial strife”.
Here we once again see the coordinated activities of the state, its police spies. and anarcho-fascists against the just struggles of the people. The crown prosecutor in the Kenora region has openly admitted that he paid Durham and another man for their “help” and praised this lying and treacherous spy as a “highly intelligent man” whose advice on how to attack the Native Indians is still regularly sought by the crown prosecutor. The crown prosecutor then claims that Durham “really had the best interests of AIM and the American Indians at heart”and gave “really good advice” to AIM. How shamelessly the Canadian state admits that it serves U.S. imperialism and provides its best services to the U.S. imperialist political police, the FBI, to freely operate in our country and attack our people! These activities are part of an overall beefing up of the activities of the political police in Canada and the coordination of their actions with the anarcho-fascists. The RCMP has announced that it considers the “red power” movement amongst the Native people the country’s “principal threat to stability” and so it is certain that these attacks on the Native people are part and parcel of the state campaign to isolate and attack the fighting sections of the people.
Durham’s lie that “AIM ... staged a riot on the steps of the Canadian Parliament” and the statement of Warren Allmand that the violence at the September 30, 1974 demonstration was caused by “some Maoists and some Indians” turns the truth completely on its head. The demonstration culminated a two week Native People’s Caravan from Vancouver and a nation-wide speaking tour conducted by some Native Indian leaders. Native people had every right to try and present their demands to the government and the RCMP had no right to launch an attack on them to suppress these demands. The Caravan and the speaking tour won great support from the Canadian working class and people who came out in their thousands to many meetings and demonstrations across Canada to firmly unite with the Native people and warmly hail the correct path of armed struggle taken up by the Native people themselves. CPC(M-L) organized numerous rallies and demonstrations which were attended by many people. At one meeting in Regina on September 18, the people contributed over $1,000 to the success of the Native People’s Caravan and at another over $800 was gathered. CPC (M-L) is proud to have organized much support for the just struggle of the Native people or their lands and for the restoration of their hereditary rights. It is a particularly foul slander against the thousands of Canadian working people who made contributions to the Native people’s cause to lie that the struggle was “funded” by ”outside agitators.”
According to the police agent Durham, the Northwest Territories of Canada are a place of mysterious island hideouts complete with secret radio contacts, arsenals and airplanes where “hard core extremist indians” go to avoid “criminal” charges. He names a certain Native leader for having harboured one of these “extremist Indians’ so that he can discredit a Native peoples organisation which is leading in defence of Native people’s lands. This flimsy fabrication can never serve to cover up the truth. The U.S. imperialist dominated Canadian state is presently engaged in a massive sellout of the lands of the Native people and in the destruction of their livelihoods in the interests of U.S. imperialism’s parasitic oil monopolies,and other resource plundering corporations.
Speaking to some U.S. imperialists in Texas, the lackey politician, Jean Chretien, assured his foreign masters that he would “do everything reasonable to facilitate this development” (i.e., of a gas pipeline across Indian lands which they are valiantly resisting) and “an oil pipeline would also be acceptable. In other words if it is felt desirable to build an oil pipeline from Prudhoe Bay (through Native people’s lands)to the mid-continent market..then right-of-way. I am sure, can and will be made available.” It is clear from this statement that the state has already decided to do everything possible to facilitate the plunder of the natural resources of the Native people’s lands by U.S. imperialism. It only sets up its phony “investigations” such as the Berger commission after it has assured U.S. imperialism that the plunder of the land is guaranteed. It is in order to facilitate this plunder that the state is carrying out genocide against the Native Indian and other Native peoples whose only road to salvation is the correct and glorious path of armed struggle in defence of their lands and for the restoration of their hereditary rights.
It is this struggle that the so-called leftists, i.e. the anarcho-fascists and all of the other paid police agents seek to rob of its content and to liquidate the genuine support for the armed struggle of the Native peoples amongst the working class and other sections of the people. Durham, the state, and the anarcho-fascists all raise the same bogus issues Of “outside agitation” and “Maoists” under the banner of their “;concern” for the ̶best interests of the Native people”. It is clear that the lackey Canadian state, which allows the political police of U.S. imperialism to move freely in our country, and which has mobilized its anarcho-fascist agents (who now wear the cloak of “genuine Marxism-Leninism” hand-in-hand with the police, is not going to become a Bhudda and give up its campaign of genocide against the Native Indian and other Native peoples. The state has declared open class war against all unions of the working and oppressed people to make them pay for the economic crisis and is using its political police to isolate and attack the militant fighting sections of the people such as the Native people and CPC(M-L). The only road forward for the Native Indian people is to firmly uphold the correct path of armed struggle in defence of their lands and hereditary rights and to unite with the entire Canadian working class and people to Make the Rich Pay!
DOWN WITH ALL THE SLANDERS AND MYSTIFICATIONS OF THE U.S. IMPERIALIST AND CANADIAN MONOPOLY CAPITALIST POLITICAL POLICE, CAPITALIST PRESS AND ANARCHO-FASCISTS AGAINST THE NATIVE INDIAN AND OTHER FIGHTING PEOPLE!
LONG LIVE THE JUST STRUGGLE OF THE NATIVE PEOPLE FOR THEIR LANDS AND HEREDITARY RIGHTS!