I read this call out and i was like WTF!!!! seriously, WTF....an anti-Native militia....that just throws a grenade into the whole "canada is a polite peace loving, all-people loving country"
A call for a peaceful protest against the formation of an anti-native "militia" in Caledonia - Tuesday, June 23rd at 6pm Outside the Lion'sClub in Cayuga, Ontario.
Dear Friends, As you may have heard in the mainstream media already, things are escalating again in Caledonia. Doug Fleming (an associate of anti-native sovereignty activist Gary McHale) has announced that he is now forming a "militia" to directly confront "native lawlessness" in Caledonia.
According to Fleming, the militia would patrol areas in Caledonia by car and by foot wearing uniforms and communicating with radio equipment. If alerted to an instance of "native lawlessness" the militia would then use "reasonable force" to effect a citizen's arrest and would hold the native person until such time as the OPP arrived to take the "prisoner" to jail.
Needless to say, this represents a major escalation in regard to the conflict at Six Nations. In addition to the OPP having already laid over 120 charges against Six Nations activists, the formation of this militia -- with a primary target of removing "illegal" native "smokeshacks" near Caledonia -- points directly to the increasing of the possibility of violent conflict between natives and non-natives.
Fleming has called for a public meeting for founding of the militia to happen on June 23, at 7 p.m., at the Lion's Hall in Cayuga. The announcement of the formation of the militia has received widespread publicity in the mainstream media. (Links to the coverage can be found below).
Although Gary McHale and his supporters have avoided making public racist comments towards natives, there is no doubt that the formation of the militia will draw explicitly racist individuals who have long wanted to physically confront native protesters into activity
.Neo-Nazi groups have long participated in McHale's various protests since at least the fall of 2006, and there is every likelihood that they will be drawn to this meeting if they are not already involved in organizing it.
Put simply, this meeting cannot be allowed to happen unopposed. As non-natives who have long supported indigenous struggles in general and the Six Nations struggle in particular, we are issuing a call for all who are opposed to escalation and violence inherent in Flemming's call for a "Caledonia Militia" to peacefully protest the holding of this meeting.
Transportation to the protest will be organized by activists in Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph. Please [email protected] for more information, to endorse the protest, or to reserve a space on the buses.
Buses will be leaving from Toronto at4:30pm sharp and should return by 10pm that night at the latest. You must contact us over email to reserve a space on the bus. Please reserve a spot immediately so we can get a sense of how many people require transport.
There is a suggested donation to help cover thecost of transport is $10 although no-one will be turned away for lack of funds.
In solidarity, The CUPE 3903 First Nations Solidarity Working Group.
**** Sources on the formation of the "Caledonia militia" http://www.marchforfreedom.com/smf/index.php?topic=466.0 This is a discussion board run by Gary McHale where the event was first announced.
http://www.westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2009/06/caledonia-militia-l... This right-wing magazine ran a story on the issue. The comments section is quite informative. http://voiceofcanada.wordpress.comThis is the website of Mark Vanderm as an associate of McHale's.
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/652121 This is a Toronto Star article on the issue. If you look at the comments, you'll see that almost 90 of the 100 are strongly in support of the forming of the militia.
http://caledoniawakeupcall.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/caledonia-militia-dr... This is another blog by the McHale supporter in Caledonia.
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=604501 This is the world's most popular English-language neo-Nazi website. Here is a discussion thread that is discussing McHale's various activities and protests in Caledonia and provides some information about neo-Nazi participation in them.
http://www.caledoniawakeupcall.com/election/ElectionResults.pdfAnd in case you thought that McHale was simply an irrelevant right-wing agitator, here is a link to the federal election results from last year when he ran as an independent candidate in Haldim and Norfolk. As the results indicate, he polled 10% of the riding's votes, nearly getting 5000 votes (neck and neck with the NDP, and double the Green party votes). He won most of the polls in the non-native communities near to Six Nations, indicating that he has a significant base of anti-native support there.
