Success doesn’t pay.
“Just imagine working hard to build up a life and a future for your family, then someone comes and takes it all away and nothing can be done about it. The perpetrators have impunity. No, not Africa, its down home Manitoba where its good to be the chief.”
I can’t think of a thing to say – this is just unbelievable.
The full title should be ;” success doesn’t pay on menshevik jurisdictions. This is the second horror story in a month to come out of TC douglas country…the forst involved the unilateral wardship of citizens to the “public trustee” who then fleeces them of the “burden” of looking after their possessions and bank balance….now this.
The common thread is the contempt statist orthodoxies have for human/individual dignity…and they both involve an invasive, public wardship tyranny.
This is pretty old news, isn’t it? The ‘read the whole story’ link on DustMyBroom’s site brings up a report that is dated July’04, and the events described are from the early to mid nineties. And stop there. That the events described happened at all is completely shameful, just like a lot of other things happening in this country over the past fifty years or more, but if nothing has been done about Waterhen during a ten year period, then what is the real story? Is it the inequity of Indian Department policies, or is it the seeming general complacency of those who were wronged?
It is well recognized that the government of Canada has a two-pronged method of maintaining the status quo:
1: Ignore something long enough and it will go away.
2: If #1 doesn’t work, hype some non-sensical “issue” such as SSM that will distract everyone’s attention. thus reverting to #1
Don Sandberg wrote the article which is referred to “read the whole story in Dust My Broom” in Wiinipeg Free Press on Thurs. July 7 2005. In spite of the innaccurate statement that the article is “unabridged” as printed one of the most important ommissions is that Don Sanberg wrote in his article “Most of this information for this report came from the dissident faction”-this was obviously only one part of article deliberately left out to convey the impression everything was fact in the report when in fact it is only one side of the story with much misrepresentation. We know this is deliberate when we see the false claim that this was an “unabridged version” -they got caught.
One of the most glaring falsehoods is that the RCMP erected a barrier first when the fact is that the RCMP only erected the barrier after the disidents had built a armed blockade of the reserve. This is a serious misrepresentation of the facts and history. Since the dissidents took control of the reserve they were responsible for all conduct on the reserve which included complete looting of the band store (thousands of dollars of inventory) which is in complete contrast to the article which claimed only “petty vandalism”
The dissidents maintained there armed barricade for the complete period of the blockade and the RCMP only removed their blockade after the dissident’s was removed.
It is also a fact that Chief Nepinak’s house was burned down during the seige and it doesn’t take much common sense to know that the arson certainly wasn’t committed by supporters of Chief Nepinak.
Don Sandberg’s report is poorly and inaccurately written and if this was deliberate for partisan purposes which one must be suspicious because certain facts of this uprising were very well known and Sanberg did not have to rely completely for “most of the information for this report came from the dissident faction” which excuse he uses to try asnd absolve himself from any blame for a report full of inaccuracies.
Any reporter worth his salt would have made some effort to get the other side of the story and the truth out to the public.
The commanality of the story and the root cause of the escalation is the failure of the chief to provide accountability to the people. If that was done it is not likely the situation would have ballooned.
I certainly believe there would be two sides of the story and especially more during escalation. Just like a fist fight. No two versions woud be the same.
In the end, the violence detracted as you show yourself, from what started the whole thing.
I would suppose that one would be interested in seeking out the truth. The dissidents put up an armed barricade of the highway to the reserve and this prompted the RCMP to intervene and put up a barrier to control the situation. There should be no dispute or two versions of the fact of this matter. The RCMP then only went on the Reserve many days later after the dissidents took down their barricade. There was a huge deployment of manpower and equipment by the RCMP for this seige and costs have been quoted in the millions.
I also wanted to point out that when Sandberg refers to “petty vandalism” only occurring this was far from the truth when for example the large band store and all the stock in it was completely looted.
Sandberg’s story was poorly written and researched so one should question why and give the story very little credence as a result.
For starters about the only thing one could draw from the article is that there was a dispute between a dissident faction on the reserve and Chief Harvey Nepinak. In our society we try to and should address these problems through the courts and legal channels. What is pertinent here for facts is what the courts found and ruled. Sandberg’s version of the facts in his article should be given little credence.