An under-reported story has turned up on the Daily Kos and indymedia claiming that 28 mass graves of aboriginal children have been found at the sites of religious and government run schools in Canada.
According to a press release from the Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (FRD):
“We are gathered today to publicly disclose the location of twenty eight mass graves of children who died in Indian Residential Schools across Canada, and to announce the formation of an independent, non-governmental inquiry into the death and disappearance of children in these schools.
We estimate that there are hundreds, and possibly thousands, of children buried in these grave sites alone.
The Catholic, Anglican and United Church, and the government of Canada, operated the schools and hospitals where these mass graves are located. We therefore hold these institutions and their officers legally responsible and liable for the deaths of these children.”
A non-governmental body established by indigenous elders, the newly-formed International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC), yesterday issued a Letter of Demand to Catholic Pope Benedict requiring that he confirm or deny the death of thousands of children in these residential schools.
At a Press Conference given in Vancouver eyewitness Sylvester Greene spoke to the media at today’s event, and described how he helped bury a young Inuit boy at the United Church’s Edmonton residential school in 1953.
“We were told never to tell anyone by Jim Ludford, the Principal, who got me and three other boys to bury him. But a lot more kids got buried all the time in that big grave next to the school.”
But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.
1 response so far ↓
xene // May 27, 2008 at 12:29 am |
The Longest Walk 2008, Indian People, we strive and endeavor, we starved then we starve now. We struggle to protect our mother the earth. Where we stand is sacred. We need no monument to know that all that is living is sacred. It all is equal and relevant to each other, I am as the creator made me not higher that a star in the sky or lower that a grain of sand. I am here….. for a short while…..my pain is great because I know these things that have happened to our people in the past and continue to happen today. I am a product of mission schools and boarding schools , assimilation, genocide, the only good Indian is a dead Indian. We are the natural scientist always we have lived keeping the purity of life and the balance of the earth in heart and mind. Today when I take anything from her I thank her with something in return. We know why we are not on the major news stations it is because the governments in power do not want the world to know the injustices to our people are as great as the injustices that they themselves have denounced in other countries . The same denounced injustices that they have proclaimed glory in correcting by murdering millions of indigenous in their own lands.