BY: BARBARA GRAY

INDIAN TIME - Vol. 24 #32 Seskeha / August 17, 2006 Edition - Page 3

Whose Rule of Law is being violated in Caledonia? Many First Nations people consider themselves to be citizens of their own Aboriginal Nations. This seems to be a fact that the newspaper media is forgetting as they report that the Rule of Law is being violated in Caledonia where Six Nations citizens are maintaining a protest over housing being built on land that was secured to them in the Haldimand Tract Proclamation of 1784.

Citizens of Six Nations are standing up for their Rights; while citizens of Caledonia believe they are standing up for their Rights, too. Six Nations leaders reiterate that the problem is not between the residents of Caledonia and the Six Nations. The conflict is between Six Nations and the Crown. The land conflict is just happening in Caledonia's backyard; but, such a problem could arise anywhere on Turtle Island, North America, the Aboriginal homelands of First Nations peoples, which is why everyone is watching and many are willing to become involved in helping the people of Six Nations.

What we are seeing in Caledonia is a modern day example of the clashes that can occur when the teachings of the Two Row Wampum are forgotten, not respected, or simply not taught to new generations.

The Two Row Wampum is a belt that represents Haudenosaunee sovereingty when dealing with non-Haudenosaunee Nations. The belt contains foundational laws and principles used when dealing and entering into Treaties and Agreements with non-Haudenosaunee governments and their agencies.

The Belt has two parallel rows of purple on a field of white wampum. Each purple row represents the two Nations of people who are travelling down the same river in separate vessels. The Haudenosaunee are in their canoes with their culture, their laws, their customs, and their traditional life ways. The non-Native people are in their own ships with their culture, their laws, their customs, and their traditional life ways. The foundational principle and teaching of the wampum is that each are in their own vessels and are not to steer the other's vessel, which means they are to respect each others' sovereignty, differences, and ways of life.

How can a law, asserted by the Ship, control the Canoe? Is that respecting Haudenosaunee sovereignty? What is the rule of law? It depends on where your feet are standing. If you are a Haudenosaunee citizen, following your traditional teachings, then your feet are in the canoe with your laws, customs, and traditional teachings. The Haudenosaunee are not lawless. The Haudenosaunee Nation leadership and each person in the Canoe have to keep in mind their actions' effect on the peace, the environment, and the future generations. This is a heavy burden to carry because it means that one is responsible for each action taken, or not taken, and how that action shapes the future.

Those individuals who do not take the time to think, or those who burn tires, or cause destruction are not living according to the traditional teachings, for such actions negatively impact the environment and health and welfare of the present and the future generations.

There are a few citizens of the Canoe and Ship who are violating their Nation's own rule of law. If there is going to be a peaceful resolution to the situation in Caledonia, it will depend on keeping those who are violating their respective laws, in check. The Clanmothers and Chiefs are doing their best to keep the peace and reprimand violators. Are the leaders of the Ship doing their part to keep their violators in check?

Clearly, the way to a peaceful resolution is through government-to-government negotiations between Six Nations and the Crown. However, these negotiations have been stalled, for the time being, by Ontario Superior Court Justice David Marshall's Court Order to suspend negotiations with the Six Nations Confederacy until the protest site is cleared. Here Marshall is wielding the Ship's law as a sword and not as a tool for justice and peace.