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  Genocide in US and Canadian Residential Schools

By Stephen Lendman
OpEd News
February 3, 2011

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Genocide-in-US-and-Canadia-by-Stephen-Lendman-110203-55.html

Genocide in US and Canadian Residential Schools - by Stephen Lendman

Part of a previous article is repeated below, followed by a summary of evidence Kevin Annett presented in his book titled, "Hidden No Longer: Genocide in Canada, Past and Present." His entire book is available free online, accessed through the following link:

click here;

He calls it "the book that blew the cover off Canada's genocide," providing "the most thorough, documented body of evidence ever published concerning the planned genocide in Canadian residential schools." It includes:

-- eyewitness testimonies;

-- specific documentation; and

-- genocidal roots in "European philosophy and culture of religious-based conquests known as Christendom," causing "the extermination of millions of indigenous people."

In residential schools and earlier, it represents, by far, the world's greatest ever genocide, still ongoing by depravation and cultural extermination.

Annett said copies of his book were being destroyed to suppress truths too disturbing to reveal. As a result, he made it available in its entirety online, accessed through the above link. It's important, chilling reading, as true about America as Canada. Both nations remain complicit in mass extermination, today by means other than direct slaughter.

Annett will present much of the book's evidence at an upcoming International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State in London. On January 17, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was summoned to appear before it to answer charges of complicity with genocide. Part of a letter from The (London-based) International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) said the following:

"Over the past three years, your government has legally exonerated the churches responsible for the death of more than 50,000 children in their Indian residential schools, refused to prosecute those responsible, and resisted all attempts to locate and repatriate the remains of these children for a proper burial and criminal investigation."

The letter requested Harper begin "criminal legal proceeding against the Roman Catholic, Anglican and United Church of Canada for their proven criminal actions" and more, adding that if not begun by March 1, 2011, the Tribunal will intervene. "In this regard, our representatives will soon be serving upon you....a Public Summons to appear before this Tribunal to answer these and other charges."

For $50 plus postage, hard copies of Annett's book are available by calling him at 250-753-3345 or emailing him at Email address removed.

His web site can be accessed through the following link:

The grassroots Truth Commission into Canadian Genocide reveals the 1880s through the 20th century systematic rape, torture and murder of tens of thousands of aboriginal children in church-run residential schools. According to Annett, a former United Church of Canada minister until fired and expelled for exposing these ugly truths:

"The government and the multinational corporations wanted the Indian land, and so native children from as young as three years old were forcibly taken from their families and sent to residential schools (including Catholic ones), where they underwent 'acculturation' programs. Between fifty and one hundred thousand ended up dead, murdered by the church and the government."

In charge were Catholic, Anglican, and United Church of Canada authorities complicit with the federal government.

In his book "Kill the Indian, Save the Man: The Genocidal Impact of American Indian Residential Schools," Ward Churchill documented America's hidden holocaust, begun under Captain Richard H. Pratt (a former prison warden), architect of US residential schools as superintendent of the prototype Carlyle, PA Indian Industrial School in 1879. His objective - "kill the Indian, save the man" in every child, but he and others did both for five generations.

Half the children didn't survive, the result of extreme cruelty, torture, beatings, systematic rape and other sexual abuse, malnutrition, disease, forced labor, no contact with family members or cultural traditions, and despair-driven suicides. Survivors were permanently scarred, one in 2000, Sharon H. Venne, saying:

"Genocide is genocide, no matter what form it takes and no matter what you call it."

Canada adopted America's model. In both countries, genocide never stopped. It's hidden on reservations plagued by broken promises; extreme poverty and neglect; low life expectancy; epidemic disease levels; high levels of alcoholism, suicide, infant mortality, unemployment, and incarceration; stolen resources; and lost lives in the name of progress - genocide as jurist Raphael Lemkin defined it:

"the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" that corresponds to other terms like "tyrannicide, homicide, infanticide, etc." (It) does not necessarily mean the destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings....It is intended....to signify a coordinated plan (to destroy) the essential foundations of the life of national groups" with the intent to eradicate or substantially weaken or harm them. "Genocidal plans involve the disintegration....of political and social institutions, culture, language, national feelings, religion, economic existence, personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and" human lives.

In legal terms, the 1948 Genocide Convention used the same definition. They're binding principles today, ones America, Canada, Israel, and other nations violate with impunity.

Summarized Evidence of Canadian Residential Schools Genocide

(1) It reveals planned criminal conspiracy by Canada's government and Roman Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, and United Church of Canada to "exterminate indigenous populations, primarily children, and steal their lands, under the guise of religion and education...."

(2) Beginning in 1889, with establishment of the Department of Indian Affairs, it was codified, then agreed to by all parties in November 1910. They became financially and legally responsible for running schools that literally became torture/exploitive death camps.

(3) From 1889 - 1996, they were responsible for killing or disappearing 50,000 - 100,000 indigenous children.

(4) Their average mortality ranged from 30% - 65%, at least until 1950.

(5) Death was mainly caused by "deliberately housing healthy native children alongside those infected with tuberculosis," then not treating them.

(6) Local and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), coroners, doctors, social workers, and state-funded aboriginal chiefs were complicit in their deaths, disposal of their bodies, and various other crimes.

(7) They violated every provision of the 1951 Genocide Convention (The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide). Its Article 2 defines it as:

Any of the following acts "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(2) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (and)

(3) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

Article 3 defines punishable crimes, including:

"(a) Genocide;

(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;

(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;

(d) Attempt to commit genocide; (and)

(e) Complicity in genocide."

(8) Residential schools and their associated hospitals committed all the above crimes.

(9) The Canadian government and churches "were completely aware of (their) enormous mortality rate" as early as 1891, and were complicit in facilitating them by:

-- abolishing medical inspections in 1919;

-- in 1920, requiring all native children aged seven or older placed in residential schools;

-- in 1929, transferring legal guardianship to churches running them;

-- from 1928 - 1933, allowing legal, involuntary sterilizations in regions with the largest "unassimilated, non-Christian" indigenous populations;

-- at the same time, stripping Indians of their right to counsel or ability to sue in civil courts; and

-- in 1910, adopting an informal policy not to hospitalize or treat TB-infected Indians.

(10) In schools and related hospitals, clergy, school staff, and others secretly (under legal protection) subjected children to torture, rapes, beatings, involuntary sterilizations, medical experiments, slave labor, sex trafficking, and other forms of abuse.

(11) Crimes committed were systematic and violent. Moreover, they were "legitimated, sanctioned and protected by every level of police, Church and government."

(12) Across Canada, at least 28 mass graves contain remains of dead children. Local and RCMP police refuse to investigate and "may be involved in destroying" evidence.

(13) No one was ever charged, arrested, tried or convicted for any of these crimes.

(14) No one ever admitted responsibility for them or identified where bodies are buried.

(15) Canadian courts won't charge or prosecute culpable parties and ruled out the crime of genocide.

(16) It caused "devastating inter-generational" harm that continues today.

(17) With ongoing collusion of police, church, native and government officials, organized child trafficking still operates across Canada, exploiting native children and women.

(18) Past and present crimes meet the legal standard of genocide.

A Final Comment

Annett dedicated his book to the children who died in residential schools. He wishes any part of it used freely for non-commercial purposes. He urges readers to learn more, inform others, refuse to cooperate with genocidal church and state institutions, and take direct action through protests, memorial vigils, and civil disobedience. Otherwise, these crimes will continue until all native people are exterminated, or for those remaining, their culture genocidally destroyed.

He also urges support for an international Tribunal into Genocide in Canada, what's also needed in America to halt similar past and unreported present crimes.

Whether or not Edmund Burke actually said it, it's more than ever relevant that all that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men (and women) to do nothing. No longer is that option tolerable, though, of course, it never was.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at Email address removed. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 
 

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