Cheryl Cornacchia, Canwest News Service
Posted National Post, February 15, 2010
Despite charges of racism from both inside and outside the Montrealarea Mohawk community of Kahnawake, band council officials plan to move forward this week to enforce eviction notices delivered to non-natives earlier this month.
The Mohawk Council of Kahnawake will not abandon its plan to evict 25 non-natives living in the Mohawk community on Montreal's South Shore, Mike Bush, a chief on the local band council said yesterday. "This is not a race-based policy."
The federal and provincial governments are entitled to set immigration policy, quotas and criteria and, Chief Bush said, "nobody calls them racist." Kahnawake is simply exercising its right to determine who can reside in the community, Chief Bush said.
Members of the Mohawk band council are scheduled to meet tomorrow to decide what the council will do next to enforce the evictions, said Joe Delaronde, a band council spokesman.
As of yesterday, only eight non-natives had responded to the eviction letters delivered between Feb. 1 and 5, asking them to leave Kahnawake within 10 days.
Of those individuals, three have left the community peacefully and on their own accord.
Under Mohawk law, nonaboriginals have no residency rights. About 7,500 Mohawks live on the reserve.
Band council chiefs began hand-delivering the strongly worded letter earlier this month.
"There have been numerous complaints regarding individuals contravening Mohawk law by residing in the Mohawk territory of Kahnawake without a right to do so," the letter says. "You were identified in these complaints."
The eviction letter tells non-natives they have 10 days to leave the reserve: "We trust that you understand the seriousness of this letter and that you will govern yourselves accordingly."
On Friday, second notices -- "reminders" -- were issued to the 17 non-natives who had not yet responded. But the Mohawk band council office has been closed since Friday and only reopens today, Mr. Delaronde said.
To date, the names of the 25 non-natives who are being evicted have not yet been published, although the band council has threatened to post the names in the community.
But some non-natives who have received eviction notices are starting to speak out publicly.
On Friday, Tuffy Delisle, a former member of the Mohawk band council, told the Eastern Door, the community's weekly newspaper, that his partner of 10 years, a white woman who had cared for him through illness, had received an eviction notice.