Letter to the Editor:

The police should say “Let’s thank those Mohawks.”

We Mohawks of Akwesasne, Kahnesatake and Kahnawake should be give a great big “thank you” by those burly, “armed to the teeth,” RCMP, OPP, CBSA and CCPS officers who are patrolling what they have named the “dangerous St. Lawrence River waterways.” We are making it possible for these uniformed juggernauts to earn their $100,000.00 to $130,000.00 a year salaries. They earn these huge salaries by constantly gazing across what they have deemed “a treacherous water expanse,” looking intensely, with knees knocking from fear, for signs of these strange dark skinned prowlers of the night. Strange unknowable people, crossing the waters from what they have branded as “wild Indian country.”

Officers are hoping possibly to live out their fantasies, to be like those rugged ATF officers who routinely kick in doors, with guns blazing, seen nightly on American T.V.

How much does it cost the federal and provincial governments to keep this paramilitary garrison stationed in the Cornwall area? It is a multi-million dollar budget. Everyone knows that this is a government sponsored boost to the local economy.

The police know this “false hysteria” has to be constantly promoted, justifying this overwhelming police presence to be stationed here in Cornwall.

These would-be soldiers, or paramilitary officers, are arresting and jailing kids and single mothers. Young people desperate to keep a little food on the table. A people trapped in a world where job opportunities are almost non-existent. Businesses in Cornwall, Malone and Massena don’t hire these deliberately criminalized Mohawks anyway.

The ideas is to give every Mohawk the biblical “mark of the beast” (Revelation 13:16), a data-bank stored criminal record, so the police will be justified in the future to routinely stop and question Mohawks. “Just a spot check,” they’ll say. Mohawks are being branded as a “criminal society.” Such bunk.

We built the biggest buildings in the world. We did it better than anyone else. We’ve done it for over 100 years. No sweat! Our knees don’t knock as we walk those girders hundreds of feet over the streets below.

Frank Taiotekane Horn,

Duty Counsel, Mohawk Court