And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (S.I.S.I.S.) writes: S.I.S.I.S. note: Support for parolled Shuswap elder Wolverine and a full and public inquiry into all aspects of the 1995 Gustafsen Lake standoff continues to pour in. You can add your name or that of your organization to this growing list at: http://kafka.uvic.ca/~vipirg/SISIS/GustLake/support.html ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 23:27:22 -0800 (PST) From: Allan Bezanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: PF/EIDC PR Jan26 Wolverine Press Release People's Front/East Indian Defence Committee - January 26, 1999 William Jones Ignace (Wolverine) Released on Parole: Demand Full Public Inquiry Into Gustafsen Lake Affair William Jones Ignace (Wolverine) is being released on full parole January 28, 1999 in Kamloops, B.C. near his home reserve at Adams Lake. Ignace was sentenced to 8 1/2 years imprisonment for his defence of the Sundance Camp at Ts'Peten (Gustafsen Lake) during the summer of 1995. He had been charged with attempted murder during an incident where the RCMP blew up a pickup truck with a land mine and proceeded to try and run down Ignace with a armoured personnel carrier illegally transferred from the Canadian Armed Forces to the RCMP at the request of BC NDP Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh through Herb Grey, then Liberal Solicitor-General in the federal government. The jury found him not guilty of attempted murder, but was convicted of mischief on lands never legally released by Treaty or purchase from the Shuswap nation to the Crown. Ignace had from the beginning asserted that the central political issue at stake in the entire matter was the sovereign right of the Shuswap to live on their own unceded land, and to reject the province's exercise of jurisdiction over these unceded native lands. What triggered the entire provocation by the Attorney-General and the RCMP against the Sundance, which had been going on for almost four years without incident, was the initiation by Ignace of legal action to attain third party adjudication on the land and jurisdiction issues. Third party intervention is historically one way the Crown has dealt with jurisdictional disputes between Native nations and delegated administrations acting in the name of the Crown. The BC NDP government has refused to deal with the politics of the ongoing struggle of the Aboriginal peoples of B.C. to ensure their land and other rights, and instead criminalizes those, like Ignace, who take legal and political stands for their rights. The People's Front/East Indian Defence Committee congratulates and salutes the determination and courage of Ignace (Wolverine) and all his compatriots and colleagues in this just struggle for Aboriginal rights. Ignace, a respected Shuswap elder and organic farmer, has pledged to continue his just struggle through to the end. People's Front/EIDC, in unity with all other democratic and justice-seeking organizations and individuals, demands a full judicial inquiry into the entire Gustafsen Lake affair. People have a right to know what was the role of the Attorney-General, RCMP, and federal government with respect to the use of 400 police firing 77,000 rounds of bullets at a camp of 18 men, women and children and the use of the courts to criminalize people for taking a political stand in defence of their right to conscience. For further information: People's Front / EIDC (B.C. Region) P.O. Box 27092, RPO Collingwood, Vancouver, B.C. V5R 6A8 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
