And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: via: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >From: Kevin Daniel Annett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: Cover-up or investigation? RCMP plan to search for secret graves at Kuper Island Catholic Indian Residential School, B.C. >Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 11:14:22 -0700 (PDT) > >Vancouver, April 12, 1999: > > According to a source in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, two >investigators have been assigned to search for a series of secret burial >sites where murdered children and the offspring of priests are alleged to >be interred, at the site of the former Kuper Island residential school. > > Staff Sergeant Peter Eakins and Constable Steven Thatcher have >been given the task of locating the graves, despite an official policy by >the RCMP's so-called Task Force into Residential Schools that it has no >mandate to investigate homicides at these schools. > > "It was decided before the Task Force was formed that we would >confine our work to looking into physical and sexual abuse only" commented >Task Force spokesperson Cons. Gerry Peters in October, 1997. Peters' >statement, however, contradicted his predecessor, Sgt. Paul Willms, who >told the Vancouver Sun in December, 1995 that the deaths of children at >the Alberni residential school "would certainly fall within the mandate" >of the RCMP investigation. > > This latest flip-flop in RCMP policy towards the deaths of native >children at residential schools comes within two days of a declaration by >a United Nations Human Rights panel that Canada is in violation of >international law in its treatment of aboriginal peoples. > > "We are definitely under the gun now" said the source within the >RCMP. "I guess you could call it more damage control." > > The deaths of children at the Kuper Island residential school >featured prominently in the testimony of numerous survivors of that school >at a United Nations-affiliated Tribunal last year in Vancouver. > > Six men and two women who attended Kuper Island school described >the murder of fellow students and their own use in medical experiments and >drug testing in 1939 and 1940. > > Bill Seaward of Nanaimo states that his sister Margaret was thrown >from a window of the school to her death by a nun. He is also part of a >group of boys who were given a series of injections in their chest by >"German speaking doctors", resulting in the deaths of at least two of >the boys, Sandy Mitchell and Raymond Brown. > > Sandy's sister, Ethel Wilson, told Tribunal investigators in >August, 1998 that she believes her brother was deliberately killed and the >facts around his death covered-up by the Catholic church and the RCMP. > > "They never allowed us to have an autopsy done, and the RCMP have >always refused to exhume Sandy's grave or investigate how he died" Ethel >said. > > Another student, Richard Thomas, was found hanged in the Kuper >Island gym only a day before he was to graduate, and two days after he >told his sister, Belvy Breber, that he intended to "tell all" about the >mysterious deaths of other students. > > Ms. Breber told the Tribunal that she believes her brother was >murdered by Terrance MacNamara, an Oblate priest, and by Father Dunlop, >the school Principal at the time. MacNamara resides in Prince Rupert, B.C. > > Ms. Breber and Diane Harris of the Chemainus Native Band told >Tribunal investigators that their repeated requests for an RCMP >investigation into Richard's death have been denied by local Mounties, >as recently as 1996. > > "Brian Sampson of the local detachment told us not only that he >wouldn't look into deaths at the school but that we weren't even allowed >to speak to the men who found Richard's body in the gym. And the local >Catholic Bishop, Remi de Roo, did a whitewash of the whole thing back in >the 1960's, after Richard died, and threatened us not to pursue it at >all." > > "We're used to that" Diane Harris told the Tribunal in June of >1998. "It's like the graveyards of all the babies aborted by the nuns at >the school. Everyone knows where the little skeletons are buried. Just >before school closed in the 1970's, the priests spent a whole night >digging up some of those graves south of the school. They told us to stay >away and not watch what they were doing. But those were the babies of the >girls who got pregnant from the priests. The nuns would give the girls >epsom salts to miscarriage them, then bury the remains." > > Harris claims to have documented the mysterious deaths of >thrity-five Kuper Island students in a seventeen year period. An >exhaustive search has failed to produce either burial permits or death >certificates for these students, including Sandy Mitchell and the other >students who died from the injections they received in 1940. > > The RCMP investigators, Eakins and Thatcher, have refused to >respond to repeated phonecalls and inquiries about the nature and scope >of their search for the Kuper Island graves. Nor has the RCMP stated if >this latest switch in their mandate regarding homicides in residential >schools will result in charges being laid against Terrance MacNamara, >Glen Doughty and other Catholic priests who have been accused by former >students of raping and murdering native children. > > Is this RCMP "hunt" for the secret graves at Kuper Island merely >the latest in their long and elaborate cover-up of murder in the >residential schools? The RCMP has produced fabricated death certificates, >refused to take testimonies from eyewitnesses to murder at the Alberni >and Kuper Island schools, lied about its mandate and knowledge of the >deaths of native children, and colluded with the United Church of Canada >in 1960 to keep stories of these deaths out of the media. Can such a state >police agency, which was itself an arm of the residential school system >and hunted down run-away Indian children, do anything but continue to >suppress evidence and protect the perpetrators of these crimes against >humanity? > > Human rights groups and concerned citizens should demand a public >scrutiny of Eakins' and Thatcher's investigation of the Kuper Island >gravesites and deaths of students there, and a full disclosure of the >evidence uncovered by these officers. > > Contact Sgt. Peter Eakins at (604) 543-4857. > > The Residential School International Tribunal. > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
