And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Date: Tue, 09 Nov 1999 06:45:39 -0800 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Tehaliwaskenhas-Bob Kennedy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Oneida Man Starving Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Tuesday, November 9, 1999 Fears mount for native hunger striker By JULIE CARL, Free Press Columnist Mae Cornelius hears her son's voice grow weaker by the day. She's frightened, fearful the Onyota'a:ka man's hunger strike for change to the Ontario provincial jail system will end in death or seriously damage his health. Even a meeting Correctional Ministry staff requested with her son, Paul Doxtator, in London next week doesn't ease her fears. She's worried he may be too weak to make his case effectively. "I know him. He'll be there even if they have to carry him," she said. While she's grateful "they finally called," she wishes the meeting -- and its promise of an end to her son's hunger strike -- were sooner. Gary Commeford, regional director with the ministry, said he's going to the meeting to listen to Doxtator's concerns. He has no agenda of what may be accomplished. Doxtator, a member of the Oneida First Nation of the Thames, southwest of London, is on Day 34 of his hunger strike to demand proper native spiritual programs in provincial jails. He says native prisoners don't have the same access to religious ceremonies as Christian inmates. For example, inmates at Maplehurst Correctional Centre in Milton, where Doxtator's support group recently lost its volunteer status,might be offered a sweat lodge, a native purification ritual, every three months or so. Christian inmates have services at Maplehurst every Sunday."There's nothing even remotely like equality at Maplehurst," Doxtator said.It's not his first hunger strike, although it might be the first time someone outside the penal system has fasted in protest. In 1985, he starved for two weeks and lost nine kilograms to win sweat lodges for fellow prisoners in Millhaven Penitentiary. This time, he's lost 14.3 kilograms. Medical staff monitoring him say his urine tests register ketones, a classic sign of starvation.His hunger pangs have more or less stopped and the pains in his legs are milder, stabbing only when he climbs stairs. He's drinking coffee with sugar now to try to stop the overwhelming dizzy spells. Until last weekend, he'd taken nothing but water. It'll be Day 42 of Doxtator's strike when he meets with ministry staff Nov. 17. That's another nine days of damage to his body. His mother, a health-care aide on the Oneida reserve, is only tooaware of the dangers. They went for a short walk on the weekend and seeing him stumble and stagger from weakness underlined those dangers for her. "I beg him to stop," she says, crying as she recalls her almost daily pleas he call off his strike. "But I know he won't. "I threaten to start the same thing. I can see the tears in his eyes and he says, 'Everything'll be all right'." Forty-three years ago, she was pregnant with Paul -- and hoping for a quiet one, she jokes. He was always a handful. She recalls her son's truant officer saying he'd make a good lawyer when he grew up because he could out-talk anyone. She's proud of the activist work her son has done, pushing for change to the system. Since his release from federal prison 11 years ago, he's worked to convince inmates and authorities alike that native prisoners need to embrace their spirituality for rehabilitation. Doxtator's fighting the same battles for change native people have been fighting for years. Thirty years ago, Nelson Small Legs Jr., a member of the Peigan First Nation in Alberta, was overwhelmed by the fight. He committed suicide to protest the conditions in which his people lived. Now, few people have heard of him or his sacrifice. Doxtator's mother grows quiet when talk turns to Small Legs. She doesn't want to talk about death, how her son may be risking it, or talk of anyone who died in protest. It's too awful for her -- it should be too awful for all of us -- that Canada's First Nations people still have to put their lives on the line to get anyone to listen. Turtle Island Native Network Your Aboriginal News and Information Network on the Internet http://www.turtleisland.org Winner - 1999 Aboriginal Media Arts Award. "Let's do it before we don't do it!" Tehaliwaskenhas - G.R.(Bob) Kennedy INFOCOM Management 1 - 1986 Glenidle Road, Sooke, BC V0S 1N0 Phone: (250) 642-0277 Fax: (250) 642-0278 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.turtleisland.org
