International tribunal vital for justice for residential school victims

 

Churches in Canada have not been held responsible for the rape, murder and disappearance of 50,000 to 100,000 Native American children in Canada's residential schools, said Kevin Annett, speaking on RedTown Blog Talk Radio today.
 

Canada has not made an attempt to provide real healing for Native people, or to prosecute the perpetrators, including those who murdered and buried children.

Annett said many of the Indian survivors of residential school abuse have taken their own lives.
"They are crushed and broken by this."
"Who will speak for the children who never came back?"
"What about all those children who died? Are we going to pretend it never happened?"
 

During the 90-minute program aired on RedTown, Annett said the churches pushed the Canadian government to keep these schools open, even after Canada wanted to close the schools. Now, the churches place themselves above the law, refusing to even identify where the children's graves are.
One of the survivors said after a young girl was raped by a priest, she gave birth to a child. The priest threw the baby in the furnace. On a video on the Hidden From History website, Irene Favel, survivor of Muscowequan Catholic residential school in Lestock, Saskatchewan, describes seeing a newborn baby thrown alive into a furnace at that school by a priest in 1944.
 

"They heard the little cry," Annett said on RedTown radio.
 

On Turtle Island, the genocide of Indian people was the worst genocide in the history of mankind, he said.
 

In Canada, the churches had a motivation for genocide. The churches stole land from the west coast tribes and sold it off to logging companies. In return, the churches received kickbacks.
 

Now, Canada's system of compensation payments to survivors of residential school abuse is designed to produce more trauma, as survivors relive the abuse. Using a crude system, Canada gives a number of points for abuse. For example, victims of rape or beatings are given specific numbers of points.
The survivor has to remember the name of the perpetrator. But Annett asked how many five-year-olds remember the name of the person who abused them. The survivors also have to provide proof that they attended residential school, even though many of the documents have been destroyed. Now, of those seeking compensation, 8 out of 10 have been disqualified.
 

Canada designed a system to victimize the victims.
"They know that when someone relives that, they will go off and kill themselves. That is not an accident, it is deliberate," Annett said.
Canada is not concerned about healing, he said. Canada is concerned about minimizing the liability. There are actions people can take to help, like recording the stories of survivors and writing letters to newspapers. Urging people to people exchanges, rather than relying on the Internet, is how change happens, he said.