Youth want leaders to know they stand behind them
By Alana Toulin
Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal, Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Although six Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) leaders have been jailed
for more than two months, they're still very much in the thoughts of
their community and their supporters.
On Monday morning, a crowd gathered at the Thunder Bay Correction
Centre for a peaceful rally for the KI6, but there was a special
emphasis on KI councillor Darryl Sainnawap. The 23-year-old is a youth
leader in his community and the teens and twenty-somethings who
attended want him to know that he has their support.
For his family and friends, the six-month sentence Sainnawap (and the
other leaders) is serving for failing to obey a court order that would
give Toronto-area mining company Platinex Inc. exploration rights on
traditional territory has been hard to deal with.
In addition to statements made by KI youth about how much they miss him
and how much they appreciate the stand he is taking, Sainnawap's
mother, Jane Rae, gave an emotional speech about how difficult it's
been on her two-year-old grandson to have his father in prison.
"I didn't know how to explain to him about his father going to jail and
why he had to do this," Rae said. "He does not fully understand why his
father left and hasn't come back yet. He now believes his mother will
do the same and he refuses to be separated from her even for a few
hours."
She added that the community was proud of their leaders and will
continue to refuse mining and other development on land claimed as
their traditional territory.
"We are here to protect our land from destruction," Rae said. "We will
not allow our pristine land to be destroyed for the sake of money."
Home caring for their son, Sainnawap's wife Jessie was unable to attend
the rally but prepared a statement read by one of the KI youth council
members that expressed hope for the future.
"Today my son's dad is in jail trying to protect his right to say no,"
she wrote. "For so long our voices have been ignored, but we've grown
stronger as more generations grow up ... our children will break down
the doors we were once unable to open."
Other First Nations groups attended the rally, including the Fort
William First Nation--whose youth council hosted an open forum to
discuss the KI situation later in the day--and members from the Ontario
First Nations Young People's Council (OFNYPC).
Arnold Norman Yellowman, an OFNYPC member from Aamjiwnaang First Nation
near Sarnia, said he is inspired by the actions taken by the KI6 to
keep Platinex from starting exploratory work near their remote northern
community.
"We in southern Ontario have seen the encroachment of development and
what industrialization has done to our community as a whole in the
Great Lakes region," he said. "If we continue to have mining or any
other industry come through our land, exploit it, and jeopardize our
ecosystems, it's really going to have an impact on our future."
