Oka crisis

Canadian soldiers and Sûreté du Québec on September 3, 1990

The Oka Crisis was a conflict between the Mohawk - First Nation People from the nearby Kanesatake Reserve and the Canadian community of Oka in the province of Quebec in 1990. During the 78-day crisis, a police officer from the Quebec provincial police "Sûreté du Québec" killed in the clashes and a Mohawk elder in rioting by opponents of the blockade. It marked the beginning of a series of violent clashes between First Nation People of Canada and the Canadian state in the late 20th century.

procedure

The Oka Crisis was sparked by plans by citizens of the city of Oka to expand a golf course on land claimed by the Mohawks. Then the Mohawk barricades began to be erected. Three months later, on July 11, 1990, the provincial police began attacking the guarded barricades. There was an exchange of fire and the police chaplain Marcel Lemay was killed.

This escalated the crisis. The Mohawk's locally limited demand for land ownership became a general claim for independence. The Warriors , a group defending the rights of the First Nations, reinforced the Mohawk on their barricades. The Canadian government refused to negotiate with the Mohawk while the barricades were in place, and in turn began to erect roadblocks on the access roads to Oka and the Kanesatake reservation.

In this deadlock, Québec Prime Minister Robert Bourassa called on the Canadian Army , which cleared some of the barricades. Only after lengthy negotiations were the last barricades dismantled on September 26, 1990 and the Warriors gave up their fight. In 1997 the federal authorities acquired the land from the municipality of Oka. It had not been assigned to the Mohawk until 2014.

See also

• First Nations history
• Ipperwash crisis

literature

• Amelia Kalant: National Identity and the Conflict at Oka . Routledge, 2004 ISBN 0415947324
• Thomas King : The inconvenient Indian. A curious account of native people in North America. The illustrated edition. Doubleday Canada , 2017 ISBN 9780385690164 pp. 245–248 (engl.)

Pictorial representation

A picture (draftsman illegible) of such conflicts there were already 1930. On the rear flying intent and the rear mirror of the aforementioned book by Thomas King is the picture from a brochure of Banff -Tourismusbüros 1930 The Gallery at Banff, from Canadian Pacific to see . It shows a scene of white golfers in the background and Indians who are amazed at them in the foreground from an elevated vantage point, perhaps also looking at them mockingly while playing golf.

Web links

• CBC Archives: The Oka Crisis - Radio / TV reports (English)

notes

1. ↑ The Lemma in The Canadian Encyclopedia (English, optionally French), July 2014