Kill the Indian in the child, the reason for the Residential schools.The genocide: Pope Francis must apologize, Trudeau plays the blame game

By Odoardo Di Santo

 The discovery of the remains of 215 children in the Indian Residential School of Kamploops, shocking as it may be, is a tragedy that far from disappearing with the passing of days has become as irrepressible as the eruption of a volcano.

The reasons must be sought not only in the magnitude of what is now called "genocide" and not just "cultural genocide" as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission defined it in the final report in 2015.

They must be sought in the murky contours that accompanied this shameful story, the result of the racist and colonialist politics of the Canadian ruling classes who used residential schools as a tool to annihilate not only the culture, but the raison d'être of indigenous peoples.

When children were sent to asylums and other institutions for experiments, what was different from the Nazi experiments of Dr. Mengele?

Sir John Macdonald the Canadian Prime Minister was the author of the policy that established residential schools because as he declared in Parliament: "The children who live on the reservations are savages and must be taken with force by the families and placed in central apprenticeship schools where they will acquire habits and ways of white men ".

The purpose was to "kill the Indian in the child".

As early as 1907, federal chief physician Peter Henderson Bryce denounced the dire conditions of residential schools and the staggering number of deaths.

Ignored by governments, in 1922 he expressed his anger at Ottawa's indifference and inaction by writing a volume entitled "The Story of a National Crime".

Note that we are in 1922

Sol Mamakwa, Ontario indigenous MPP now calls it "a crime against humanity"

From 1870 until 1996 when the last school was closed and until today the Canadian governments have ignored the tragedy and the crime with complicity omerta`,(code of silence) for which no one has paid.

Faced with the "crime" perpetrated in the Residential Schools there are first of all the victims, that is the children who died or killed in the residential schools (up to 6000) and the survivors.

There are therefore the Catholic institutions that have managed the residential schools and that, in historically reverse roles, have been the secular arm responsible for many crimes.

Finally, there is the government doubly responsible for establishing the schools and ignoring the crimes committed from 1870 to 1996.

The remains of the 215 children discovered in the Kamploops mass grave are the crime scene ,previously unknown.

As a crime scene, the state has a duty to investigate and not to claim, as some would like, that indigenous communities carry out the investigation, a legal absurdity according to which victims should investigate the guilt of the perpetrators of crimes.

Victims and survivors denounced the crimes aloud but remained unheard.

As for the Catholic Church, the bishops of Victoria and Vancouver have apologized as has the cardinal of Toronto, but not yet the Pope who has expressed his pain but has not apologized as requested by the victims and as it is necessary if you want real reconciliation and turn the page ..

He did so in 2015 when in Bolivia he apologized to the natives of the Americas for the complicity of the Church in the oppression of the natives in Latin America during the colonial era.

He can do it for the indigenous Canadians.

Prime Minister Trudeau the revelation was made by Indian Chief Rosanne Casimir on Friday threw it on generic.

He expressed sorrow for the children at the news that "it breaks my heart and serves as a painful reminder of the dark and shameful chapter of our country's history".

He promised unspecified "concrete" actions but stressed that it will take time to heal the wounds with the cooperation of communities, provincial governments and Canadians.

And he ordered flags at half mast, perhaps hoping that the news would fade over time.

Canadians, stunned by the scale of the tragedy, have erected hundreds of makeshift memorials across Canada.

After a week, Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennet compared the discovery of the 215 children's mass graves to George Floyd's death due to "harmful  government policies."

It announced the release of $ 27 million of the $ 33 approved in the 2019 budget to help search and identify missing children.

Why didn't he release them in 2019 and asked?

According to Minister Bennett: “Because the indigenous communities were not ready to receive them”.

"Simply false" the answer of Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux President of the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to find out the truth about residential schools and to promote reconciliation completed its work and delivered the report in 2105.

296  pages of the report are dedicated  to the residential schools documenting all aspects of what they called "Cultural Genocide" and made 94 recommendations.

In 2015, the young Trudeau while campaigning during the elections  promised to "implement the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation commission".

Speaking to CBC Cindy Bladstock executive director of First Nation Child and Family Care noted that of the 94 recommendations made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commisssion, only five are implemented in the past five years.

Trudeau has a responsibility to account for the government's inaction since 2015 and cannot seek excuses or diversions.

The government is party to and has  responsibility for the policy that caused the tragedy.

Instead, Trudeau incredibly assumes the role of the wise, compassionate and thoughtful counselor, asking the Pope to apologize from the church and threatening to use "stronger measures" to obtain the records from the residential schools.

For the moment, according to his established  evasive style, he suggests that Catholics pressure priests and bishops to do the right thing before he starts taking them to court.

As usual  a vain threat.

Martin Reither  assistant  Deputy Minister of the Crown-indigenous Relations and Northern affairs told the parliament committee: "In terms of legal capacity we have no such authority".

Trudeau is still fighting in court to deny payment of compensation to some groups of indigenous survivors.

Even worse, he appealed  an order from the Human Rights Tribunal to ensure equal access to medical care and education for First Nations children, as also recognized by the United Nations.

Generic declarations of pain, offering a word of understanding, empty declarations of generic and future promises such as delaying maneuvers are of no use.

To have credibility, the government must act.

The time for tactics to create distraction hoping that everything will be forgotten is over.

PS . On June 7 the House of Commons approved a motion introduced by Jagmeet Singh asking the government  to drop its court battles related to the Indigenous child welfare system, end its litigation with survivors of the St. Anne’s residential school, and speed up work on identifying and documenting unmarked graves at residential schools.  The motion was approved unanimously. However Prime Minister Trudeau,the indigenous affairs Minister Maec Miller,theCrown-Indigenous  Minister  Carolyn Bennet and other ministers di not cast their vote.After the vote, Assembly of First Nations Chief Perry Bellegarde welcomed the result, but said he’s “deeply concerned that the federal cabinet and other Liberal MPs chose to abstain.”