GO rD hIllDepartment of Indian Affairs by Natives aimed at dissolving it. By Sep-
tember 30th, the Caravan had brought around 800–900 Natives to Parlia-
ment Hill in Ottawa. Instead of a meeting with parliament, the protest
faced riot police and barricades. As police attacked the demonstration,
clashes broke out, leaving dozens of Natives and nine police injured.
In 1976, the “Trail of Self-Determination” left the west coast of
the U.S. as one of many anti-Bicentennial protests organized by Native
peoples. Its purpose was to get the government’s answer to the points
raised by the 1972 caravan. As in that protest, government officials
refused to meet with the people and 47 demonstrators were arrested
at the BIA offices in Washington, DC.
It was also during this period that Native peoples began organizing
around international bodies. In the U.S., members of AIM and numer-
ous traditional leaders and elders formed the International Indian Treaty
Conference, in 1974.
The thrust of the Treaty Conference is for recognition of
treaties by the U.S. as a means of restoring sovereign relations
between the native nations and that country. Then, there will
be moves to control exploitation, return control of native lands
to...the native nation, and a return of forms of government ap-
propriate to each nation.^57The IITC was the first Indian organization to apply for and receive UN
Non-Governmental status. Delegates from the IITC, CRIC, and other
South and Central American Indigenous organizations formed the basis
for developing legalistic frameworks based on international laws aimed at
restoring sovereign nation status for First Nations. Conferences such as the
1977 UN-sponsored NGO meeting on “problems of Western Hemisphere
Indigenous Peoples” or the Fourth International Russell Tribunal in 1980,
were organized to examine and document the continuation of genocidal
practises, and to develop policies concerning these issues. The end result of
these conferences appears to be a forum for documenting genocide, and, at
best, exerting some level of international pressure on particular countries.
As AIM member Russell Means has stated, “It appears useless to appeal to
the U.S. or its legal system to restore its honor by honoring its treaties.”^58 In
light of the recent UN role in the U.S.-led Gulf War, and its recent repeal of
the condemnation of Zionism as racism, the UN itself seems useless.
- “North American Sovereign Nations”, Akwesasne Notes Vol. 8 No. 4, pg. 16.
- Akwesasne Notes Vol. 8 No. 6.