My name is Rawennatshani and I am an adopted member of the Turtle clan of the Onkwehonwe people, known to you as the Mohawk Nation. My name was given to me by the Clan Mothers of my Nation and it means, “One whose wise and powerful voice warns the people”.

Your battle today against a global corporate dictatorship that is destroying our world and its people is the same struggle our Nation has fought for much longer than you. For centuries, we have lost most of our land and our people to a triple assault from colonial governments, their partner churches, and land-hungry corporations. Today, like you, we are all perched on a cliff of final extinction.

I am speaking to you today in my own capacity to invite you to come and sit with us under the tree that is our Great Law of Peace and join our forces, so that together we can reclaim the earth, our children, and our very lives.


This year, members of our Onkwehonwe Nation joined with five other indigenous nations here on Turtle Island, and with allies in Ireland and the Basque nation, to proclaim a Public Banishment Order against the institutions that are committing genocide against us, and against our children.

The colonial state known as Canada, its sponsor the Crown of England, and the Roman Catholic, Anglican and United Church of Canada, have been ordered by us to forever leave our territories because they caused the death of more than 50,000 children in their murderous “Indian residential schools”, and have not returned their remains for a proper burial.

In our tradition, as in yours, those who have been killed and denied a proper burial must wander forever until they are acknowledged, honoured and returned to their families. Help us then to give these innocent children the rest they have been denied.

We have asked the world to honor our Banishment Order, and to refuse to support or fund these genocidal organizations. Today, we ask you to do so, and more, and that is to help us occupy the buildings and lands of these churches and governments, and return them to the indigenous nations from whom they were stolen.

Our network has already delivered the Banishment Order to these churches, but they have refused to comply. We are therefore taking the next step of occupying their facilities and using them to house and feed our people, many of whom are destitute.

This occupation is also the only way we have to recover the bodies of the 50,000 children who were cruelly starved, tortured, raped and murdered in these residential schools, for many mass graves sit near former residential schools, and these churches refuse to surrender the remains of our children, or disclose the evidence of their fate.

The Roman Catholic church itself is one of the world’s largest and most murderous corporations, and has placed itself and its child-raping ways above any law. Our long-term aim is to bring the Vatican and other churches to trial for their crimes against humanity and for their role in laundering dirty corporate money and investing in the arms trade and in planet-raping companies.

The genocide by this church and others against our people is part of the same force that is now exterminating our planet and endangering the future of all the nations.

We therefore ask you respectfully to consider undertaking the following actions in your campaign:

1. Pass a motion supporting our Banishment Proclamation and pledging actions to occupy the buildings of these churches. A copy of the Proclamation is attached.

2. Join us in these occupations and reclamations.

3. Pass another motion supporting the efforts of our Onkwehonwe Nation of the Grand River in Brantford, Ontario, who have begun our own inquiry and excavations on the grounds of the oldest Residential school in Canada, to find and re-inter the remains of our relatives killed there.

4. Invite speakers from our Nation and the Human Rights Tribunal we are affiliated with to address your gatherings and share the evidence of the ongoing genocide of our peoples.

5. Educate yourselves about our history and campaign by sharing these websites:

www.itccs.org
www.hiddennolonger.com
www.hiddenfromhistory.org

The land you occupy was taken from us at the cost of millions of our lives. Help reverse this wrong by standing with us today.

I thank you and ask the blessings of all our ancestors and the Four Directions on all of us,

I am Rawennatshani of the Turtle Clan, Onkwehonwe Nation of the Grand River - Affiliated with The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (Brussels) – www.itccs.org.