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From Native News
August 17, 2000
Yesterday morning in choppy ocean waters, a Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) boat rammed a First Nations boat three times. The DFO vessel cracked the hull of the First Nations boat before chasing it to shore. In between the rammings, DFO officer Louis Breau yelled at the First Nations boat, "You've gotta get out of here! You re all under arrest!"
Matthew Bailey-Dick, member of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), was on the boat when it was rammed, and had to grasp the edge of the boat so as not to be thrown into the water. When safely back on shore, Bailey-Dick reported, "I think we were all pretty nervous out there. That DFO boat was a lot bigger than we were." Another man on the boat later went to hospital for x-rays on a leg and back injury sustained during one of the collisions.
The incident occurred during an early morning assault by 8 DFO vessels in which two First Nations boats were rammed by DFO vessels. This is another in a series of violent actions taken by the DFO in recent days. On Sunday night, the DFO conducted an all-night raid in which they seized 748 First Nations lobster traps. In this earlier incident, observers witnessed DFO officers pointing guns at a First Nations vessel.
While members of the esgeno' petitj First Nation continue to assert their treaty right to fish for lobster under their own conservation management plan, representatives of the DFO insist that they have the right to control the Burnt Church waters. In violation of international law, the Canadian government has refused to dialogue with the people of esgeno' petitj on a nation-to-nation basis.
Despite the aggressive behaviour of the DFO in recent days, the fishers of esgeno'petitj have continued to navigate the troubled Miramichi waters to set out their lobster traps. Members of other First Nations communities have been arriving in esgeno'petitj to show their solidarity and to provide moral and logistical support.
Members of the CPT New Brunswick team currently include Nina Bailey-Dick (Waterloo, ON), Matthew Bailey-Dick (Waterloo, ON), William Payne (Toronto, ON), Janet Shoemaker (Goshen, IN), and Lena Siegers (Brussels, ON). CPT has come by invitation of the people of esgeno'petitj to accompany them as they struggle for respect and for the recognition of their inherent rights to fish.
Christian Peacemaker Teams is a program of Brethren, Quaker and Mennonite Churches. CPT P. O. Box 6508 Chicago, IL 60680 tel. 312-455-1199 FAX 312-432-1213, E-Mail cpt@igc.org WEB www.prairienet.org/cpt
Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law.
