1990 Will Never Be Forgotten
Written by Paul Graif on 10 July 2020
30 years ago tomorrow (Saturday, July 11) the course of Kahnawake, Kanesatake and all first nations people in Canada changed as the Oka crisis began.
Vicky Diabo, was 20 years old and living in Kahnawake.
“I was back and forth there (Kanesatake) twice,” she said. “I was there before the shooting. I came back and then I was there after the shooting. My husband was there. My cousins were there. I had a lot of family there. Most of our lives growing up my husband has always been a defender of the land and of the people. So it was sort of the norm for us.”
Diabo spent her time in the Treatment Center supporting those at the barricades. She also had her nine month old daughter with her. But she says she wasn’t very worried. “Not really, no. We were on our land. We were defending our land. When you know you’re doing the right thing there is nothing to fear,” she said.
On the day they decided to leave in September things became chaotic. “I didn’t want anything to happen to her so I strapped her to my chest and we started walking out. I was butted in the back, while I was holding my baby, with a rifle. I had hair pulled out. My nails were ripped out of my hands from them trying to grab me and knock me down while we were running out of Oka. We were walking at first peacefully saying we were coming out and it turned in to where they were screaming at us and telling us we were worthless and to get on the ground because they were arresting us.”
Diabo managed to make her way back to Kahnawake later that night. Her daughter was not harmed.
Kahnawake was also under siege as the Mercier Bridge was shut down. After six weeks of being isolated, on August 28th a caravan of 75 cars left Kahnawake to cross the bridge. MCK Chief Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer was just 10 years old and in the second car across in what is now referred to as the rocks at whiskey trench. “That whole area was under construction. There was a lot of debris, a lot of rocks,” Sky Deer said. “I believe people brought their own stuff because the thing that came through the vehicle that I was in that smashed the window was a golf ball. Once that window shattered you just take cover. I covered my head and I could hear the continuous thunk, thunk, thunk hitting the car. In my mind, what if suddenly we get a flat or if the car stops. So now I’m really getting scared because I’m thinking I’m going to die. What clearly went though my 10 year old brain was there’s a chance I’m not going to live today.”
As is the case now Joe Norton was also Grand Chief of the MCK back in 1990.
“There was a meeting in Ottawa,” Norton recalls. “I went there and my long time friend Max Gros-Louis, from Village Huron, said to me ‘everybody in Canada is going to benefit from this. He says, you Kahnawake and Kanesatake are the only ones who are going to be punished.’ And he was right.”
