Guns On Cornwall Island: Canadian Customs Walk!

[Bobbieo]

AKWESASNE MOHAWKS: BOTH BRIDGES BLOCKED - CUSTOMS AGENTS WALK OFF AT MIDNIGHT MAY 31ST

Mohawk Nation News.
June 1, 2009. At 10:00 pm last night, May 31, the chief was coming through Cornwall Island Canada Customs. He was served with a letter from Peter Van Loan, Canada's Public Safety Minister informing us that "There will be guns" on June 1st 2009.

The Canada Border Services Agents CBSA were to be armed at midnight last night. Instead they walked off.

http://nativeunity.blogspot.com

[grasswire]

1. what's this about?

Please expand.

[imdjh]

2. Depends on who you choose to believe. I am inclined to believe the Canadian government

After reading a coupe of articles from different sources I get this:

Mohawk - The government is profiling because 300 Mohawks were arrested last year by Canadian customs (CC). Mind you, 70% of the people who use this crossing identify as Mohawk. The Mohawk article didn't bother to say how many people in total were arrested last year at this crossing so we really have no basis for knowing if they are telling the truth about profiling or if it's simply that Mohawks are being arrested because Mohawks are violating the law. The CC is arming its police force which the Mohawk claim poses a threat to their people.

Canada - The government is arming all of its border guards and the crossing at Cornwall Island is no different.

Given the painful lengths to which the Canadian government goes to avoid the appearance of racism, I am inclined to believe the government that they aren't doing anything unusual and that the Mohawk complaints are unfounded.

it looks like the Mohawks have a habit of smuggling cigarettes, as silly as that sounds, it's big business both in Canada and the northern US. Untaxed cigarettes are a huge black market.

[Bobbieo]

3. IM - Please note that I use 'Mohawk Nation News' as the source of info.

[imdjh]

4. I did note that. That's why I went looking for other articles.

As I would on any topic.

[imdjh]

5. smuggling

By Michael Hill
Akwesasne, Ontario (AP) 11-07

Mohawk police spotted a red van with swiped license plates riding through the reservation on a recent night looking like it was loaded down with something heavy.

It was.

After a brief pursuit, the officer pulled over a vehicle that smelled like a humidor. Garbage bags packed with more than a ton of golden cut tobacco filled the back from floor to ceiling.

Another night, another illegal load of tobacco headed to Canada from the United States through this Mohawk reservation. Akwesasne, which stretches into northern New York, is by far the busiest spot for cigarette smuggling along the northern border. While the U.S.-Canada border runs some 4,000 miles through mountains, plains and some of the largest freshwater lakes on the planet, the security challenges posed by Akwesasne are unique.

A bit smaller than the Bronx, the reservation straddles New York state, Quebec and Ontario and is sliced by the St. Lawrence River. Border crossers here pass through land controlled by four distinct governments: New York state, U.S.-side Mohawks, Canadian-side Mohawks and Ontario. This geopolitical complexity has helped make Akwesasne a go-to gateway for smugglers at least since Prohibition.

Right now, cigarette smuggling is big.


http://indiancountrynews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1968&Itemid=33

Akwesasne a Geographic Challenge
U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Mark Henry said Akwesasne is a geographic challenge, but it is among several that agents focus on in their Northeast patrols. The Border Patrol does not keep seizure figures for Akwesasne. But the agency’s Swanton sector – which stretches 295 miles from northern New York to New Hampshire – last year made 1,119 arrests for alien smuggling, a bit less than one in five of all such arrests along the northern border.

Chief Andrew Thomas of the St. Regis Tribal Police said smugglers exploit opportunities wherever they find them and the reservation’s reputation as a “gateway” is unwarranted.

“That happens here, that happens points east, that happens points west,” he said. “We seem to get all the attention.”

Thomas has 16 officers to patrol the American side of the reservation, a flatland of woods, fields, modest houses and a bunch of gas stations that sell can sell tax-free fuel and cigarettes. Thomas said tobacco is “not a high priority with my agency.” In his view, cigarette smuggling would disappear overnight if Canada would simply lower tobacco taxes.

“We have smuggling issues that my office focuses on, and that’s the drug trade, weapons and illegal immigrants and illegal aliens,” Thomas said. “Those are the real criminal issues that we deal with.”

[Bobbieo]

6. Please Note - I was born in Massena NY about 10 miles from Akwesasne

and right or wrong - these are my mother's people. Yes. They have been smugglers for years and I'm not taking sides one way or another. This border/Canadian issue has become a matter of news because of the location of the "rez" and border crossing between the two countries.

I have been away from the area now for more than 60 years as I currently live in the Southwest