Mohawks filmed removing U.S.-Canada border post
Obelisk dug up by backhoe on Akwesasne reserve
Last Updated: Wednesday, November 4, 2009 | 10:49 AM ET
CBC News
Backhoe poised to dig up border post on the Akwesasne Mohawk reserve near Cornwall, Ont. (YouTube)A video posted on the internet shows Mohawk Warriors using a backhoe to dig up and cart away a century-old border marker between Canada and the U.S. on the Akwesasne reserve near Cornwall, Ont.
The Warriors are members of a militant faction within the community known as the Mohawk Warrior Society that is separate from the elected band council.
The events were filmed Oct. 30, according to information posted on the Mohawk website akwesasnewomensfire.com. After digging up the granite obelisk and putting it on a on a flatbed trailer, the Warriors are shown driving south into Hogansburg, N.Y. There, the truck runs into a road block set up by Mohawk police to stop the Warriors and is surrounded by police cars.
"It's property that doesn't belong to them," Sgt. Matt Rourke is heard saying on the video. "Their name's not on it. It's not theirs."
However, Rourke soon begins to sound a lot more apologetic. Meanwhile the leader of the group of Warriors — a man named Roger — warns Rourke not to interfere.
"It's a political thing," Roger says. "It's nothing to do with police here or police there. And you get into political, then you're going to get into a handful of shit. Alright?"
"That's fine," Rourke replies. "We just came to see what's going on, Roger. That was all."
Rourke, who had been insisting that the Warriors take the monument to the police station, soon drops the idea, as Roger orders him to move his police cruisers out of the way and announces that the Warriors are taking the obelisk to their longhouse headquarters.
Police move their cars and the Warriors continue on their way.
On Monday, they used hammers to break up the stone base of the obelisk," to make transportation safer."
"Everyone was surprised to discover that another obelisk of metal, with inscriptions on it from the early 1800s, was hidden inside the stone base," Monica Peters, who operates the Mohawk website, writes on the site.
