Remains of 751 First Nations children discovered in unmarked graves
On May 28 of this year — less than a month ago — the story broke: the remains of 215 children were found in unmarked graves on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian residential school in British Columbia, Canada. While this was deeply disturbing news, it was, unfortunately, not at all surprising. The Canadian Indian residential school system operated from the 1840’s through 1997. Some 130 residential schools were built across Canada for the purpose of forcibly assimilating indigenous children by removing them from their homes and communities, and forbidding them from speaking their native languages or practicing their cultures and religions. Physical, emotional and sexual abuse were rampant within these institutions, as was forced labor. Since 1990, there have been over 90,000 claims of physical and/or sexual abuse registered in Canadian courts linked to the residential school system. Over 150,000 indigenous children were forced to attend these schools over the years. In many instances, children were literally scooped from their homes without knowledge or consent of families and/or their communities — this practice was never more widespread as it was in the 1960’s. Over the course of the history of the residential school system, it is estimated that over 6,000 children died of starvation, malnutrition, disease, and violence. Some of these schools had a mortality rate as high as 69% — most of the children dying within the first year of attendance.
So while this news was a tragic reminder of the scope and horror of this program, it was not surprising. A “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” convened by the Canadian government concluded in 2015 that the Canadian government had pursued a policy of cultural genocide against indigenous people and recommended a string of actions to repair the damage. Seven years later, a majority of the commission’s 94 “calls to action” have gone unanswered.
On Tuesday, June 22, during the 47th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council, Jiang Duan, a senior official at China’s mission to the UN in Geneva, made a statement to the Human Rights Council calling for a “thorough and impartial investigation” into Canada’s historical treatment of indigenous peoples and compensation for victims. The statement was read on behalf of China, Russia, Belarus, Iran, DPRK (North Korea), Syria and Venezuela. “Historically, Canada robbed the Indigenous people of their land, killed them, and eradicated their culture,” the statement said. It specifically referenced the remains of the 215 children found on the property of the Kamloops Indian residential school in May.
Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, hit back, saying “In Canada, we had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Where is China’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission? Where is [China’s] truth?”. His statement, besides being an obvious deflection, belied the fact that the majority of the actions recommended by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had gone ignored by his Administration.
Later on Tuesday, during the 47th UNHRC regular session, Leslie E. Norton, Canada’s permanent representative to the UN, issued an urgent plea for transparency and access to China’s northwest region of Xinjiang, where Western media outlets, relying on exaggerated and, in many cases, baseless claims made by self-proclaimed “academics” from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and right-wing think tanks like the Newlines Institute, Jamestown Foundation and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (all of which are funded through grants from the Department of Defense and weapons contractors) have asserted China is carrying out a repressive campaign against the Uyghur minority which amounts to cultural genocide. Her statement was submitted on behalf of 44 signatories, including the United States. Many observers noted the distinct lack of Islamic nations in the joint statement — Bosnia & Herzegovina was the only majority-Muslim country to sign on.
But a group of 65 member states immediately responded with their own joint statement siding with Beijing, and opposing “politically motivated and groundless accusations against China based on disinformation. … These self-styled ‘human rights judges’ are always eager to lecture others, but choose to turn a blind eye to or downplay their own serious human rights issues,”, the statement read in part. Following the UNHRC session, in a press conference Chinese officials said they had support for their policies from more than 90 countries.
This reflects a pattern which has continued over the last couple years, where a bunch of predominantly white countries and Japan (in other words, the perpetrators of colonialism) write joint statements expressing “grave concerns” at the UN about China’s vocational school program in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, only to have twice as many predominantly non-white countries in the Global South (in other words, the victims of colonialism) respond immediately calling them liars in increasingly harsh terms.
The last incident was on October 6, 2020, when German Ambassador Christoph Heusgen read out a joint statement to the UN General Assembly. The joint statement by 39 countries raised concerns about treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. This was immediately met with a rebuttal by China and more than 70 other countries — including almost every majority-Muslim country in the world — calling these allegations false, and painting them as part of a cynical smear campaign by the West in order to justify sanctions and war.
Tuesday’s calls from the Chinese delegation to the UNHRC to open a “thorough and impartial investigation” into Canada’s historical treatment of indigenous peoples and compensation for victims proved to be prophetic; only one day later, on Wednesday, the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan announced it has discovered hundreds of unmarked graves at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School.
Today, Thursday June 24, the Cowessess First Nation held a press conference where they announced that the official number of children’s remains identified on school grounds amounts to 751.
751 children. Dead, buried in mass, unmarked graves, and forgotten. And this didn’t happen in the 1800’s — this happened much more recently. The Indian residential school system in Canada only really picked up steam in the 1920’s. It was at its peak in the 1950’s-1960’s. Who knows when or how these children died. Justin Trudeau very carefully chose his response at the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday. He chose to change the subject and ask why China hasn’t had a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” for a made-up, non-existent “genocide”, in which not one person has even been alleged to have died. He could have simply agreed to a thorough and impartial investigation, as China has done repeatedly in Xinjiang. After all, China has invited representatives from the UN, diplomats from the EU, inspectors from dozens of countries, NGOs, even the World Bank to tour its vocational schools. What does Canada have to hide? Well, today we have the answer:
Mass graves full of children.
