"Disinformation and smear" : the use of state propaganda and military force to suppress Aboriginal title at the 1995 Gustafsen Lake Standoff

In the summer of 1995, eighteen protesters came into armed conflict with over 400 RCMP officers and soldiers in central British Columbia. The conflict escalated into one of the costliest police operations in Canadian history. Many accounts of Aboriginal aggression provided by the RCMP are not consistent with evidence disclosed at the trial of the protesters. Moreover, the substance of the legal arguments at the heart of the Ts' Peten Defenders' resistance received little attention or serous analysis by state officials, police or the media. The RCMP constructed the Ts' Peten Defenders as terrorists and downplayed the use of state force that included military weaponry, land explosives and police snipers, who received orders to shoot to kill. Serious questions remain about the role of the RCMP, who acted as the enforement arm of state policies designed to constrain the effort to internationalize the Aboriginal title question.

Authors

• Mahony, Ben David
• University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Arts and Science

• Secwepemc (Shuswap) -- Land tenure
• Indigenous peoples -- British Columbia -- Gustafsen Lake
• Indigenous peoples -- British Columbia -- Gustafsen Lake -- Land tenure
• Secwepemc (Shuswap) -- Government relations
• Indigenous peoples -- British Columbia -- Gustafsen Lake -- Government relations
• Gustafsen Lake (B.C.)
• Gustafsen Lake Standoff, B.C., 1995 -- Press coverage
• Dissertations, Academic

Identifier

hdl:10133/189

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:opus.uleth.ca:10133/189