Apology rejected...

PM HARPER'S "APOLOGY' TO BE OFFICIALLY REJECTED
For Immediate Release: Breaking News from Squamish Nation Territory

Prime Minister Harper's "Apology" to Be Officially Rejected by Residential School Survivors at Rally and Press Conference

Vancouver, 18 June, 2008

Disgusted by the attempt by Canada and its churches to exonerate themselves with an "apology" for crimes against humanity in their Indian Residential Schools, grassroots survivors and their elders will rally in Vancouver next Monday, June 23, to publicly reject the apology.

Led by The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (FRD) and hereditary elders, residential school survivors will say no to the Harper apology, and condemn what they see as an attempt by the Harper government to trivialize and hide the reality of genocide in Canada.

"They say they're sorry, but that won't bring back the kids I saw killed at the Catholic school in Kamloops" said survivor William Combes on the Hidden from History radio program this week.

"If they're so sorry, then when will the priest who killed them be brought to trial? How come the churches are off the hook?"

Combes and others will rally next Monday, June 23 at 10 am (PST) at the office of the government's Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada (IRSRC) at 1166 Alberni street in downtown Vancouver.

A press conference will be held at that time and location, where a letter will be issued to Prime Minister Harper and the United Nations from residential school survivors and the FRD.

This IRSRC office was the scene of a sit-in by residential school survivors last year that pushed Ottawa to issue its "apology".

"Steven Harper should be in jail" commented second generation survivor Rob Morgan of the Nishga Nation, who led last year's occupation.

"He admitted in Parliament that Canada and its churches deliberately planned the residential schools, that killed thousands of kids. So why aren't they all facing trial now? We made them apologize, but now we're going to make them face the music for what they did and are still doing to us."

The FRD is one of several groups that is sponsoring an independent inquiry into Canadian residential schools and the death and burial of children that will run counter to the government's dubious "Truth and Reconciliation Commission".

Last April 10, the FRD released a list of twenty eight mass graves near former Indian Residential Schools across Canada where countless children who died in these schools are interred. An updated list of burial sites and other evidence is being compiled by FRD researchers.

Information:

Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared
1-888-265-1007 (pager) or 250-753-3345
email: hiddenfromhistory@yahoo.ca

www.hiddenfromhistory.org