Gold medal Olympian angry with Ottawa's handling of Oka

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Olympic champion Alwyn Morris has few good feelings about his country after the crisis at Oka.

It's a long way from the 1984 Summer Olympics at Los Angeles when he held an eagle feather high above his head as he became the first Canadian Indian to strike gold at the Olympics

Now he hangs his head when he thinks of the treatment of Indians on his Kahnawake reserve at the hands of Canadians, the Armed Forces and Quebec provincial police.

Kahnawake Mohawks blockaded Montreal's Mercier Bridge to support Mohawks at Kanesatake. There were several violent confrontations with police, the army and non-Native residents.

In a recent visit to Alberta, Morris addressed a Treaty Six assembly at Hobbema. Later he met with Native students at the office of the Aboriginal Student Council at the University of Alberta to bring them up to date on what really happened in Quebec over the summer.

Morris said he was angry with the lack of involvement by the federal government to resolve the standoff in Quebec with Mohawk Indians. Instead it let thing build up to the point where it had no choice but to do what it did, he said.

Morris recounted how the dispute started. "There were women and children on the barricade when it was first put up in early July when the Quebec police force came in armed and surrounded the protesters. They fired the first shots and when the men on the reserve heard this they had no choice but to react the way they did. One thing people do not realize is that the Warrior Society is not a group you just join, you are born into it, it is a part of our culture. I myself am a Warrior.

"I think our actions were right, we were defending our rights as a nation of first people of this land," he said.

Morris, who organized a late August evacuation Kahnawake women, children and elders, said he felt betrayed by the Quebec provincial police.

"I started to make the arrangements to take these people to safety earl that morning and contacted the provincial police and asked for assistance. We had their commitment it would be done without incident and that we would have the protection we would need. When we got to the bridge the police stopped us and wanted to process the people. They held us for over two and a half hors," said Morris.

At the outset there was only about six non-Native protesters present. but the delay in processing the evacuees gave the protesters time to contact their friends.

By the time police were ready to let the Kahnawake residents leave, a mob of 350 people had gathered, said Morris.

"By the time they let us exit they only had 60 police to protect us."

As the Mohawks left, they were pelted with rocks and a number of people were uninjured.