Blessings All, for we so need them:
Several days ago i heard a report on the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation about a 12 year old Cree girl
who was raped by 3 men in 2001 after they picked her
up and gave her alcohol. Charges were dropped against
2 of them, but one man was convicted. Dean Edmondson
was given a 2 year conditional sentence or “house
arrest”. The worst part of all was the judge agreeing
with the defense that the girl was the sexual
aggressor due to the fact that she was already being
abused as sperm from her father was also found in her
underwear. How can this be? This has added deeply to
the despair i am smothered with over the past few
weeks. What are we going to do?
That another body of a woman was found in the woods
outside of Edmonton, Alberta earlier in the week
displays the continuous disregard that permeatesthe
planet for women and children. We who are poor have
no voice. Zilch. None. Even in our own communities,
the stain of poverty reinforces the silencing that
strangles hope among those whose marginalized numbers
are increasing.
Over the years, the work i have done supporting
traditional Dine Grandmothers at Black Mesa resisting
forced relocation as an on the land human rights
observer, cooking, chopping wood, hauling water,
working in the cornfields, driving Pauline and Roberta
where they needed to go, even getting arrested, has
slowly become impossible for me to continue. My own
struggles to survive have made such projects nearly
impossible. I am astounded as i witness any way
people had of making it with dignity collapse. Safety
nets are shredded as all funds are channeled into the
killing machine in Iraq ultimately benefitting
corporations such as Becktel, Haliburton,
Exxon-Mobile, etc.
I have been homeschooling my 12 year old daughter all
her life. She has lived at Big Mountain with me in
the Peace camp Pauline asked us to occupy keeping
watch over the cornfield. She has experienced living
simply on the lovely high desert of northeastern
Arizona where we cooked over our small fire with
gathered twigs. She also has learned to gather and
cut wood where we live in the mountains. She writes
well, does her math with increasing ease, reads and
enacts her social skills with grace and understanding.
I have done my best to expose her to life free from
consumer preoccupation, peopled with defenders of all
children’s future. Yet, that has no value.
Now, i have learned that the daughters of relocatee
families living in Tuba City are facing similar targeted
murders. The spread of femicide and genocide is a
tragic armed human pestilence.
Recently i received papers from DSHS that they will no
longer enforce the $25 a month child support we once
received til March of 2004. I am finding it
impossible to earn the little i once did selling cards
of my art and color prints. It is scaring me to the
point of incessant worry. We do not have solutions
among those who seem to be progressive. I am one of
millions of such women. Even in the midst of my
increasing desperation, i recognize my fortune. We do
have shelter. But that will not buy us groceries nor
provide health care. I am losing my optimism.
The news i hear on the radio furthers the fear.
Fascism grows globally. It seems as if not one step
is being taken to stop the destruction of the earth,
the genocides of the poorest peoples, the continuing
greed at the root of such deprivation, short
sightedness and military preoccupation. Tho i know
much is being done to oppose the grind of profiteer’s
nightmare, the isolation that spreads in conditions of
helplessness is real.
My visions of millions of women standing against
femicicde and ultimately the termination of basic
human rights, is losing it’s footing. I have only
this computer to communicate with and it is limited.
Few respond to the calls for action to stop the
killings of women in Juarez. But women and girls, men
and boys are being killed everywhere! The homeless in
Seattle, the prostitutes along the trucker’s highway
in the south, immigrants dying either from thirst or
the shots of invisibile vigilantes. Where is the
outrage? What is the action?
CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHAT WE NEED TO DO THAT WILL ENACT
SOME GOOD???!!!!
In peaceful, ongoing struggle,
swaneagle
————————————————————————————————————–
The following 2 articles are from the CBC website:
Saskatchewan man won’t be jailed for sexual assault of
12-year-old
NewsMELFORT, SASK. – A man convicted of sexually
assaulting a 12-year-old girl in Saskatchewan will not
be going to prison. A judge has given Dean Edmondson a
two-year conditional sentence.
* INDEPTH: Aboriginal Canadians
Two years ago, a 12-year-old Cree girl was picked up
by some men near Tisdale. They gave her beer and the
girl was later assaulted on a desolate country road.
Three men were charged, but Edmondson was the only one
convicted.
RELATED
* Coverage from CBC Saskatchewan
Judge Fred Kovatch said he couldn’t ignore allegations
the girl had been raised in an abusive home. That
evidence, he said, supported the defence theory that
the girl was the sexual aggressor.
The judge said while Edmondson was convicted of a
serious crime, he suspects the aboriginal child was a
victim of sexual abuse by a family member.
* YOUR SPACE: Readers respond to this story
Family members are outraged. They think Edmondson
should be in prison.
Defence lawyer Hugh Harradence says the judge made the
right decision. “I think it is justice and it can be
defended,” he said.
Edmondson was found guilty in May of assaulting the
girl in Sept. 2001.
During Edmondson’s trial, the girl’s underwear was
submitted as evidence. Semen belonging to the girl’s
father was found on it.
The incident has angered the aboriginal community and
drawn repeated cries of racism.
————————————————————————————————————–
INDEPTH: EDMONTON MURDERS
Edmonton’s murdered women
Justin Thompson, CBC News Online | Updated April 06,
2005
EDMONTON MURDERS:
Interactive map & timeline [Flash presentation]
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Police in Edmonton are looking for someone whom many
people are calling a serial killer, targeting women.
The remains of four Edmonton-area women were found in
the first seven months of 2003 alone. The remains of
another woman were found in June 2004, and
investigators are trying to determine if there is a
connection between their deaths and four similar
murders that took place between 1996 and 2001.
Since 1983, a total of 23 Edmonton women have been
found murdered. All are described by police as being
prostitutes or having high-risk lifestyles and only
five of the cases have been solved.
The site where remains of 22-year-old Cara King were
found in 1997.
The situation has stoked the growing fear in the
city’s estimated yearly population of 400 sex trade
workers – a community already reeling from the
discoveries in January of two of its members murdered.
Kourch Chan is a social worker with Crossroads, an
outreach program for Edmonton sex trade workers. In an
interview with CBC News Online in 2003, he said many
of his clients had been “nervous and quite scared,”
since the bodies of Melissa Munch and Monique Pitre
were discovered that month. “People are a little more
hesitant to get out,” he said. “There’s a lot of
speculation that there’s one person who could have
(committed the murders).”
While RCMP investigators say they have no information
to prove any of the killings are related, they have
joined forces with Edmonton city police to explore the
possibility. City police are reopening all old case
files involving missing women to see if there is any
link to the most recent crimes.
Here is a list of women who have been found under
similar circumstances since 1983:
* Jan. 25, 2005:
The body of 19-year-old Samantha Tayleen Berg is
discovered under snow in a parking lot on Edmonton’s
North Side. The teenager worked in the sex trade.
* June 11, 2004
The body of 19-year-old Rachel Quinney is found in a
wooded area near Sherwood Park, an Edmonton suburb.
* July 7, 2003
The body of 40-year-old Katie Sylvia Ballentyne, who
worked in the sex trade, is found in Leduc County,
about 20 km south of Edmonton. She is the fourth
female found outside Edmonton in 2003, the fifth in 10
months. Her body was located in a field near Range
Road 235, just north of Township Road 500.
* April 12, 2003
The skull and remains of 29-year-old Debbie Lake, a
former prostitute, are found near Highway 623 near
Miquelon Lake Provincial Park, approximately 70 km
southeast of Edmonton.
* Jan. 12, 2003
20-year-old Melissa Munch is found dead in a stand of
trees on a farmer’s field west of Range Road 220 and
south of Highway 16 in Strathcona County. The
discovery is made four days after the body of Monique
Pitre was found less than 10 kilometres away.
There were an estimated 400 sex trade workers in
Edmonton in 2003.
* Jan. 8, 2003
The frozen body of Monique Pitre, 30, is found in a
field south of Fort Saskatchewan (Range Road 222 and
Township Rd). There is trauma to her entire body.
* Sept. 23, 2002
The burned body of 28-year-old Edna Bernard is found
in a field east of Leduc, near Range Road 245, north
of Highway 623.
* Jan. 27, 2001
24-year-old Kelly Dawn Reilly is found dead behind a
gravel operation in the area of Range Road 264 and
secondary highway 633, near Villeneuve.
* Sept. 1, 1997
22-year-old Cara King is found in a canola field in
Sherwood Park (Highway 214 and Hwy. 16), east of
Edmonton.
* June 14, 1997
The body of 24-year-old Jessica Cardinal is found in
an alley behind a commercial building at 9325-111th
Avenue. Her body is discovered behind a discarded
shelving unit. Edmonton police have no suspect in her
death.
* Oct. 19, 1997
The body of Joyce Hewitt is found in Sherwood Park,
near 17th Street and 89th Avenue. RCMP spokesperson
Roxanne Beaubien says Hewitt had a “high-risk
lifestyle.” The circumstances of her death were not
available.
* Dec. 25, 1996
24-year-old Joanne Ghostkeeper is found strangled in
her Edmonton apartment at 11925-34th Street East.
Police have no suspect in her death.
* Feb. 11, 1993
The partially decomposed body of 25-year-old Elaine
Ross is found stuffed under a bed in a motel room on
183rd Street near Stony Plain Road, Edmonton. Autopsy
results were inconclusive and a cause of death is
unknown, but police are treating it as a homicide.
* Dec. 21, 1990
Lorraine Wray, a 46-year-old masseuse and mother of
one, is found strangled in the bathroom of her
Edmonton business, West End Studio, at 15526 Stony
Plain Road. According to Edmonton police spokesperson
Dean Parthenis, several autopsies were performed,
leading investigators to determine “manual
strangulation” as the cause of death.
* Oct. 25, 1990
29-year-old Mavis Mason is found stabbed to death on a
rural road west of Edmonton.
* Oct. 25, 1989
Bernadette Ahenakew, a 22-year-old mother of three, is
found dead in a ditch alongside a rural road near
Sherwood Park.
* Sept. 13, 1988
The body of 20-year-old Georgette Flint is found in
Elk Island National Park. An exact cause of death is
not determined.
* Sept. 21, 1986
The body of 21-year-old Melodie Joy Riegel is found on
a hotel-room bed. She was last seen entering the hotel
with a client.
* 1983
The skeletal remains of 21-year-old Gail Cardinal are
found 10 kilometres south of Fort Saskatchewan. RCMP
spokesperson Roxanne Beaubien says Cardinal had a
“high-risk lifestyle.” No cause was determined in her
death.
Solved Murders
* 1993: Linda Giles (circumstances unavailable)
* 1996: Charmaine Pidlesny (circumstances unavailable)
* 1999: Sherry Ann Upright (circumstances unavailable)
* 1999: Catherine Ann Burrell (circumstances
unavailable)
* April 26, 2001: Ginger Lee Bellerose is found in the
courtyard area of Edmonton’s International Hotel
(since razed). The 26-year-old mother had been beaten
to death. The murder was solved March 14, 2003 and
52-year-old Medicine Hat resident Richard David
Douglas was charged with second-degree murder.
Edmonton police do not suspect this murder was
connected with the others.
Sources: Edmonton Police Service; RCMP; Prostitution
Awareness and Action Foundation of Edmonton; Canadian
Press
Swaneagle Harijan 
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