A group of indigenous women are hoping to stop the bulldozers at a former Montreal hospital that they believe could hold the truth about children still missing from a grisly half-century-old CIA experiment.
They have spent the past two years trying to delay the construction project by McGill University and the Quebec government.
“They took our children and had all kinds of things done to them. They were experimenting on them,” said Kahentinetha, an 85-year-old rights advocate from the Mohawk community of Kahnawake, southwest of Montreal, who goes by just one name.
Photo: AFP
The women are relying on archives and testimonies that suggest the site contains unmarked graves of children formerly interned at the Royal Victoria Hospital and Allan Memorial Institute, a neighboring psychiatric hospital.
In the 1950s and 1960s, behind the walls of the old psychiatric institute, the US CIA funded a human experiments program called MK Ultra. During the Cold War, the program aimed to develop procedures and drugs to effectively brainwash people.
Experiments were conducted in the UK, Canada and the US, subjecting people — including indigenous children in Montreal — to electroshocks, hallucinogenic drugs and sensory deprivation.
“They wanted to erase us,” Kahentinetha said.
A leading figure in the indigenous rights movement who has traveled to the UK and the US to denounce colonialism, she called this fight “the most important of [her] life.”
“We want to know why they did this and who’s going to take the blame for it,” she said.
In the fall of 2022, the mothers obtained an injunction to suspend work on a new university campus and research center at the site — a project worth C$870 million (US$643 million).
Fellow rights advocate Kwetiio, 52, who also uses just one name, said they insisted on arguing the case themselves without lawyers, “because in our ways, no one speaks for us.”
Last summer, sniffer dogs and specialized probes were brought in to search the property’s expansive and dilapidated buildings. They identified three areas of interest for excavations.
However, McGill and the government’s Societe Quebecoise des Infrastructure say that “no human remains have been discovered.”
The Mohawk mothers accuse the university and the government infrastructure agency of breaching an agreement by selecting the archeologists who did the search and then ending their work too soon.
“They gave themselves the power to lead the investigation of crimes that were potentially committed by their own employees in the past,” said Philippe Blouin, an anthropologist working with the women.
Even though their appeal was dismissed earlier this month, they have vowed to continue their fight.
“People should know history, so that it does not repeat itself,” Kwetiio said.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
RSS