Copyright © 2001 NLThomas
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MIRAMICHI, N.B., [Esgenoopetitj (Burnt Church, NB] CANADA Friday, May 18, 2001, after finding Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) members Fr. Robert Holmes (64) and William Payne (37) guilty of the offense of "obstructing a fisheries officer", Judge Henrik Tonning of the New Brunswick Provincial Court granted an absolute discharge. There will be no record of the convictions.

In his decision, Judge Henrik Tonning said he accepted the defendants' moral motivation for action but could not accept the legal arguments put forward to justify what he considered essentially an illegal act. The judge also said he agreed with the defendants' description of a long and continuing history of injustice on the part of the Canadian government towards Aboriginal Nations and stated that he thought things might improve if more non-natives were active in their opposition to government action.

In sentencing the defendants, the judge stated that he thought Holmes and Payne "were doing more good than bad, both in the local situation and elsewhere in the world,î and that he did not want to impede this work.

On May 6, 2000, Holmes and Payne climbed aboard a Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) boat as it was being taken out of the water on a trailer. They were attempting to reclaim 10 lobster traps which had been confiscated from Miíkmaq fisher Brian Bartibogue's boat an hour earlier near the Burnt Church wharf.

The traps had official Miíkmaq tags distributed according to the Management Plan of the Esgenoopetitj (Burnt Church) Aboriginal community. The Esgenoopetitj First Nation had refused to sign an agreement with the DFO out of concern that their inherent rights, already recognized by a series of Peace and Friendship treaties and by Canada's Supreme Court, would be compromised. Esgenoopetitj has decided through a referendum of the whole community to regulate their own fishery.

Reached in the West Bank (Palestine) where he is part of another CPT violence-reduction project, Holmes said, "a Canadian judge has acknowledged the long and painful history of Aboriginal people at the hands of government. This should be a wake-up call for Canadians."

At the invitation of the Miíkmaq community, CPT has again placed a violence-reduction team in Esgenoopetitj for the 2001 lobster fishery. Present team-members are Natasha Krahn (Waterloo, ON), Janet Shoemaker (Goshen, IN), Lena Siegers (Blythe, ON) and William Payne, Vern Riediger and Jane Wright (all of Toronto, ON ). CPT presently has teams in the West Bank (Palestine), Colombia, Chiapas (Mexico) and Esgenoopetitj (Burnt Church, NB).

William Payne can be contacted by telephone: 506-779-5886 ~ 506-779-6886.