World is full of promise, but

for little Dolores Henry the
Promise was unfulfilled in every
@ of the word. There were

@ Promises made long ago to
the Mhdian people, cynically re-
Peated by successive govern-
Ments and as often betrayed.
ete were promises of. better

housing and special opportuni-
_ ‘les for education and employ-
; Ment. But little Dolores Henry
_ ‘Never had the opportunity even
0 fight for fulfillment of these
Promises. Her brief three years
of life was a losing struggle
*ainst privation and disease.
© other day she died in Rest-

Ven Hospital, another victim of

notice verBmENt’s Native Indian

The tragic conditions on the
Nhe Saanich Reserve near Vic-
Ta which led to her death have
event a storm of protest from
wae Sartlip Band, a protest
of e Must echo from one end
j this country to the other.
* he conditions of the Indians
~ ¢ teal grief to me,” stated Dr.
alter H. Roberts, resident phy-
ahi at Resthaven after the
rild’s death. “Housing is bad.
€ir diet is bad and their eco-
mic status is bad.”
Wag € immediate cause of death
chil penal meningitis, but the
fough anaemic at birth, had
aa off two attacks of pneu-
life 4 during her brief and tragic
the ae was a losing battle for
anoth, ttle girl, One cold after
hi had sapped the strength
eee small body and when
epi aes Stricken with the diarrhea
nese Mic spreading through the
vive € she was too weak to sur-

o ‘

4

ip cently I visited the reserva-
tiste 8 talked with Chief Bap-
band aul, chief of the T’sartlip
told end a noted wrestler. He
Persone. that there were seven
chile four adults and three
shack n, living in the one-room
Henry In which little Dolores
The ‘ Spent her life of illness.
demneq he said, was con-
dian eel a Department of In-
“When ars doctor 30 years ago

Wneq ree great-grandfather

the gewards I went to look at
sttiction _Of simple frame con-

bea
hee

take 4 has been recruited to
Shingles Place of worn out
ing,’ ‘Me usual interior lin-
at one “A pashan cast-iron stove
heating 1s the only means of

he

m enemys are not the only
bette, Of the band in need of
Morriy pine. Nearby, Ivan
Well-uit Se looks small but
Mspeg;, 7M the outside. An

Closes that of the interior dis-
en ; i

Insy ‘
On ated
ly ene neh at it too, has
Nospitay S$, Confined to the TB
Wife nie anaimo, while his
childy Ree herself, her two
™ the 4 nd a brother and sister
a Month, Y-18-foot room on $11
% he}
she i ee the family budget
akes n+ Ndian sweaters. It
+ SWeatey WO Weeks to complete
if $15 oe then she gets $14
fature eh ios, of the worst
ef hitting busin
and drt, that she has to sak
ae Wher © Wool in the same
Sleep, cte the family eats and
Utheas Washing yim air dur-
aneeatable 'N& period is almost
1 Won Fas me outsider. Is it
ad at the youngest
from eushter is PSavetn
@ *umonia? :
Separat;
a
Reservation’ ine, P'sartlip Indian
, the majesti
Woodvar state of Hon. “oc
lieutenant
» and owner of

sanitation and poverty.

Delores Henry, whos:

cracks through which daylight
is speckled with openings an

i -like, one-room shack was the home
pire e recent death raised a storm of protest from

‘i i . Close examination o shi
the ee : can be seen. - Floor of ithe building

d during strong winds patches of
linoleumrise as if lifted by an unseen hand.

Mrs. Mary Henry and her daughter Nancy, mother and sister
of the tiny girl whose death was blamed on slum housing, bad

of little 3-year-old

f the picture will show

Woodwards Stores) is the little
cemetery where Dolores Henry
was laid to rest. q

The story of the government's
treatment of the Native’ Indian
people is indelibly inscribed on
the headstones of that cemetery
—a cemetery of children.

In one family plot is recorded
the death of three children in
successive years: “LOUIS PAUL,
1922: VERA PAUL, 1923; ANAS-
TASIA PAUL, 1924.”

Nearby another gravestone re-
calls “IN LOVING MEMORY—
HORACE R. PAUL—APRIL 22,
1949-—JANUARY 22, 1951—OUR
BABY.” And still another, close
by, “IN LOVING MEMORY —
BUNNY PAUL—APRIL 17, 1938
_-AGE 3 MONTHS.”

In another family plot the fol-
lowing ~ notation is recorded:
“HENRY L. D. COOPER, 1950-
1950; WM. KARVANAN, 1949-50;
HENRY G. COOPER, 1941-42;

Death stalks the
reservation

By NIGEL MORGAN

MARY G. COOPER, 1921-32;
DAVID G. COOPER, 1937-1937.”

The tragic story of the T’sart-
lip band is no exception. As
Major General Pearkes, MP for
Esquimalt - Saanich, observed,
“Conditions are no worse than
they are on some of the other
reservations.”” What Pearkes fail-
ed to say was that this and many
other reservations are a shocking
indictment of the government’s
treatment of the Native Indians.

Today a cloud hangs over the
West Saanich Reserve as fami-
lies wonder whose child will be
the next victim of the draughty
and poorly heated homes, inade-
quate sanitation and low stand-
ard of living.

Overcrowding for the T’sart-
lips is a serious problem. At least
10 houses erected by the Depart-
ment of Indian Affairs have never
been completed. The outside
frame is erected and the inside
finishing, so necessary for warmth,
if left undone.

In these circumstances, Indian
families are compelled to huddle
together to share the heat and
the expenses—often too many in

one room for health. Older mem-—
bers of the band cannot afford
to live alone.

Houses long since condemned
are still used for lack of replace-
ments. Sanitation is bad and
gevernment allowances for In-
dian housing, medica] care and
general welfare are hopelessly
inadequate. Vital statistics tell
the story of human suffering.

Wherever human hearts re-
spond to-the distress of others,
the story of litle Dolores Henry
will strike a chord of sympathy.
But more than that, it should
cause action to compel the gov-
ernment to assume its moral and
legal obligations to look after In-
dian reservations, to fulfil its
promises and to inaugurate a pro-
gram to remedy intolerable hous-
ing and living conditions for
many of Canada’s 140,000 Indian
population.

Improved housing and health
standards, better economic and
living conditions, greater educa-
tional and cultural opportunities
are the pressing need. Only in-
sistent public demand will com-
pel the government to respond
to it.

The real crime

HY has the U.S. government

chosen this moment to. de-
mand that the United Nations
discuss its inventions about atroci-
ties to American prisoners and
others in Korea?

The U.S. charge is:

“Extensive and careful investi-
gation has now verified that tens
of thousands of United Nations
soldiers and Korean civilians, who
had been captured by Norht Ko-
rean or Chinese Communist ag-
gressors, subsequently were kill-
ed by beatings, deliberately plan-
ned starvation, cold-blooded mur-
der, mutilation and torture.”

Once before the U.S. at a criti-
cal point in the truce talks, pro-
duced a similar allegation to
justify the rupture of the talks.

But at that time it was done
crudely. Three different U.S.
Army authorities produced three
different figures of the number of
those said to have been killed.

Now a vague figure of “tens
of thousands” ‘is chosen and Ko-
reans are thrown jn for good
measure that no one can disprove
the figure on the basis of pub-
lished casualty figures.

The only thing lacking is any
evidence. Returned British POWs
have spoken of hard marches in
the early days of the war when
such were unavoidable. But they
-have almost unanimously paid
tribute to fair treatment after
those early days. Not even those
most bitter toward their captors
have supported such allegations
as the U.S. now makes.

Failing evidence the U.S. pro-
duce pictures of the death pits
of people shot by Syngman Rhee
as “evidence” of North Korean
“atrocities.”

.The United Nations Assembly
could more usefully discuss the
real American and Rhee atroci-
ties in Korea.

It would only have to go to its

own sources, without any re-
eourse to North Korean or Chin-
ese testimony.

Take, for example, the . New
York Times front line dispatch
on an American napalm raid early
in 1951:

“The inhabitants throughout
the village and the fields were
caught and killed and kept in
the exact postures they had held
when the napalm struck—a man
about to get on his bicycle, 50
boys and girls playing in an
orphanage, a housewife strange-
ly unmarked... .”

Or take the testimony of David
Walker, the London Daily Mirror
correspondent in Korea, who
wrote about Rhee in his book }
Go Where I’m Sent.

“British troops were horrified
at the mass executions of civi-
lians, including women and chil-
dren. What the troops did not
know is that these mass execu-
tions have been taking place
regularly for months — indeed
daily—and that they have been
so much a matter of course that
British correspondents have
been invited by South Korean
authorities to witness them.”

As for the treatment of pris-
oners of war, even the Interna-
tional Committee of the Red
Cross had to protest to the US.
Command against its withholding
of food from hospital prisoners
and its use of gas grenades against
them.

The present and real crime
against POWs is the reign of ter-

ror in the custodian camp in Ko-
rea, where agents of Syngman
Rhee and Chiang Kai-shek resort
to every method—including mur-
der—to prevent repatriation of
prisoners who want to go home.
This terror has already led to a
breakdown of negotiation ar-
rangements—the real crime the
U.S. “atrocity” charges are in-
tended to conceal.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — DECEMBER II, 1953 — PAGE 9