Ahenakew's anti-Semitic diatribe outrages nation
Hate crime investigation of former AFN leader urged

BY LEN KRUZENGA
THE FIRST PERSPECTIVE

Saskatoon Sask.-Less than a week after his anti-Semitic remarks set off a storm of controversy, former AFN National Chief and long time Federation of Saskatchewan Indians Nations (FSIN) leader David Ahenakew apologized for his statements and announced his resignation from the FSIN senate and all FSIN related committees and working groups.

"I want to publicly state that words cannot describe how sorry I am for the hurt I have caused," he said. "Such comments have no excuse."

Ahenakew, a war veteran, said repeatedly that he was wrong to make the comments.

"I cannot describe the feelings of regret I have for making those statements," he said.
Ahenakew said he had not only affected Jews and other minorities, but also first nations people.
"I have clearly embarrassed my people."

The controversy exploded when Ahenakew-an old style shot from the lip native politician-complained about anti-aboriginal bigotry in schools during a public presentation at an FSIN assembly on health issues held in Saskatoon earlier this month.

"My great-grandson goes to school here in Saskatoon. These goddammed immigrants-East Indians, Pakistanis, Afghanistan, whites and so forth-call him a dirty little Indian. He's the cleanest of the old goddamn works there. That's what I'm saying. It's starting right there, at six-years-old.

But it was his comment that in the 1950s, while serving in the Canadian army in Europe-Germans had told him that the Jews had started WW2 that sparked the debacle.

When later asked by a reporter to clarify those remarks, Ahenakew said that Jews were a "disease" and that Hitler was right to "fry" Jews in an attempt to prevent their takeover of Europe.

"That's how Hitler came in. That he was going to make damn sure that Jews weren't going to take over," Ahenakew told the reporter in a taped interview. "That's why he fried six million of those guys."

Jewish groups were stunned and outraged by the comments, which were published in a Saskatoon Star-Phoenix article the next day.

"We were shocked and disgusted by the comments. As the leader of a community that knows what discrimination and racism is all about, their community should be the very last to say something like this," said Jack Silverstone, executive vice-president of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

The RCMP has been called in to investigate Ahenakews remarks under current hate crime provisions of the Criminal Code.

Canadian Jewish Congress president Keith Landy called Ahenakew's apology a "positive gesture," but avoided indicating that it would be enough to satisfy his organization.
However former C.J.C. president Irving Abella took a harder line.

"He really did not get into the sorts of things that caused him to say what he said." Abella said. "The comments he made originally were so vile, so reprehensible, so monstrous, so odious that I think it will require much more than a written apology."

Abella called for Ahenakew to be stripped of his Order of Canada medal.