Warring factions in mediation-again
RCMP return to police Dakota Tipi

BY LEN KRUZENGA

A second fire deliberately set in the Dakota Tipi School during the first week of February, which caused over $250,000 in damage appears to have provided the catalysts for feuding factions of the reserve's council to once again try mediation to resolve the political impasse that has held the community hostage for nearly two years.

News that the two factions of council- councillors Edward and David Pashe on one side and Chief Cornell Pashe on the other-had agreed to work with Clayton Sandy as a mediator have been welcomed by INAC, which brokered the deal and members of the reserve.

"We're looking to an end to the violence and for some final resolution on outstanding matters," said Chief Cornell Pashe.

But several observers of the on-going dispute at Dakota Tipi conceded the road will be a rocky one.

"These people absolutely despise each other and have for years and years," noted one resident who requested anonymity out of fear of violent reprisal from members of the two factions.

"There has been such a long history of assaults, counter-assaults, charges and counter charges and all sorts of personal and civil injunctions that it's going to be next to impossible to develop trust between the parties," he said.

The recent violent confrontation outside the reserve's elementary school in January, which saw two people taken to hospital for injuries and three others charged with assault and the razing of several reserve buildings, lends credence to those fears, says the source.

However the return of the RCMP to police the reserve, he added, has raised some hope that community members no longer have to live in daily fear of leaving their homes.

"That was the biggest problem is that people didn't trust the DOPS (Dakota Ojibway Police Service) to be impartial or to enforce the law to the letter," said Councillor Edward Pashe.

"That was our first priority to bring law and order back to the reserve for the people so they no longer had to live in fear. I think that once they're confident about that then the community can move on and heal these rifts."