Eight months after traces of 215 burials were discovered near the Kamloops Indian Residential School, how many bodies have been identified? Any. Exhumed? Zero. Has the presence of human bones even been confirmed? No. Has a second opinion taken place? No.
There is something very mysterious in Kamloops. And if it is true that members of the Oblates deliberately buried 215 Aboriginal children without notifying their parents or the authorities and then managed to cover up their crime for decades, we are dealing with one of the most serious crimes in country’s history.
Why wasn’t the place immediately designated a crime scene? Why haven’t we sent our best criminal search experts there? The alleged cemetery is on a reserve, and I understand the justified resistance of aboriginal people to the bias of the RCMP. Why not then a mixed squad integrating excellent indigenous police officers, including in a co-direction of the investigation?
Paradoxically, everything happens as if there was simultaneously a maximalist reaction in this affair – by speaking of a “mass grave” as the media have done, which is not the case, by lowering flags at half-mast for five months , by publicly humiliating the prime minister during his visit to Kamloops, by demanding an immediate apology from the pope — and a minimalist reaction, by not taking the only concrete step to demonstrate the veracity of the facts: searches.
After a long debate, the members of the nation concerned, Tk’emlups te Secwépemc, took the decision to proceed with the burials, but according to a schedule for the moment unknown. The RCMP says it has opened an investigation, in consultation with the nation, but nothing filters. On the ground, nothing moves.
The state of the evidence
Anthropologist Sarah Beaulieu conducted a survey of the ground with a ground-penetrating radar that detects anomalies in the ground that may have been caused by the digging of graves. The technique cannot perceive the presence of corpses or bones. A second reading made him revise the number of these disturbances downwards, from 215 to 200. But other researchers cannot examine his results, because the nation opposes it.
Then there are direct witnesses. The CBC show The Fifth Estate presented last month the most comprehensive testimony ever collected on this subject. She did not find anyone who had seen these burials, but several testimonies send chills down the spine.
A former resident, Audrey Baptiste, remembers that when she was 10, she saw the bodies of four young boys, hanged in a barn. She recognized one of her classmates. For having asked questions to the religious in charge of education, she says that she was beaten on the arms and hands with a “strappe”.
The leader of a neighboring nation, Michael LeBourdais, says his uncle, a boarder in the 1950s, told him that boys were forced to fight and the winner, or loser, was then forced to go dig holes in the orchard where the alleged graves were found. His uncle seemed convinced they were graves. “Dig a hole, someone disappears. Dig another hole, someone disappears,” he told her.
Chief Harvey McLeod, from another neighboring nation, also a former student at the boarding school, recounts that a lady confessed to him, in tears: “I was one of those who buried them. He didn’t take her coordinates. But a public call for evidence could be useful in locating these participants.
There is circumstantial evidence. Former students advised not to go into the orchard, because “there were holes”. A persistent rumor about the existence of these burials. Not to mention a direct testimony of sexual assault. And it is whispered that the furnace in the basement would have been used to burn fetuses or newborns, but without proof.
Students “disappeared” then found
Finally, there are the names of missing students. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Inquiry identified, for all of Canada, 3,200 Aboriginal students who had never returned from residential schools. Of these, she identifies 51 from the Kamloops boarding school. It is normal to think that these 51 students must be part of the 200 mentioned.
Quebec historian Jacques Rouillard, who had previously worked on the archives of Albertan residential schools, cross-referenced information from Library and Archives Canada files and death certificates kept in British Columbia’s civil registers. A source that the Commission does not seem to have consulted. In an article published by the Dorchester Review, Rouillard indicates that he has spotted 37 of the 51 “disappeared” students: among these, he lists 17 students who died in hospital, 8 following an accident on their reserve or near the boarding school and 2 who are cited twice. in the Commission’s list (bringing the total to 49). Of these, 24 are buried in their reserve cemetery and 4 in the official Kamloops reserve cemetery. He writes: “We are therefore far from the unverified assertions that the authorities did not register the deaths, that the relatives were not informed or that the remains never returned to their families. Ex-judge Brian Giesbrecht independently came to the same conclusion. It publishes the list of names with the information found.
The doubts thus raised about the veracity of the assertions and the delay in carrying out the searches lead some to declare that the Kamloops affair is a gigantic hoax. I do not agree. However, it is urgent to treat the allegations, and the testimonies, seriously and methodically. Everything depends on the existence, or not, of these 200 bodies. Rapid and independent excavations are essential. Truth and reconciliation depend on it.
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