Cultural Genocide: Legal Label or Mourning Metaphor?

Abstract

in Saskatoon, Leona Bird testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). She told the story of how at the age of six, she and her younger sister were forcibly separated from their family, and sent to a residential school in Prince Albert, Sas-katchewan. These are her words: And then we seen this army covered wagon truck, army truck outside the place. And as we were walking towards it, kids were herded into there like cattle, into the army truck. Then in the far distance I seen my mother with my little sister. I went running to her, and she says, "Leona," she was crying, and I was so scared. I didn't know what was going on, I didn't know what was happening. My sister didn't cry because she didn't understand what we, we were, what's gonna happen to us. Anyway, it was time for me and her to go, and she, when we got in that truck, she just held me, pinched me, and held me on my skirt. "Momma, Momma, Momma." And then my mother couldn't do nothing, she just stood there, weeping. And then I took my little sister, and tried to make her calm down, I just told, "We're going bye-bye, we're going somewhere for a little while." Well, nobody told us how long we were gonna be gone. It's just, like, we were gonna go into this big truck, and that's how, that's how it started. 1 That is how it started, not only for Leona, but also for the 6,750 other survivors who testified before the TRC. That is also how it started for * Payam Akhavan, LL.M., S.J.D. (Harvard), is an Associate Professor at McGill Univer-sity's Faculty of Law in Montreal and former Legal Advisor to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague.