Every now and then you come across something that makes you laugh and think at the same time. If we were from the western Prairie peoples we would probably call this a lesson from Coyote. Just what am I am going on about? It’s about political accountability by political leaders and following through with mandates from the people. What happens when those mandates are not carried out? Usually nothing and we have to wait a few years to change the leader for someone else who may or may not carry out the wishes of the people. But not everyone is doing naught. Some politicians have been held accountable for their actions and have been forced to pay the price when they defied the will of the people.

Indians from a remote village in southwest Colombia voted to toss national senator into an ice-cold mountain lake to punish him for defying a community decision. Jesus Pinacue, who is one of the 20,000 members of the Paez Indian community, was sentenced at a tribal council meeting for supporting the “wrong” candidate. Punishment was decided upon by 40 indigenous shamans, who forced him to walk six hours along a dirt track, made him to spend the night in a damp mountain pasture in nearfreezing temperatures and at dawn they stripped him naked and threw him into a cold mountain lake.

Pinacue’s crime was that he publicly supported a candidate despite orders from the Indian community not to support any candidate in a runoff election.

Pinacue looked on the positive side before saying “the Indian medicine-men will throw me into the lake and I will have to try and get out.” He later added that the experience helped him restore his “good energy” and freed him of evil spirits.

Now I don’t want mob justice and several Crees chiefs thrown into the lake upon reading this. Really, I mean that.

The concepts of accountability and the reminder that the will of the people belongs to thepeople are important ones. It is not one to treat lightly or to abuse in the name ofthe people. Pinacue’s sentence when you look at it was not that severe. It was the publichumiliation and the ability of the people to show their power over their leader that was thelesson. The other lesson was that tribal justice applied to everyone and this was a decisionthat had been discussed rationally by the community as the community had been outraged by actions taken by one of their own in defiance of their explicit instructions.

It makes me think of one of the newer trends in the U.S. courts where offenders are required to make restitution and publicly announce their guilt. Most offenders sentenced in this manner have never repeated their crime. It would seem airing dirty laundry is too embarrassing.

But once again the flip side of the coin is that sometimes a politician must vote with their conscience and the majority of the people may not necessarily approve this action. An example is the same sex spousal rights. About 70% of Quebec don’t see a need for it but the constitution’s equality says that you can’t discriminate because of sexual preferences so what’s the right action?

I think that tribal justice systems are something that is inevitable and will be a useful tool for dealing with crime in the Cree communities as well as making sure that leadership is accountable to the people. I think it can be as creative as the Colombian Indians were with the re-energized senator but we can not allow them to become bread and circuses. Otherwise at the GCCQ/CRA AGA we would be doing nothing but dunking chiefs for not living up to our expectations. There must be checks and balances in such a system.

In any case it is time to look at the development of a Cree Nation system of justice andone not necessarily modeled only on non-Cree values.