A tale of crime-fighters, hoodlums and cops.

Despite hours of coverage by major news networks and thousands of words in newspapers and magazines, chances are you're confused by that conflict at Kanehsatake Mohawk Territory near Montreal in January.

It began as a story about a crime-fighting chief. It evolved into a tale about mob rule. And it wound up as an account of a government taking the bull by the horns.

By that time, the media should have known better, but they'd moved on leaving us wondering just what is happening in this community.

Reporters were on the story almost as soon as the conflict began, except for APTN News, which arrived nearly a week late. Half the band council had discovered that the other half, a faction led by Chief James Gabriel, had arranged to replace the territory's chief of police with someone who had previously held the position, and bring in 50 or so Native "police" in order to rid the area of drug dealers and organized crime. Chief Gabriel said hoodlums had taken over the community, hoodlums who used violence and fear to intimidate, had ties to biker gangs, dealt drugs and laundered money. Gabriel had signed a deal with the federal solicitor general's department to raise a small army of Native "police" to clean up the mess. That was his story anyway.

Chief Gabriel's opposition on council said it was really about abuse of power. This faction said the chief never informed the rest of the band council or the community-appointed police commission about the deal reached with the solicitor general. They said the chief's actions were illegal and the 50 or so Native cops, drawn from across the province, represented a foreign army of occupation. In Mohawk country, them's fightin' words.

The so-called dissident faction organized a mob. When that small army of "police" arrived (not really trained police but heavily-armed security guards), they were penned into the police station. The mob took over the band office and drove Chief Gabriel and his faction into hiding.

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That night on national TV, we watched the mob burn down the chief's house. The next day, Quebec's minister for Public Security recognized a fiasco, reinstated the fired Mohawk chief of police and sent the 50 or so Native rent-a-cops packing. Quebec's top cop then assured us that everything was "normal" again at Kanehsatake.

Missing from the news coverage of these few days was context. This story didn't develop overnight. This latest confrontation had been brewing for months, even years. But the news media didn't seem interested. As usual, with stories involving Aboriginal peoples, reporters took officials from all sides at face value. They reported events but failed to seek the reasons why the events happened. By the time a few reporters clued in, it was too late. Their bosses decided it was time to move on.

The real story is actually as old as politics. It's a story of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours." And the folks doing the scratching were the chief and the federal and provincial governments.

The federal and provincial governments wanted the cigarette shops that dot the Mohawk territory shut down. They didn't want to do it themselves. They wanted Chief Gabriel to do it for them.

The smoke shops aren't illegal. The smokes are made by Mohawks, on Mohawk territory, are not smuggled, are tax-exempt. Even the police said they aren't illegal. But the governments didn't like white people buying these cigarettes and avoiding taxes. Instead of pissing off white voters by nabbing white customers, better to hire a chief to do their dirty work for them.

Chief Gabriel had a police force that wouldn't go about fulfilling this agenda, so what was needed was a new force. And to get that, the existing Mohawk police needed to be crippled and their credibility called into question.

There is a long history of political interference by the band council in the business of the Mohawk police. It didn't start with this chief, and it didn't end there either. To rectify this ongoing problem, the community demanded and got an independent police commission. But political interference is a tough habit to break.

The commission complained that chief and company refused to sign cheques that would help operate the force. It complained that phone bills weren't paid or police vehicles insured and kept on the road. It complained that money that should have been used to operate the force was actually being used to pay legal bills from the lawsuits generated by the two opposing factions on council.

Kanehsatake was so poorly managed, its affairs in such a mess, its financial situation so bad, that last year the department of Indian Affairs stepped in and put the band under third-party management. Nothing could be done without the approval of the third-party manager. Nothing, that is, until government came in offering Chief James Gabriel and company a bagful of money--$900,000--to hire, house, feed and pay a new "police" force, and the only thing that was required in return was to shut down those smoke shops.

There's a lot of blame to spread around in this situation. The people who incited the mob and burned down Chief Gabriel's house should be identified and charged. The federal and provincial officials, who devised and signed the deal that brought in the new police force, should be disciplined or fired. Chief Gabriel and the entire band council have proven themselves unfit to lead and should be prevented from making decisions without first consulting with and obtaining the support of the entire community.

The existing Mohawk police, and provincial police detachment in nearby Oka, should be fired for incompetence, because they turn a blind eye to the real criminals operating in this territory, thugs who deal in drugs and intimidation of community members; thugs who drive by both the Native and provincial police stations day in and day out, even when there are arrest warrants against them begging to be enforced.

What this community needs is a Mohawk police force removed from all interference by the band office and placed under control of the community-appointed police commission.

Nothing will change in Kanehsatake and all attempts to clean up crime or re-establish order will be a futile waste of money so long as efforts cater to one faction or another and the community--as a whole--is not involved in operating the community.

But Chief Gabriel has already said this isn't his plan for doing business. The problem with the last operation, he said, was the lack of secrecy. Next time, he says, he'll make sure nobody knows what he's doing. If that happens, you can expect more of the same trouble we saw in January, and so can the people at Kanehsatake.

Editor's note: Dan David is a Mohawk journalist from Kanehsatake working in Ottawa.