[IPSM] No Lifeblood for Oil

[Macdonald Stainsby]

No Lifeblood for Oil

Lubicon nation fights oil companies, governments for survival

by Kim Petersen

http://dominionpaper.ca/original_peoples/2005/04/28/no_lifeblo.html

Near the town of Peace River in northern Alberta is the 10,000 square 
kilometer Lubicon Lake First Nation traditional territory -- home to about 
500 Crees. When the abundance of resources -- in particular, heavy oil -- 
became apparent on Lubicon traditional territory, the Alberta provincial 
government began to sell the resource rights to multinational corporations. 
The exploitation of the unceded territory of the Lubicon Lake First Nation 
continues unabated. By 2002, over 1,700 well sites and several kilometers of 
pipelines had been constructed on Lubicon land. In August 2004, Alberta 
granted oil sands exploration leases to Calgary-based Deep Well Oil and Gas 
reported to encompass over 101 square kilometers in Lubicon traditional 
territory. The development has not been without impact on the Lubicon.

A short time ago the Lubicon subsisted from the land. The Ottawa-based group 
Outaouais Lubicon Solidarity describes the change: "Between 1979 and 1983, 
annual trapping income dropped 90%. The number of moose killed for food 
dropped 90% and the number of people on welfare jumped from 10% to over 90%."

They say the federal and Alberta governments are complicit in undermining 
the Lubicon Lake First Nation.

The Alberta government, says the group, rejected the Lubicon land registry 
claim, denied the Lubicon nation's existence, belittled the Lubicon as 
"merely squatters on provincial Crown land" without aboriginal rights, 
declared the Lubicon community at Little Buffalo to be "an official 
provincial hamlet," threatened to bulldoze Lubicon homes (but later backed 
down), sent in RCMP to forcibly dismantle Lubicon barricades on their 
territory, negotiated the size of a Lubicon reserve in the Grimshaw Accord, 
and then backed out of the accord.

The federal government has taken similar actions. They are accused of 
manipulating the Lubicon Band membership list, negotiating by 
"take-it-or-leave-it" offer, suppressing a federal inquiry report favourable 
to the Lubicon, resorting to chicanery in Lubicon elections, and financing 
clear-cut logging operations by neighboring bands within Lubicon traditional 
territory.

Criticism of the governments' respective roles abounds. The World Council of 
Churches decried the potential "genocidal consequences" of actions by the 
Alberta provincial government and oil corporations. The Canadian government 
was urged to take "immediate action."

In 1987, the United Nations Human Rights Committee asked Canada "to take 
interim measures of protection to avoid irreparable damage" to the Lubicon 
Lake First Nation while it investigated. In March 1990, the commission 
declared that "recent developments threaten the way of life and culture of 
the Lubicon Lake Cree and constitute a violation of Article 27 of the 
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights..."

The federal government's own Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) 
concluded the solution to First Nations' territorial woes was simple: they 
required a greater share of the lands and resources to survive.

In 1998, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural 
Rights iterated the RCAP solution and urged "concrete and urgent steps to 
restore" land and resources to Original Peoples.

Amnesty International was alarmed and demanded respect for Canada's Original 
Peoples. Scandal-plagued Prime Minister Paul Martin gave his assurance of 
being "committed to a just settlement of this [Lubicon] land claim …"

Kevin Thomas, a negotiator with the Lubicon Lake First Nation responded, 
"It's not the first time that we've heard that. Every PM for the last twenty 
years has said it. … Obviously we're a little cynical when someone makes 
that statement and doesn't back it up with action."

Deep Well Oil and Gas, Surge Global Energy, Welwyn Resources, and Paradigm 
Oil and Gas have announced a plan to extract almost 820 million barrels of 
oil through as many as 512 wells in Lubicon territory. The Lubicon Lake 
First Nation with environmental NGOs Sierra Club of Canada and Greenpeace 
asked Canadian Environment Minister Stephane Dion to initiate a federal 
environmental review of the oil sands project.

Lubicon Chief Bernard Ominayak said "We believe that it is irresponsible to 
allow this development to proceed without first dealing with the unresolved 
jurisdictional issues regarding these lands and without an independent 
assessment of the environmental, social and economic impacts of this project."

Ominayak expressed concern about harm to the lake fisheries, the depletion 
and contamination of water resources, and the unknown impacts of massive 
steam injections into the sensitive boreal muskeg ecosystem.

The effects of potential air pollution, litter, contaminated wastes, and 
climate change on the flora and fauna, culture, and Lubicon "way of life" 
were also pressing concerns cited by Ominayak.

Deep Well and its associates, have so far been unresponsive to Lubicon 
requests for discussion except briefly in response to a Lubicon blockade 
that reportedly cost the companies $100,000 a day.

In a late response to The Dominion, Deep Well said that "Legal
ownership and beneficial title to the land involved is with the Province of
Alberta."

Thomas paraphrased the Lubicon resistance to co-optation: "Oil companies 
typically think they can wave some money around and people will jump. The 
Lubicon community needs money; they don't even have running water at this 
point. But their first question isn't how much money they can make -- it's 
what's this going to do to their land and their way of life."

Ominayak's message is urgent: "I hope people will understand we're trying to 
survive from day to day and need all the help we can get from the general 
public. It's a battle against time."

http://dominionpaper.ca/original_peoples/2005/04/28/no_lifeblo.html
-- 

Macdonald Stainsby
http://independentmedia.ca/survivingcanada
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
In the contradiction lies the hope
	--Bertholt Brecht.