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August 11, 2000

Circumpolar Inuit oppose U.S. missile defence system

The Inuit Circumpolar Conference says the U.S. government’s NMD plan violates principles set out in the ICC’s Arctic policy statement.

JANE GEORGE
Nunatsiaq News

MONTREAL — The Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), representing 152,000 Inuit in Greenland, Canada, Alaska and Russia, is furious over a new U.S. plan that would install anti-ballistic missile interceptors on sites in the Arctic and provide for the expansion of the Thule airbase in northern Greenland.

This "National Missile Defence" (NMD) plan would place anti-ballistic missile radar and communication systems in several places across the Arctic, including the U.S. Air Force base in Thule.

The $60-billion NMD is designed to defend the U.S. against nuclear missile attacks from so-called "rogue" states such as North Korea and Iraq. Using a network of satellites and land-based stations, the system would detect nuclear missiles aimed at the United States and dispatch interceptor projectiles to knock them down.

Under the first phase of the plan, 20 anti-missile interceptors would be based in Alaska by 2005, and new radar infrastructure would be installed in Thule.

Thule opposed

The mayor of Thule told ICC president Aqqaluk Lynge that the people of his village are scared and unanimously opposed to the NMD.

"This is the first time in the history of U.S. military activity in Thule that the local government official has spoken out about his fear," said Lynge, reached by Nunatsiaq News this week in Copenhagen, Denmark.

ICC vice-president Uusaqqak Qujaukitsoq, a hunter from the Thule region, has also said that "in the event of a conflict, we will surely be the first target."

Lynge said the NMD may become another example of how governments ignore Inuit rights when land is needed for military purposes. In the spring of 1953, Danish authorities told 30 Inuit families in northern Greenland to abandon their settlement and move 150 kilometers away from the planned military base in Thule.

"They’re looking at our homeland as a wasteland," Lynge said. "I think it’s time for us as a non-governmental organization that we tell them that we live here and want a voice. That’s what we have ICC for, and we think that our nearest neighbour, Canada, should know about the ICC position."

ICC wants review

The ICC is calling for an environmental review and a social impact assessment of the NMD.

The ICC and Greenland’s Home Rule Government also want the Danish and U.S. governments to keep Greenlanders informed about the NMD and to include Greenland in all talks about the NMD.

According to Lynge, this request has been met with silence, although an ICC board member from Alaska was expected to meet with a U.S. State department official to discuss Inuit concerns about the NMD.

"We understand the position of the U.S., and we are supportive of defence systems in general, but it’s us Inuit, and especially the Inuit in Thule, who are affected," Lynge said.

While US officials say the NMD is meant for defensive purposes only, Lynge maintains it could lead to a whole new era of building bigger weapons capable of penetrating better defense systems. He worries the NMD could provoke Russia, China, and other countries to bolster their nuclear arsenals.

"And then we will be back in a very dangerous Cold War situation again, except with many more players eager to join this new race," Lynge said.

Lynge said the NMD is also a unilateral, one-country plan, and, for this reason, violates the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty between Russia and the U.S.

When Lynge was a leader of Greenland’s Inuit Ataqatigiit parties, he campaigned against U.S. military activity in Greenland.

But he said his personal convictions aren’t fueling the ICC’s present concern.

Lynge said the ICC’s Principles and Elements for a Comprehensive Arctic Policy talks about the need for peace, disarmament, and Arctic security. He said this policy’s principles and elements will guide the ICC’s opposition.

"We developed them at the grass-roots level over a period of several years, and when I look at them, I clearly see that our people want us to be very, very cautious about the NMD," Lynge said.

Meanwhile, Canada’s federal government has yet to formally state whether it supports the NMD plan.

Echoing concerns about the plan made by several European leaders, Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy has expressed scepticism about the plan because of its violation of the 1972 ABM treaty.

Defence Minster Art Eggleton, however, has show more enthusiasm for the idea.

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