NATIVE_NEWS: Chief Ominayak's letter

[Ish]

And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:      Chief Ominayak's letter


Friends of the Lubicon
485 Ridelle Ave.
Toronto, ON  M6B 1K6
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

September 1, 1999

What follows is a letter from Lubicon Lake Indian Nation Chief Bernard
Ominayak to Alberta Premier Ralph Klein regarding the pending timber sales
in Lubicon traditional territory.

Friends of the Lubicon

______________________________

August 25, 1999

Ralph Klein
Premier of Alberta
Room 307 Legislature Building
Edmonton, AB T5K 2B6

Dear Mr. Klein;

When Daishowa was first granted permits to clear-cut Lubicon traditional
territory, senior Alberta officials assured Daishowa that Lubicon rights
would be settled well before Daishowa intended to begin logging. Needless
to say, Lubicon aboriginal rights and titles including land and resource
rights were not settled then. Nor are they settled now.

At that time we made it very clear that until Lubicon rights are settled,
no further logging will be allowed to take place within our traditional
lands. After an international boycott which lasted seven long years and
cost Daishowa - by their own estimates - over $20 million in lost sales,
Daishowa committed in writing not to cut or to buy wood cut within Lubicon
traditional territories until Lubicon rights are settled and an agreement
is negotiated respecting Lubicon wildlife and environmental concerns in the
Lubicon traditional territory.

But despite our well-known opposition to clear-cut logging in our unceded
traditional territory, and despite the hard-won promise from Daishowa not
to proceed with clear-cut logging in that territory, we understand that
Alberta is once again making a significant portion of our traditional
territory available for logging.

We understand further that there are plans to sell these timber rights in
unceded Lubicon territory to other First Nations in the surrounding area as
part of a transparent provincial government strategy to put other First
Nations in the front lines of provincial government efforts to undermine
and subvert Lubicon rights. Using supposed economic benefits as bait to
play poor aboriginal people off against each other and steal valuable
aboriginal lands and resources is a classic colonial divide and conquer
tactic which will be recognized and condemned as such by people around the
world. It's also the type of tactic which people around the world hoped the
Alberta government had abandoned with negotiation of the Grimshaw Accord.

Moreover we understand that Daishowa is involved with these plans and would
be obtaining the resulting timber despite Daishowa's agreement that
Daishowa "will not harvest or purchase" timber from unceded Lubicon
territory pending settlement of Lubicon rights and negotiation of an
agreement with the Lubicons respecting Lubicon wildlife and environmental
concerns. As with the Alberta government, these kind of tactics are not new
for Daishowa but people around the world hoped Daishowa had learned from
the $20 million Daishowa boycott that all the slippery subterfuge in the
world will not prevent people from seeing through what Daishowa is doing
and holding Daishowa accountable for it.

When your government first sent us an invitation to submit our comments on
the prospect of renewed logging within our traditional territory we wrote
to Dan Wilkinson, Regional Director of Alberta Environmental Protection,
and made it clear that unceded Lubicon territory is off-limits for further
logging until Lubicon rights have been resolved.

Yet only one week after Alberta's negotiator John McCarthy met with us to
restart  negotiations between our governments, your government announced
that Alberta is now seeking bids for that same timber. Selling off the
resources which are the subject of talks even as you sit at the negotiating
table does not indicate any serious desire on your government's part to
resolve these issues. That underhanded approach to dealing with Lubicon
rights prolongs continuing uncertainty to the detriment of not only the
Lubicon people but to the detriment of all people with interests in the
area who need a settlement of Lubicon rights to be able to proceed with
their lives in an orderly, predictable way.

I am again enclosing a map of the Lubicon traditional territory for your
information. We  trust you will advise anyone wishing to log in those areas
that our respective rights in traditional Lubicon territory are subject to
negotiation and that rights to the resources in those areas are therefore
not currently available for sale.

Sincerely,

Bernard Ominayak
Chief, Lubicon Lake Indian Nation

cc      Chief Federal Negotiator Brad Morse
         Chief Provincial Negotiator John McCarthy


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