Mailing address:
3536 - 106 Street
Edmonton, AB T6J 1A4
403-436-5652
FAX: 403-437-0719
August 1, 1991
During the week of July 15, 1991, over 100 representatives of
organizations from across Europe met in Stadtroda, Germany to
discuss the situation of selected aboriginal societies. The
worsening plight of the Lubicon Lake people was considered by
meeting participants to be a particularly serious case requiring
priority attention.
On July 17th, after being up-dated by Lubicon Councillor Larry
Ominayak and Lubicon Advisor Fred Lennarson, meeting participants
unanimously passed the following resolution:
"WHEREAS the people of the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation have
never ceded ownership of their traditional territory in any
legally or historically recognized way;
"AND WHEREAS the Governments of Canada and Alberta claim
jurisdiction over traditional Lubicon territory with no
apparent legal or historical justification;
"AND WHEREAS the Governments of Canada and Alberta have
sought to impose their questionable jurisdiction over
unceded Lubicon territory by, among other things, selling
Lubicon natural resources;
"AND WHEREAS over the past 15 years the Governments of
Canada and Alberta have sold the right to exploit Lubicon
oil resources to dozens of oil companies, whose massive
exploitation activities have destroyed the traditional
Lubicon hunting and trapping economy and threatened the very
existence of the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation;
"AND WHEREAS the Governments of Canada and Alberta have now
sold the trees from the unceded Lubicon territory to a
Japanese forestry company named Daishowa;
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"AND WHEREAS Daishowa plans to start clear-cutting huge
parts of the unceded Lubicon territory as early as this
fall, which, if those plans are acted upon, will almost
certainly assure the complete destruction and extinction of
the traditional Lubicon society;
"NOW THEREFORE we, the participants of the 7th European
Meeting of North American Indian Support Groups,
representing Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia,
France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway,
Poland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States
and various aboriginal nations and organizations, do hereby
demand that Daishowa not take advantage of the
jurisdictional dispute between the Governments of Canada and
the Lubicon Indian Nation for it's own economic benefit and
stay out of the traditional Lubicon territory until the
jurisdictional dispute between both levels of Canadian
Government and the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation is
satisfactorily resolved."
Copies of the European resolution were sent to Daishowa Chairman
Takashi Saito, Daishowa's Canadian Vice-President Tom Hamaoka,
Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Alberta Provincial
Premier Don Getty and the Leaders and relevant Critics of both
Federal and Provincial opposition political parties.
Additionally, in order to give force to the European resolution,
meeting participants agreed to research and identify major
Daishowa customers in their respective countries, to pressure
major Daishowa customers in their respective countries to boycott
Daishowa paper products unless Daishowa stays out of the
traditional Lubicon area until the question of Lubicon land
rights is settled, and to communicate and coordinate Daishowa
boycott efforts with interested environmental groups across
Europe and around the world. (With Daishowa representing a major
threat to the forests of the world as well as to the Lubicons,
meeting participants are confident of environmental group
cooperation and support.)
Advised of the resolution and European boycott plans, Daishowa
front-man James Morrison first expressed typically blissful
unconcern. The following day, however, and undoubtedly after Mr.
Morrison's smarter Japanese superiors had explained to him that
major European newspapers might not like being publicly charged
with complicity in the genocide of the Lubicon Indians, Mr.
Morrison started expressing considerably greater concern. He
claimed that Daishowa was an "innocent third party" in the
jurisdictional dispute between the Lubicons and Canadian
Government and charged that "the Europeans are just looking for
publicity and sympathy".
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Lots of words to describe Daishowa come to mind but "innocent"
isn't one of the them.
And the goal is of course neither publicity nor sympathy. The
goal is literally to stop Daishowa from clear-cutting in the
unceded Lubicon territory until at least the question of Lubicon
land rights is satisfactorily resolved and an agreement
negotiated with the Lubicon people regarding Lubicon wildlife and
environmental concerns.
As the European resolution says, the likely alternative is the
final destruction and extinction of the traditional Lubicon
society.