DUTCH ACTION FOR INNU
Trix Van Vugt
Peace News
Peace groups in nine different countries held protests in support of
the Innu last December 10 (Human Rights Day). The Dutch Campaign
Against War Taxes, of which the author is a member, was one of
those groups.
Since our country is one of the three in Europe to practise low-level
flying above Innu territory, we felt we really had to do our best on
10 December. We began by sending letters to our prime minister,
the ministers of defence and foreign affairs, the chairs of the five
largest political parties and the parliamentary chair, asking for an
immediate stop to all low level flying. We no answer at all from the
minister of defence, so we decided to visit him and get our answer
in person.
We decided that the best way to make people realise the
seriousness of the situation for the Innu would be to let them
experience the problem themselves. In other words: let them hear
the noise of a low-flying jet.
We intended to reproduce that noise at full volume (or as near as
we could get to it), but that was not as easy as we first thought. It
took a motor truck loaded with sound equipment (with a capacity
of 5kW!) to produce about a quarter of the real volume of the jets.
We knew we risked getting a fine for making so much noise, but
we decided it would only emphasise the point of our action so
entered deliberately into that risk.
Our reception at the ministry of defence was downright rude,
because they were irritated by the noise. We did not get a decent
answer to our queries -- although we did get good press coverage.
We then walked to the Canadian embassy, handing out leaflets in the
shape of an airplane, with our sound system still reproducing the
jet noise, but at a lower volume. There were a lot of people whose
first reaction was to search the sky for a jet that wasn't there.
At the embassy we got a friendlier reception and an invitation to
come back for an answer later. Together with the Working Group on
Indigenous Peoples (WIV), we plan to do so.