In early May the Federal Government announced that they had accepted
most of the recommendations of the Environmental Assessment Panel
concerning low-level flight training by NATO countries in Labrador and
north-eastern Quebec. The Innu, over whose unceded traditional lands
this training has take place now for about 10 years, were not
surprisingly deeply opposed to the recommendations of the panel.
The Panel had arrived at their recommendations after conducting a
public hearing process to evaluate an Environmental Impact Statement
that the Dept. of Defence released about a year ago. The Innu and
their supporters had boycotted this process for a number of reasons,
and saw the public hearing process as a whitewash of what had already
been decided. The hearings and the process behind them is complex
story, and to really understand what went on and the implications of
the decision, it is important to put it in the context of the recent
history of the Innu, and the many other challenges to their way of life
that they are facing.
The following article and interview are from a report by a Peace
Brigades International North America Project (PBI-NAP) team that
is spending three months in the Innu communities of Sheshatshit
and Davis Inlet to look at the "structural violence" that the
Innu experience, particularly from the Canadian legal system.
>From our brochure:
"PBI seeks to establish international and nonpartisan approaches to
peacemaking and to the support of basic human rights. We challenge the
belief that violent institutions and warfare inevitably must dominate
human affairs. We seek to demonstrate that as international
volunteers, citizens can act boldly as peacemakers when their
governments cannot."
For more information about PBI's North America Project, contact:
Alan Dixon
27 Third Ave.
Ottawa, ON K1S 2J5
(613)230-4123
adixon@web.apc.org
(note: our next training for field volunteers is planned for
August 11-17, 1995, in Ontario somewhere.)