The Dominion - history

Multi-Billion Dollar Mining Boom

Moira Peters — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 04:24:08 +0000

From the archives: the economics of war and empire in Afghanistan

Two years ago, in State of Mine—our 2008 special issue on the Canadian extractive industry—the Dominion published an article by Michael Skinner about the international bidding war for Afghan minerals. Skinner cites a 2002 US Geological Survey report detailing over 1,000 mineral deposits in Afghanistan, and Soviet geological studies from the 1970s that led to large-scale mining operations in the country.

We thought—given the New York Times just broke the "news" about a trillion dollars in minerals in Afghanistan—that we would, ahem, dig up this piece for our readers.

****

BAMIYAN, AFGHANISTAN—On a brilliant sunny afternoon in July, 2007, my research partner Hamayon Rastgar and I climbed Shahr-e Gholghola, a tiny but strategically-located mountain that incongruously juts upward in the center of the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan’s central province, Bamiyan. Our guide was a geologist I’ll call Aziz.

Aziz led us through the minefields that guard the approach to Shahr-e Gholghola to reach the strategic lookout above. From the mountaintop we surveyed the incredibly verdant Bamiyan Valley bounded by the famous cliffs of Bamiyan to the north, the snow-capped mountains of the Koh-e Baba Mountains to the south, and looking downstream along the Bamiyan River to the east, the red cliffs of Shahr-e Zohak. A chain-smoking Afghan soldier, posted on sentinel duty to keep watch over the NATO airbase below and guard the BBC broadcasting equipment installed atop the mountain, kept us under his bored gaze. But we didn’t climb Shahr-e Gholghola just to admire the spectacular view. Aziz wanted to tell us his story of war, empire, and mining in Afghanistan with the Bamiyan Valley as his dramatic backdrop.

Some of the richest mineral deposits in the world, said Aziz, exist within a few kilometres of where we stood. Many more deposits are scattered throughout the rest of Afghanistan. A promotional brochure distributed by the Afghanistan Ministry of Mines claims the Hajigak iron deposit in Bamiyan contains 1.8 billion tonnes of ore with a concentration of 62 per cent iron. There is also abundant coal nearby that can be used for the coking process and to generate electricity, making this a world-class site for mine development.

Since antiquity, Afghanistan has been a source for gems and semi-precious stones, metals, and marble. Small-scale artisanal mining has always existed to supply jewelers and metal industries. A Soviet geological survey conducted in the 1970s led to some development of large-scale industrial mining, but most of these developments stalled after 1992 during the upheavals of the American-backed Mujaheddin regime, and then the Taliban regime after 1996. The Soviets also developed natural gas extraction, which helped to fuel the Soviet economy and provided the Afghan economy with a significant portion of its foreign trade.

In 2002, the US Geological Survey (USGS) published a list of more than 1000 deposits, mines, and occurrences in Afghanistan to confirm the country’s wealth of mineral and hydrocarbon resources. Among the minerals found in abundance are gold, copper, iron, mercury, lead, and rare metals such as cesium, lithium, niobium, and tantalum. Tantalum, which is also known as coltan, is a rare element essential in the manufacture of cell phones, computers, and digital cameras. Lithium is necessary for high-tech batteries, specialty glasses and ceramics, and for some high-performance metal alloys. Niobium is used in steel alloys. According to Afghan geology expert John Shroder, writing for online geography journal GeoJournal in 2007, oil and natural gas reserves identified by the USGS far surpass earlier Soviet estimates.

Aziz said he fears most Afghans could be condemned to even greater suffering if these resources are developed by giant transnational companies. Looking over the Bamiyan Valley, we can see that productive and sustainable agriculture fills every available niche in a delicate balance of nature. It is an extremely fragile environment, similar to the arid American southwest. Building a railway through the valley, spewing toxic waste into the atmosphere during the smelting process, and dumping tons of slag onto the watershed would have an incredibly destructive impact on the delicate ecological balance that has been maintained for millennia by local farmers. Aziz reminded us of the genocidal slaughter of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas as they were displaced to make way for economic development and the ecological destruction that resulted from resource extraction. Recognizing that, to this day, resource extraction practices continue to disrupt social and environmental systems, Aziz fears for the future of the Hazara people of Bamiyan and all Afghans throughout his country.

****

As part of its economic liberalization and privatization strategy, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is directing the sale of every Afghan state enterprise in transportation, communications, manufacturing, and resource extraction. Any potentially profitable sector of the Afghan economy is overseen by the agency.

In October 2006, the British Agencies Afghanistan Group announced that privatization of the Jawzjan gas field was beginning and that deals had already been signed to privatize the Karkar-e Dodkash coal mine in Baghlan, a fluoride mine in Uruzagan, a gold mine in Herat, a precious stones mine in Nuristan and cement factories in Ghori and Parwan.

In November 2007, the huge Aynak copper deposit, which is approximately 35 kilometres southeast of Kabul, was auctioned under the USAID plan. According to an article in GeoJournal, the Aynak deposit is estimated to contain more than 11 million metric tons of recoverable copper.

For centuries, if not millennia, artisanal copper mining was practiced at Aynak. In the 1980s, Soviet geologists and engineers began exploration and preliminary mine development of the 28-square-kilometre Aynak copper field, but the Soviet miners were forced to leave when the Soviet military withdrew in 1989. In August and September 2008, the Afghanistan Ministry of Mines tendered four more mine sites for auction: the Feranjal barite deposits in Parwan, the Da Eman coal deposits in Bamiyan, the Namakab coal deposits in Takhar and the Ghorian iron deposits in Herat.

While the privatization program is overseen by an office of USAID, the ultimate decision to accept a winning auction bid rests with the Afghan government. However, there are questions about whether the Karzai government has the power to make autonomous decisions. Some Afghan critics complain that American, British and Canadian diplomatic and military advisers act as Karzai’s shadow cabinet.

For example, a team of Canadian Forces advisers called SAT-A (Strategic Advisory Team Argus) is embedded within Karzai’s presidential offices. During Karzai’s September 2007 visit to Canada, documents acquired under the Access to Information act suggested that Karzai’s speech to the Canadian Parliament was written by the SAT-A.

Ironically, Aynak was technically not privatized in accordance with liberalization doctrine—it was sold to a Chinese state enterprise, China Metallurgical Group, for an astounding US$3.5 billion. The principals of Vancouver-based Hunter-Dickinson, who thought they would win the bidding process with an offer in the neighbourhood of $2 billion, were not pleased by the outcome, according to a Canadian government source. Other bidders on the Aynak deposit were Phoenix-based Phelps Dodge, London-based Kazakhmys Consortium, and a subsidiary of Russia’s Basic Element Group.

Awarding the Aynak mine deal to the China Metallurgical Group may be a shrewd strategic move from the perspective of Canadian advisers. A considerable portion of the extraordinary Chinese bid is earmarked for constructing a 400-megawatt power plant to feed the mine and its smelters, the development of a nearby coal mine to feed the power plant, and construction of Afghanistan’s first railway, which will stretch from Western China through Tajikistan to the Aynak mine and on to Pakistan. The political and commercial risk of investing in Afghanistan makes it unlikely a private company would undertake an infrastructure project of the scale needed to develop the Aynak deposit. The American, Canadian, and British governments operate state-financed insurance schemes to protect investors from political risk in foreign investments, but they will not insure investments of this massive scale. Considering the high degree of influence American, Canadian, and British diplomats and military advisers have inside the Afghan government, it is conceivable that working out the deal with China Metallurgical Group could have been a deliberate strategy designed to shift the burden of infrastructure development to the Chinese state. Private companies from the NATO states can potentially benefit from the surplus capacity of the Chinese coal mine, power plant, and railway to service the many other mines and development sites yet to be sold.

Such a meshing of economic and geopolitical strategies fits with the strategic agenda outlined in the 2008 US National Defense Strategy (USNDS). It outlines America’s strategy to economically engage China and Russia, while still relying on the old Cold War era strategy of containment by NATO forces as a military backup. This latest strategic statement outlines how the US “will develop strategies across agencies, and internationally, to provide incentives for constructive behaviour while also dissuading them [China and Russia] from destabilizing actions.” Strategists in the NATO states are concerned with controlling the growth of Russia and China in Central Asia as these two emerging powers increase their level of mutual co-operation through the Shanghai Co-operation Organization and the Russia China Security Partnership. Allowing China to make a huge and extremely risky investment, for which success is entirely dependent on a continued NATO military occupation of Afghanistan on China’s border, may be a cunning tactic as part of the engagement-containment strategy outlined in the USNDS 2008.

Many Afghans—from cab drivers, shopkeepers and day labourers to intellectuals—told us they believe the privatization of Afghanistan’s resource wealth is one among many factors in the strategic geopolitical and economic calculus the leaders of the NATO states use to rationalize their war in Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s undeveloped resource wealth is no secret to Afghans, even if most Canadians outside the mining industry remain ignorant of the fact.

****

Like many Afghans, Aziz is sceptical of an Afghan government controlled by warlords that was first established by military force and backed by American aid in 1992, and re-established by American and NATO forces in 2001. This government cannot survive without the support of foreign military forces. He doubts such an arrangement will protect Afghans from the destructive practices of foreign mining companies, whether these companies are based in the powerful NATO states or elsewhere. Among the many warlords prominent in Afghan politics and business are Rashid Dostum and Ismail Khan.

Since 2001, Dostum has held numerous influential positions in government and business including the office of Minister of Defence. Dostum is alleged by Human Rights Watch to have committed numerous war crimes since the 1980s, including while he led the Northern Alliance as the ground forces for the American-NATO invasion in 2001. Khan was a captain in the Afghanistan National Army when he led the Islamic revolution in Herat in March 1979. Khan’s Islamic revolutionary forces received covert support from the US during that year. Human Rights Watch alleges that Khan committed war crimes and crimes against humanity since first seizing power in 1979 and throughout his participation in the Northern Alliance. Khan was appointed Minister of Energy by Hamid Karzai in 2004.

Before the NATO states chose to support the Northern Alliance in 2001, Human Rights Watch, among other agencies, repeatedly warned that the Northern Alliance, as well as the Taliban, committed widespread and systematic crimes against humanity that included targeted civilian killings, indiscriminate bombardment of civilian areas, summary executions, torture, rape and sexual abuse, and the use of child soldiers.

****

As we soaked in the breathtaking view of the Bamiyan Valley, a man I’ll call Zahir joined our conversation. Alexander the Great’s army, he said, is believed to have occupied the valley for four years after sweeping through the Persian Empire. From here, Alexander moved south to invade India. The Greek legacy can be found in remnants of art and architecture still scattered about the valley. We could also see Shahr-e Zohak to the east.

In the 13th century, the grandson of Genghis Khan was killed there. The Khan set his army on a genocidal rampage through the valley in retaliation. We could see, carved into the cliffs north of Bamiyan, the two empty colossal niches that, until March 2001, had housed the largest Buddha statues in the world. The destruction of the Buddha statues is portrayed in the West as an act of religious fanaticism by the Taliban. According to Zahir, however, the destruction was a calculated act of cultural cleansing and ethnic subjugation of the Indigenous Hazara people. This deliberate process of ethnic subjugation began at least as early as the late 17th century when the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s army first defaced the East Asian facial features of the Buddha statues. Zahir suggests the Buddha statues were defaced because they resembled the features of local Hazaras, although this is a contentious theory.

At the base of the Bamiyan cliffs, we could see the ruins of the famous bazaar of Bamiyan destroyed during battles in the early 1990s between the Hazara Islamic Unity Party and the National Islamic United Front. The United Front became better known as the Northern Alliance when these forces were used as NATO’s ground troops to take Kabul, in 2001.

Both Aziz and Zahir told us they are fearful the historical subjugation of the Indigenous Hazara will continue and could intensify when mining companies move into Bamiyan. When empires compete over resources, ethnic groups are often enlisted as proxy forces in the fight for wealth.

The Hazara people, Zahir told us, like all the people of the almost two dozen distinct Indigenous ethnic groups scattered throughout Afghanistan, have a deep psychological attachment to their land. They know only too well the brutal history of invading armies that threatened their lives, their livelihoods, and their traditional claims to their land. During our travels, many Afghans, from all walks of life and different ethnic groups, told us they regard the current NATO occupation no differently than previous occupations by the Soviet military, the British military, or any of the other imperial armies that have invaded Afghanistan.

Leaders of the NATO states claim the current occupation of Afghanistan is different from previous imperial occupations. But the question remains as to how the current occupying forces will deal with Afghanistan’s natural resources: who will get access, who will benefit, and whose livelihoods and land will be sacrificed to mining? Recognizing the long global history of extractive industries—including the domestic and global practices of Canadian extractive industries—our two Afghan friends told us they are not hopeful that the Indigenous peoples who will be affected by mining development will be fairly compensated or that the environment will be adequately protected.

Michael Skinner is a researcher at the York Centre for International and Security Studies with the Afghanistan Canada Research Group (ACRG). In 2007, Skinner and his research partner Hamayon Rastgar travelled throughout Afghanistan, where they listened to Afghans from all walks of life who do not have a voice in the Western media.

Recent critiques of the NYT article have been written by Marc Ambinder in The Atlantic and by Paul Jay on The Real News Network.

Land and Rights in Canada

dawn — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 06:47:03 +0000

Don't let Harper play hockey with human rights

COLDSTREAM, BC—We have reached a very critical time in our struggle for our land and human rights as Indigenous Peoples. The Canadian government knows this and has been doing everything in their power to trick us into extinguishing our Aboriginal Title through negotiations under their policies—including their Comprehensive Land Claims and Self-Government Policies. Canada’s courts have been the alternative to negotiations, and there we have had measured success. But the establishment Indigenous organizations, like the Assembly of First Nations, have been stuck with what the government is dictating to them.

As Indigenous Peoples we need to think about what to do now. In early August 2009, Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl sent a strong message to the British Columbia Treaty Commission (BCTC) Common Table, a group of First Nations from different BCTC negotiating tables who came together to raise concerns regarding consistent obstacles they all faced in negotiating land claims agreements in BC. He said that the federal government will not change the existing Comprehensive Land Claims and Self-Government Policies.

The federal government has ignored all objections from groups who do not negotiate and groups who are inactive in their negotiations. Now they have stated clearly to those actively negotiating that they will not review their land and self-government policies.

It is important for Indigenous Peoples who have not signed treaties surrendering their Title to realize that we are all under the federal Comprehensive Land Claims and Self-Government Policies. We must realize that any land claims and self-government agreement will be determined by these policies. Right now, this will mean that the best deal Indigenous Peoples can get is the Nisga’a, Tsawwassen or Maa-nulth Final Agreements. This requires the extinguishment of Aboriginal Title, according to what the government has put on the table under the Comprehensive Land Claims and Self-Government Policies. Indigenous Peoples will have to give up their tax-exemption, take their land in fee simple, and agree to be under provincial control.

There needs to be a fundamental change in Canada’s Land Claims and Self-Government Policies. These policies need to address the direct link between Aboriginal Title and our human rights as Indigenous Peoples. Canada must abandon their existing policy of extinguishment and assimilation and adopt a plan of recognition and co-existence. This dramatic change must be forced on the federal government by direct action from Indigenous
Peoples and our supporters. We get a lot of support for taking direct action. We just need faith and courage to stand up for our rights.

The 1980 Constitution Express, an international grassroots campaign that involved sending a train with hundreds of Indigenous protesters from the west coast to Ottawa, secured section 35(1) in the Canadian Constitution 1982. We need similar collective action to get Aboriginal Title recognized.

A lot has changed since the 1980s.

The Delgamuukw case judicially recognized Aboriginal Title in 1997. The World Trade Organization and the North America Free Trade Agreement recognized that Canada’s policy not to recognize Aboriginal Title was a subsidy to Canada’s resource industries. The British Columbia government now has to report Aboriginal Title as a contingent liability in their annual balance sheet. And the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples despite the fact that Canada voted against the Declaration.

Our real problem is that the federal and provincial governments do not want to recognize Aboriginal Title because it ousts their jurisdiction over our Aboriginal Title territory. They want to continue to mutually and exclusively make all decisions regarding our land. Everything comes from the natural wealth of our land. We need to unite, not around our weakest positions in negotiations, but around the strongest defenders of our land. In British Columbia, participating under the BCTC over the last 16 years has had dismal results: it has produced only the Tsawwassen and Maa-nulth Final Agreements, plus the rebuked Common Table Report and the rejected BC Recognition and Reconciliation Act.

Introduced in the spring of 2009, the proposed BC Recognition and Reconciliation Act was originally praised by the BC First Nation Leadership Council, a grouping of the Union of British Colombia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC), the First Nations Summit representing those involved in the BCTC process, and the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations. The proposed Act did not recognize Aboriginal Title, and for this reason was rejected by the BC All Chiefs Assembly in August 2009. All the Recognition Act recognized was that Crown Title also existed where Aboriginal Title existed. It would have been nothing more than a Bill of Sale for the BC government. The Chiefs and People saw through it and rejected provincial legislation resoundingly.

The term “recognition” was manipulated by the province just like “self-government” has been manipulated by the federal government. I remember my late father George Manuel really struggled to develop the term “self-government” when he was president of the Union of British Colombia Indian Chiefs. But after the federal government came up with their “self- government” policy, he rejected the term “self-government” because weasel word doctors at the Department of Indian Affairs totally undermined what self-government meant from my father’s perspective.

The province had me in the same boat: I have been fighting for recognition of Aboriginal Title, but I too was forced to fight against the “recognition” offered by the province under the Recognition and Reconciliation Act. This can be confusing because fighting for “recognition” sometimes requires us to fight against words that favour the status quo at our expense. Any definition or term must be decided by us and not the federal and provincial governments.

Indigenous Peoples must realize that these circumstances require us to have strong leadership. We need to assert our Aboriginal and Treaty Rights and not demand money for more programs and services. We need a fundamental change from the existing Aboriginal Land Policies and a National Treaty Policy. We need to take action before the 2010 Winter Olympics against Canada’s Human Rights Record. Our lack of opportunity and our impoverishment are directly related to the fact that Canada does not recognize our Aboriginal and Treaty Rights. Recognition of Aboriginal and Treaty Rights is a fundamental aspect of our Human Rights as Indigenous Peoples.

We cannot support the 2010 Winter Olympics unless Canada adopts and implements the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. First Nations that have agreed to allow the 2010 Winter Olympic Torch through their territory should seriously reconsider that decision in view of how Canada is playing sports with our Human Rights as Indigenous Peoples. Canada will be using any endorsements by First Nations at the international level to polish its image, and to persuade people that Canada’s Indigenous Peoples still support the government despite the fact that Canada voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

We need to be strong. The 2010 Winter Olympics and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is a direct link that connects Canada’s human rights record at the international level. Canada will not change its mind unless we insist, through band council resolutions, not to support the Torch Relay, and to engage in direct action. We must stand up for change. We cannot let Prime Minister Harper play political hockey with our human rights.

Arthur Manuel is the spokesperson of the Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade.

George Manuel.Parliament

From Potlatch to Welfare

Moira Peters — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:18:09 +0000

Lutz on historical "dialogue" and the subordination of Indigenous economies in the Pacific Northwest

Makuk: A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations
John Sutton Lutz
Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008

TRADITIONAL TERRITORY OF SNUNEYMUXW FIRST NATION (NANAIMO, B.C.)—Captain James Cook and the crew of the HMS Resolution encountered the Mowachat people and Chief Maquinna at Yuquot. The Mowachat said to the visitors, “Makuk.” Makuk conveyed various meanings. It was an invitation to trade; it was an indication of confidence; and it signified a request for communication between cultures. University of Victoria history professor John Sutton Lutz chose makúk as the starting point to examine how dialogue, or lack of it, could explain the history of the relationship between Europeans and the Original Peoples of the Pacific Northwest.

The story, according to Lutz, is one of “an international process—the displacement of Aboriginal Peoples from control of resources, the resettlement of land by people of European descent, and the partial incorporation of Aboriginal peoples into the new Euro-Canadian economy and into the modern welfare state.” The Europeans would later settle on the territories of First Nations, sometimes with their approval (as with the Lekwungen), at other times without (as with the Tsilhqot'in). The colonies became a basis for extraterritorial encroachments by the colonists which eventually led them to claim all First Nations territories, waterways and resources.

****

Labour, writes Lutz, is how Europeans “valued themselves.” Eurocentric views about labour were seized upon to create the myth of the “lazy Indian”—and justified the Europeans in dispossessing of the Original Peoples of their land.

BC Supreme Court Chief Justice Allen McEachern echoed this stereotype in his 1991 judgment of the Delgamuukw case. He held that Original Peoples were unable to compete with the “relentless energy” of conquering Europeans.

Some fur traders called Indians “indolent” because they didn't need European goods and they enjoyed much leisure, “meaning a lack of interest in a European form of labour subordination.”

Many colonists contradict this portrayal. Lutz quotes fur trader Gabriele Franchere: “They possess, to an eminent degree, the qualities opposed to indolence, improvidence, and stupidity...” He draws upon many examples from Original Peoples demonstrating that laziness was anathema to them, noting their heavy involvement in the capitalist economy across myriad occupations, drawing on colonial accounts that contradict the myth, and explaining First Nations culture, where “everyone was expected to contribute in accordance with their abilities and place in society.”

Historical media accounts complained of Indians being too industrious and thus preventing White men from getting work. Moreover, Lutz points out that leisure time was essential to the Original Peoples's economy—spirituality and economy were not separate. Wsanec Chief David Latasse, who lived to be well past 100, revealed the secret of his long life: “I like work.”

****

Around the estuary of the N'ch-ĩwana (Columbia River) lived the Chinook people. A patois form of their language, known as Chinook, or wawa, became the basis for trade and communication among the peoples of the Pacific Northwest, offshore traders, and colonists. The Original Peoples, relates Lutz, considered wawa a White man's language, and colonists thought of it as “speaking Indian.”

Despite participating in the capitalist economy, Original Peoples maintained their subsistence and prestige economies, forming an interdependence among these systems. By selling their labour Original Peoples could expand their prestige economy. Lutz calls this combination of capitalist, subsistence and prestige economies a “moditional economy.”

However, Lutz points to a power imbalance in the dialogue between colonists and Original Peoples, expressed through wage work and dependence on welfare. With the dispossession of territory and resources from Original Peoples, they were cut off from their subsistence economy. Racist hiring practices locked Original Peoples outside the workforce. Alienated from their own economies and the wage economy, Original Peoples were forced onto welfare. Reports of Indian agents, persons granted fiduciary power over First Nations by the federal government, classify working Indians as “good” and non-working or Potlatching Indians as “some good” or “no good.”

By incorporating Original Peoples in their Eurocentric economy of labour, colonists often successfully dispossessed them of their territory and their culture. Lutz calls this dispossession a “peaceable subordination”—a subordination without subjugation.

****

Lutz notes that Original Peoples vanished from historical records between 1885 and 1970. He tries to explain this by looking at the Lekwungen (Songhees and Esquimalt peoples near present-day Victoria) and the Tsilhqot'in, situated in the remote Chilcotin plateau in the province of British Columbia.

Lekwungen society was hierarchical, with a gender-based division of labor, slavery, property ownership and wealth accumulation. Wealth was not hoarded for oneself; it was to be given away in Potlatch (wawa for “giving away”)—an important part of Pacific Northwest First Nations culture, particular to each nation. Potlaches were gatherings which celebrated special occasions (rights of passage, marriages, funerals, etc), repaid debts and declared status.

Most of “British Columbia" is still unceded, unsurrendered Indigenous territory. Only a few treaties have been signed; some of those by Vancouver Island Governor James Douglas when he started a “new regime of property relations” by signing treaties with six Lekwungen families for land. Initially, the Lekwungen became very wealthy from the sale of land. They helped build Fort Victoria and believed their assistance had given them a stake in the fort. Lutz notes, “In light of the consequences for the Lekwungen, it seems ironic that they welcomed, and assisted with, the building of Fort Victoria.”

The Lekwungen “participated in the capitalist economy...to participate more fully in their own.” Potlatches grew more elaborate. But a demise was nearing. The Potlatch would be outlawed by the federal government in 1885. This targeted the heart of Indigenous culture and society, with the intention of assimilation. Without Potlatch, there was little incentive to work.

Then came hitherto-unknown deadly infectious diseases, the scourge of alcoholism, racism, joblessness, the disempowering Indian Act, and the specter of starvation. The Lekwungen came to be seen by prominent colonists as a blight to be removed from the city core. The Lekwungen staunchly resisted for many years.

With the completion of CP Railway, a surfeit of Chinese workers came onto the labour market, which, along with a preference for White workers, displaced Original Peoples from jobs.

Original Peoples began to work in less skilled jobs, were paid less, received less in relief payments, and had a “disturbingly high rate of unemployment.” Kathleen Mooney's research of 1952-71 shows Indigenous men to be eight times more likely to be unemployed than non-Indigenous men.

The situation became so bad that in 1961 the Colonist warned of imminent starvation to a people who had never known hunger. Surrounded by abundant game, it was, in fact, legislated starvation.

****

The Tsilhqot'in were a “poorer,” egalitarian, non-hierarchical society. Remotely situated, the Tsilhqot'in had less contact with Europeans, resisted European encroachment onto their territory, and retained much more of their culture longer than did the Lekwungen.

In 1862, politician-turned-businessman Alfred Waddington led a push to build a road from the Bute Inlet across Tsilhqot'in territory into the goldfields at Barkerville. The Tsilhqot'in opposed the road through their territory, and in one incident, eight Tsilhqot'in men attacked one of Waddington's work camps, killing 14 road workers.

The colonial administration sent a militia after the defenders of Tsilhqot'in sovereignty. Lutz notes: “The only way the colony captured any Tsilhqot'in was by luring them to a peace talk and then clapping them in irons and trying them as murderers—a practice so unethical it made the presiding officials squirm.” Presiding Judge Matthew Begbie (to be remembered by his nickname 'The Hanging Judge') found that the captured Tsilhqot'in had been “most injudiciously treated.” He concluded that if the Tsilhqot'in people had been treated well, the “outrage would not have been perpetrated.” Nevertheless, six Tsilhqot'in were hanged for attacks on the work crew and others, leaving a black mark on BC history.

Despite the formidable growing conditions on the plateau, the province sought to “civilize” the Tsilhqot'in by turning them away from game hunting and toward farming. Authorities wanted to limit their traditional subsistence economy by enacting game laws. Eventually, the Tsilhqot'in—unable to hunt game, and displaced by White ranchers—migrated and became fishers of salmon. But the government also sought to protect commercial fisheries, and the salmon season was was eventually closed. This was even though Indian Agent E. McCleod had warned that a closed season on salmon created such a hardship that it sent a number of Tsilhqot'in into their graves.

Finally, a lack of jobs and available capital or collateral to receive financing, along with the crash of the cash economy after WWII, brought the welfare economy to the Original Peoples.

****

Lutz notes that “European 'settlement' was, in fact, a period of depopulation.” There was a great drop in population of Original Peoples between 1861 and 1871 (from 60,000 people to 37,000). Even so, 73.6 per cent of BC's population was Indigenous. These “lazy Indians” had been involved in many industries, such as trapping, mining, fishing, sealing, forestry, hop picking and the fish canneries.

During these years, trapping and fur trade became regulated by authorities; traditional Tsilhqot'in traplines were registered to non-Indigenous people. In the coal mines Original Peoples were displaced by Chinese; in the canneries they were displaced by Japanese. In forestry, Original Peoples were denied harvesting rights in 1910. The BC Forest Service's unwritten policy allocated only marginal timber lands to Original Peoples. Traditional methods of reef net fishing were outlawed. Original Peoples required permission from colonists to fish for food. The BC government sought to limit the size of the commercial fishery through a small boat buyback, disadvantaging the Original Peoples and favoring corporate fishers. As Lutz writes, the province “attempt[ed] to make fishing a 'white man's' industry.” After confederation, the federal government claimed the sea and the resources in it.

Original Peoples were prohibited from holding purse seiner—the most lucrative form of commercial fishing—licenses. Nuu-chah-nulth Peter Webster commented, “I think a lot of us became 'criminals' without really knowing the reason.”

During the years 1885-1970, Original Peoples were “vanished” from censuses, voting lists, annual reports, and other records. Statistics focused on formal capitalist economies. Massive immigration of other Europeans, Japanese, and Chinese to BC caused even further displacement. Game and fishing regulations pressured Original Peoples out of their subsistence economies and forced them into the wage economy and to eat White man's food, “as that was the only way to stay alive.” This caused Nuu-chah-nulth Charles Jones to lament in 1976: “I think all they do is dream up new laws against the Indians.”

****

Lutz writes that it was settlement, not contact, which marked the demise of Indigenous culture and history. History, he contends, has mainly been the monologue of colonists. “What histories would have been written had we asked Aboriginal People?” he asks.

Original Peoples talked about a “White Problem.” That "Problem" outlawed their Potlatches; instituted racism in hiring; enacted legislation that disenfranchised them; treated them as minors under law; declared their reserves to be crown land, unmortgageable; deprived them of their land and resources despite no surrender, and despite treaty rights; forbade their entrance into restaurants and other public facilities in the 1960s; sought labour solidarity along racial lines as unions were white-dominated; instituted compulsory schooling that broke up family economy; and forced Original Peoples onto relief.

Even relief (at a far lower level that that for Whites) was a Catch 22; Lutz writes: “That relief was based on the principle that it would be supplemented by subsistence foods, which they could no longer obtain!”

“By 1936, per capita relief spending for registered Indians was one-third that for other Canadians.” And still, Indians had to beg for relief cheques. Relief was not shameful; the Lekwungen called the Indian Agent “siem/leader of the Indian people” and it was the “siem's responsibility ...[of] providing for his/her people.”

Stó:lō Rena Peters said, “I'm going to take the welfare but I'm not going to call it welfare, I'm going to call it spirit money.” Some people might call it reparations.

Makúk was originally a way for Original Peoples to enrich their own economies. Lutz reminds us that “Prior to the establishment of white settlement, the Aboriginal peoples of present day British Columbia were among the richest and best-fed societies in the world.”

* In October 1999, the BC government officially apologized for the hangings of the Tsilhqot'in chiefs defending their territory, and erected a plaque describing the injustice and honoring the hanged. Judge Begbie is honored eponymously with buildings, mountains, a street, a school and a larger-than-life sized statue at the entrance to the BC Parliament buildings.

Kim Petersen is Original Peoples editor at The Dominion.

OP Makuk Cover

An Alternative Memorial Day Celebration: reviving our radical collective historic memory

Sandra — Tue, 26 May 2009 18:45:04 +0000

rad mem day flyer.JPG

MEMORIALIZING THOSE FALLEN IN DEFENSE OF THEIR COMMUNITIES

[aka How to Make Real Sure You're on the Terrorist Watch List]

New York City, May 25, 2009.

Flyer: Sakura Saunders
Photos: Sandra Cuffe
Inspiration: The Missing Plaque Project in Toronto

Image #1: Our flyer...

Image #2: Good ideas are FREE!

Image #3: The real news (Columbia University in the background).

Image #4: 3940 Broadway in the Washington Heights neighbourhood north of Harlem. The building was the Audubon Ballroom at the time of Malcolm X's assassination during a speech in the packed hall on February 21, 1965.

Image #5: Statue of Malcolm X in the lower left corner marks the spot of his assassination in what is now a museum known as the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center.

Image #6: Central Park at night.

Image #7: In front of the American Museum of Natural History, there is a peculiar statue. Theodore Roosevelt is riding majestically on horseback, flanked on either side by an African man and a Native American man, both on foot. Perhaps it is in fact meant as a subtly critical piece concerning forced marches, but the statue seems to embody the myth that one great country was built by all, side by side. It seemed like a good place (thanks for the tip, Ben!) to chalk: FREE LEONARD PELTIER, NATIVE AMERICAN P.O.W.

The Right to Whale

Moira Peters — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:32:28 +0000

First Nations encounter barriers to traditional whaling

TRADITIONAL TERRITORY OF SNUNEYMUXW FIRST NATION (NANAIMO, B.C.)-On the Pacific Northwest coast, the nations of the Makah in Washington State and Nuu-chah-nulth on western Vancouver Island are struggling to engage once again with their heritage of whaling, which was suspended decades ago due to depleted whale populations.

On March 19, University of Washington American Indian Studies Professor Charlotte Coté was in Nanaimo to present a lecture entitled, “The Cultural, Societal, Spiritual and Dietary Importance of Putting Whales back on Our Dinner Tables: The Revitalization of Makah and Nuu-chah-nulth Whaling.”

Whaling, said Coté, is central to the identity of the Makah and Nuu-chah-nulth; it appears in their storytelling, art, and songs, and was also an essential part of their diet. The Makah and Nuu-chah-nulth are trying to reconnect with their traditional lifeways and the resumption of sustainable whaling is considered an important part of this.

Public opposition to hunting is strong for an iconic species such as whales. Moreover, the Makah face legal and bureaucratic barriers in the United States. In Canada, the Makah kinfolk—the Nuu-chah-nulth&mdashface lengthy treaty negotiations.

Article 4 of the 1885 Treaty of Neah Bay secured the right for the Makah (who call themselves Kwih-dich-chuh-ahtx: “The people who live by the rocks and seagulls”) to catch salmon, and hunt whales and seals. For this right and money, the treaty holds that the Makah relinquished “their right, title, and interest in” about 121,000 timbered hectares of Olympic Peninsula land in what is now Washington State.

Coté explained that the smallpox-decimated Makah Nation had little choice but to sign the treaty “to protect what they could protect.”

But even what was "protected" is now under threat.

Gray whales were plentiful before “Yankee whalers” decimated the stocks, says Coté. In 1937, the US banned gray whale hunting and in 1972, the gray whale was placed on the endangered species list.

The Makah and the Nuu-chah-nulth honoured the ban on whaling.

Coté said the number of gray whales had dropped to 1,500, but now about 24,000 ply the Pacific coastline. Fisheries and Oceans Canada (FOC) states the gray whale population peaked in 1998 at 27,000. Up to one-third died from a food shortage between 1998 and 2002, but the population has since stabilized and is possibly growing, according to FOC.

After the gray whale was removed from the endangered species list in 1994, the Makah were given permission from the International Whaling Commission to hunt 20 gray whales (a maximum of five per year) until 2004.

In May 1999, a 9-metre gray whale gave itself to the Makah. Coté explained that in the Indigenous parlance and belief system, they do not kill creatures; rather the creatures give themselves to the people.

The taking of the gray whale was a major cultural event and the Makah community shared its meat. Eating whale, says Coté, is “an example of self-determination"; it’s important for both the cultural health of the community and the physical health of many Indigenous peoples, she said.

“Canada takes approximately 1,000 whales per year for food," said Kathy Happynook, author of Whaling around the World and Whaling for Food. This is hunting solely by Indigenous peoples.

Happynook, of the Huu-ay-aht First Nation, noted that whaling has a long tradition among many Indigenous peoples in Canada: “[The Canadian government] pulled out of the International Whaling Commission in 1982 in order to protect the Inuit’s right to hunt whales. Until recently, Canada was one of the largest whaling nations in the world[in terms of the number of whales killed each year]. More than 50 communities still hunt whales in Canada.”

Not all First Nations in Canada are able to whale, however. The federal government has prolonged the whaling moratorium in the Maa-nulth (“villages along the coast”) Agreement—despite the gray whale population having reached a size where sustainable hunting can occur.

The Maa-nulth Agreement is a six-stage treaty negotiation process that started in 1994 to address First Nations aspirations and Indigenous rights to self-governance, which were recognized and affirmed under the 1982 Constitution Act. It involves the B.C. provincial government, the federal government and five Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations whose communities approved the draft Agreement in Principle: Huu-ay-aht First Nation, Ka:’yu:’k’t’h’/Che:k’tles7et’h First Nation, Toquaht Nation, Uchucklesaht Tribe and Ucluelet First Nation. The treaty, signed by the Maa-nulth First Nations and the B.C. provincial government on April 9, 2009, still awaits federal government ratification.

Whaling was dropped from the Maa-nulth Agreement language in 2006; however, there was a side-agreement where the Maa-nulth First Nations agreed, for 25 years effective from date of the treaty, to hold off exercising their traditional right to hunt gray whales and sei whales in return for other benefits. Kathy Happynook explained, "That was the only way Maa-nulth could get grey and sei whales in the [side-] agreement."

The side-agreement acknowledges the Maa-nulth First Nations to be "historic whaling nations" with the right to harvest Fish for domestic purposes. The definition of fish includes marine animals. Moreover, it was stated that, "The grey and sei whales have recovered from industrial exploitation and are no longer considered by Canada to be endangered species" and the "Maa-nulth First Nations have the ability to propose an allocation for harvest of grey and sei whales in an annual fishing plan."

Hereditary Huu-ay-aht Chief Tom Mexsis Happynook, grandson of a whaler and supporter of Indigenous rights, was pleased that the right to future whaling is preserved by the side-agreement, despite the fact that traditional whaling by the Nuu-chah-nulth people will not be possible for some decades to come.

For the Makah in the US, their treaty right remains, but court cases have kept exercising that right in abeyance.

In Anderson v. Evans (2004), the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Makah Nation must obtain a waiver from government regulatory bodies if they wish to whale. The Makah have applied for a waiver and await a decision.

According to the Makah Whaling Commission, the whaling is to be conducted humanely and is to be non-commercial, with meat being shared among all people in the Makah Nation. Moreover, the Makah Whaling Commission stated, “We will only permit whaling if there is an unmet traditional subsistence or cultural need for whale in the community.”

The Makah Nation seeks understanding in their quest to hold onto their culture and way of life: “We ask the public to remember that throughout the history of the United States there has been a sad record of intolerance of Indian culture. We hope that thoughtful Americans will ask themselves whether they can and should respect the efforts of a small Tribe which is trying to preserve its culture in ways that are consistent with the conservation of natural resources.”

Kim Petersen is Original Peoples Editor for The Dominion.

Makah Whaling