KANGERLUSSUAQ, Greenland (AFP) — With the race for Arctic resources intensifying, the region's indigenous Inuits are raising their voices and demanding that nations bordering the Arctic Sea stop stealing their land and respect their way of life.
Arctic waters could hold 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas, according to the US Geological Survey -- meaning countries like the United States and Russia, who once used the frozen wastelands as a strategic pawn in the Cold War, are now eyeing up its energy reserves.
"The Inuits have been marginalised in the current debate on the Arctic by those who now control our land and waters," Aqqaluk Lynge, a Greenlandic politician who is the head of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) on the island, told AFP, speaking on behalf of 150,000 Inuits in the Arctic region.
"We no longer want to accept the isolation and harsh treatment that has been inflicted upon us in the past," he said, looking out across the former US army base at Kangerlussuaq in western Greenland.
"Where we are standing now is land that was annexed to build a US military base," one of many constructed in Greenland during and after World War II, he pointed out.
These bases were built on the semi-autonomous Danish territory due to its strategic geopolitical location between Europe and North America, but all of the bases have been closed now with the exception of the Thule radar base in the northwest.
"We paid the price of the sovereignty of these governments who steal our land, our resources. Enough is enough, we don't want to be displaced by force, as was the case in Thule (when Inuits were forcibly displaced for its construction in 1953), and we demand to be treated humanely," Lynge said.
Lynge, a lawyer and staunch advocate of Inuit rights, was the only representative of a non-governmental organisation invited to attend a meeting in May in Greenland which gathered the foreign ministers of the five countries that ring the Arctic Ocean: Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States.
The gathering was organised to thrash out competing territorial claims in the oil- and gas-rich region. The rivalry between the five neighbours has heated up as the melting polar ice makes the region more accessible.
As well as the undiscovered oil and gas reserves, scientists say the Northwest Passage could open up to year-round shipping by 2050, making access much easier for exploration firms.
Representing the Inuits from Greenland, Canada, Alaska and Siberia, Lynge said "the period of silence is over."
"We don't want the regime of the past where we were not allowed to open our mouths."
He noted that Inuits have over the years been forcibly displaced in Greenland, Canada, Alaska and northern Russia, most often to build military bases during the Cold War.
"There were military bases built on most Inuit lands in Alaska and northeastern Siberia," Lynge said.
The notion is particularly appalling to Inuits given their traditional view that land is a natural resource to be shared.
"We have always had collective ownership of the lands that were stolen from us," and at the same time, "states have established borders on our lands without ever even asking us," he said.
In Canada, he added, the Inuits of Nunavik were moved to the High Arctic in 1953, including Ellesmere Island so that Canada could make a stronger claim for sovereignty there.
"Unfortunately, most countries bordering the Arctic do not recognise the fundamental rights of indigenous peoples even though they were recognised by the UN in September 2007," he said.
Some countries, like Canada and the United States, have refused to allow Inuits to profit from the Arctic's resources.
"We are the only people in the world to be deprived of the right to our own riches," Lynge deplored.
"Inuits cannot survive only on subsistence hunting. We have to be allowed to produce and export, like everyone else in the world and yet we are not allowed to profit from the riches at our feet," he said.
But he hopes to see a change.
Now that the world "has opened its eyes to the Arctic and its possibilities", the Inuits are demanding that they "not be left by the wayside."
In November, ICC delegates will meet in the northern Canadian town of Kuujjuaq for their own summit on how to "collectively respond to the main forces -- state, industry and others -- that are debating questions of ownership of our lands and seas without us having a meaningful voice."
The final declaration from the Arctic meeting in Greenland acknowledged laconically that "climate change and the melting of ice have a potential impact on vulnerable ecosystems, the livelihoods of local inhabitants and indigenous communities and the potential exploitation of natural resources."
US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said it was important to "take into account" the Inuits' livelihoods when discussing development of the Arctic, a view echoed by Canada's Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn.
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