Innu from Quebec Join Voisey's Protest
8/24/97
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: Innu from Quebec Join Voisey's Protest
Source: Armand Mckenzie
Tel: 418-968-4890
Site WWW: http: // www.web.net / ~innu
e - mail: innuqc@quebectel.com
Date: 8/24/97
Top Stories from CBC National Radio News
Updated at: 18:37 ET Sun, Aug 24
Aboriginal groups will be in court tomorrow to try again to
get an injunction to stop construction of a road and
airstrip in northern Labrador. But a protest against
construction is already underway. On Thursday, Inuit
protestors set up a log barricade on the disputed road at
nickel-rich Voisey's Bay. Since then more than 300 Inuit and
Innu protestors have joined protestors near the road. The
RCMP have sent in 35 officers to monitor the situation.
Larry Innes
Visit the Innu Nation WWW site:
Environmental Advisor
http://www.innu.ca
Innu Nation
P.O. Box 119, Sheshatshiu, Labrador, Canada A0P 1M0
phone: (709) 497-8398 email: innuenv@web.net fax:
(709) 497-8396
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OTHER INNU FROM QUEBEC JOIN THE PROTEST AT VOISEY'S BAY
Sept-Iles - 22 August 1997 - Innu from Quebec have decided
to come in reinforcement to their Innu brothers and sisters
of Labrador and joined the protest against works and
construction in Voisey's Bay.
Innu leaders from Schefferville and Mingan as well as others
will leave in the next hours for the site of Voisey's Bay.
It has been days now, members of the Innu Nation and the
Labrador Inuit Association demonstrate and protest on the
site of Voisey's Bay. More of 250 demonstrators have
appeared so as to erect their camps.
According to, the Chief of the community of Mingan
(Ekuantshit) Jean-Charles Pietacho, An undertaking of this
magnitude needs a full and complete environnement study and
the consent of the Aboriginal Peoples. Inco and its
affiliate have to know that one can not exploit native
resources and territories while leaving Native Peoples to
burst in misery. That is both immoral and fundamentally bad
for mining companies. Henceforth, Inco and others have to
realize that the Indigenous Peoples will refuse all
development based on the principle of the exponential
enrichment of a multinational to the Native Peoples'
detriment.
In the case of Voisey Bay, too much development and works
have been made. Major infrasctructures majors have been
built without the consent of Innu and without a land rights
agreement declared Chief Pietacho.
For more than a year, Innu Nation and the Labrador Inuit
Association have tried to come up to an agreement with the
Voisey Bay Nickel Company an entirely controlled affiliate
of Inco so as to minimize the impacts of the project on
native communities of the Labrador. Negotiations have been
broken down between the company and native peoples in debut
of week after that Inco has refused to stop works in the
meantime the conclusion of agreements and the finalisation
of environmental studies.
Innu Nation and the Labrador Inuit Association have tried by
all means to stop the construction works of the company,
including a judicial action at the Supreme Court of
Newfoundland and Labrador. The appeal of this decision will
be heard 25 August next week but many Innu and Inuit feel
pessimistic as for results of this judicial process. Each
day that passes allows Inco to end its works.
The Chief of the community of Schefferville, Mr. Thadde
Andr has indicated that the protest is a peaceful one and
that it serves to demonstrate the will of Innu and Inuit to
live in a healthy environment where the development will be
planned by taking into account interest of peoples that
have lived on these territories for thousands of years and
that are going to continue to live there for several
millennia. By being together, Innu and Inuit, we indicate
clearly in Inco, to Brian Tobin and to companies and
provincial governments of the same kind that our peoples
will no longer accept the destruction of their traditional
territories has concluded the Chief of Schefferville.
The two Innu chiefs, members of the Innu Council of
Nitassinan a NGO in special consultative status with the
Economic and Social Council of the United Nations plan to
use their experiences in their struggle against NATO's
military low-level flights to call to their national and
international support groups, so as to lead a vast campaign
of information that would aim to denounce Inco'sactivities
in Innu territory.
The Innu Council of Nitassinan represents communities of
Mingan, Natashquan, The Romaine, Pakua Shipi on the lower
North Shore, the Innu community of Schefferville and the two
communities of the Labrador, namely, Sheshatshiu, close to
Goose Bay and Utshimassiu (Davis Inlet).
Source: Armand Mckenzie
Tel: 418-968-4890
Site WWW: http: // www.web.net / ~innu
e - mail: innuqc@quebectel.com