The Atrocities Of Greenland’s Bureau Of Minerals And Petroleum
Editorial Perspective by Marc Choyt
The Greenland Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum (BMP) is complicit, through collusion, conspiracy and corruption, of malfeasance towards the good citizens of Greenland.
It is unfortunate that True North Gems has been caught up in this fiasco. While they have made mistakes, they are correct when they say that they obeyed the laws. The fault for the current situation lies with the BMP. What could have been a win-win situation for everyone has become something entirely different.
BMP has practiced equivocation, made deliberate and disingenuous mis-statements, engaged in stone-walling, arbitrary policy reversal, duplicitous double-talk, and outright denial of due process. BMP has selectively harassed native citizens and foreign nationals.
BMP has conspired to have innocent people detained and arrested, and deprived of their property and their rights. They have practiced Writ of Attainder, whereby BMP arbitrarily declares conduct heretofore permitted as suddenly illegal without notice, and then retroactively punishes the newly criminalized behavior without benefit of trial.
BMP has disenfranchised entire village populations and denied them access to municipal lands for the purpose of traditional activities. They have denied Greenlanders their rights to earn a livelihood. They have even tried to deny the people their right to open communication with the international community of concerned civil society.
BMP has attempted to thwart the creation of the 16 August Union, a local small miner’s association. Their actions are intended to promulgate isolation and dependence by the indigenes. BMP’s actions in regards to their repression of the Small Miner’s Association represent the most reprehensible relicts of archaic colonialism.
Greenlander’s struggle for their rights to ruby is an intrinsic part of their struggle for independence and cultural identity. This is, at root, a Constitutional Issue (Section 32, Article 8 ) that goes directly to the foundation of the nation. Specifically: Who controls the natural resources of Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland).
CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES
How do the First Nations people deal with issues such as land restitution claims, mineral rights and the continual shifting of boundaries, threatening traditional rights versus the rights of the state?
Government’s culpability goes to a criminal bias against the indigenous, by denial of due process, stone-walling, takings by writ of attainder, intimidation, and false arrest.
This conflict pits the fundamental definition of native rights against their denial in modern practice.
This case is about more than Section 32 versus Section 7, more than just the definition of “precious versus semiprecious”, this is about “skraelings” versus “qalunaat”.
