KI and Battle over N Development- US Magazine

Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug and the battle over northern development in
Canada

by Todd Gordon
ZNet
March 26, 2008

The recent jailing of six activists from
Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI), a fly-in Cree
community 600 Km. north of Thunder Bay, is an
unambiguous warning to northern First Nation
communities who dare stand in the way of
governments' and resource companies' plans to
develop the north.

On March 17, the six KI members were handed six
month jail sentences for contempt of court by the
Ontario Superior Court in Thunder Bay. The
contempt of court ruling was made after the court
ruled in the fall 2007 that junior mining
exploration company, Platinex, can legally drill
for Platinum deposits on traditional KI
territory, despite the First Nation community's
long-standing opposition to Platinex's plans. KI
activists ignored the ruling, and physically
stopped Platinex workers from commencing drilling
on their land. Activists, including a KI Ontario
Provincial Police Officer (OPP), threatened to
arrest the Platinex workers if they didn't back
off (no doubt presenting to political and OPP
leaders a potentially serious loophole in their
aboriginal self-policing policy).

Unable to fund a legal challenge to the contempt
ruling, KI activists were left at the mercy of
the court, which took the opportunity to send a
clear message to indigenous activists. In his
decision, Justice George Smith declared: "If two
systems of law are allowed to exist - one for the
aboriginals and one for the non-aboriginals - the
rule of law will disappear and be replaced by
chaos." Ontario's Aboriginal Affairs Minister,
Michael Bryant, commented that the government had
tried hard to reason with KI and come to a just
compromise around mining development on their
land, but the First Nation community was simply
too intransigent. Thus he washed his hands of
matter, asserting that "the government did its
best to avoid incarceration."

Judge Smith's and Bryant's comments are designed
to make it appear as if everyone, including KI,
is equal before the law and can therefore get a
fair shake if they're willing to play by the
rules - rules, for good measure, that keep us
from descending into chaos. The reality, however,
is that the one system of law that exists, rooted
in colonialist history and imposed on sovereign
nations by force, is designed to deny equality to
indigenous nations and facilitate the ongoing
appropriation of indigenous land. Equality before
the law can never exist in a colonial context,
and was never intended to. For the "chaos" the
law is protecting us from is really only chaos in
the eyes of big business and government: the
assertion of indigenous self-determination, which
stands as a major obstacle to corporate profits.

Unfortunately, the KI incident is not an isolated
event. In April, Ardoch Algonquin First Nation
leader, Robert Lovelace, was given a six month
jail sentence for refusing to obey a judicial
order to stop blockading Frontenac Ventures'
proposed uranium mine on his community's land.
The 550-person community, which has no government
status and so receives no government funds, was
also fined $10,000. Behind both of these events
lies a major push to radically expand the
frontiers of Canadian capitalism northwards.