Mining another threat to Labrador life

Page 2

Miners and construction workers are flooding into Innu and Inuit ter-ritory in Labrador, where the world's biggest nickel and copper mine has been discovered in the middle of an ancient Native burial site.

"It's scary. They just might set up another town right there in the middle of Innu territory," says Chief Katie Rich of the Mushuau Innu First Nation, whose mother's parents are buried at the Voisey Bay site.

"They're just drilling anywhere and everywhere. People are angry. Is it going to be another Oka? I don't know."

The ore deposit, worth an estimated $1.6 billion, lies half way be-tween Mushuau, or Davis Inlet, and the Inuit community of Nain. Mining helicopters and planes are landing in Nain on a daily basis.

"We don't know anything about what's going on over there. There is talk in the community that we might go over there and protest. People are very much concerned about how fast the project is going," said Rich. In February, the Innu Nation promised to take direct action to stop the mining activity if local First Nations are ignored.

"The company's action leaves us no choice but to take direct action to defend the land and our rights," said Innu Nation president Peter Penashue.

A protest camp was temporarily set up at the mining site. Fifty Mounties were eventually sent in to the camp to protect equipment. The Innu protest halted operations, and talks got under way between the Innu, Inuit and Vancouver-based mining company Diamond Fields, which is de-veloping the site.

Those talks broke down when the company refused to recognize Abo-riginal title to the land, which the Innu and Inuit have never relinquished.

"We want the company to state that it's Innu and Inuit land," Rich said. "They won't do it because they feel the province owns the land and yet we have never signed an agreement (ceding the land) with anybody."

She has been fighting other battles as well. Just after being re-elected chief this spring, she was jailed for 10 days at the Stephenville Women's Correctional centre for helping expel a judge from her community in 1991. Rich and other Mushuau women were angered by the treatment Innu people receive at the hands of the justice system and wanted reform.