[Yhjusticenet] Fw: MONDAY, 14 April, 9:30 am Amnesty at hearing re Lubicon

[Emmy Henry]

There will be a hearing concerning the Lubicon
on MONDAY, 14 April, at 9:30 am
at the HSDC Building, 10055 106 St, 12th Floor, Edmonton.
The Lubicon will give a presentation at this time.

Dietlind Bork, the local Amnesty fieldworker who works
with Amnesty youth/student groups, also represents
Amnesty in the local work concerning the Lubicon,
whose lands & resources here in Alberta are being 
sold by the province even though there is still no
treaty.    She is working with Amnesty Canada's
Craig Benjamin on this issue.  Several other NGOs
are working to help the Lubicon as well as Amnesty.

Dietlind has asked that as many people as possible
attend this hearing to show support for the Lubicon.
She will register - at 8:30 am - for permission to
give a short statement from Amnesty.


Sorry for the short notice! If you can, come, and 
please let anyone you think might be interested know.

Below if information from the Amnesty Canada web site
http://www.amnesty.ca/take_action/action_indexes/indigenous_peoples.php

Mary Trumpener


Canada: The Rights of the Lubicon Cree
Updated: 28 March 2006


Lubicon Chief Bernard Ominayak
Photo: Friends of the Lubicon 
Over the last quarter century, the Lubicon Cree have seen the land on which they depend transformed by logging and large-scale oil and gas extraction to which they've never consented. 

The Lubicon, an Indigenous nation of approximately 500 people living in northern Alberta, have never surrendered their rights to their traditional lands. The Lubicon were simply overlooked when a treaty was negotiated with other Indigenous peoples in the region in 1899. 

In the 1970s, the Alberta government initiated a program of massive oil and gas development on what it considered to be Crown land. The Lubicon say that their health, their way of life and their culture itself have been devastated by these developments. And the Lubicon have fought for respect of their rights in Canadian courts and before the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC). 

In March 1990, the UNHRC concluded that "historical inequities" and "more recent developments" have endangered the way of life and the culture of the Lubicon Cree. The Committee ruled that "so long as they continue" these threats are a violation of the Lubicons' fundamental human rights. 

At the time, the Canadian government assured the UNHRC that it was seeking a settlement that would protect the rights of the Lubicon. To date, however, no such settlement has been reached. 

It has been almost two years since there were any substantial negotiations between the Lubicon and the Canadian government. In the meantime, licenses continue to be granted to allow resource extraction on or near the disputed territories. 

Amnesty International calls on the Canadian government, like all governments, to uphold the commitments it has made in signing and ratifying core international human rights conventions, to live up to widely agreed upon human rights standards, and to comply without delay and in a broad and systematic fashion with the urgent recommendations of its own commissions and UN treaty bodies. 

TAKE ACTION:
Download this petition asking the Canadian government to resume negotiations with the Lubicon Lake Band, with a view to finding a treaty solution that respects the human rights of the Band. Get friends, family and community members to add their voice to this important call for justice


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