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Globe and MailWINNIPEG — An outspoken Canadian native leader is urging Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to throw his weight behind an attempt to block two multibillion-dollar pipelines that will transport oil from Alberta to the United States.
Terrance Nelson, chief of the Roseau First Nation in Manitoba, met last week with officials at the Venezuelan embassy in Ottawa and yesterday released a letter to Mr. Chavez in which he calls the President "a beacon of hope for poor and oppressed people everywhere."
The letter asks Mr. Chavez to turn the international spotlight to human-rights violations against indigenous people in Canada and to champion their cause. It says Mr. Nelson and other native leaders plan to expose the damage done to Canada's indigenous people in the runup to the 2010 Olympics in B.C., in a campaign similar to the protests marring China's preparations for the Beijing Games.
"What Chavez will do is give us an international forum," Mr. Nelson said. "We're fighting big oil. We have two pipelines going through that
going to bring $47-billion a year in crude oil sales to the U.S., and we're saying the government is not sitting down with us. They're not following the law. The Supreme Court has made dozens of decisions on this - on the duty to consult and accommodate - and they haven't done that."
Mr. Nelson is asking Mr. Chavez for a $1-million donation or loan to help Roseau River take the federal government to court. Mr. Nelson said native bands should be compensated for allowing two pipelines, being built by Enbridge and TransCanada, to cross their territory. He said the companies are prepared to pay, as they have done with landowners, farmers and municipalities, but the federal government won't acknowledge that natives have a right to a share of resource wealth.
Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080417.whugo17/BNStory/National/home
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