The People’s Front (1980) was founded in Vancouver, B.C. by citizens
and residents of
Canada active in opposing racism and imperialist war, and more recently
in advancing the
politics of democratic renewal to vest sovereignty in the people as
part of a
nation-building project.
Our organization objects to the Federal Government expropriation of
the seabed off
Nanoose Bay for the following reasons:
1. The territory in question is unceded Aboriginal territory belonging
to the sovereign
Aboriginal peoples constituting themselves as the Te’mexw Treaty Association.
The Crown, either in the Right of Canada or the Right of British Columbia,
has
never acquired jurisdiction over the said seabed through lawful and
constitutional
means, and is in contempt of the Canada Act (1982) which validates
all Treaty
obligations with Aboriginal peoples in the territory of Canada, including
the
provisions of the Royal Proclamation (1763) which prohibits the transfer
of
Aboriginal territory save and except through negotiations nation to
nation between
Aboriginal peoples and the Crown. The knowing violation of this fundamental
constitutional law by the Federal authority in the present expropriation
puts this
authority in contempt of its own law.
2. The Federal Government’s proposed hostile expropriation of land from
the
Government of British Columbia, should it have been lawfully ceded
by its
original Aboriginal owners, would still be unlawful. It would be in
violation of
both the letter and spirit of the 19th century arrangement by which
the men of
property of British Columbia arranged a union with the Dominion of
Canada
within the context of the British Empire. While it is true that the
19th century
arrangements embodied in the Canada Acts (1867) and (1982) are outdated
and no
longer meet the modern requirements of present day Canadians, it is
not
acceptable that the Executive Branch of the Federal Government unilaterally
and
arbitrarily change arrangements in a piecemeal, self-serving manner
without any
regard for the existing arrangements, or the necessity to lawfully
re-constitute the
federation to meet the collective needs of the regions and nations
comprising
Canada as well as the needs for the polity as a whole. The demands
of the
populace for new arrangements recognizing the modern rights of citizens
to
exercise sovereignty as was expressed most ardently in the period from
the
collapse of the Meech Lake Agreement to the rejection by Canadians
of the
Charlottetown Accord are being totally disregarded by the Federal Government.
Instead, in its pragmatic effort to placate the demands of the United
States navy,
the Federal Government is rushing through a hostile expropriation of
lands
declared by the Supreme Court of Canada to be under the jurisdiction
of British
Columbia. The Federal government is carrying on a heedless wrecking
of the
country, and this instance of undermining old federal-provincial arrangements
can
be seen as similar in nature to its decisions to wreck social programs
in health
care, education, social welfare and environment, and to abandon the
old National
Policy through its adherence to FTA, NAFTA and other measures leading
to the
increasing domination of our country by the United States of America.
3. The Federal Government’s purported reasons for expropriation of the
seabed is to
“safeguard Canada’s defence and security needs, and to ensure that
use of the
Nanoose test ranges can be sustained.” (Arthur Eggleton, Open Letter,
21 June
1999) Defence is defined as “resistance against attack; protection”
(The Random
House Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd Edition, unabridged,
1987, p
522.), and security is “freedom from danger, risk, etc; safety.” (Ibid.,
p. 1731). The
Federal Government does not explain who is attacking Canada, or from
whom we
need to be protected. The following question has been posed by a wide
cross-section of Canadian public opinion: is not the so-called “protection”,
the
nuclear-weapons strategy of the United States Pentagon, itself the
greatest danger
to the peace, security and well-being of the Canadian people? Even
during the
Cold War the greatest danger to the peace and security of Canada was
the U.S.
“nuclear umbrella” of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
and the
North American Air Defence Agreement (NORAD). With the collapse of
the
bi-polar division of the world, the United States has escalated its
aggressive
behavior internationally, first in the Middle East, then in the Balkans
and presently
in the Far East where the United States seems intent in fermenting
a war against
North Korea or even China. The torpedo testing station at Nanoose Bay
is part of
the threat to the security and defence of Canada represented as a whole
by the
United States nuclear war strategy, of which its Trident and other
nuclear
submarines are a strategic part.
4. Members of the present Federal Liberal Government have been formally
accused
at the International Court in The Hague of violating International
Law by waging
an undeclared war against a sovereign state, a brother founding member
of the
United Nations, namely, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Moreover,
the state
most directly responsible for the unlawful war waged against Yugoslavia,
ironically within the very time frame of the present proceedings to
expropriate
Nanoose Bay, is the United States of America. Therefore, the Federal
Government, by expropriating the seabed, can be accused of doing so
for unlawful
purposes, namely, to prepare for wars of aggression against sovereign
states.
Canada’s membership in NATO, which organized and executed the recent
bombing of Yugoslavia, makes it a party to a conspiracy to plan and
carry out an
illegal, aggressive war. At Nuremberg, the United States and Britain
pressed the
prosecution of Nazi leaders for planning and initiating aggressive
war. Supreme
Court Justice Robert Jackson, the head of the American prosecution
staff, asserted:
“that launching a war of aggression is a crime and that no political
or economic
situation can justify it.” He also declared that “if certain
acts in violation of
treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does
them or
Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal
conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked
against us.”
The United Nations Charter views aggression similarly. Articles 2(4)
and (7)
prohibit interventions in the domestic jurisdiction of any country
and threats of
force or the use of force by one state against another. The General
Assembly of the
UN in Resolution 2131, “Declaration on the Inadmissability of Intervention”,
reinforced the view that a military intervention in any country is
aggression and a
crime without justification.
5. Clearly in law, to aid and abet someone to commit serious crimes
is itself a crime,
and it can justly be alleged that all those party to facilitating the
Federal
Government’s expropriation of the seabed for the continued use by the
United
States navy in its ongoing preparation for further wars of aggression,
are
themselves participating in one of the gravest crimes categorized by
modern law.
To quote from The Nuremberg Principles of 1946 under “Crimes Against
Peace”
section i: “Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of war of aggression
or a war
in violation of international treaties, agreements on assurances; (ii)
Participation in
a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any acts mentioned
in
(i).” The use of Nanoose Bay by the United States Navy constitutes
such a
“planning and preparation” of illegal and aggressive war. Already
many
submissions have emphasized the particular dangers posed by the nuclear
aspect of
the war preparations being tested at Nanoose which compounds the crime,
as
nuclear war and nuclear weapons have been specifically condemned as
unlawful.
6. The United States is the party most directly concerned with procuring
the seabed
to test its naval armaments. This country has waged over 70 wars of
aggression
since World War II, and has staged or supported numerous coups d’etat
and fascist
dictatorships intervening in the internal affairs of other countries
with both covert
and overt acts of aggression. The United States of America is the only
country in
the world to drop nuclear bombs on cities killing hundreds of thousands
of
defenceless Japanese citizens. We should well remember this today,
August 6th,
Hiroshima Day, the 54th Anniversary of this U.S. nuclear crime against
humanity.
7. The U.S.A. has very recently used nuclear material, depleted uranium,
to bomb
civilian populations in Iraq and Yugoslavia. The U.S.A. is the
most violent,
lawless and aggressive state in the world today, practicing the medieval
ethic of
Might Makes Right to dictate how every people and country should run
its affairs.
If it disagrees with the regime of a country, for example Cuba, North
Korea, Iran,
Iraq, Yugoslavia, it gives itself a right to carry out sanctions and
blockades in
violation of international law, or to bomb or otherwise interfere in
their internal
affairs. We can not properly speak to the issue of Nanoose and the
perfecting of
the naval arm of the U.S. military machine there without setting the
matter within
the context of the entire world situation. Canada is aiding and abetting
a war
criminal, a flagrant violator of international law, and the most dangerous
aggressive power the world has ever known. The full danger of this
state to the
achievements of human civilization and societies the world over has
yet to be
played out, but the foreshadowing of impending tragedies, including
the
unleashing of nuclear war as the U.S. tries to impose its will over
the entire globe
is certainly clear for all those who look at reality in a sober and
thoughtful manner.
8. Interestingly the logic of the Federal Government to expropriate
the Nanoose
Seabed is that it has “no option.” The U.S. used a similar logic to
justify its
dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The “no option”
“no
alternative” logic was also used to justify the bombing of Yugoslavia.
Every
criminal aggressor has used such banal self-serving logic. To permit
the Federal
Government to expropriate the Nanoose Seabed to aid and abet the United
States
navy perfect weapons of mass destruction is nothing less than a crime
against
humanity.
9. The entire sham process of the present hearing itself also calls
out for the sharpest
criticism by everyone seriously trying to grapple with the problem
of ending the
political marginalization of the citizens and residents of our country.
What the
Expropriation Act (1970), and these hearings as a creature of this
act emphasize to
all, is how people of our country have absolutely no control over our
own lives
and the vast territory we call our country. What the hearing,
with its over 2,000
objectors also underlines, is how strongly the people of Canada feel
the absence of
this control over their lives, and how much they want to control their
lives and the
destiny of our country. The proceedings also illustrate how bureaucracy
and
legalism is used to prevent serious discussion from taking place or
any serious
legal submission to stop the expropriation from taking place because
those who
wrote the rules governing this process do not consider themselves accountable
to
the people, nor subject to the sovereign will of the people. They conceptualize
Executive authority as sovereign and the people as subjects. This 19th
century
liberal unrepresentative democracy is precisely the block obstructing
the Canadian
people to achieve their security and defend the nation.
10. Democracy must be renewed to meet the needs of modern society, not
the least of
which is to establish equal and peaceful relations among all states,
large and small.
Renewal of democracy at home and internationally is necessary to ensure
that war
is never used as a means of settling disputes. But it is precisely
against renewal
that the Liberal Party and other major political parties in our unrepresentative
democracy stand as a block. Canadians certainly want peaceful and equal
relations
with our only land connected neighbour, the United States. But
we can not be
unmindful that this powerful country has tried to annex our country
in the past,
and continues to act towards us in a self-serving manner to the detriment
of the
economic, cultural, political and military independence of our country.
Bowing to
the dictate of the U.S. Navy to perpetuate its thirty-four year control
over Nanoose
Bay in order to perfect its weapons of mass destruction is the very
opposite of
“defence” and “security” of Canada. It is an act of national nihilism
putting the
military interests of the U.S. navy before the safety of the people
of British
Columbia and the interests of world peace.
11. A further consideration regarding the marginalization of the people
with regard to
this most important matter before us has to do with the ownership and
control of
the mass media. How can a modern democracy have informed citizens when
a
handful of very rich men own and control all the modern means of
communication. The mass media has become synonymous with disinformation
and
mass manipulation, with a continuous lowering of the level of political
culture and
discourse. How is it possible that a forum dedicated to hearing objections
from the
citizens of B.C. to the Federal expropriation of the Nanoose Seabed
go so
unreported in the mass media? Renewal of democracy and international
relations
require that the people know the truth. Modern media must be accountable
to
society and open to the views of all the collectives and individuals
in society so
that a serious and mature discussion on all public affairs can take
place, with full
and accurate information provided to all, and where all opinions and
views are
given respectful hearing.
12. The People’s Front is confident that the people of British Columbia
are
sufficiently intelligent and concerned to find the ways and means of
overcoming
their marginalization by present political arrangements, and will succeed
in
overcoming the force of disinformation imposed upon them by the media.
During
the 1980s our organization participated with hundreds of others, including
those
who comprised the Peace Flotilla in 1986, in demonstrating against
the U.S.
warships entering Vancouver Harbour. We also participated in the People’s
Inquiry into Nanoose Bay held in Nanaimo that year.
13. Much has changed in the world since then. Clearly, the end of the
Cold War has
not brought about world peace, increased security or equal relations
between states
making up the United Nations. On the contrary, the emergence of the
United States
as the world’s sole superpower has led to an escalation of aggression
and war.
Knowing that the present forum is a sham and useful only for concerned
citizens
and organizations to mobilize themselves and articulate their views,
we call upon
all the 2000 and more objectors to step up our collective and co-operative
activities to ensure the Nanoose Testing Facility is shut down through
the actions
of the people. Further, that we work together to get Canada out of
NATO and
NORAD, and unite in a nation-building project to make Canada free from
U.S.
domination and dictate, capable of finding its own bearings so as to
make a
contribution to the material and cultural well-being of its own and
the world’s
peoples within a system of states governed by the rule of law whereby
war and
weapons of mass destruction are banned forever.
14. For all the above reasons we oppose the Federal Government expropriation
of the
Nanoose Seabeds, and call upon all others likewise opposed to work
together to
find the ways and means of mobilizing the people of British Columbia
and the rest
of Canada to ensure the testing station is closed and U.S. submarines
and all
foreign military forces are banned from Canadian territory.
Submitted on Behalf of People’s Front/East Indian Defence Committee by
Charles Boylan, Spokesperson (B.C.)
August 6th, 1999 (Hiroshima Day)