From ‘Akwesasne Notes’, Mid Winter 1986, Mohawk Nation territory
Included herein is information for your files concerning the militarization of our homeland Ntesinan (Nitassinan) in the Quebec-Labrador peninsula. During the next year, we will be doing everything in our power, using peaceful means, to stop the military training activities on our land in particular the construction of an $800 million NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] Tactical Fighter Weapons Training Centre. If approved the NATO base will bring to our homeland air-to-air (dogfighting) and air-to-sea manoeuvres, expanded low-level flying, 3-4 bombing ranges, Instrumented Air Combat Manoeuvring Ranges, etc. The training activities would likely change from year-to-year as NATO training requirements are altered and as the technology employed in modern warfare changes. Who knows what kind of training will be permitted in our land once NATO gets its foot in the door?
Needless-to-say, we do not think that all these training activities, in addition to other incursions in our territory (e.g. dams, roads, mines, sports hunters and fishermen, etc.), are compatible with the survival of our hunting way of life. It will be impossible for the military to avoid Innu camps and hunting and gathering parties when the training activities reach their fully operational level. The net result of all this will be to force the Innu out of the country and into government built communities where alcohol abuse and a whole range of social pathologies resulting from culture collapse, alien domination, and a humiliating dependency on our colonizers are so prevalent. DND [Department of National Defence] officials stated at a Military Awareness Meeting in Goose Bay in September 1985 that NATO will make a final decision about the base sometime late in 1986, but the timetable for the decision-making process involved here may be much shorter than we have been led to believe.
The position of the Innu people regarding military training activities in Ntesinan is that the Canadian government and its NATO allies must terminate all plans to build the NATO base in Goose Bay and to halt the existing low-level training activities. (Please see the Assembly of First Nations Resolution contained herein). The reasons for adopting this position are as follows:
1) Present training activities are disturbing the wildlife and are making life miserable for our people who live in the country in regions where low-level flying is occurring. The loud and unexpected noise produced by these aircraft is dangerous to our health in particular that of the young and elderly. The NATO base would make life in the flying zones virtually uninhabitable due to:
(a) increased low-level flying,
(b) supersonic low-level and higher altitude flying which would produce frequent sonic booms (and focus booms which in some parts of the southern U.S. smash windows and crack walls in houses),
(c) the presence of 3-4 bombing ranges with intensive flying activity occurring within a certain radius of each one (the first one will be built soon 12 miles south of Lac Minipi, just north of the Quebec-Labrador border),
(d) the possible use of toxic defoliants to maintain bombing ranges which would enter the food chain and contaminate fish and wildlife upon which the Innu depend for the subsistence (Grassy Narrows?),
(e) the presence of the flying zones of significant levels of electromagnetic radiation generated by AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control Systems), jamming and counter-jamming equipment on low-level aircraft and ground stations (forming part of the Instrumented Air Combat Manoeuvring Ranges). The training zones would be flooded with electromagnetic radiation especially when war games take place (electronic-warfare). We have reason to believe the electro-magnetic radiation at the levels emitted by AWACS, low-flying aircraft, etc. is dangerous to human health (wildlife?), but we are awaiting the arrival of additional information to confirm this.
(2) The Quebec-Labrador peninsula is one of the few remaining regions of the world still relatively free of the maiming ‘Midas touch’ of Euro-Canadian society. The NATO base will change all this and have a severe impact on the environment of the region.
(3) The training activities are taking place on Innu territory which has never been ceded to the Canadian state, and is therefore rightfully the property of the Innu people. Such training activities and various Euro-Canadian economic initiatives must not take place without the permission of the Innu.
(4) The kinds of training activities that are occurring at the moment and which will be expanded if the NATO base is built, are part of a NATO war strategy known as “Deep Strike’ (Airland Battle is the U.S. version of the same strategy). This strategy is destabilizing and will lower the threshold for a nuclear war. Moreover, the expanded military presence in Goose Bay will make the Lake Melville area, where the Innu community of Sheshatshit is situated, a prime target for a nuclear attack. Obviously, the Innu of Sheshatshit do not want to be bombed into radioactive dust in the event of a nuclear war.
We should point out here that the three studies presently being done or proposed on the impact of the military in the region by the NFLD [Newfoundland] and federal governments, namely, a $300,000 caribou study, an impact assessment by the Federal Environmental Assessment Review Office, and a study of the health impact by the Canadian Public Health Association will not be complete until after NATO makes a final decision about whether to build the base in Goose Bay or Konya, Turkey. What good are they then?
Sincerely
Ben Michel
DECLARATION OF THE INNUT ON THE DEMILITARIZATION OF NTESINAN
Date: May 31, 1985
We wish to make public our firm opposition to the use of our territory (Quebec-Labrador), of which a large part constitutes the migration grounds of the caribou, for military purposes, specifically the low-level flight training over our outpost camps. There are several reasons for this unconditional opposition:
1 — The territory used for the low-level flying exercises has for hundred of years been our people’s territory. Many families still live on this land for a major part of the year.
2 — We are firmly convinced that these low-level flights have seriously affected the wildlife in our territory the caribou herds, furbearing animals, fish and fowl. Certain consequences of the flights can be clearly identified:
– general disruption of the caribou’s migration patterns,
– abandonment of the calving grounds of the caribou,
– severe reduction of live births of the wildlife,
– a significant decrease in the trapping income of our people residing in the territory.
3 — The Innut and biologists have identified the negative effects of the flights on various species of animals the geese, the beaver, the porcupine, the partridge, all the species which the Innut depend upon for their subsistence.
4 — The Innu families, in particular the elders and the children, have been traumatized by repeated overflights on their camps. It is important to emphasize that Innu children learn the traditional hunting way of life from their parents while they are in the country. But for a number of years, it has been increasingly difficult for our children to learn this way of life because they are traumatized by the military jets. It is important to emphasize that the military knows the location of our camps, and yet they continue to fly over at low altitudes.
5– We, the Innu people, the legitimate rightful owners of this territory, have never ceded through any treaties, land claim agreements or consultation, our collective rights to self-determination and permanent sovereignty over the territory and its natural resources.
6 — The collective rights of the Innut are guaranteed by international conventions which have been signed by Canada. The use of our territory for military low-level flight training against our will constitutes a flagrant violation of these conventions.
7– Innu hunters are unable to leave their camps as they once did for 2 or 3 weeks at a time to hunt and trap. They can no longer leave the elders, women and children behind at the main camps because of possible accidents and other problems which may arise when the planes fly over. Problems, for example, such as: children fleeing into the forest in fear of the flights, people in canoes panicking from the sudden noise and low attitude of the jets, etc..
8 — We, the Innu people of Ntesinan, from St. Agustin, La Romaine, Natashquan, Mingan, Davis Inlet and Sheshatshit, unanimously oppose the use of our territory by the military and we will use any peaceful means at our disposal to put an end to the flights and their abuse of our people and our land.
RESOLUTION
Assembly of First Nations – October, 1985
Subject: NATO Military Low-Level Manoeuvers over the INNU Territory (Quebec and Labrador)
WHEREAS Canada has since 1980 signed agreements with the NATO countries, authorizing them to conduct military manouvers at low altitude over the Innu Territory, by identifying two large geographical zones of training, directly over the traditional territory of the Innu people; and,
WHEREAS Canada has nominated the Innu Territory as a site for proposed NATO Tactical Fighter Weapons Training Center, where aircraft would not only train for low-level ground attack but also for air-to-air combat and air-to-sea combat; and,
WHEREAS the territory used for low-level training exercises has, for thousands of years, been the traditional Innu Territory and today, the territory is fully occupied by the Innu families who live off the land and its natural resources; and,
WHEREAS the Innu have evidence that these low-level flights have already seriously affected the wildlife and certain disastrous consequences of those repeated flights have been identified, namely:
– disruption of the caribou’s migration patterns
– abandonment of the calving grounds of the caribou
– severe reduction of live births of the wildlife
– a significant decrease in the trapping of the Innu people residing in the territory; and,
WHEREAS the Innu families, in particular the elders and the a children, have been traumatized by repeated flights over their camps and the Innu hunters are unable to leave their camps and can no longer leave behind the elders, the women and children at the main camps because of possible accidents and other problems which arise when the planes fly over, for example, children fleeing into the forest in fear of the flights, people in canoes panicking at the sudden noise because of the low altitude of the jets, pregnant mothers under nervous shock that might affect the life of the unborn children; and,
WHEREAS these military manouvers are destroying a whole people and their way of life and the land is becoming empty and dead like a desert; and,
WHEREAS the Innu people, the lawful owners of this territory, have never ceded, through any treaty or land claim agreement, their collective right to self-determination and permanent sovereignty over their territory and its natural resources; and,
WHEREAS the Innu people are being arrested and their materials are being seized by Newfoundland Game Wardens for crossing an imaginary line which is the Quebec-Labrador border that bisects the Innu’s traditional territory; and,
WHEREAS the collective land rights of indigenous people are recognized by international law; and,
WHEREAS the aboriginal rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada, including their land title, are recognized and affirmed in the supreme law of Canada (i.e. S.35 of the Constitution Act 1982); and
WHEREAS the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec has adopted at its last meeting in Kahnawake, a resolution condemning the military low-level training flights of the several NATO countries over the Innu Territory of Quebec’s north shore and Labrador; and,
WHEREAS THE Council Attikamek Montagnais has already started environmental, biological and sociological impact studies and is doing important work in defence of the Innu people in this issue,
BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED THAT the Confederacy of Nations declares its solidarity with the Innu First Nation regarding its rights and jurisdiction over its territory; and the rights of its citizens to practice their way of life in peace; and,
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the use of the Innu Territory for military low-level flight training against the will of the Innu constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and of the Canadian Constitution; and,
BE IT ALSO RESOLVED THAT the Confederacy of Nations strongly objects to the harassment of the Innu by Newfoundland Government officials and that the National Chief and members of the Confederacy pressure the Newfoundland and Canadian Governments to stop this harassment; and,
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED THAT the Executive Council including the National Chief do whatever is necessary and possible to have the Canadian Government cease the low-level flights and military manouvers and fulfill its duty to protect and respect the rights of the Innu Nation.
MOVED BY Guy Bellefleur (La Romaine, Quebec)
SECONDED BY John Bekale (Dene Nations, NWT)
Edmonton, Alberta
October 31, 1985
c/o Naskapi Montagnais Innu Association
Sheshatshit,
Labrador, A0P 1M0
Also
Nitinikiau Innusi = I keep the land alive, by Tshaukuesh Elizabeth Penashue (2019)
Torching of RCMP SUV in Innu community draws local online praise, by Jorge Barrera / APTN (2017)
Nitassinan : the Innu struggle to reclaim their homeland, by Marie Wadden (2001)
Innu Women and NATO: The Occupation of Nitassinan, from Cultural Survival (1990)
NATO Fighter Planes Invade Innu Territory, by Open Road (1987)
CFB Goose Bay (wikipedia page)
If We Must Fight, Let’s Fight for the Most Glorious Nation, Insubordination
An Archive 
This is a good time to repost this material with the NATO summit coming up in July in Washington DC and the mad escalation to war and more war. When is it official? And indeed Innu people continue the struggle on the frontlines. We never give up!
LikeLike