"Village of widows" wants gov't attention

Page 1

The leaders of the Sahtu Dene people are clinging to the hope that the federal government will live up to the spirit of their treaty and deal with a tragedy within their community in an honorable fashion, but their advisors fear the Dene are in for a disappointment.

Several members of the Déline Dene First Nation travelled to Ottawa for a June 10 meeting with Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Jane Stewart and Ralph Goodale, the minister of Natural Resources. The Dene presented the ministers with They Never Told Us These Things, a 106-page document that is a record and an analysis of the "deadly and continuing impacts of radium and uranium mining" on the people who live on the shores of Great Bear Lake in the western Northwest Territories.

A generation of the men of the Déline Dene First Nation have died - or are dying - before their time. The community is convinced the premature deaths are the result of being exposed to radiation while they were working in a Crown-owned uranium mine during the 1940s. They also believe that radioactive waste, which remains in their territory, still poses a serious health risk.

There's convincing evidence they're right. A series of investigative stories by Calgary Herald environmental reporter Andrew Nikiforuk, published earlier this year, analyzed declassified United States government documents and concluded that federal officials on both sides of the border were aware of the health risks involved in uranium mining, yet did not warn the workers.

Nikiforuk unearthed formerly secret documents that showed atomic energy officials in Canada and the United States possessed scientific studies which concluded that even tiny amounts of radon, a radioactive gas which is freed during the processing of uranium ore, causes a wide variety of cancers. Despite being aware of the danger, the documents show, the government officials did not take action.

Sources in Ottawa believe there were several reasons for the lack of action. They believe that, since the company was owned by the federal government, and news that it was dangerous to work in the mine might hurt the business, the government decided to keep the scientific information secret. Documents from the United States reveal that bureaucrats in Washington intentionally hid the danger because they were worried the war effort would be hindered if the information was made public.

Some Dene people believe the Canadian government may have decided to continue pushing the miners to produce, because it was mainly Aboriginal people who were exposed and they were considered expendable.

"While whites were told to shower, the Dene children played with radioactive dust," NDP Indian Affairs critic Gordon Earle said during question period on May 26. "While the community buries its dead, the government is trying to bury the tragedy. Why are the ministers of Health, Indian Affairs and Natural Resources not there right now dealing with this catastrophe?"

The Dene were used as manual laborers to help meet a massive order from the U.S. military for 60 tonnes of uranium oxide. That product was used in the Manhattan Project which developed the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Dozens of Dene men carried the radioactive ore on their backs in gunny sacks. So far, 14 of the 26 men who carried ore during the mid-1940s have died of cancer. A 1991 government survey found the Deline people were twice a sick as any other Aboriginal community in the country. Yet no government study has been commissioned to find out why.

Over a month since the meeting with the ministers, the Dene report no concrete response to the 14-point action plan their delegation presented to them. The action plan asked for immediate crisis assistance, environmental and social assistance, full public disclosure of government actions, clean-up of Great Bear Lake and the surrounding area, acknowledgment that the government is responsible for the situation and fuding and assistance for community healing and cultural regeneration.

Murray Klippenstein, a Toronto-based lawyer acting for the Dene, was at the meeting with the ministers and the following meeting with the bureaucrats.

"There were expressions of sympathy and concern from the ministers which I believe were sincere," he told Windspeaker. "But after they left, the officials dealt with the Dene in what I believe was a very dishonorable way. They are trying to keep the Dene without independent experts that the Dene trust."

Klippenstein believes the bureaucracy is worried that this case may push the widespread environmental damage done to the north, and the gigantic cost of repairing that damage, into the political spotlight with great potential harm to the government and, perhaps, to officials with the responsibility for this area. He said the officials are prepared to stall as long as possible.

"It's what I call the government's 'Witness Destruction Program' in action," he said. "They are knowingly waiting while the key witnesses are dying of old age and disease."

Deline Dene environmentalist Cindy Kenny-Gilday is a member of her council's committee which deals with the problem. She said the Elders in the community believe the honorable thing to do is to trust the government to keep its word.

"The Elders look to the treaties," she said. "When we signed the treaties, the government said it would always look after us. If I personally had to chose, I'd do a legal claim, but that's not what the people want right now."

The Elders would see it as a shameful loss of face if the government they trusted lets them down, she said. It would be another blow to a community that is living with the terror of not knowing if they are being exposed to an invisible killer which will strike them and their children, she added.

Kenny-Gilday said her community is in cultural disarray because it is the men who pass on the traditional knowledge and so many of the men are gone.

"There ae no fathers, no grandfathers. The young men are lost," she said. "The widows are not willing to give up on the young men. The women are being very strong and carrying the ball, but they need help."

A call to the minister of Indian Affairs office to see what is being done for the Deline Dene was not returned.