Friends of the Lubicon Winter '99-00 Update

Please Come to Court to Support FOL January 11 & 12

We need you to help pack the courtroom in

Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen St. W. Corner of University Ave., Toronto.

10 am is a tentative start time on the first day.

Confirmed time and court room number should be available after Jan 7 on our newly updated web site www.tao.ca/~fol/ or on the phone message on the FoL Hotline 416-763-7500.

Let's show the media and judiciary that people care about the Lubicons and about our right to speak out about corporate actions with which we disagree.

Below is latest news on Daishowa and the Lubicons.

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Daishowa Seeks Ban On Right to Boycott

Company Contracts Out "Logging Rights" on Lubicon Land

On January 11 & 12, 2000, the Friends of the Lubicon are back in court. Daishowa is trying to overturn the Ontario court decision that ruled people in Ontario have the right to organize a consumer boycott of Daishowa products. At the same time, Daishowa has contracted a forestry company the "logging rights" in an area which includes Lubicon traditional territory.

What are the consequences of this kind of suit for our ability to carry out effective political work? Why is Daishowa appealing a ruling on a boycott that no longer exists? Does Daishowa intend to respect its public commitment not to cut wood or buy wood cut on Lubicon traditional territory until a land rights settlement is in place?

In May 1998, Daishowa filed for appeal of an Ontario Court ruling rejecting Daishowa's application for a permanent injunction against a consumer boycott which the company said had cost it over $14 million dollars in lost revenue. The consumer boycott had been organized by supporters of the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation whose unceded traditional territory in northern Alberta Daishowa threatened to clear-cut at the rate of up to 11,000 trees per day.

When in June 1998, Daishowa finally agreed not to cut or buy wood cut on unceded Lubicon Nation territories until a land rights settlement was reached between the Lubicons and both levels of government, the Lubicon Nation called off the successful boycott of Daishowa products However Daishowa did not abandon its appeal of the ruling which allowed people in Ontario to organize a consumer boycott of Daishowa products.

Daishowa's pursuit of the appeal coupled with actions by Daishowa this past year bring into question the sincerity of their written commitment.

First, on February 23rd, 1999, the Alberta provincial government announced that significant parts of Daishowa's former Forest Management Area would be re-allocated to other parties. Some of the lands being re-allocated included the southeast portion of Lubicon traditional territories. Daishowa had relinquished the timber rights in that portion in conjunction with their commitment to not log Lubicon lands. Shortly after a call for expressions of interest in logging these areas went out, a group of Indian Bands from the region including the government-created Woodland Cree Band, the Loon River Band, and the Whitefish Band - along with Daishowa Marubeni International (DMI) - applied for the rights to log in Daishowa's former area in the southeast portion of Lubicon land. The joint proposal indicated that the Bands would do the logging and sell the wood to Daishowa.

Secondly, on May 28, 1999, Daishowa-Marubeni International announced that it had signed a major five-year timber logging contract with Kee Tas Kee Now Logging Ltd. - a joint venture involving the Woodland, Loon and Whitefish Bands. Their contract stipulates that they log a minimum of 100,000 cubic metres of wood per year. Daishowa will then process the wood at their Peace River pulp mill. They were set to log "north-east of the Peace River," according to a DMI press release, and north east of the Lubicon "area of concern" according to DMI Communications Manager Ewa Ardiel at the time of the announcement.

However that is only part of the story. According to an informed source, DMI still retains "timber rights" in western half of the Lubicon traditional territory and has contracted out those "logging rights" to Kee Tas Kee Now. Whether the new logging consortium will act on those "rights" to log within the Lubicon traditional territory is not yet clear. What happens to Daishowa's commitment not to buy wood cut in Lubicon territory should their new partners move in to clear-cut unceded Lubicon territory is also unclear.

If Daishowa is indeed honouring its word - and its written promises - why are they yet again seeking to tie up Lubicon supporters in Court and attempting to outlaw even the possibility of a renewed Daishowa boycott?

Daishowa tried to enjoin the Lubicon boycott of their products in the first place because the boycott effectively focused public attention on what Daishowa was planning to do in northern Alberta. This renewed effort to silence public debate on the issue begs the question of what it is that Daishowa is planning that they don't want people to know about.

The province announced in October 1999 they would not re-allocate the southeast portion of Lubicon lands until some time in the future. There is little doubt in our minds that if Daishowa's renewed effort to silence public debate through legal sanction is successful, outside interests will expeditiously renew their efforts to clear-cut the Lubicon forest.

Daishowa needs to hear that ongoing bullying of the Lubicon and their supporters who are not even boycotting Daishowa is unacceptable. Lubicon supporters are encouraged to write to Daishowa and let them know that this must stop.

Daishowa should also be told that people are watching them to ensure that they keep the promise they made not to cut or buy wood cut on Lubicon traditional territory until a land rights settlement is reached with both levels of government and a harvesting agreement negotiated which respects Lubicon wildlife and environmental concerns.

And they need to be told that if they try to use aboriginal people to break their promise to stay off Lubicon lands it will be seen the world over as exactly what it is - a cynical, divide-and-conquer maneuver designed to make profits for Daishowa at everyone else's expense.

As for everyone's right to organize public action against injustice, corporate misdeeds and the like, if FoL is silenced here, then we will all have marched one step closer to becoming a society with free speech for the corporation and a muzzle for everyone else.

The addresses to write to are:

President, Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Asahi-Tokai Building, 2-6-1 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100, Japan

Daishowa Paper wholly owns Daishowa Inc. (who are suing the Friends) & half owns Daishowa-Marubeni International (the pulp and logging company).

cc: Tokiro Kawamura, President, Daishowa-Marubeni International, Suite 1700 1095 West Pender Street Vancouver, BC V6E 2M6 Fax: 604-684-0512

Please forward responses received to FoL.

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