The Battle of Greenland Ruby
By: Ms. Tida Ravn Nuuk, Greenland
This article by Tida Ravn published in 2008 kicked off a media storm in Greenland. It gives a first hand account of the origins of the 16th August Union, the Inuit Group struggling to retain their rights to collect, polish and sell the rubies that are on their ancestral land.
~ Marc Choyt, Publisher, fairjewelry.org.
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A group of Inuit small scale miners have launched their own website which will serve as a platform in their struggle to maintain control of their ruby resources which have been denied by their colonialist government.
Visit their website at: www.freegreenlandruby.com
This is a revised, considerably shorter version of an earlier story that I wrote last year that traces the history of the Inuit movement to retain their rights to mine their local rubies in Greenland.
This piece was previously published in the Epoch Times
To the Inuit in Greenland, a place where the sun may only rise for a few hours a day, the ruby held the divine flame that never goes out.
Niels Madsen knew where the crystal sparkled out of the earth like red stars in the dark arctic night. This particular location, a peninsula of land between two deep arctic blue lakes, called to him.
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Editorial Perspective by Marc Choyt
The Greenland Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum (BMP) is complicit, through collusion, conspiracy and corruption, of malfeasance towards the good citizens of Greenland.
It is unfortunate that True North Gems has been caught up in this fiasco. While they have made mistakes, they are correct when they say that they obeyed the laws. The fault for the current situation lies with the BMP. What could have been a win-win situation for everyone has become something entirely different.
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The 16 August Union is a small miner’s association of Fair Trade ruby and gemstone prospectors in Greenland, and our supporters. We need your help.
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If you go to the BMP’s website, you will see that all their rules and policies are published in English—except the rules that govern small scale mining.
Several people, including myself, requested that BMP translate this document into English. Initially, the BMP refused to do so, citing costs.
However, due to international pressure, the BMP agreed to post translations of their rules that thwart small gemstone miners in Greenland.
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Editorial Perspective by Marc Choyt, Publisher, Fairjewelry.org.
The Greenlandic Bureau of Mining and Petroleum (BMP) recently released their brand new rules for the small scale mining of rubies, without key stakeholder review. Small scale mining in Greenland is to be as regulated and nearly as costly as large scale mining.
The new laws essentially codify the disenfranchisement of a local gemstone economy based on small scale mining. They also violate the Mineral Resources Act, protected by The Greenland Constitution which, under Section 32, guarantees Intuits the right to the minerals on their land.
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For the next few articles, we will again be focusing our attention on Greenland, bringing you up to date on the latest developments.
The post below is a brief summery of the issues;
For those who are new to my blog and this issue, you can review 17 past posts under this link
http://www.fairjewelry.org/archives/category/greenland-rubies
~ Marc Choyt, Publisher, Fairjewelry.org
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The pin measures 3.0 cm x 1.5 cm and is to scale of the original petroglyph
This contemporary pin design is fashioned after a plus thousand-year old petroglyph known as the Thule Man. The original image is carved into a limestone outcrop along the northernmost coast of Greenland (Avannaarsuaq).
It is made from Greenland Ruby and Greenland Gold and was designed and fabricated by a local Inuit artist.
Thule Man has become the unofficial symbol of the Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) Independence Movement.
The brilliant ruby cabochon weighs 1.58 carats and measures 7.4 x 7.1 mm.
Today, all sales of Greenland ruby by Greenland Inuit are now illegal. Ruby is deemed contraband by relics of the colonial government from The Kingdom of Denmark. They still hold the keys to the Inuit’s shackles.
Greenland Independence Day is set to arrives on 21 June 2009. (Summer Solstice.) Let’s hope it is allowed to happen this time.
A Call for Action By Niels Madsen, Co-founder of the 16th August Union
Introduction:
Here, we publish the most recent statement from Niels Madsen, Co-founder and Vice Chairman of the 16th August Union, outlining his struggle to gain the right for the native Inuit people’s mining and selling of rubies which has been well established and historically practiced under Greenlandic law… until, that is, the recent “discovery” of high quality gem material. [Read more →]
