By Henriette Rasmussen

"Dear Mr. Premier, Thank you for your kind letter of congratulations on my election as President of the United States… We will undoubtedly face a number of challenges in the years ahead… Like you, I am eager to work together on issues of mutual concern, like the base at Thule..."

—Excerpts from a January 22, 2001 letter from President George W. Bush
to the Premier of Greenland, Jonathan Motzfeldt

Shortly before receiving the above letter from President Bush, Premier Jonathan Motzfeldt of Greenland remarked that America’s NATO partners should be consulted about possible plans to deploy a national missile defense system, adding that "not everyone is in a hallelujah mood about it."1 His remarks followed the visit of a US delegation to Greenland in late summer 2000 that consulted with Greenlandic and Danish officials about US plans to upgrade the Thule early warning radar as part of an NMD deployment. The US visit, derided by one newsweekly as the American ‘Charmoffensiv,’ was one of only several high level diplomatic visits to Greenland (including the French foreign minister and the Russian ambassador to Denmark) that highlighted the strategic importance of the Thule radar should the US proceed with a national missile defense.2

Greenland’s military significance

Due to its strategic location astride the North Atlantic, Greenland became a significant security asset both during and after World War II. In 1941, the United States was granted treaty rights by Denmark (which maintained colonial rule over Greenland) to establish as many as 17 military bases and installations on the island. In 1951, the Base Treaty was updated to reflect Denmark’s membership in NATO (the Treaty on the Protection of Greenland, which is still in force) which gave the US extensive control over three bases: in Narsarsuaq (south Greenland), Kangerlussuaq (Sondre Strømfjord in midwest Greenland) and Thule (northwest Greenland). The Thule base is the only remaining military installation, the others having been transformed into civil airports. Since the 1960s, the Thule installation has hosted the BMEWS radar as part of the global US early warning system against missile attacks, though increasingly Thule has also assisted in the tracking of satellites and in satellite communication. In March 1991, the US signed an agreement with the Danish government and Greenland’s Home Rule administration (which came into being in 1979) to set up a permanent committee to discuss conditions for a continued American presence in Greenland. Then, in a move reflecting Greenland’s desire to have a stronger voice in foreign and security policy issues (still the preserve of the Danish government), a permanent group of Danish and Greenlandic officials was created as an ongoing forum for discussion of foreign and security policy issues, in particular the 1951 Treaty.

Greenlandic self-government

There are some 55,000 inhabitants of Greenland, the majority of them (85 percent) indigenous Inuit (Eskimos to some). The largest island on earth (at 2.1m square kilometers), Greenland changed from being a colony to a province of Denmark in 1953 and was brought in as a member of the European Union in 1972 (despite a no vote of 71 percent in a local referendum). Greenland eventually withdrew from EU membership after the 1979 Home Rule Act was introduced, which Act created a Home Rule Parliament (the Landsting), giving Greenlanders wide authority over domestic affairs, while leaving foreign and military affairs to Denmark (the Danish Grønlands Kommando is responsible for homeland defense and surveillance).3 The Landsting does have a Committee of Foreign Affairs and Security which interacts with the Danish Parliament’s Board for Foreign Affairs. This Committee, along with the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (an NGO representing some 152,000 Inuit living in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Siberia) are the two main bodies by which foreign and defense policy issues are brought to the fore for public discussion in Greenland. While Home Rule for Greenland has not gone uniformly smoothly – there is criticism of a too-pervasive Danish presence in the legal, administrative and other professions, as well as criticism from the countryside of too much power being wielded from the capital, Nuuk – much progress has been made in empowering the Inuit of Greenland in the exercise of self-determination.

NMD and Greenlandic/Danish politics

The Danish Government first informed Greenlandic officials about US plans for NMD, including software and other upgrades to the Thule radar at an estimated cost of $50 million, in the summer of 1999. Since then, the only official statement to come from the Greenland Government was a joint communique in November 1999 of the main coalition parties,4 the Siumut and Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA), noting their opposition should NMD either contravene the ABM Treaty or be implemented unilaterally by the Americans. In February 2000, Danish government and opposition leaders debated the NMD issue and expressed their desire that Greenlanders participate in any decision-making on the Thule radar and that the Thule installation not be used for NMD purposes against Greenlandic wishes. NMD is also proving to be a controversial issue in Denmark. The opposition party Socialistisk Folkeparti (SF) has been coordinating efforts with its Greenlandic sister party, the Inuit Ataqatigiit, to bring the issue up for debate in both the Danish and European parliaments. The SF in Denmark has also been pressing the government coalition partners, the Social Democrats and the Radikale party, to clarify their stand on Thule and NMD. As expressed by Holger K. Nielsen, chair of the SF, "If we do not come out our with an opinion, the American politicians have every right to ask, why we did not answer when asked?" Another Danish opposition party, the Enhedslisten, also opposes NMD deployment at Thule and is seeking a public referendum on the issue.

The ICC: a Pan-Arctic Inuit NGO

Founded in 1977 in Utqiarvik (Point Barrow) Alaska, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC) has over the years developed a comprehensive Arctic policy covering natural resource, environmental, and security issues. In an August 2000 press release, the ICC expressed major concern about US plans for NMD deployment, specifically relating to upgrades and new construction of military installations across the Arctic. In addition to stressing the negative consequences of a renewed arms race "for peace, development, and the social advancement of nations and peoples," the ICC statement also warned of the "environmental and social impact [of] proposed defence-related projects or activities… within Inuit circumpolar regions." As noted by the President of the ICC, Mr. Aqqaluk Lynge, the provocative nature of NMD could undermine the ABM Treaty and nuclear non-proliferation efforts, putting the world back in a very dangerous Cold War situation. Lynge noted how Thule and other US bases were installed during the Cold War with no consulting of the Inuit, and that both superpowers essentially treated the Arctic as an uninhabited wasteland. Especially sensitive to the Inuit are memories of the crash in 1968, some seven miles from Thule, of a B-52G bomber carrying four nuclear weapons.5 In terms of local issues, those Inuits who were displaced or lost access to hunting grounds in 1953 because of the construction of the BMEWS radar at Thule are currently suing the Danish government for compensation (some 53 families were initially awarded $200,000, and the suit will be finally settled by the Danish High Court in August 2001). Should future NMD plans call for construction of an X-band radar at Thule, a host of similar planning and environmental issues will certainly come into play .

Washington, Nuuk and Copenhagen

An article in late 2000 in the Danish magazine Weekend Avisen cited reports of secret Danish government consultations with the US about upgrading the Thule radar as part of an NMD deployment. The consultations reportedly raised the possibility of offering economic inducements (e.g., restoring Inuit rights to use the old village of Uummannaq at Thule Base, and /or building a new airstrip at Qaanaaq) to dampen Inuit opposition. It was noted that Premier Motzfeldt had expressed his concern to the Danish Prime Minister about the large costs involved in building a new civil airport at Qaanaaq. These talks were linked by the article to the visit of Deputy Secretary of State John Holum to Nuuk in August 2000, and to an earlier visit by Danish and Greenlandic administrative personnel to the Pentagon and to US Space Command headquarters at Colorado Springs in February 2000. In response, the Danish Foreign Minister, Helweg Petersen, has continued to note the lack of any official request from the US government, using this as a reason for the Danish government taking no official position on NMD. Quite another reason could be Russian pressure on the Danes, with Moscow’s ambassador to Copenhagen, Nikolai Bordyuzha, having warned that "Copenhagen will be responsible for pulling down the ABM Treaty" should Thule become part of an NMD system.6 In sum, while the economic temptations may be great for Greenland’s Home Rule government to go along with NMD, there is little doubt that majority opinion in Greenland, among both the Inuit and in the media, is opposed to US plans for NMD and to injecting NMD issues into Greenland’s domestic affairs.

Henriette Rasmussen, a former advisor to the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, is now director of Atuakkiorfik (Greenland Publishers), in Nuuk. She is a former Minister for Social Affairs and former Chief Technical Advisor in the International Labor Office on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, in Geneva.

Endnotes

1. Quoted in Jan M. Olsen, "Greenland premier: NATO is not in a ‘hallelujah mood’ about US," Associated Press, January 12, 2001.
2. James Brooke, "Greenlanders Wary of a New Role in US Defenses," New York Times, September 18, 2000.
3. The Greenland Home Rule Act stresses the definition of indigenous peoples as a collective entity having been the first inhabitants of the island. It is interesting to note that the Greenland model for self-government was created without secession or armed conflict as a workable solution for the Inuit; a similar arrangement was negotiated by the Inuit in Canada in 1999 which established the homeland of Nunavut.
4. In February 1999, the Siumut (Social Democrats) and Inuit Ataqatigiit (Socialists) formed a coalition government with 11 and 7 members respectively.
5. Despite US assurances that all the weapons were recovered from the sea ice where the plane crashed, a group of former employees of the Thule base maintain otherwise. Also undermining US and Danish credibility was the release in 1995 of a memo from 1957 whereby the Danish Prime Minister gave the US permission to deploy nuclear warheads at Thule for the Nike Hercules anti-ballistic missile, despite assurances from US and Danish officials that Greenland would remain a nuclear weapons-free zone; see James Brooke, "Greenlanders Wary of a New Role in US Defenses."
6. Quoted in Brooke, "Greenlanders Wary of a New Role in US Defenses."

Back to the Table of Contents