Why? Because the right-wing government of Danish prime minister Fogh Anders Rasmussen adheres to the Elleman-Jensen doctrine, named after the Danish foreign minister who saw small states’ interests best advanced through alignment with ideologically similar great powers. Consequently, Denmark has chosen to ally itself with the US imperialist project.

Denmark thus finds itself caught up in the US imperialist aggression and occupation in Iraq; the Danish government has pursued sexed-up intelligence, war-profiteering business interests, and a phony casus belli.² To his discredit, Fogh had foolishly stated earlier: “Iraq has weapons-of-mass-destruction. This is not something we just believe. We know.”³

The original pretext for invasion has been utterly discredited; the actual reasons have since been revealed by a series of Downing Street Memos to be contemptuously illicit — based on regime change.⁴ Yet the occupation carries on apace, and Denmark stands steadfastly with hyperempire. Denmark has tied itself so tightly to the hyper-imperialist project that it acknowledges having made itself a target for terrorist attack.⁵ Following the terrorist bombings in London on 7 July, the alarm became palpably existential, as is the propagandistic politicking.

Colonially bound to Denmark, Kalaallit Nunaat is also bound in the chimera of hyperempire. What is Kalaallit Nunaat’s role in hyperempire? Are there ramifications for Kalaallit Nunaat under the system of relations at play? Kalaallit Nunaat’s juxtaposition to continental Turtle Island has meant that the US has had decisive political security interests in this realm of Denmark’s monarchy. However, it was neither known by the Danish nor the international public just how much freedom of movement Denmark had given the US on Kalaallit Nunaat.

Just after World War II, Denmark’s monarchial representative, Henrik Kauffmann, entered into an agreement with the Americans that became a problem for the Danish government because the Soviet Union had stipulated conditions for its vacating Bornholm (a small Danish island in the Baltic Sea off Sweden’s southwest coast). The Soviet Union demanded that Denmark conduct itself neutrally by not having British and American forces on its territory, made problematic by the US base at Thule. The Soviets, nonetheless, eventually left Bornholm in 1946.⁶

In 1995, an official in the Danish foreign affairs department found a letter from [former Danish Prime Minister] H.C. Hansen. The letter revealed that the Americans wanted to know what the Danish government would say to the discovery of nuclear weapons in Kalaallit Nunaat. Hansen answered that the Americans’ enquiry on “ammunition supplies of a certain type in areas of defense” does not “give occasion for any commentary from my side.” The Americans were instructed that the request must not be made public, as this would create insurmountable problems for Hansen’s government.⁷

But the circumstances were such that Denmark’s indirect acceptance of nuclear weapons in Kalaallit Nunaat could no longer be maintained after the crash of the B-52 bomber in Thule.

Government Deceit and Kalaallit Nunaat

The Danish authorities did see the Inuit population as crucial to Kalaallit Nunaat, but the Danish authorities preferred a settled lifestyle for the Kalaallit.⁸ To encourage this, the Danes introduced the Kalaallit to the cod fishery in the mid-nineteenth century. The southeast coast of Kalaallit Nunaat might otherwise have lost its Inuit population because of the diminishing seal population, upon which they relied heavily.⁹ This could be construed as altruism on the part of the Danish state, but it is self-serving altruism.

If the Danish state’s intentions were guided by lofty principles, how is it that Denmark could expose the Kalaallit to nuclear danger? Indeed, there is a history of untoward Danish governmental actions to the Kalaallit. Aftenposten reported that, according to a report from three Nordic human rights experts on assignment for the North Atlantic Group in the Danish parliament, in the transition from colony to county, Denmark used a tactic that built on concealment, manipulation and direct lie to both the U.N. and Greenland. The report revealed a series of secret documents that require Danish historical revisionism.

According to Kuupik Kleist, Kalaallit Nunaat member of parliament, the report could serve as central documents to a common Denmark-Kalaallit Nunaat independence commission. “It shows that the rights that we should have had as people, were placed aside and to a certain degree continues today.”¹⁰

Denmark’s new constitution altered this status and took both Kalaallit Nunaat and the Faeroes into the Danish commonwealth. This happened in compliance with an initiative from the newly established U.N. in 1946 to change the status of colonies, to either independence, integration in the colonial power, or a freer attachment to the former colonial power with a high degree of self-rule.

However, the Kalaallit were never informed about such existing choices or that Denmark had a duty to carry out a meaningful development of the territory for possible independence. Instead, the Kalaallit received the Greenlandic national assembly, dominated by Danes, with three days to decide whether or not Kalaallit Nunaat should incorporate into Denmark. The Danish constitutional commission had two years to prepare for this scenario.

Nonetheless, the national assembly responded with a unanimous “yes” to the incorporation of the new constitution, without having received permission to put forward questions or conditions. ¹¹

The Danish Foreign Ministry delimits Kalaallit Nunaat sovereignty.

Legislation formally comes under the Danish Folketing which includes two representatives from Greenland, but in practical terms the Greenland Landsting administers almost all legislative matters. This does not apply to the country’s foreign policy, Greenland’s mineral rights, the police and judicial system, or to the Greenland Command in Grønnedal. The most senior Danish representative in the area is a Commissioner appointed under the Royal Seal.¹²

Danish Imperialism

The Danes of Kalaallit Nunaat have been treated differently from the Kalaallit. Racism eases the colonization of distant lands and Denmark reportedly differs not from other colonialistic and imperialistic powers in this respect.¹³

That the intentions of the Danish government for Kalaallit Nunaat have been marked by colonialistic and imperialistic attitudes is clear from a close examination of the language. Such attitudes and policies have continued unabated after the establishment of Home Rule in 1953 when:

Greenland was formally made an integral part of Denmark. According to this terminology, “a colony” was a center in a colonial district. The Greenlandic word for “colony” in this sense is niuertogarfik, “trade center,” while Greenland as a whole, in relation to Denmark, was called nunasiaq, the same word used for other colonized areas in the world.

While the North Atlantic islands — including Greenland — were called bilande, “dependencies,” the trade and mission stations in Greenland were called “colonies.” … The difference was that the “colonies” outside Greenland were occupied with the purpose of economic and strategic exploitation, while Greenland was regarded as an inherited dependency.¹⁴

The Kalaallit culture, as is the case with many Original Peoples, was based on commonality of ownership — not on possessive individualism. This traditional economic structure is still extant in Kalaallit Nunaat. The capitalistic, colonialistic society of Danes, however, determined such territory to be free from title and it consequently became classified as “crown land” — a euphemism for territorial theft by the colonizing state.

Crown land was made available for exploitation by the colonizing state. Danish resource extraction was to begin in Kalaallit Nunaat.

As with the colonization of Turtle Island, the enforcement of dependency among the Original Peoples in Kalaallit Nunaat was entrenched in the name of “progress.” Settlement of Danish nationals in Kalaallit Nunaat was part of the strategy. The divisive and racist outcome was noted:

The Danish staff in administration, and not least in education, introduced Danish ideas concerning economic activities and organization. The means of attracting Danish staff to Greenland were economic, housing, and social privileges. This created a really visible discrimination between colleagues according to their Danish or Greenlandic origin.

… In the midst of the 1960s, this kind of discrimination was legalized by passing the “birthplace-criterion” in the Greenland Civil Servants Act, according to which civil servants born in Greenland would be in receipt of only 85% of the Danish basic salary.

… This kind of discrimination disappeared almost totally from Greenland about 1990. Only the Danish Ministry of Administration of Justice still practices it in Greenland.¹⁵

As the process of “Danization” was pursued in Kalaallit Nunaat, “the object of the colonized group changed from “Greenlanders” to the “Greenland community,” including both the ethnic Inuit and the ethnic Danes.

Full independence poses in the future for Kalaallit Nunaat. A self-rule commission was charged with preparing for a referendum on independence at latest by 2006,¹⁶ but this, for reasons unclear, has not yet come about. Besides when a referendum on independence will take place, questions abound about what genuine independence actually will mean. When the colonial connection between Kalaallit Nunaat is severed, it is speculated that other covetous lands will be attracted, especially the US which already has a physical and political presence in Kalaallit Nunaat. There is also the colonizing state of Canada next door, which is involved in a territorial skirmish with Denmark.

Hans Island and the Danish Claim for the North Pole

A tiny, ice-strewn, rocky island situated in the Nares Strait, approximately halfway between Umingmak Nuna (Ellesmere Island) and Kalaallit Nunaat, has spurred a competition between the colonizing states of Denmark and Canada.

A week after Canadian troops visited and planted the Maple Leaf on Hans Island in July, Canadian defense [sic] Minister Bill Graham paid an unannounced visit to Hans Island. This has spurred, what has been described as “diplomatic strife” in the Danish media, over sovereignty to the island.¹⁷

A Kalaallit government figure accused the Canadian government of carrying out an “occupation.” Deputy Premier of Kalaallit Nunaat, Josef Motzfeldt remarked, “When some people unjustly attempt to make their influence valid over the island that both Greenland/Denmark and Canada make claims on, I cannot interpret the matter as anything other than a regular occupation.”¹⁸ [18]

Motzfeld called for international clarification of Hans Island’s status under U.N. auspices. A U.N.-ratified treaty on the continental shelf has delimited the territorial sovereignty along 127 points between Nunavut and Kalaallit Nunaat. However, from point 122 (80° 49′ 2 – 66° 29′ 0) to point 123 (80° 49′ – 66° 26′ 3), a distance of 875 metres, no line is drawn. Hans Island is located in the centre of this area.¹⁹

Hans Island has been under dispute between Denmark and Canada since 1973. The recent wrangling was triggered in 2002, when the Danish warship Væddern landed on Hans Island and raised Dannebrog (the Danish flag) as a sign of sovereignty over the island that is considered devoid of valuable mineral resources.²⁰ [20]

This is not the first time Dannebrog has been planted on Hans Island, a three kilometer long and one kilometer wide deserted island. The flag is scheduled for change once a year but this is not always possible. When the Danish ship Tulugaq changed the flag in 1986, over a decade-and-a-half passed before another ship reached Hans Island.²¹

Despite the media drama, the struggle for the island is carried out on mostly amicable terms. Canadians are said to leave behind a bottle of Canadian Club whisky when the Maple Leaf has been raised, while Danes are said to leave behind a bottle of Gammel Dansk (Old Danish) bitter after Dannebrog’s raising.²²

Why is this island is so important? The island is remote. However, its location affects the manner by which the maritime boundary is determined between northern Kalaallit Nunaat and Canada. From an imperialistic Canadian perspective, the international boundary is important for three reasons. First, the division of rich turbot and shrimp stock will be affected. Second, Kalaallit Nunaat Inuit have been reported to cross over to Qikiqtaaluk (Baffin Island) to conduct what some Canadian officials deem to be illegal polar bear hunts. The government of Canada fears the Kalaallit Nunaat government claiming the hunt as an established right. Third, global warming might have a substantial impact on the Arctic climate and Canadian territoriality.²³

For Denmark, the claim to Hans Island lies behind a much larger future claim on the North Pole itself. Danish authorities have invested millions in a project that seeks to identify a connection between the mainland of Kalaallit Nunaat and the ocean bottom under the North Pole. There are special conditions under which a continental shelf might extend past the usual 200 nautical mile limits according to article 76 of the Law of the Sea convention.²⁴

Tensions have calmed down recently with the University of Toronto and the Technical University of Denmark collaborating on the building of a weather station on Hans Island.²⁵

The Canada-Denmark squabble over the sovereignty of a big icy rock ought instead to raise a discussion of the legitimacy of the claim by either of these two colonizing states. Hans Island is located between Nunavut, where Inuit represent about 85 percent of the population, and Kalaallit Nunaat, with a slightly greater percentage of Inuit in its population. If Hans Island belongs to a people, it obviously belongs to the Inuit since their maritime sovereignty would encompass the island. That Nunavut and Kalaallit Nunaat have been colonized and that the Inuit have had their sovereignty ignored or subordinated undermines any moral legitimacy to the claims of European or Euro-Canadian governments in millennia-old Inuit territory.

The Struggle for Full Independence of Kalaallit Nunaat

Nunavut managed to gain an enhanced territorial status within Canada, but it is Kalaallit Nunaat that is poised to take the step to complete independence. Kuupik Kleist is a staunch supporter of independence for Kalaallit Nunaat: “I don’t doubt that we will become independent — it is only a question of time.” Kleist argued, “There are many states in the world which have a smaller population than we have and rule themselves. Every land has the right to be independent.” ²⁶

Some Danes residing in Kalaallit Nunaat still hang on to colonialist dreams. A pair of Danish teachers raised three objections to independence: economy, population base, and education. Whereby Danes derive a right to pronounce on the sovereignty of another people living in a different land is stupefying. Such unfounded colonialist pretexts presented with the intent to further delay Kalaallit Nunaat from achieving complete independence include a low level of education, a low level of industrialization that purportedly prevents a sustainable economy, and a dependence on Danish subsidies. ²⁷[27] Putting aside the ethnic blinkers as to what constitutes a low level of education or the questionable superiority of high levels of industrialization, there is the question of what attributes are necessary for independence — if any. One must also wonder about the wisdom and future developmental aspects of continuing under the Danish monarchy, when after centuries of colonial domination the educational and industrial achievements are condemned by Danes themselves as being too low. As for subsidies and survival, one wonders at all how the Inuit survived during and after the age of the Vikings. If Scandinavian civilization was so superior, why then did the Vikings in Kalaallit Nunaat disappear?

The Original Peoples of Kalaallit Nunaat found shelter and fed themselves in an otherwise climatologically inhospitable land where they have survived for centuries. If the Kalaallit cannot survive now, then the blame must rather be cast on the debilitating effects of colonization (or on the pernicious effects of global warming, a product of the industrialized world that also threatens the territorial integrity of Kalaallit Nunaat²⁸ [28]). There is negligible argumentation in favor of delaying further full sovereignty for the people of Kalaallit Nunaat, other than entrenching the foreign-induced dependence.

Read Part 1

Part 2

1. “Fogh vil i krig, Socialdemokraterne vil i krig med Sikkerhedsrådsresolution — danskerne vil ikke,” Netavisen, 25 January 2002. Two opinion polls are reported from 24 January 2002 that reveal an overwhelming majority of Danes are opposed to participation in an Iraq war. A poll by Vilstrup for the Danish newspaper Politiken indicated that without a UN mandate only 29% of Danes supported an attack on Iraq and only 35% supported Denmark having a military role in such an offensive. Without a UN mandate support dropped respectively to 27% and 4%.
2. Detailed in an earlier article. Kim Petersen, “The Fairy Tale of Liberation,” Dissident Voice, 2 May 2004.
3. Commentary, “Noget for Noget Extrodinært,” Dagbladet Arbejderen, 28 February 2004.
4. Complete Set of Downing Street Documents including one with the infamous quotation: “Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” [italics added]
5. Per Olav Ødegård, “Danskene forventer terroranslag,” VG Nett, 27 May 2003.
6. Sune Wadskjær Nielsen, “Fra kold til varm kartoffel,” FOV Nyhedsbrev, vol. 18, 20 September 2001. See the “Text of the US-Danish Agreement on Greenland,” 10 April 1941.
7. Nielsen, Ibid.
8. Farley Mowat, West Viking: The Ancient Norse in Greenland and North America (McClelland and Stewart, 1965). “The Danish authorities had no desire to see a mass migration of the Eskimos to the north, and the Eskimos themselves did not wish to move …,” 378.
9. Ibid, 379.
10. Translated from Ole Martin Larsen, “Dansker førte Grønland og FN bak lyset,” Aftenposten, 25 November 2004.
11. Larsen, Ibid.
12. “Greenland,” Utenrigsministeriet.
13. Ole Bidstrup, “Slaveriets ophævelse i 1848,” Dansk Vestindisk Selskab.
14. Robert Petersen, “Colonialism as Seen from a Former Colonized Area,” Arctic Circle — History and Culture, 1995.
15. Ibid.
16. Weekend-Avisen, “Grønland: Sørgelig skilsmisse efter sølvbrylluppet,” Steen Gade, 2 July 2004.
17. “Minister puster til dansk-canadisk strid,” Ekstra Bladet online, 24 July 2005.
18. Translated from “Grønland: Hans Ø er besat,” DR Nyheder, 25 July 2005.
19. Wikipedia has an excellent reference page on the Hans Island dispute.
20. Jane George, “Greenland, Canada squabbling over pet rock,” Nunatsiaq News, 9 April 2004.
21. “AGPA til Thule (1997): Hvis vi blot kan nå Hans’ Ø på 80 grader 49 minutter,” Søværnsorientering, 1998.
22. Sigbjørn Strand, “Danskene leder kampen om Nordpolen,” Magasinet, 26 January 2005.
23. Rob Heubert, “The Return of the Vikings: New Challenges for the Control of the Canadian North,” Maritime Affairs online, Winter 2002-2003. Heubert saw the Danish naval ship Væddern’s visit to Hans Island as demonstrative of Canada’s need to strengthen its surveillance of what Canada claims to be its North and also of Canada’s ice-water naval ships capacity. See Andrea Mandel-Campbell’s “Who Controls Canada’s Arctic?” The Walrus, December-January 2005, 52-61 for insight into how Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic will be affected by greenhouse-triggered melting of polar ice.
24. Sigbjørn Strand, op.cit. See also Article76: Definition of the continental shelf of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
25. Bob Weber, “Canadian, Danish scientists develop peaceful co-existence over Hans Island,” Canadian Press, 15 March 2007.
26. Translated from Inunnguaq Kreutzmann, “Et selvstyrende Grønland — visioner og målsætninger,” Selv Styrekommisssionen i Grønland, 13-14 September 2001.
27. Nina Larsen og Juliane Henningsen, “Selvstændighed — blot et personligt mål for politikerne?” Medietimen, 2001.
28. Michael McCarthy, “An island made by global warming,” Independent (UK), 24 April 2007.

It was 21 January 1968, and the local time was 16:00. HOBO 28, was on a secret 24-hour mission over the arctic region, and had been supplied with fuel in the air less than an hour ago. The second pilot was ordered back to take a rest. The reserve pilot took over his place. A few minutes later, a crewmember reported that he could smell burnt rubber. The chief pilot ordered oxygen masks on and asked the navigator to find out what was wrong. He came back without having discovered anything. “Look one more time,” came the order. He moved a metal case and found fire. Two fire extinguishers were emptied without much result.

The chief pilot called Thule Air Base: REQUEST PERMISSION FOR AN EMERGENCY LANDING.

Two minutes later he prepared an approach. At the same time the light went out.

“Bailout,” he commanded immediately. “Jump!”

Six used the ejection seats. The seventh was sentenced to death. The huge B-52 bomber was outfitted with electronic equipment such that there was no place for a seventh ejection seat. NR. 7 sprang anyway, but his head was crushed in the crashing plane.

At 16:39, the sirens wailed over Thule AB, but it was a signal that one only knew from practice: atom-alarm. Seconds later, a massive bang was heard out on the ice of Northstar Bay.

Several-hundred-meters-high, orange-yellow flames lit up the polar night. At the base, they knew what it was. They had seen it on film: burning hydrogen bombs. ¹

In 1968, a B-52 bomber carrying four 1.1-megaton bombs crashed on the ice 19 kilometers (12 miles) from Thule, leaking radioactive plutonium contamination into Kalaallit Nunaat’s waters. Reports of cancer and other illnesses surfaced among Danish and Kalaallit Thule Air Base workers. In 1995, the Danish government paid a $15.5 million settlement to the 1,700 workers who had been exposed to radiation following the 1968 crash. In 1991, Danish researchers also found levels of plutonium in shellfish up to 1,000 times higher than precrash levels.² According to William Arkin, the US as recently as 1999 still stationed nuclear weapons in Kalaallit Nunaat.³

The Pentagon made a risible attempt at concealing the nuclear blunder, even to the extent of one Official stating: “I don’t know of any missing bomb, but we have not positively identified what I think you are looking for.”

Some Danish workers involved in the cleanup effort contracted various ailments such as cancers but were refused assistance by the US.⁴

Many people, including former Thule Air Base workers and Danish parliamentarians, state that an unexploded American hydrogen bomb also disappeared — serial number 78252. Niels-Jørgen Nehring, head of the state-sponsored DUPI [Danish Institute of International Affairs now called the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)], gave credence to Jyllands-Posten’s claim that a lost bomb remained off Thule. Said Nehring to Reuters, “It is not new information that there might be some stuff left there,” a few kilometers off the coast, where the depth reaches 250-300 meters (820-984 feet).⁵

Whether or not Danish prime minister H.C. Hansen approved the deployment of nuclear weapons in Kalaallit Nunaat in 1957 has been the subject of much conjecture in Denmark. Svend Aage Christensen — one of the authors of a highly publicized Danish government report on the issue in 1997 — stated that Hansen’s concession was made under conditions of secrecy. This reduced pressure from the Soviet Union over western bases on Danish territory and it also helped Hansen avoid a public debate about the new nuclear policy at a time when it was not popular.

On the one hand, very few people had direct knowledge of the storage of American nuclear weapons in Greenland or of nuclear overflights over the island. On the other hand, a large government circle suspected what was going on. From 1959 to 1965, the Americans stationed NIKE surface-to-air missiles with nuclear warheads in Greenland.⁶

Following the nuclear catastrophe at Thule, the Danish government forbade the storage of nuclear weapons and overflights with nuclear weapons without its permission.

“On the other hand, DUPI’s analysis didn’t mention whether the Danish attitude toward nuclear weapons would be respected or wished respect on the question of foreign ships calling at Danish, and after 1968, Greenlandic harbors.”⁷

The calls for an in-depth investigation were deflected. This came up against the sensitivity of US security concerns. The US policy was stonewalling: “neither confirm, nor deny.”⁸

In 1961, American officials denied having transported nuclear weapons to Kalaallit Nunaat. But Denmark sought assurance and came up with the wording: “American authorities were informed of Denmark’s nuclear policy and we have been assured that American ships to visit Danish ports respect this policy.” The wording “we have been assured” was rejected by US embassy officials and was attenuated to “and we presume.”

Substantively, implicit in the alteration, it can be summed up that the final formulation does not prevent American warships with nuclear weapons onboard from calling at Kalaallit Nunaat’s harbors, which the original Danish draft had made problematic. It was problematic because of the US policy of “neither confirm, nor deny.”

Danish ambassador to the US Henrik Kauffmann’s negotiation of the 1951 Defense Agreement on Greenland has bound Denmark indeterminately. A significant passage was inserted in article X:

“The present agreement shall continue in force until there is agreement that the present danger for peace and security of the Americas has ceased.” An American evacuation of Greenland became in this way linked with great uncertainty as this passage could be interpreted with great leeway.⁹

Even though Kauffmann had been in Denmark many times during the summer of 1945, he had never broached the subject of a US demand for a base in Kalaallit Nunaat until 22 October. The poorly negotiated treaty went against “Danish interests at that period in time” and was a problem for Danish security and foreign policy, and also Kauffmann’s career.¹⁰

The Military Significance of Thule Air Base

In an important 1997 study commissioned by the Danish government, years of US pressure to gain these rights were described as “a classic clash between a great power and a small state.” Denmark had legal arguments on its side but lacked the political and military power to prevail. The US wanted Thule as a staging base for nuclear bombers because of the region’s proximity to the Soviet Union. Denmark tried to hide this purpose by talking about the common defense of Kalaallit Nunaat.

Thule Air Base is the northernmost base of the US Air Force, located 1119 kilometers (695 miles) north of the Arctic Circle on the northwest side of Kalaallit Nunaat. Now the 821st Air Base Group, which has responsibility for air base support within the Thule Defence Area, occupies the major military base. The base also hosts the 12th Space Warning Squadron, a ballistic missile early warning site designed to detect and track intercontinental ballistic missiles launched against Turtle Island. It is one of, according to greatly understated Pentagon figures, over 700 overseas military bases that garrison the globe in about 130 countries from Kalaallit Nunaat to Antarctica, from Qatar on the Arabian Peninsula to Okinawa in Japan. There are another 6,000 bases in the United States and its territories.¹¹

The website of the 821st Air Base Group in Thule informs that it is one unit of 16 sensors the 21st Space Wing operates around the world to provide missile warning and space surveillance information to North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) command centers in Colorado. Thule is also host to Detachment 3 of the 22nd Space Operations Squadron, part of the 50th Space Wing’s global satellite control network. In addition, the modern aerodrome oversees a 3,000-meter runway and 2,600 US and international flights per year.¹² Some 1,000 US and non-US personnel are stationed there.

What the website fails to mention is that the Thule Air Base precipitated the ethnic cleansing of the Inughuit hunting village of Uummannaq. Thus, in deference to hyper-imperialistic whim, colonial Danish authorities illegally expelled and forcibly exiled 650 Inuit in May 1953 — just a few days before 5 June 1953 when they became Danish citizens through an amendment to the Danish constitution — from Uummannaq, Pituffik, and neighboring locales to a tent community about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north in Qaanaaq, away from their ancestral lands. “They were given four days to abandon a home that had been theirs for almost 4,000 years. They have never been allowed back,” wrote Jørgen Dragsdahl.¹³

High court judge Per Walsøe, who earlier was the lawyer for the displaced Inuit residents of Thule, stated that the Inughuit residents were warned that if they took longer than four days to vacate, they were threatened with loss of a replacement house in Qaanaaq. Nonetheless, they had to make do with tents the first half-year until the houses were ready.¹⁴

The Danish colonial rulers and the Pentagon viewed the “backward” Kalaallit as stymieing Euro-American progress. The book details early secret documents about how Danish authorities tried to convince the Danish public that the move occurred by free choice.¹⁵

The ethnically cleansed Inughuit, one of the smallest indigenous groups in the world, have persistently fought to regain their land from the Americans for over fifty years. In August 1999, the surviving 53 people, known as the “Hingitaq 53,” of those relocated won a Danish High Court ruling. Declaring that their removal had been “an unlawful violation done to the population of Uummannaq … [and] contrary to the actual facts,” the Court established the fact that the territory belonging to the indigenous people of Thule had been illegally expropriated in 1953 without proper legislation and compensation as required by the Danish constitution; but it denied the Hingitaq 53 the right of return. It upheld the US-Danish military agreement, made in colonial times and found “no evidence to prove that Thule Air Base is illegally established.” The Danish Court upheld US military and colonial “right” over indigenous right: if the Inuit were given their full rights, the Danish government would “be obliged to demand the base to be dismantled.”

The Danish High Court further provided that the former residents would receive 17,000 Danish kroner each for their expulsion, as well as collective damages of 500,000 kroner. Half a century after the ethnic cleansing, the Kalaallit would not accept such miniscule compensation from colonial justice.

The Hingitaq 53 demanded 235 million Danish kroner for lost hunting possibilities in their former territory for the last half-century. The victims of colonization were required to appeal to the colonial court system for justice, and hardly surprising, the court’s findings were unfavourable for the Kalaallit. The Danish Supreme Court’s verdict backed the Danish High Court’s ruling. It concluded “that both the intervention in 1951 in the access to hunting and fishing and the intervention in 1953 on relocation of the settlement were legal and valid.” Therefore, it decreed additional compensation was not required.¹⁶

Foreseeing the Supreme Court decision against the Hingitaq 53, Kalaallit Nunaat MP Aqqaluk Lynge warned that a cultural genocide was imminent. “If the Court rules against their desire, their need and right to return to the land which can sustain them, the Kalaallit will, in all likelihood, join other indigenous peoples globally whose language, culture and presence are no longer with us.”

Ultimately, the Kalaallit wish the US military base closed; realistically they hope for a compromise. After all, mused Lynge, “Which nation ever managed to close down a US base?”¹⁷

While the state of Denmark might have won a domestic judicial victory over its colony, a moral victory eludes Denmark. The right-of-return of indigenous peoples is a fundamental human right under international law. The Danish Supreme Court ruling also flies in the face of an international resolution in support of Hingitaq 53 reached in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights by 200 representatives of indigenous peoples.¹⁸

The Original Peoples of Kalaallit Nunaat were forced to seek redress in the undeniably biased setting of a colonial court. Further problems with limited self-rule in Kalaallit Nunaat became apparent when discussions began on an upgrade of the Thule Air Base.

US Ballistic Missile Defence: “an imperialistic policy” and “highway to hell”

In December 2002, the US formally requested that Denmark consider allowing the upgrade of the US radar site in Thule for use in “ballistic missile defense” (BMD). Negotiations on upgrading Thule, involved both Denmark and the Kalaallit Nunaat home rule government. Foreign Affairs Canada considered that upgrading the Thule Air Base “would not imply the participation of Denmark itself in the US BMD system.”¹⁹

Citizens of Kalaallit Nunaat expressed concern. In a 2001 report, a BBC correspondent quoted a young father in the capital of Nuuk: “If a war begins, you know all the missiles will begin to rain over us. Greenland will pay the highest price.”

“The Thule airbase is here,” he said, pointing to a map. “And this is the radar system connected to Fylingdales in the U.K. and the base in Alaska.”

“This is the shield the Americans want to build — and this here is the missile highway to hell — west Greenland.”

A student added, “It’s an imperialistic policy only in the interests of the West.”

The BBC matter-of-factly noted, “In effect, the Thule airbase is US territory — with state-of-the-art radar and satellite tracking equipment, which would be upgraded under the US plan.”²⁰

Despite the strong sentiments in opposition to BMD, on 19 May 2004, Kalaallit Nunaat, Denmark, and the US reached a memorandum-of-understanding to revise the 1951 US-Denmark Defense Agreement. US secretary-of-state Colin Powell and Danish foreign minister Per Stig Møller formally signed the agreement on 6 August at the US Air Base in Thule, an event scarcely reported in the corporate Turtle Island media.²¹

The Nunatsiaq News interpreted this news to mean: “it’s now highly unlikely that a BMD site will be built in Nunavut or anywhere else in northern Canada.”²² Canada’s possible role in BMD supposedly became moot when the minority Liberal government publicly backed out in the face of Canadian voter opposition.²³ However, Canadian government denials to the contrary, Canadian participation in BMD has been depicted as a fait accompli.²⁴

The government of Kalaallit Nunaat sought direct compensation for an upgrade of Thule’s radar, but when it became clear that the US would not pay cash, the government settled for the right to pursue legal measures against US military who violate the Kalaallit Nunaat’s criminal laws. Mikaela Engel, Kalaallit Nunaat’s deputy minister of foreign affairs told Nunatsiaq News: “It’s a decent and modern solution to a problem that’s been nagging us since 1951.”

Media have portrayed the deal as a victory acceptable to most of the political factions in Kalaallit Nunaat. Former prime minister Josef Motzfeldt, now the head of Kalaallit Nunaat’s left-wing Inuit Ataqatigiit Party, said, “We are happy with the result of this agreement-in-principle.”

“Now Greenland can participate, not only with respect to the Thule Air Base, but also with respect to other issues.”

However, this spirit of accommodation isn’t unanimous. Per Berthelsen, leader of the Demokratiit Party, does not consider the deal as a go-ahead to upgrade the Thule Air Base. Berthelsen said, “I realize that the Danish media has misunderstood that point and sees this agreement as saying ‘yes’ to missile defence, but it’s not like that.”²⁵

In essence, Kalaallit Nunaat’s right to determine the course of BMD on its territory, according to the US-Danish agreement, is limited to the US having to “consult with and inform” Kalaallit Nunaat and Denmark prior to future significant changes at the Thule Air Base. This was revealed by Colin Powell’s statement: “The word I think in the treaty, as you say, is ‘consult,’ and that’s what we would do.”

When pressed on whether “consult” meant not having to ask the Kalaallit Nunaat government, Powell answered matter-of-factly: “Consult means consult.”²⁶ Such is the content of what Powell called the US’ new “family of bases.”

A US$260 million upgrade of Thule’s radar facilities began in 2005.²⁷ Powell did not rule out the possibility of putting missiles at Thule.

Powell did nix an environmental cleanup of US bases, saying the responsibility had been transferred to Kalaallit Nunaat where it would stay.

Kalaallit Nunaat deputy foreign minister Michaela Engel had declared that the agreement would give Greenland the explicit right to veto further upgrades to the base.

“It would have been fine if we could have squeezed a little more out of the United States but we were not in a position to do that and I think we need to be content with what we’ve got here. And I think there’s a broad agreement in Greenland and Denmark that we’ve gotten the best that we could get,” she said.

Motzfeldt said, “The future of a country depends on its ability to leave behind the past without forgetting it — and to look forward without being naïve.”

Motzfeldt has staked out a pro-BMD position for Kalaallit Nunaat. “Why should we be against defending ourselves against missiles?” he asked, ostensibly without considering why missiles might be fired at Kalaallit Nunaat.²⁸

In April 2001, US deputy assistant secretary-of-state for Strategic Affairs Lucas Fischer called Thule a “unique asset” because of its strategic location that facilitates “good radar.” Fischer felt that “most experts probably agree with me” that Thule-type ground-based radars are paramount to a US missile defense system. Despite this, Clinton administration officials while preserving cordial relationships with key figures in Kalaallit Nunaat, played off Kalaallit Nunaat against Canada on the possibility of moving the entire Thule Air Base, a move that threatened the loss of US money.²⁹

Canada, like Kalaallit Nunaat, has been the scene of nuclear deception by the US. Almon Scott, now 65, and allegedly weakened through exposure to nuclear radiation, worked as a guard at the Argentia, Newfoundland military base between 1963 and 1965. There, he claims, that he guarded nuclear weapons at a secret weapons lab in Placentia Bay without Canadian government approval.³⁰

Imperialism and neo-colonialism provides the basis for the looming clipping of the colonial strings between Kalaallit Nunaat and Denmark. No area of the globe can stand aside from the violent global struggle for geo-political influence and resources in the twenty-first century.

Part 3: The concluding part of this series discusses the sovereignty of Kalaallit Nunaat.

Read Part 1

1. Translated from Erik Erngaard, Grønland: I Tusinde År (Lademan Forlagsaktieselskab, 1973), 227.
2. S. Fritz, Excerpts from M.A. thesis based largely on the research of journalist Kory Cappoza, “Thule: Greenland’s Role in Missile Defense.”
3. Judith Miller, “US Once Deployed 12,000 Nuclear Weapons in 2 Dozen Nations,” New York Times, 19 October 1999.
4. Jeffrey St. Clair, Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green To Me (Common Courage Press, 2004), 315-316.
5. Peter Starck, “Lost US Nuclear Bomb Near Planned NMD Radar?” Nuclear News, 13 August 2000.
6. Valur Ingimundarson, “Between Solidarity and Neutrality: The Nordic Countries and the Cold War, 1945-91,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin, 11, 1998, 269-74.
7. Translated from Thorsten Borring Olesen, “Spørgsmålet om atombevæbnede skibe anløb af danske havne: USS Wasp I København sommeren 1969,” History Department, University of Aarhus.
8. Hans M. Christiansen, “The Neither Conform Nor Deny Policy: Nuclear Diplomacy at Work,” The Nuclear Information Project, August 2004.
9. Translated from Claus Mikkelsen, “Henrik Kaufmann — den danske gesandt i Washington og Grønlandstraktaten af 1941,” Claus Mikkelsen.dk.
10. Ibid.
11. Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, “Base Structure Report,” Department of Defense,” fiscal year 2003 baseline. Chalmers Johnson has since updated the number of US military bases abroad to 737. In “737 U.S. Military Bases = Global Empire,” AlterNet, 19 February 2007.
12. “821st Air Base Group”
13. Jørgen Dragsdahl, “The Danish dilemma,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September/October 2001. The ethnic cleansing at Qaanaaq was a precursor to the subsequent ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Ilois from the erstwhile pristine coral atoll, Diego Garcia, in the Chagos archipelago by British and American governments to construct one of the largest US military bases outside the US (see Charles Judson Harwood Jr., “Diego Garcia: The ‘criminal question’ doctrine,” updated 16 June 2006). See also John Pilger’s documentary Stealing a Nation.
14. See Per Walsøe, Goodbye Thule: The Compulsory Relocation in 1953 (Tiderne Skifter, 2003).
15. Knut Vidar Paulsen, “Thule-saken — urfolk og menneskerettigheter,” Norges Fredsråd.
16. Transcript of Danish Supreme Court Comments on Hingitaq 53, Inuit Circumpolar Council.
17. Malcolm Brabant, “Inuit battle to shut US air base,” BBC News, 3 November 2003.
18. Jørgen Dragsdahl, op.cit. Article 16.3 of the U.N. International Labor Organization convention, which was negotiated and ratified by Denmark, states: “Whenever possible, these people shall have the right to return to their traditional lands, as soon as the grounds for relocation ceases to exist.”
19. “Canada and Ballistic Missile Defence,” Foreign Affairs Canada
20. Humphrey Hawksley, “Arctic battleground for US missile plan,” BBC News, 8 June 2001. Thule’s radar system has already been threatened with attack by China since it is cheaper than an arms buildup (see Jørgen Dragsdahl, “Et Vigtigt Bombemål,” Information, 95, 25 April 2003, 9.
21. AP, “Greenland Base to Be Upgraded As Part of Missile Shield Plan,” New York Times, 7 August 2004.
22. Jane George, “Greenland approves ballistic missile defence shield,” Nunatsiaq News, 28 May 2004.
23. “Canada won’t join missile defence plan,” CBC News, 24 Feb 2005.
24. Richard Sanders, “Canada is Aiding and Abetting the Most Ambitious Weapons Development Program in World History,” Press for Conversion, 56, June 2005, 3-9. “The unfortunate reality,” according to Sanders, is that there is no BMD without Canadian involvement. Furthermore, Canada even requested and secured a role in BMD. See Richard Sanders, “Canada Requested ‘Missile Defense’ Role,” Press for Conversion, 56, June 2005, 10-21. “As far as Canadian corporations, government scientists and military personnel are concerned it is still business as usual with regards to the Canada-US partnership on ‘missile defense.’” “CBC News: US missile company scouts Labrador,” CBC News, 22 April 2005. It was reported that officials from missile-manufacturing Raytheon Company secretly scouted out sites in Labrador for a radar installation.
25. SIKU Circumpolar News Service, “I was an alcoholic, former Greenlandic premier says,” Nunatsiaq News, 23 May 2003.
26. David Ruppe, “Greenland Given No Veto in Missile Defense Deal,” Global Security Newswire, 10 August 2004. “Interview with Jens Moeller of Greenland TV,” U.S. Department of State, 6 August 2004.
27. “Thule Radar Work Set for 2005, to Cost $260 Million,” Global Security Newswire, 18 August 2004. Staff Writers, “Raytheon Awarded Early Warning Radar Upgrade Contract At Thule,” Spacewar, 17 April 2006.
28. David Ruppe, op.cit.
29. Jørgen Dragsdahl, op.cit.
30. “Ex-marine claims nuclear weapons stored at Nfld. Base,” CBC News, 10 May 2005.

It was originally populated by a pre-Dorset Culture around 2,000 BCE. By the twelfth century, the population numbered some 10,000 Norsemen and Inuit — the pre-Dorset and Dorset Cultures having disappeared. Today, more than 90 per cent of the island’s population of 56,361 (July 2006 estimate, CIA Factbook) live along the west coast. About 88 per cent of the people are Kalaallit (an Inuit people) or Kalaallit Nunaat-born Caucasians; the remainder is mainly Danish-speaking settlers and newcomers, a decline from 20 per cent in the 1980s. More than half of the people still depend on the traditions of harvesting seals, walrus, whales, foxes, birds, polar bears, and fish for their survival.

Yet, the Kalaallit do not enjoy sovereignty over their territory. Norwegian Vikings were among the first people to explore and inhabit Kalaallit Nunaat. Initially, they thrived, but the settlements petered out later, leaving the Kalaallit to carry on. Scandinavian political intrigues, however, did not relinquish sovereignty claims to the northern landmass.

Imperialistic wars and the geo-strategic significance of Kalaallit Nunaat attracted the covetousness of the United States. The colonizing authority Denmark could do little but make way for its hegemonic ally. Kalaallit Nunaat was drawn into the militaristic embrace of the United States, thereby transforming itself from being a remote Arctic island to a missile target for any potential enemies of the US. The Kalaallit found themselves completely marginalized between imperialistic interests in their own land.

The civilizing hand of western society regarded the Kalaallit as backward people, culturally and intellectually inferior, and unable to exploit the mineral resources of Kalaallit Nunaat. This ethnocentric view has been challenged. The United Nations charter recognizes the right to self-determination and followed up with a mandate for decolonization. That Kalaallit Nunaat still finds itself under Danish dominion begs the question as to how all this happened and even more why it still persists?

Historical Genesis

During the Dark Ages, groups of outlaws and farmers took to the sea from the northernmost reaches of Europe. These seafaring marauders became known as the Vikings. Some of these outcasts among the Vikings were to achieve historical distinction indirectly through dubious means. Born in Norway, young Erik Thorvaldsson, better known as Erik the Red because of his red hair and beard, wound up on Iceland because his father Thorvald Asvaldsson had been banished for murder.

Erik, himself, would be banished for three years from Iceland for murder. This led Erik to the east coast of the large island. Erik proceeded around the southern tip to the west coast and settled there, naming the land Greenland to attract people to it; at this time, Greenland was climatologically in a warm spell. After serving out his exile in Greenland, Erik returned to Iceland.

In 985, Erik left overcrowded Iceland with 25 ships of colonists, of which only 14 of the vessels reached Greenland. The colonists established two settlements, with a total of about 450 people. The settlements flourished and grew. Viking seamanship, however, continued to probe further offshore.¹

Greenland had already been partially settled before the Vikings arrived by a group of people archaeologists refer to as the Dorset Palaeo-Eskimos because their remains first appeared in a collection at Kinngait (Cape Dorset) on Qikiqtaaluk (Baffin Island).² The Dorset people are likeliest the Tunit of Inuit legend. The Tunit were an “ancient race of strong, gentle, and rather simple people” who lived in the Arctic territories (presently claimed by Canada and Denmark) before the ancestors of the present Inuit arrived.

The relatively warm climate of a millennium ago generated the grazing and hunting conditions that attracted the Norsemen and Inuit contemporaneously to western Greenland. The westward migrants were the Thule Inuit,³ so named because their remains were first identified near a settlement now called Thule in northern Greenland. The whale-hunting prowess of the Inuit favored them over the Dorset people who eventually disappeared in the Arctic.⁴ Much as competition favored the Inuit over the Dorset people, it also seems that the Inuit were better predisposed to life in Greenland than were the Viking people.

However, in 1386, Greenland would again return to the European domain, becoming part of the Norwegian monarchy. In 1397, Denmark gained control of Sweden, Norway and the colonies under the Kalmar Union. But the Greenland settlements disappeared. Evidence suggests that worsening climatic conditions led to a famine during the fifteenth century’s Little Ice Age.⁵

In 1815, Denmark attained sole possession of Greenland through the Treaty of Kiel.

The Militarization of Kalaallit Nunaat

Although a small imperialist nation, Denmark has a colonial past. Until the nineteenth century, imperial Denmark had possessions in India and the Gold Coast, both sold to Britain in mid-century. Denmark also ruled Norway, Iceland, and the Faeroe Islands. Denmark, which had sided with the losing French side in the Napoleonic Wars, lost Norway to English ally Sweden in 1814. Iceland became a sovereign country in 1944. The Faeroese and Kalaallit have struggled for national self-determination for decades.

Explorations by Americans Robert Edwin Peary and Matthew Henson between 1891 and 1909 formed the basis of a later claim by the United States to northern Kalaallit Nunaat, which was dropped when Denmark sold the Virgin Islands to the US in 1917. In 1921, Denmark, against Norwegian protests, declared sovereignty over the entire landmass. The Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague adjudicated this in Denmark’s favor in 1933, condemning the court as an organ for colonization. In 1940, the occupier became occupied when Germany’s army stationed itself in Denmark, and the fate of Kalaallit Nunaat became unclear. Denmark’s official in Washington, Henrik Kauffmann, was forced to accept that Kalaallit Nunaat came under the auspices of the Monroe Doctrine encompassing Turtle Island. The US had thereby achieved a pretext for World War II intervention without declaring war.

During World War II, Kangerlussuaq (Søndre Strømfjord) on Kalaallit Nunaat’s west coast and Keflavík, Iceland, served as air traffic control centers and “stepping stones” for pilots who ferried fighter planes across the North Atlantic. Patrol aircraft based at Keflavík Naval Air Station, aided by Underwater Sound Surveillance (SOSUS) systems, swept adjacent seas looking for enemy surface ships and submarines.

The US thus allowed Kalaallit Nunaat to be returned to Denmark on the condition that US and NATO forces would be allowed continued military use of the island; the negotiations were finalized in 1951. The 1951 agreement “concerning the defense of Greenland” gave the US extensive extra-territorial powers. It established “defense areas” that the US was entitled “to improve and generally to fit … for military use.” No substantial restrictions were included.⁶ A similar neo-colonial treaty, the 1951 Defense Arrangement, was negotiated with Iceland (US base at Keflavík near the capital of Reykjavik), turning the newly independent island republic into what Icelanders began to call the US aircraft carrier in the mid-Atlantic.⁷

The revelation, in 1995, that contrary to official policy, the Danish prime minister, H.C. Hansen gave the Americans a “green light” to station nuclear weapons in Kalaallit Nunaat in 1957 has been the source of much public debate in Denmark.

Crucial to the US’s designs for Kalaallit Nunaat was the Pentagon’s choice of a coastal site in northwest for the establishment of the Thule Air Force Base and radar. On 9 July 1951, a US armada of 120 ships, with about 12,000 men, arrived at Uummanaaq (Thule) in what was called the largest operation since the invasion of Normandy, code named Operation Blue Jay.⁸ Danish imperialism was subjected to the dictates of US imperialism. Consequently, the Kalaallit were effectively living under two imperialisms.

It was not until 1 May 1979 that Kalaallit Nunaat was granted limited home rule. But the Danish monarch remains Kalaallit Nunaat’s head-of-state, and defense, foreign affairs, justice, and currency fall under Danish jurisdiction. Confronted with a tiny imperialistic nation under the sway of the hyperempire, achieving full independence for the Kalaallit has been and continues to be a gargantuan struggle.

Thule’s Role in the Global Garrison

The famous Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen explored the Thule area in 1903-04. In 1908, the area was prepared for settlement. In 1909, a missionary and a storehouse were erected. In 1910, Rasmussen and his colleague Peter Freuchen returned to the area and named the tiny village “Thule,” from the Latin word with the same spelling meaning “northernmost part of the inhabitable world.” The Inughuit occupying the northern area called it Uummannaq. Freuchen managed the trading post that served as a base for scientific expeditions as well as supplying equipment and food. The world’s northernmost community was to change radically from its humble trading post origin.

During World War II, Denmark came under German occupation. Therefore, on 9 April 1941 Danish Ambassador Henrik Kauffmann and US secretary-of-state Cordell Hull signed an agreement on the defense of “Greenland” in Washington. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved it on 7 June 1941. US military interests stated that the US had generously agreed to take over the security of Kalaallit Nunaat. Once the US entered the war, the allies erected weather stations at Narssarssuaq airport, Kangerlussuaq (Søndre Strømfjord; Bluie West-8), Ikateq (Bluie East-2), and Gronnedal (Bluie West-9). In 1943, the Army Air Corp set up weather stations at Ittoqqortoormiit (Scoresbysund; Bluie East-3) and Qaanaaq (Bluie West-6) to be operated by Danish staff. The Kalaallit Nunaat weather stations were credited with giving the allies a strategic advantage over the Germans in battle planning and having provided a “decisive factor in D-Day.”⁹

In 1946, a Danish-American radio and weather station was established in the Royal Greenland Trade Department Building at Pituffik. Pituffik means “place where they tie their boats.”

Kalaallit Nunaat was an important part of US ambitions to establish a system of modern air bases around the globe after World War II. Kalaallit Nunaat gained increasing importance after the difficulty of transporting atomic bombs between US or Canadian bases and European objectives became manifest. Indeed, the shortest route from the US to critical targets in the Soviet Union was over the North Pole, and Thule is strategically located midway between Moscow and New York. Thule’s importance was both offensive and defensive: Strategic Air Command bombers flying over the Arctic gave the US increased no-detection time; Thule is well situated for intercepting bomber attacks along the northeastern approaches to Turtle Island.

Operation Blue Jay, the secret construction of Thule Air Base (Pituffik), started in 1951 and finished in 1953. Descriptions of the construction are staggering. According to the Strategic Air Command (SAC):

The construction of Thule is said to have been comparable in scale to the enormous effort required to build the Panama Canal. The Navy transported the bulk of men, supplies, and equipment from the naval shipyards in Norfolk, VA. On 6 June 1951, an armada of 120 shipments sailed from Norfolk, VA. On board were 12,000 men and 272,158 tons (300,000 imperial tons) of cargo. They arrived at Thule 9 July 1951. Construction took place around the clock. The workers lived on-board the ship until quarters were built. Once they moved into the quarters, the ships returned home.¹⁰

Thule Air Base’s initial purpose was as a forward staging base for SAC bombers and tankers — with a fuel storage capacity of approximately 380 million liters (10,039,000 gallons; the largest in the US Department of Defense — built to support mid-air refueling of the B-47 bombers). The base was constructed to accommodate 12,000 personnel, for which 137,000 hectares (338,534 acres) were reserved. Originally, Thule was comprised of a main base of 1,052 hectares (2,600 acres), 132 kilometers (82 miles) of road, 38 fuel tanks, 10 hangers, 122 barracks, 6 mess halls, a gym, service club, officer’s club, hobby shop, library, base exchange, post office, theater, chapel, hospital, 63 warehouses, a laundry, a bakery, two primary power plants, and 4 auxiliary power/heating plants.

To accomplish all this, the Inughuit of Uummannaq were forcibly relocated 105 kilometers (65 miles) to the north, on Red Cliff Peninsula: Qaanaaq. SAC indicated that the relocation was because the Inughuit’s game had been frightened away from Thule Air Base, so to protect their cultural survival the Inughuit “moved so that hunting and fishing could continue without disturbances from the activities of the modern air base.”¹⁰

The Global Garrison of Hyperempire

Although the US cites the Cold War as its main pretext for occupying Kalaallit Nunaat because of its geo-strategic position as a staging base for nuclear bombers, the genesis of its occupation lies in American geopolitical considerations laid out before World War II.

The American scheme was embodied in the Declaration of Panama on 23 September 1939. It proclaimed a so-called Neutrality Zone covering the entire western hemisphere, averaging 483 kilometers (300 miles) in breadth, excluding the territorial waters of Canada and the undisputed colonies and possessions of European countries within those limits. Notwithstanding this semantic formula, the neutrality zone was intended in practice to cover Canada and the European-held possessions in the Western Hemisphere.

Under the pretext of “hemispheric defence,” “inter-American solidarity,” and later “the joint struggle against Hitler,” the US during World War II further expanded its Atlantic sphere of naval-military operations northwards to Newfoundland and Labrador, Iceland, and Kalaallit Nunaat, while at the same time moving to establish military bases within the British sphere of influence in the Caribbean (Jamaica, Antigua, St. Lucia, Bermuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Aruba and Surinam (Dutch), Guyana, Ascension, and Barbados). On 10 April 1940, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt invoked the Monroe Doctrine, declaring Kalaallit Nunaat a part of Turtle Island and part of the US sphere of “vital interests” and reached an agreement with an individual Danish minister in Washington that permitted the establishment of US military bases and meteorological stations. In 1942, the US took Kalaallit Nunaat and Iceland under so-called “protective custody,” replacing Canadian troops, well after Nazi Germany had occupied Denmark in 1940. As well, the US moved into Iceland, replacing British troops, and establishing the US base at Keflavík — an ongoing issue.

To further these ends, the Americans were granted the right to maintain and operate landing fields, seaplane bases, radio and meteorological stations, to install fortifications, and to take any measures need to insure their efficient operation, including the improvement of harbors, roads and communications.

Like Kalaallit Nunaat, Iceland was purportedly “necessary for both the security of the US and for the projection of its postwar military operations.”

But the American troops “protecting” Kalaallit Nunaat did not leave with the defeat of Germany and the liberation of Denmark.

Part 2: the dangers of stationing nuclear weapons in Kalaallit Nunaat.

1. Farley Mowat, West Viking: The Ancient Norse in Greenland and North America (McClelland and Stewart, 1965). Without a doubt, the Genovese navigator Christopher Columbus was not the first European to reach the shores of “North America.” Generally, the Vikings are considered the first Europeans to do so although there is a case for a Celtic settlement of Iceland and Greenland that predates the Vikings. There is archaeological evidence of a short-lived Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. There are at least two credible accounts of Vikings reaching continental Turtle Island late in the tenth century. Bjarni Herjolfsson is thought to have reached landfall in Vinland (probably Avalon coast from Cape Race to Cape St. Francis of Newfoundland) after riding out a polar nor’easter in 985. (405-417) In the summer of 982, Erik Thorvaldsson explored Vestri Obygdir — what is believed to be the Western Wilderness of Qikiqtaaluk (Baffin Island) — where big game for hunting was bountiful. Mowat contended this marked the first European “of whom any record still exists, to discover what was for all technical reasons, the continent of North America.” (66)
2. In staying with the principle that recognizes the right of first and continued settlement, the present series shall accord preference to the place-name designations of the Original Peoples followed by colonial designations in parentheses.
3. or more specifically: Inughuit
4. Robert McGhee, “Arctic History,” Canadian Museum of Civilization.
5. Mowat, op. cit. By the mid-fourteenth century the Norse settlements in Greenland had collapsed. (300) The last Norseman in Greenland died in 1504. (302)
6. “Defense of Greenland: Agreement Between the United States and the Kingdom of Denmark,” The Avalon Project, 27 April 1951.
7. “Defense of Iceland: Agreement Between the United States and the Republic of Iceland,” The Avalon Project, 5 May 1951.
8. Jørgen Dragsdahl, “The Danish dilemma,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September/October 2001.
9. “SAC Bases: Thule Air Base,” Strategic-Air-Command.com.
10. Ibid.