Last night Gilbert Pilot, a spokesperson for the Innu Native Americans in northern Quebec, spoke about their resistance to the building of a hydro-electric dam near their homeland.
Pilot arrived 40 minutes late to Rockefeller Center, after a hurried drive from Amherst College through last night's rain, he said.
Without using notes or removing his jacket, he delivered a speech to about 13 people, outlining his people's efforts to combat Hydro-Quebec's continued exploitation of Innu territory.
"Our homeland is our culture, our language, because we can name every tree, every lake, every fish in our language," he said. "And to destroy that is to destroy the language, the heart of a people."
Hydro-Quebec, which has already built 13 dams in the Innu's homeland in Natissinan, plans to build another later this year. Pilot said his people's plight relates to a global problem.
Pilot said people today will not acknowledge the problem of environmental degradation and instead talk in terms of money.
"Many people close their eyes and don't want to hear what happened to the earth and to the human being," he said.
The Innu organized themselves in 1991, when the Band Council, an umbrella organization for Native Americans in Canada, failed to represent their interests, Pilot said.
The Band Council was influenced by large subsidies from the Federal Canadian Government, but the Innu have forsaken all government grants in the name of resistance, Pilot said.
"We decided to lead non-violent acts of resistance through civil disobedience," Pilot said.
Pilot was sentenced to two months in jail in Quebec and has a warrant pending for his arrest.
"We are not scared to go in jail as we are not scared to die for our beliefs and our convictions," he said.
The Innu plan to peacefully occupy the access route to the construction site in late May, Pilot said.
Pilot's speech was sponsored by the Environmental Studies Division of the Dartmouth Outing Club and by the Rockefeller Student Council.
