[imported_Fluffy_Bunny]

Adrian Humphreys
National Post

March 30, 2004

Canada's top remaining diplomat in Denmark was called before the Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday to discuss the disputed territory of Hans Island, a barren rock in the high Arctic.

Brian Herman, charge d'affaires of Canada's diplomatic mission in Copenhagen, was asked by officials about his country's intentions in the spat, recently inflamed by Danish sailors occupying the island during regular Arctic patrols.

Mr. Herman's response was that "it is not Canada's intention to stir up a tempest in a teapot," said Reynald Doiron, spokesman for Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs. "We want to keep an open mind on this and yes, we would be ready to resume discussions on the issue but there has been no definite agenda set," he said.

Peter Taksoe-Jensen, head of international public law with the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the issue is not in danger of becoming an international incident. "The solution of the dispute over Hans Island is not going to be a military solution in the sense that Denmark is going to post military on the island or anything of that kind," Mr. Taksoe-Jensen said from Copenhagen.

"It is going to be a negotiated solution where Canada and Denmark sit together at the table at some stage when we come to this issue and find a solution."

Although he played down the presence of a Danish warship -- which has made repeated visits to the island with its sailors occupying the island and even unfurling the red and white flag of Denmark over it -- Mr. Taksoe-Jensen could not rule out further visits.

"Since we think of it as part of Danish territory, we feel officials have that right. It is only natural that Danish officials go there from time to time."

He said Copenhagen would take issue if Canada also landed soldiers on the island.

Canada has not had an ambassador in Denmark since Alfonso Gagliano was recalled by Paul Martin in the wake of the advertising scandal involving Mr. Gagliano's former government ministry.

The National Post has highlighted the dispute between Canada and Denmark over the tiny, desolate, ice-bound island as one of four international boundary disputes prompting concerns over the nation's ability to maintain sovereignty of its vast northern region.

The issue was also raised in Parliament, with Stockwell Day, the Conservative party's foreign affairs critic, calling on the government to fill Mr. Gagliano's post and for the restoration of military funding to help retain Arctic sovereignty.

"The nation of Denmark has laid claim to Canadian territory. Its military, from its warship, hoisted its flag on our Arctic territory without permission, without warning, and without any fear of being stopped," Mr. Day said on Friday.

"The government's utter disarray is underlined by the fact that the scandal has led to the recall of our ambassador to Denmark, the very nation that is challenging our sovereignty," Mr. Day said.

Aileen Carroll, Minister for International Co-operation, said Canada will continue to defend its interests.

"Hans Island constitutes part of the national territory of Canada. No assertion by the Danish ambassador or other Danish officials detracts from the absolute sovereignty that Canada enjoys over Hans Island," she said, repeating the official statement of Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Day said the issue highlights the military's weakness.

"This embarrassing situation shows that the Prime Minister was wrong when he was underfunding our national defence while he was finance minister ... and he is wrong today in leaving Canada exposed and embarrassed," he said in Parliament.

David Pratt, the Minister of National Defence, defended the government's record.

"A significant amount of money has been put into the navy over the last number of years. Since this government took over, significant investments have been made in the armed forces overall.... We are continuing to rebuild the Canadian Forces," he said.

[Himmler]

Canada going to war? No way... oOo:

[imported_Fluffy_Bunny]

Not necessarily, but it would be interesting...

[Merlin122]

canada>denmark

[imported_Fluffy_Bunny]

I would like to volunteer my services to the RCN or whatever its called now. rock:

[Sgt. Paine]

Originally Posted by Merlin122

canada>denmark

of course since denmark is such a Loaner country.

[Madmartagen]

This just in: Denmark accuses Canada of hiding WMDs on the island. Invasion to come shortly. oOo:

April Fools?

Anyway, you canucks got my help, rather fight up north than in the damned desert anyway.


PS. aren't Canada and Denmark both in NATO???

[imported_Fluffy_Bunny]

It's the falklands all over again sept with canux

[so|dat]

kill canada, kill canada!!!!1 j/k

[Sgt. Paine]

[quote="Sgt Stryker"]April Fools?

quote]

Its the 31st oOo:

[Sergeant_Scrotum]

not overseas

[ninty]

Thats it. It's on!!!

Those Danish ahve pushed my buttons for the last time!!!

When will they get it through thir head that its OUR desolate piece of ice? I mean, we can make ice cubes, and even margaritas out of that place.

Storm delays Arctic patrol; troops won't visit disputed island on 18-day trek



[quote:c6a6a]

Our Arctic campaign may prove fleeting

William Morrison and Ken Coates
National Post


March 29, 2004





It appears that Canada and Denmark have gotten themselves into a diplomatic donnybrook over Hans island -- a tiny Arctic speck few people in either country have heard of. At stake is something greater, however -- the issue of Canada's claim to its Arctic archipelago, part of this nation's self-image as a circumpolar nation.

The supposed challenge from the Danes -- a country with long-standing Arctic interests -- is but the latest affront to Canadian sovereignty in the region. The United States disputes Canada's claim to sovereignty over all Arctic waters, and insists that the Northwest Passage, made increasingly navigable by global warming, be opened to international shipping. Meanwhile, Russian scientists explore the outer fringes of our northern territories.

The federal government now promises to rush to the defence of our northern extremities with military flights, radar stations and Armed Forces exercises. Fear not, it promises, Canada's sparsely inhabited Arctic islands will be protected.

Our country has been down this path before. Since the British government bequeathed the Arctic Islands (known and unknown) to the youthful Dominion of Canada in 1880, Canadian authorities have had an uneven commitment to Ellesmere, Prince William, Victoria, Banks and the rest of the islands. We have, as the phrase goes, managed the far North in "a fit of absence of mind."

Canadians do love their Arctic Islands, but more in the fashion of a never seen Old Country aunt than as a precious member of the immediate family. We enjoy being a big country and have a passion for maps that show Canada projecting northward, thrusting bravely toward the North Pole. But we care little about the islands in a practical sense, for few visit them, and most would have difficulty saying anything about them, beyond the obvious elements of cold and winter.

What Canadians cannot stand -- and where we have drawn the line in the snow for over a century and a quarter -- is when someone else appears to covet our northern territories. When Scandinavians raised questions about Canadian sovereignty over the islands almost a century ago, we responded by sending officers on symbolic and ceremonial patrols into the high Arctic. We watched nervously when Americans, led by Robert Peary, demonstrated an interest in Arctic affairs (and breathed a sigh of a relief when their interest went no further than the showmanship and salesmanship of Peary and the Icelandic-Canadian scientist and promoter Vilhjalmur Stefansson.)

We did little except mine gold in the North until the military presence of the United States in the Yukon and Northwest Territories during the Second World War alerted us to the vulnerability of our hold on the region. After the war, we let the Americans build the Distant Early Warning Line, designed to protect the continent from Soviet attack, and only belatedly discovered that our commitment to North American defence at someone else's expense had left us no longer entirely maitres chez nous.

It was only in the 1950s and 1960s that we established a presence beyond a handful of RCMP posts. In what has proven to be a highly controversial move, Canadian authorities relocated scores of Inuit to new community sites in the far north. In part, Arctic scholar Shelagh Grant has argued, this initiative was designed to establish Canadian sovereignty in the region.

We recoiled in horror when the Americans sailed the oil tanker Manhattan through the Northwest Passage without our permission, and engaged in a decade-long angst-ridden debate about the need to embrace the Arctic as part of our identity. Canada built government facilities throughout the region, improving surveillance (including the use of 1,500 Inuit Rangers who make annual patrols), encouraging great awareness of northern places and peoples, sponsoring a major expansion of Arctic scientific research through such programs as the Polar Continental Shelf Project, and creating a series of national parks in the Arctic.

And then, for a time, we lost interest. With external threats retreating and with attention turning to the empowerment of indigenous communities, the resolution of land claims and the creation of Nunavut, Canadian efforts focused primarily on domestic and aboriginal concerns. Canadians were content with the North as an indigenous homeland and with the Arctic Islands as a little-known and generally ignored national appendage.

But it now seems we are once more back in the sovereignty game. The Danes are coming, the Russians are encroaching and the ever-present Americans are coveting the region. Where before we sent the police to establish Canadian ownership, let the American military defend our northern flank and sent bureaucrats and scientists to document and administer the region, we will now apparently rely on what is promised to be the first substantial and sustained military presence in the high Arctic.

It is difficult to know what to make of this latest burst of official enthusiasm for the high Arctic. Is it a distraction, a government ruse to deflect attention away from the sordid mess in Ottawa? It's hard to say. But whatever the case, history is instructive. In the past, national interest in the islands has typically been intense and short-lived. There is little to suggest this episode will be any different.

Ken Coates is dean of arts and science at the University of Saskatchewan. William Morrison is professor of history at the University of Northern British Columbia.


[/quote:c6a6a]

======================

[quote:c6a6a]Hans Island measures about 1.3 square km (half a square mile) and lies between Greenland and Canada's Ellesmere Island, about 1,000 km (620 miles) from the North Pole.

The foundations for the dispute were laid in 1973, when borders drawn between Greenland -- which has limited home rule under the Danish crown -- and Canada ignored Hans Island.

Since then the two sides have expressed their claim by hoisting flags, with Danes leaving bottles of schnapps behind for the next troupe of flag-bearing Canadians, who leave bottles of whiskey in return.

[/quote:c6a6a]

rolf

[Maplegyver]

LOL

[Tripper]

[quote="Fluffy_Bunny":e2ee0]It's the falklands all over again sept with canux[/quote:e2ee0]

I was just about to say that......Although neither side has as fucked up a government as Argentina had in the 80s.....So I don't think war will be possible with two "civilised" countries.