Dwight Gladue, Lubicon CreeFind out how you can join the ever-expanding network of Lubicon supporters fighting unbridled, destructive corporate control in our society.
Fred Lennarson, advisor to the Lubicon Cree
Kevin Thomas & Stephen Kenda, Friends of the Lubicon (Toronto)
Ed Bianchi, Aboriginal Rights Coalition & Friends of the Lubicon
In each city, Dwight Gladue & Fred Lennarson will speak about the ongoing struggle of the Lubicon people to defend their lands and about the impact on the community of unbridled resource exploitation.
Members of Friends of the Lubicon will talk about successful campaigns against corporations in your home town that are linked to the destruction of the Lubicon, and about combatting corporate use of the legal system to silence critics. A 25 minute video on the Lubicon, "A Fight Against Time", will be shown. A question and answer session will round out each night.
Friday, May 16 - Noon: Bellingham
Western Washington University, Wilson Library Presentation Room
For more info: 360-650-6125 (Peace Resource Centre)
Friday, May 16 - 7:30 pm: Olympia
Evergreen State College, The Longhouse: Cedar Room
For more info: 360-866-6000 x6105 (Native Student Alliance)
Sunday, May 18 - 7 pm: Seattle
Black Cat Cafe, 4110 Roosevelt Way NE
For more info: 206-723-4703 (Dan Clarke)
Monday, May 19 - 7 pm: Portland
Rexall Rose Cafe and Theatre, 2403 NE Alberta St.
For more info: 503-245-3866 (Chiapas Urgent Call)
Unocal Information Campaign (UIC) was formed in 1995. UIC is a citizens' group endorsed by a coalition of human rights, environmental and other grassroots groups, including Friends of the Lubicon. UIC is concerned with the highly questionable corporate practices of Unocal, a California-based gas and oil company.In Bellingham, Olympia, Seattle, and Portland, it's the Lubicon Cree and DaishowaIn the province of Ontario, Canada, UIC focussed on Consumers Gas, one of Unocal's largest Canadian gas clients. Recently, Consumers announced they will not renew their contract with Unocal. This leaves no known significant Unocal customers in Ontario.
B.C.'s activist community is established, knowledgeable, committed and effective. The head office of B.C. Gas is in Vancouver. B.C. Gas is Unocal's largest gas client in Canada.
Friends of the Lubicon is a Canadian organization that focuses on confronting corporations on issues of Native land rights and the environment. Through their enormously successful boycott of Daishowa paper products, Friends of the Lubicon has been instrumental in preventing the transnational paper company Daishowa from clearcutting unceded Lubicon land for the last six years. Daishowa claims the boycott has cost them upwards of $10 million in lost sales. Three of the organizers are now facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit launched by Daishowa in an effort to shut down the boycott and intimidate supporters. The lawsuit appears to be part of the growing American phenomenon of SLAPP suits: "Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation", legal proceedings brought by corporations to deter or punish lawful public participation in the democratic process.The defendants will speak about organizing effective opposition to unjust corporate practices, Native land rights, SLAPP suits, and consumer action for social justice in the age of transnational corporations. There will be a screening of the video "Fight Against Time" by On Cue Film and Video (1995), a short and gripping account, in their own words, of the Lubicon peoples' battle to survive as a community.
As a result of Daishowa's heavy-handed tactics in Canada, a Seattle-based Daishowa Boycott is now off and running in the States.