Declaration Of Intent
16th August Union Declaration of Intent
The 16th August Union demands that all Greenlanders have rights to a fair share of Greenland Ruby.
Specific Demands:
- Restoration of the rights in Article 32
- Restoration of the rights in the “One Handful” rule
- Cease and desist all legal harassment of ruby miners
- Due process for ruby miners permits and licenses
- New ASM law written by neutral international party
- Guaranteed rights to free and fair trade
- Guaranteed rights to international participation
Situation Briefing
The 16th August Union is a Greenlandic guild of ruby prospectors, gemstone shapers, jewelry designers and artisans, members of the Greenland Stone Club, who stand for human rights and the right to continue their tradition of native ruby in Greenland.
For over two centuries, Greenland have freely worked and traded ruby. Until just two years ago, Greenlander jewelry artists and their fellow gemstone hunter-gatherer artisannes delivered Greenland ruby and jewelry products to friends and family, to local markets, to Arctic Ocean tour boats, and to the international jewelry trade.
How very important today is Greenland’s contribution of clean, natural, native ruby in the face of blood ruby embargoed against Burma - Myanmar, with Burma – Myanmar representing some eighty (80) percent of the world’s supply of ruby, forming a major pillar of support for an outlaw military regime.
Today in Greenland, unfortunately, things have changed for the worse. Long-standing rights and sacred traditions have been taken away.
greenland ruby
What was once clear to the people is now confused and uncertain. What was once easy and natural, is now difficult and expensive. Today, the Greenland ruby is being held hostage by a junior Canadian mining company working in collusion with a rogue government bureaucracy. This agency has been subject to independent internal investigation by the Greenland government. The Official Ombudsman delcared the agency’s actions illegal, and vindicated native ruby prospectors who had been falsely arrested and improperly charged.
Corporate and political interests are denying the native people of Greenland their human rights to earn a living from village ruby as has been done for generations. Profoundly and negatively impacted are the Greenlandic villages of: Nuuk, Qeqertarsuatsiaat, Maniitsoq, along the western Kitaa coast, and now along the eastern Tunua coast, Tasiilaq.
Greenland Ruby needs your help.
Formal Demands
We demand a return of the rights long guaranteed in Section 32. For generations, Greenlanders had been allowed to hunt, fish and gather minerals virtually anywhere on Greenland. Now, those rights are violated for minerals and Greenlanders worry next they will be confiscated for fish and food.
For generations, Greenlanders were free to give gifts to visitors to their beloved island, and all visitors to Greenland were allowed to collect rocks and minerals to take home, the famous “One Handful” rule. Now those sacred rights have been violated and taken away. Greenlanders with valid export permits have had their permits torn up and thrown away, and then been arrested.
Friends and allies have been harassed and persecuted in violation of traditional Greenlandic hospitality. Greenlanders go to get the new permits and licenses under the newest new laws and the paperwork is incomprehensible, the cost is too high with no rights guaranteed and no appeal possible.
Greenlanders need a way to get the things they need to hunt for ruby again. The laws governing artisanal small miners must take the 
counsel of global experts in the field. We Greenlanders demand our rights to earn a living in ruby, selling to the world and benefiting our families, villages and nation.
If these demands are not met, we will organize a united effort through our connections to the ethical gemstone community to thwart all efforts to market gems under the current apartheid system.
Greenland Moves To Formalize Apartheid System In Gem Exploration
Inuit Small Scale Miners Unite With International Community of Ethical Jewelers
Nuuk, Greenland, March 3rd, 2010. Niels Madsen, a small scale mining activist and founder of the 16th August Union, has issued a call to the international community to block Greenland Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum continuing attempt to disenfranchising Inuits from the mineral resources
On March 8th, Greenland’s Director of , Jorn Skov Nielsen is presenting at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada http://www.pdac.ca/ with the clear aim of offering Greenland’s vast mineral wealth to large scale mining companies.
According to Madson, Nielsen’s actions are the conference, supporting the carving of Greenland’s minerals to large scale mining companies, are a violation of Greenlandic Constitutional rights which under Article 32, guarantee communal ownership of the land. They also defy the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights.
“The BMP in this meeting is attempting to formalize an apartheid system of gem exploration,” said Madson, who plans to use every possible means to thwort the BMP.
“Any company that participates and supports them are party to an apartheid system in violation of the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights,” said Madson. “At present, I own the website, www.truenorthgemsapartheid.com. If I and others in my group of 35 miners are not allows to simply dig in our own country with hand tools, I will launch this site formally.”
True North Gems has been developing a site on Greenland for Ruby over the last several years. They were recently granted rights to 850 square miles.
FACT CHECK. On Tuesday 9 March 2010, True North Gems, which has been working closely with the BMP in its ruby mine, is scheduled to give a 20 minute presentation to the Canadian diamond community.
Until the discovery of valuable gem deposits in Greenland, land, Inuits were allowed to gather, polish and sell gem material. Once valuable ruby was discovered by True North Gems, the Bureau of Mining and Petroleum (BMP) The BMP has issued mining laws for small scale miners that create such complex and difficult hurtles that small scale miners can no longer gather rubies off their land.
“The strategy of the BMP has been to lie about our position, claiming that we do not want to pay taxes. That is completely false,” said Madson, who gathered five thousand signatures were gathered in support of Inuit small scale mining rights. “Even though True North Gems is very unpopular in our country, we have no problem working with them and other large scale mining companies, as long as we are also given fair and easy access have our own claims in areas where large scale mining is not viable,”
Niels Madsen
Greg Valerio, a founder of the highly regarding Association for Responsible Mining, attempted to broker fair mining laws for small scale miners with the BMP in June, 2009, offering reduced cost services from an international small scale mining attorney to create fair laws that stand up to international standards.
“Despite spending thousands of dollars to send their ministers to Canada, the BMP is unwilling to create a fair system for their own miners,” said Valerio
Madsen has the support of jewelers from around the globe. For the first time in the history of the jewelry sector, the most important jewelers in the emerging fair trade, ethical Sourcing Community are lining up in support of Indigenous rights. They have vowed not to purchase any minerals from Greenland until the rights of small scale Inuit miners have been restored.