Thule case dropped

Thule hunters had to shelve their case against the Danish government this week because their lawyer says he can’t afford to go on.

Christian Harlang represented Hingitaq 53, the group of 187 hunters who were displaced to Qaanaaq, Greenland, in 1953 for the construction of the Thule Air Base.

He was representing the hunters in their efforts to settle ownership of the expropriated land and the issue of hunting rights.

But Harlang said he couldn’t afford to represent the hunters any longer, pointing out the Crown lawyer received three times as much money for legal expenses than he did.

Hingitaq 53 issued a statement saying it was “intolerable” that their lawyer was given such inadequate resources.

“Of course we don’t wish that the Thule case is going to be stopped. But we don’t have anything else to do now,” Ussarqak Qujaukitsoq, chairman of Hingitaq 53, told Greenland’s Atuagagdliutit newspaper. “We cannot afford to keep him, so we had to stop it. And we are very sad about it.”

Aqqaluk Lynge, vice-president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, is furious. He plans to ask the executive of the home rule government to ask the Supreme Court for equal treatment for lawyers in the Thule case.