But Nelson, of the Ojibwa tribe, never addressed the Majlis as he said he would, nor did he meet anyone of high rank.
Although Nelson was invited to Iran by the Islamic Republic to spite Canada and its strong anti-Islamic Republic policies, the Persian media gave surprisingly little coverage to his six-day stay. It appeared to some that the government of Iran had second thoughts about inviting him and basically brushed him off.
Iranian news reports tell of him meeting only Alaeddin Borujerdi, the chairman of the Majlis National Security Committee, and Mohammad-Javad Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Human Rights Council, which mainly defends the Iranian state and attacks others for human rights violations.
Larijani told Nelson, “As we defend the oppressed Bahraini, Iraqi, Afghan and Palestinian people at international bodies, we will also defend the oppressed Canadian aborigines with an expressive and documented voice.”
Borujerdi said the Canadian government’s efforts to prevent the indigenous people of Canada from having any role in Canada’s political system was a clear case of violating their human rights.
Nelson originally said four or five tribal leaders would go with him. But Dennis Pashe, the deposed chief of Manitoba’s Tipi First Nation, was the only person accompanying him. Nelson told the Winnipeg Free-Press by telephone from Tehran that Pashe “was the only one brave enough to come along.”
But at least some Indian leaders in Canada thought Nelson’s visit was a bad idea. They saw Nelson as provocative in an unhelpful way. Some said outright that Nelson’s description of reservations as “concentration camps” and his labeling of Canada’s Indian policy as a “holocaust” was inflammatory and likely to damage relations with whites in Canada.
Grand Chief Derek Nepinak, head of the Association of Manitoba Chiefs, told CBC News, “I think we live here peacefully within Western Canada society, and I think some of the [Nelson] messaging is not doing any good.”
The publication Indian Country Today led its story on the Iran visit by saying Nelson “may have accomplished what no amount of negotiation or meetings has done to date: given Canadian officials and aboriginal leaders something to agree on.”
The Fars news agency quoted Nelson as saying Canada’s tribal chiefs would write OPEC asking it to allow the chiefs to make a presentation to OPEC and to provide aid to the Canadian tribes in such areas as health care. He was quoted as saying that he thought OPEC could be a big help because its members have had a similar history in fighting colonial powers.
Nelson told Fars that he had arranged for some Iranian universities to invite Canadian aborigines to study in Iran. He didn’t name any universities or say whether the Indians would be offered scholarships.
The Winnipeg Free-Press, meanwhile, reported that Nelson had traveled to Iraq in 1990 to meet Saddam Hussein and attack Canada’s record on human rights there just as he did in Iran last month.
Nelson’s trip has not been getting the coverage in Canada that one might expect. Nelson got nowhere in his effort earlier this year to be elected chief of the national tribal federation and seems to be viewed now as a has-been in Canada.
The Canadian government has shaken its head rather than its fist at Nelson’s trip. “We’re disappointed that Mr. Nelson allowed himself to be used as a pawn by the Iranian regime in yet another PR [public relations] stunt to distract from their own record,” said Jason MacDonald, spokesman for the Aboriginal Affairs Ministry.
What commentary has appeared in the mainstream press in Canada has been overwhelmingly negative and disparaging,
Lorne Gunter, a columnist for the Toronto Sun, said Nelson has no credibility with his own people any longer. He noted Nelson was removed yet again as chief of his Roseau River band in Manitoba last September over finances. “An auditor questioned more than half a million dollars in loans and advances to several current and former band employees, including Nelson’s daughter, that weren’t included in financial statements,” Gunter wrote.
“Nelson vehemently denied any impropriety and offered counter-explanations of where the money had gone, but ultimately his explanations were deemed insufficient by his own band’s council, which expelled him from office.”
Naomi Lakritz, a columnist with the Calgary Herald, was dismissive of Nelson. “When you’ve got a fabricated human rights complaint about Canada, there’s nothing like taking it straight to the undisputed champion of human rights–Iran,” she wrote.
In an email Nelson sent to other chiefs, he explained the trip saying: “We, the indigenous people in the three Prairie provinces [Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta], are currently the most powerful people in the world. We sit on the pipelines that deliver 2.5 million barrels of oil a day to the United States.” He said he was seeking help from Iran with OPEC.
Some pipelines pass through some reservations and Nelson seemed to think that gave the tribes a stranglehold.
Columnist Lakritz noted that Nelson is telling Iranians that Canada throws Indians into “concentration camps” and plots their “extermination.” She chuckled at that.
“They’re Holocaust deniers,” she wrote of the Iranian leadership. “They don’t believe there were any concentration camps and they certainly believe there was no extermination. It’s just that pesky Jewish media again, up to their old tricks, insisting that such things really didn’t happen. I’m sure Nelson believes the Holocaust happened. That’s why he can throw around phrases like ‘concentration camps’ and ‘extermination.’ But his hosts don’t believe it happened. So, his analogy is going to fall on deaf ears. Gosh, I sure hope his whole trip isn’t spoiled because of it.”
