Norwegian pressure against Sami governance
The Progress Party, the second biggest political party in Norway, wants to abolish the Sami Parliament, pull Norway out of the ILO Convention 169 and reduce Sami land rights.
No ethnic group should have exclusive land or government preferences, the party argues. In its annual assembly this week, the party adopted a controversial policy programme on Sami issues, which calls for the deprival of all exclusive land and governance rights of the indigenous Sami people.
Should the Progress Party win the upcoming parliament elections and get government power, ethnic tensions in northern Norway could get serious, observers fear.
The Progress Party in its programme maintains that the Sami Parliament in Norway should be abolished in its current form and that Norway should pull out of the ILO Convention 169, an agreement which grants exclusive rights to indigenous peoples. The programme also indicates that the Finnmark Authority, the Sami-dominated body in control of land management in the northernmost county of Finnmark, should be abolished.
The anti-Sami policy of the right-wing party comes as tensions between Sami and non-Sami interests in northern Norway is on the increase. As BarentsObserver reported, new and stricter land claims from Sami communities stir increasing irritation among other groups in the region.