Reindeer, War Games and ‘Lapistan’
War games in the North were in the news in Scandinavia this last week, when Operation Loyal Arrow took place between June 8-18. 800-900 exercise participants from Germany, Finland, the United Kingdom, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Turkey and the United States as well as NATO’s airborne early warning component participated. Two issues were of concern for Sami, reindeer herders and others – first the scenario: The exercises are based on a fictional conflict in “Lapistan,” a revolutionary, oil-rich dictatorship that has attacked a neighboring country.
The mission is to enforce a UN resolution, using mainly air forces based near Sweden’s largest northern city, Luleå. The exercise spans a massive land area stretching from Östersund in southern Lapland to the Norwegian border, near the Barents Sea.
Besides the fact that ‘Lapp’ denotes a derogatory term for the regions indigenous people, the Sami, military excercises over reindeer calving grounds is a serious matter of concern for reindeer herders.
Anders Blom, head of the Sami national organization, SSR explained,
“Low-flying aircraft can create a lot of problems, particularly at this time of the year, when the reindeer are calving. The noise causes the animals to panic and that can lead to deaths and serious injuries. If we’d been consulted earlier about where the aircraft would be, then we could have done something, but we heard nothing until the last moment.”
Picture: 1941, Russia, USSR — British-made Hawker Hurricanes with Soviet pilots fly over a reindeer on their way to attack the Germans. — Image by © Yevgeny Khaldei/CORBIS. Khaldei was a Red Army photographer, best know for his picture of the Soviet flag flying over the Reichstag at the end of WWII. This phot, dramatic as it is, was a montage made by him. The photos were taken during the German operation called, ironically enough, ‘Operation Reindeer’ that had the goal of capturing the nickel mines of Petsaamo.
Recent Comments