[LINK] "Greenland votes massively in favour of self-rule"

[rfmcdonald]

Canada's northern neighbour, Greenland, has reached another political milestone almost unnoticed by us.

Greenland voted massively in favour of self-rule in a referendum that paves the way for independence from Denmark and gives it rights to lucrative Arctic resources, final results showed.

A total of 75.54 percent voted "yes" to greater autonomy, while 23.57 percent said "no."

A self-rule proposal hammered out with Denmark earlier this year gives Greenland, which was granted semi-autonomy from Copenhagen in 1979, rights to potentially lucrative Arctic resources, as well as control over justice and police affairs and, to a certain extent, foreign affairs.

The new status will take effect on June 21, 2009.

The head of the local government Hans Enoksen hailed the outcome in an emotional televised address.

"I say thank you to the people of Greenland for this overwhelming result. Greenland has been given a mandate to take another step" toward independence, he said.

In Nuuk, the capital that is home to a quarter of the island's 57,000-strong population, fireworks lit up the night sky even before the final results were announced.

Opinion polls prior to the referendum had suggested the result would be a clear "yes."

Anne Sofie Fisker, a voter in her 60s, was prophetic as she left a Nuuk polling station earlier in the day. "It's a day to celebrate, a historic day, one that I have waited for for years and years," she told AFP.

"It was time for us for to regain our rights and freedoms that were stolen from our ancestors, a people of free and proud hunters whose lands were colonised" by Denmark 300 years ago, said David Brandt, a former fisherman.

Others however, including Johannes Mathiassen, feared the self-rule "is too early, and the country is not ready to assume these new responsibilities."

There are potentially lucrative revenues from natural resources under Greenland's seabed, which according to international experts is home to large oil and gas deposits.

Melting ice in the Arctic owing to climate change could make the region more accessible to exploration in the future.

The countries ringing the Arctic Ocean -- Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States -- are currently competing over territorial claims in the region and Greenland is keen to garner its share.

A Danish-Greenlandic commission that studied which policy fields would be transferred to the local government in Nuuk in the event of self-rule proposed among other things that "the revenues from activities related to raw materials be distributed to Greenland" in return for reducing annual subsidies from Copenhagen.

"Self-rule will bring with it only good things for Greenland," said Lars-Emil Johansen, who was prime minister of the island from 1991 to 1997 and who helped bring about its semi-autonomous status in 1979.

Home to the US Thule radar base, Greenland will also with its new status be consulted on foreign and defence policy, which are now decided by Copenhagen, but Nuuk would not have the final say and little is expected to change in that area.

Greenlanders, who voted to withdraw from the European Union in a 1982 referendum, will be also be recognised as a distinct people in line with international law, and Greenlandic will be recognised as the official language.

See Der Spiegel, here, for a critical perspective on the vote's negative and positive consequences for Greenland.