GRUPO DE LOS CIEN INTERNACIONAL
Prime Minister of Canada
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa LIA 0A2, Canada
Mr. Prime Minister,
With indignation and sadness we are once again witnessing the massive killing of the young offspring of Arpa seals in Canada, one of the most cruel and systematic slaughters authorized by a “civilized” government in modern history.
It is unacceptable that you call this massacre of recently born seals “an important economic activity”, and that you justify it on grounds that the seals eat a lot of fish, as if species other than the human have no right to feed themselves from the oceans. We all know that the real motives are to provide skins for Russia and China and to sustain the “fashions that kill” from Norway.
What the “fishermen” of Canada are doing is not hunting, it is butchery (no es caceria es carniceria). What your Minister of Fisheries says is an immoral fallacy: “in only 10-14 days a baby Arpa seal is no longer a baby because it has grown up”. And you can shoot at him with a rifle.
This killing is authorized at a time when conditions of the ice are precarious due to the unusually warm climate (thanks to global warming). The number of young is less than in previous years, a sign that many died by drowning before they could swim.
We believed that the Canadian government would take into account the international protests of past years against the “hunting” of Arpa seals, and that it would abolish this inhuman practice forever. But no, it has blocked its ears and has tried to dismiss the protests, declaring itself to be “a victim of a campaign of international propaganda”. The victims are the offspring of the seals, not yourselves.
There is no possible justification for this monstrous massacre. Out of respect for your country stop it immediately. This cruel and abusive killing of a species degrades us as human beings.
Sincerely,
Homero Aridjis,
President of the Group of One Hundred International
Signed by:
Homero Aridjis, Leonora Carrington, Elena Poniatowska, Francisco Toledo, Carlos Monsivais, Alvaro Mutis, Jose Luis Cuevas, Salvador Elizondo, Eva Aridjis, Gilberto Aceves Navarro, Guadalupe Loaeza, Margo Glantz, Betty Ferber, Joy Laville, Chloe Aridjis, Roger von Gunten, Pablo Rulfo, Carlos Cuaron, Paulina Lavista, Eduardo Lizalde, Silvia Cherem, Nedda Anhalt, Helen Escobedo, Fernando Cesarman, Gabriel Weisz
Individual comments attached:
“We are going towards a death constructed by ourselves. This is a species that exhibits Life in all its fullness. By attacking a species that is an example of Life we are failing as a species. We are killing our own selves,” Alvaro Mutis.
“I am outraged by the treatment of animals. We are assaulting the ecology of our planet. Killing animals is almost like killing humans”, Elena Poniatowska.
“The pool of blood from the seals overflows borders and it spatters on all human beings”, Gilberto Aceves Navarro.
“It is inconceivable if one thinks of the civilized development of Canada. It is so outrageous I cannot believe it,” Carlos Monsivais.
“They are very autistic in Canada, they don’t hear anybody,” Roger von Gunten.
“They call it hunting and it is not hunting, it is massacre,” Carlos Cuaron.
“It’s one more proof of the great ecocide, Fernando Cesarman.
“Killing animals makes us less human,” Gabriel Weisz.
“It is a scream to heaven”, Nedda Anhalt.
“What a horror”, Pablo Ruffo.
“At nightfall, when the fishermen move away with their bloody handpicks all that remains is the mother seal with her flayed offspring. It is a sordid chapter in the global war against animals”,
Homero Aridjis.