Wanted Iceland's control over Greenland

Sled dogs rest at Qeqertarsuaq.

Sled dogs rest at Qeqertarsuaq. AFP

The situation in Greenland has once again come into the international spotlight after Donald Trump, who will take office as US President later this month, once again declared that the country needed to come under US control.

Múte B. Egede, the chairman of the Greenlandic government, has subsequently said that Greenlanders need to take important steps towards independence from Denmark in the coming years.

Trump also showed interest in Greenland in 2019 when he was president, and then Skúli Halldórsson, deputy news editor at mbl.is, wrote a detailed article on the website reviewing ideas that were quite prominent in the last century that Iceland should claim Greenland.

“Unquestionable and without arguing”

The Halldórsson’s article stated that these ideas could be traced, among other things, to the fact that poet and entrepreneur Einar Benediktsson wrote an article entitled “The Right of Greenland” in the weekly newspaper Ingólf, the mouthpiece of the Landvarnarflokkurinn (National Defense Party), in October 1914, when World War I had just begun.

Benediktsson wrote that the events on the mainland and the prospects that had already become very far-reaching changes in the positions of nations and countries should also make Icelanders consider their external affairs.

Iceland had “unquestionably and without arguing, from the first, the right of the mother country towards the western colonial state”, which had been founded and lived under the same laws and order that governed Iceland, although Greenland was founded somewhat later. Since then, this large, naturally rich colonial state of Iceland has been the property of Danish mercantile traders and has never been able to fulfill its potential since the settlement of Icelanders there was abandoned.

“As our nation grows more and more bitter, it becomes more painful that we are forbidden to set foot on the land where Icelanders lived in community with their homeland, and this is all the more painful to us when we are reminded of how unscrupulous and frivolous the foreign misrule was with which the brother nation of Icelanders was neglected to death there in the west,” Benediktsson wrote.

Einar Benediktsson spoke in favor of Iceland's claim to Greenland.

Einar Benediktsson spoke in favor of Iceland's claim to Greenland.

The Icelandic Claim to Greenland

In 1923, Einar Benediktsson held an open, large meeting on the Greenland issue in Bárubúð on Vonarstræti, one of the main music halls in Reykjavík at that time.

In Björn Th. Björnsson’s book, Seld norðurljós (The Nordic Lights Sold), Dr. Alexander Jóhannesson, who chaired the meeting, is quoted as saying that the meeting approved a proposal that Benediktsson had drawn up, in which he presented the Icelandic claim to Greenland.

“The proposal was approved by an overwhelming majority, and I was instructed as chairman to deliver the proposal to the government, which I did,” Jóhannesson is quoted as saying in the book.

Land of Eirik the Red

The Greenland issue came to a head again in 1931 when five Norwegians occupied a territory on the east coast of Greenland in the name of the Norwegian King and named it Eirik Raudes Land – Land of Eirik the Red.

Shortly afterward, the Norwegian government decided to annex the area to Norway. The navy was also ordered to defend this colony by order of the Norwegian Minister of Defense, Vidkun Quisling, who later led the Nazi puppet government in Norway.

The settlement caused bitter disputes between the two neighboring nations, with the Danes referring to their declaration from 1921 that all of Greenland and the sea around it belonged to Denmark. At the same time, the Althingi agreed to call on the government to protect Iceland's interests in this dispute.

The Norwegians left Greenland on April 5, 1933, by which time the International Court of Justice in The Hague had ruled their occupation illegal. Reference was made, among other things, to the fact that the Treaty of Kiel in 1814 had specifically stated that Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands would not join Norway in escaping the dominion of the Danish Crown.

Parliamentary resolution proposal on Greenland

The so-called Greenland issue lay dormant in this country for the next few years, although it was discussed several times.

Thus, Pétur Ottesen, a member of parliament for the Independence Party, submitted a parliamentary resolution proposal on Greenland to the Althingi six times, the first in 1946, calling on the Althingi to take steps to recognize the right of Icelanders to engage in business in Greenland and along its coasts. Most of the proposals were referred to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Parliament.

In the report accompanying this first proposal by Ottesen, it is stated, among other things, that under no circumstances should Icelanders be allowed to delay any longer in claiming their rights to Greenland, our ancient colony, and to make a stand for it. "The right is ours, whether one looks at the ancient or the new status of the country in relation to the prevailing legal ideas of today."

Greenlandic spectators at a sports field in the town of …

Greenlandic spectators at a sports field in the town of Qeqertarsuaq on Disko Island, the largest Greenlandic island. AFP

In the report, Pétur also cites the writings of Einar Benediktsson and the scholar Jón Dúason, who had devoted a significant part of his life's work to gathering sources that he used as material for significant books on this issue, where Iceland's right to Greenland is supported by strong arguments.

In the report, Pétur also cites the writings of Einar Benediktsson and the scholar Jón Dúason, who had devoted a significant part of his life's work to gathering sources that he used as material for significant books on this issue, where Iceland's right to Greenland is supported by strong arguments.

Referring to Grágás (Gray Goose Laws)

Jón Dúason, who was born in 1888, defended his doctoral thesis at the University of Oslo in 1926 on the legal status of Greenland. Skúli Halldórsson's article states that the main arguments that Jón Dúason has always presented for Iceland's claim to Greenland have been the following:

In Grágás (Gray Goose Laws), the ancient code of laws written during the era of the Commonwealth, Greenland is not defined as a separate society but is in "common law". There is no mention of Greenlanders, but there is mention of English, Faroese, Swedish, and Nordic people. Icelandic law would therefore have been in force in Greenland, Greenlanders would have been Icelandic citizens and Greenlandic judgments would have been valid in Iceland.

An old treaty, when the Icelanders joined the Norwegian king in 1262, would have been valid between the king and the entire Icelandic legal community and thus also for Greenland. No king would have ever paid homage in Greenland and the king's homage in Iceland would have been considered sufficient.

Iceland would never have renounced Greenland but would have entered as an Icelandic country with Iceland into the union with Norway and later Denmark. Although no reservation had been made about Greenland, upon sovereignty in 1918, Icelanders would still be able to claim their rights.

Abstained from voting on the issue

In 1953, a new constitution came into force in Denmark, which stipulated that Greenland was no longer a Danish colony but a separate county within the kingdom.

In accordance with this new status of Greenland, Denmark requested that the United Nations stop demanding regular reports from Denmark on how its sovereignty over Greenland was being managed.

Halldórsson's article states that various members of parliament in Iceland wanted to protest that Denmark would be allowed to stop reporting, to open the way for Icelandic demands for control and rights in Greenland. Finally, the government proposed that Iceland's representative to the UN be ordered to abstain from voting on the matter. The proposal was approved in parliament by thirty votes to twenty.

Icelandic organizations, including the Icelandic Shipowners' and Fishermen's Union and the Icelandic Confederation of Labour, criticized this decision. On the same day that the votes were cast in Althingi on the government's proposal, the Icelandic Confederation of Labour held a session. A unanimous resolution was passed there, protesting the annexation of Greenland to the Danish state, as Icelanders should have rights and interests there.

"The Parliament therefore calls on all true Icelanders to stand firm and protect these and other rights. The Parliament also demands that the representatives of Iceland in the Parliament of the United Kingdom vote against the annexation of Greenland to Denmark."

Full sovereignty

In 1953 and 1954, Pétur Ottesen once again submitted parliamentary resolutions to the Althingi on the Greenland issue, and they stated more firmly than in the previous ones: "The Althingi resolves to call on the government to immediately present a demand to the Danish government that it recognize full sovereignty of the Icelanders over Greenland. If the Danish government does not agree to this demand, the Althingi declares its intention that the matter be referred to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.”

In 1954, it was agreed to refer the proposal to the General Committee of the Parliament. The Committee stated in a subsequent statement that it was doubtful that it had any obligation to discuss this matter, even though it was referred to it in violation of parliamentary rules. Nevertheless, it took it up for consideration and discussed it at three meetings, but of course, it had less flexibility in examining the matter than the Foreign Affairs Committee, which could have benefited from any kind of expert assistance.

“The Althingi has made resolutions on this matter more than once and has never revoked them. They are therefore still in full force. The Committee therefore does not see that a new parliamentary resolution on the matter can have any significant significance, but rather that the main thing is implementation, i.e. "What the government may gain from negotiations with the Danish government regarding the rights of Icelanders in Greenland. The committee therefore recommends that this proposal be referred to the government," the committee's opinion states.

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