Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Denmark to show support for Greenland and reject United States President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to take control of the self-governing Danish territory.
Waving the flags of Denmark and Greenland, the protesters formed a sea of red and white outside Copenhagen city hall on Saturday, chanting “Kalaallit Nunaat” – the Arctic island’s name in Greenlandic.
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Rallies were also organised throughout the day in the Danish cities of Aarhus, Aalborg and Odense, as well as in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk.
“I am very grateful for the huge support we as Greenlanders receive … We are also sending a message to the world that you all must wake up,” said Julie Rademacher, chair of Uagut, an organisation for Greenlanders in Denmark.
“Greenland and the Greenlanders have involuntarily become the front in the fight for democracy and human rights,” she added.
The demonstrations come as Trump said 10 percent tariffs would be imposed on European allies opposing US control of Greenland from February 1, hitting Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
The US president, who says the move is critical for his country’s interests, added those tariffs would rise to 25 percent on June 1 and would continue until an agreement is reached for the US to purchase Greenland.
While Greenland and Denmark have rejected the idea of the island being “owned” by the US, efforts to get the US administration to change its stance have so far appeared to fail.
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland left a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, DC, this week, saying that they “didn’t manage to change the American position”.
“It’s clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told reporters.
According to the latest poll published in January of last year, 85 percent of Greenlanders oppose the territory joining the US, while only 6 percent were in favour.
Reporting from Nuuk, the Greenlandic capital, Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands said Saturday’s rally is expected to be a large one.
“This is … the capital city, but [home to] only about 19-20,000 people. Everyone we spoke to yesterday said that they were going to be coming out and marching today,” Challands said.
“This essentially is Danes and Greenlanders coming together. Everyone here believes that at some point, there should be some form of independence [for Greenland],” he added.
“But for the moment, Denmark and Greenland are saying that their best way out of this crisis is to remain united.”
Some US lawmakers – including members of Trump’s own Republican Party – also have raised opposition to the president’s push to take control of Greenland, saying it threatens global stability and the US commitment to NATO.
A bipartisan group of US Congress members travelled to Denmark on Friday, led by Democratic Senator Chris Coons, who said there was no security threat to Greenland to justify the Trump administration’s stance.
“Greenland is a part of Denmark. Denmark is our NATO ally. That should be the end of this discussion, in my view,” Coons told reporters in Copenhagen.
Trump has repeatedly accused Denmark of failing to do enough to secure Greenland’s territorial waters in the Arctic.
European NATO members are deploying troops in Greenland for a military exercise designed to show that they will “defend [their] sovereignty”, French armed forces minister Alice Rufo said this week.
Britain, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have announced they are sending small numbers of military personnel to prepare for future exercises in the Arctic.
