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International Indian Treaty Council CONSEJO INTERNACIONAL DE TRATADOS INDIOS |
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World Conference
Against Racism Regional Prepcom for the Americas, Santiago Chile, December 3-6, 2000 Written intervention by the International Indian Treaty Council, an Indigenous NGO with ECOSOC Consultative Status In spite of the first two World Conferences to Combat Racism and their calls that Indigenous Peoples have a right to their lands and natural resources that must be protected, Indigenous Peoples continue to lose their lands at an alarming rate, seemingly a continuation of the "Conquest" of the Americas. Reuters recently reported on a recent contact with the Naua tribe in Brazil, thought to be extinct, who emerged from the Amazon to protest the creation of a national park on their lands. The reaction of Brazilian authorities quoted by Reuters, was that the Naua had been found in a national preserve and they would have to be moved: "No humans are allowed in the park, just the forest and the animals." Ever since Pope Alexander VI's 1493 Papal Bull "Inter Caetera", calling for the subjugation of the America's "barbarous nations" and their lands, first colonial and then successor States have forcibly and violently destroyed Indigenous Peoples. To this day, the racial discrimination and cultural denigration established by Pope Alexander VI are engraved in the mentality of the Americas and continue to underlie the rational for racial discrimination against Indigenous Peoples. The religious imperatives of conversion and annihilation have been replaced by assimilation and "development " as the most desirable end for Indigenous Peoples. The State, economic elites and trans-national corporations have replaced the Spanish and Portuguese kings and Colonists as the beneficiaries of Indigenous lands and resources. The proposed OAS Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples would declare that the State has the right of ownership over the resources of the soil and sub-soil of Indigenous lands. Many American States (even since the first two World Conferences) have amended their Constitutions and laws to facilitate the privatization of indigenous lands. It is noteworthy, that the CERD Committee, in General Recommendation XXII, would require states to return stolen lands and territories to Indigenous Peoples, and ILO 169 would prohibit their continued theft. We believe, as many United Nations experts have reflected, that the loss of lands and resources, described by CERD General Recommendation XXIII as a violation of the CERD Convention, is the machine that drives racial discrimination against Indigenous Peoples. Gross and massive, pervasive and persistent violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, including genocide, ethnocide, forced removal and forced assimilation are somehow justified by the devaluation of Indigenous Peoples, their cultures and world-views. Described as "stone age “ by anthropologists, accused as pagans and practitioners of black magic and witchcraft by dominant religions, their destruction as Peoples is taken by most dominant societies in the Americas as necessary to "progress". Yet Indigenous Peoples seek only to be who they are, to remain on their own lands, to practice and live their traditional cultures, languages and religions. These all are human rights and fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the United Nations International Bill of human rights. There are among many States, policies that have the effect, if not the intent, of forcible assimilation of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous Peoples continue to suffer forcible and violent mass relocations, as well as denials of their land rights and ruination of their environments. Forced relocation is also found in the economic need to migrate to urban areas caused by the loss of lands and territories and means of subsistence. There, Indigenous Peoples join the great mass of undereducated and unemployed to try to survive without the support of family, community and culture. Their very presence is denied, as though they already have been assimilated. Data on the numbers of Indigenous Peoples is skewed, as some states even deny having indigenous peoples within their borders. The official census of States throughout the Americas grossly under count if not ignore Indigenous populations. In the United States, for example, according to the recent 1999 census, the state of Oklahoma's Native American population rose from 258,000 in 1990 to 263,000 in 1999, a reported net gain of 5,000 people. Yet in that same period of time the Oklahoma State Health Department recorded 56,000 indigenous live births. Even subtracting the 11,000 indigenous deaths recorded by the state for that period there remain 45,000 born in Oklahoma during the decade, 39,000 of who were not recorded in the census. If the United States with its great resources grossly under counts Indians the situation can only be far worse in many poorer countries in the Americas. Grossly erroneous data such as this has the effect of denying or impairing a great many social, economic, political and cultural rights. It obviates the great need of Indigenous Peoples for medical and other culturally relevant State services called for by existing international standards (e.g. ILO 169) as well as international organizations such the World Health Organization. Unreliable data such as this paints a picture of great tracts of under-utilized Indigenous lands and territories, justifying continued theft, colonization and settlement by great masses of other non-indigenous poor. Data such as this justifies non-indigenous, transnational "development" of Indigenous lands. It facilitates the ruination of Indigenous environments. It reflects and justifies in many respects an updated version of the now discredited doctrine of Terra Nullis. Pretending that Indigenous Peoples no longer exist minimizes the need for protection of Indigenous cultures and religions, and the great need in American States, for bi-lingual and historically accurate education. Census data such as is subtle and deadly racial discrimination by the State against Indigenous Peoples. It is no secret that social discrimination against Indigenous Peoples is deep, pervasive and rampant in all American societies. In many dominant cultures to be called an Indian is the grossest form of insult. Popular media throughout the Americas, particularly television, portrays Indigenous people as ignorant and so backward as to appear mentally retarded. Even their traditional dress is derided. The professional baseball team, the Cleveland Indians have as their logo a caricature of a buck-tooth Indian wearing a feather. Even to admit this harsh and racist reality is particularly painful for our people. These socially ingrained attitudes of racial superiority and inferiority, these historical colonialist attitudes are now burned into the very synapses of the Americas and the collective unconscious of all American dominant cultures. The continuing denigration of our cultures and traditions with the tacit complicity if not the approval of the State serve only to damage and destroy our identity, our children, our lands and our future. All of these factors, from loss of land and culture to deforestation, loss of habitat, and the failure of states to collect reliable data (and a host of other factors), incidents of discrimination against Indigenous Peoples were cited in by the World Health Organization as causal factors of the lamentable state of the health of the world's Indigenous Peoples. (WHO/SDE/HSD/99.1) But the right to health is not the only right implicated in a State's ". .sadistinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based upon race ..Or ethnic origin, which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social cultural, or any other field of public life". (CERD, Article 1.) Among others, there are also the internationally recognized right to life and the collective right to peace. From the Gwich'in Caribou birthing grounds in Alaska to Mapuche traditional territories in Chile, Indigenous lands are subject to pressures precedented only by the Conquest. As the Mapuche in Chile, Indigenous Peoples of Colombia, the Katio Embera, are also being displaced from their traditional lands as their rivers are dammed. This paper, limited to 2,000 words, cannot adequately describe the situation of militarization and terror that Indigenous peoples live throughout the continent, particularly in Mexico, Colombia, and now, again, in Guatemala. There is a reason why the Declarations and Programmes of Action of the first two World Conferences to Combat Racism call upon the States to respect indigenous lands and cultures as a matter of racial equality. These World Conferences as well as the CERD Committee recognized that land is essential to the survival of Indigenous Peoples and that a denial of Indigenous Peoples' rights to land is racial discrimination. That land is central to the spiritual and physical well being of Indigenous Peoples is now beyond cavil even in the western understanding of these words. The CERD Committee again came to this understanding when it found that Australian legislation facilitating loss of Indigenous Aboriginal title violated the CERD Convention. (CERD/56/Misc.42/rev.3) Internationally, the persistent refusal of many States to recognize the rights of Indigenous Peoples as Peoples serves to underpin, if not justify, the deplorable state of human rights of Indigenous Peoples. Although the first World Conference to Combat Racism freely used the word "peoples," the second World Conference only used the word "Peoples" once, in the context of Indigenous Peoples. The name of the Working Group, formed in by resolution in 1982 is the Working Group on Indigenous "Populations." The newly established Permanent Forum avoids the word completely and is called the Permanent Forum for Indigenous "Issues". Yet existing international standards and emergent norms on the rights of Indigenous Peoples describe the rights of Peoples. The right to own, keep and control their lands and natural resources; the right to practice their own cultures, language and religion; the right to their means of subsistence; the right to participate freely in the establishment of their own political relationships, are rights described in Article 1 in Common to the International Bill of Human Rights as the rights of Peoples. These same rights of peoples as pertaining to Indigenous Peoples are recognized by the first two World Conferences on Racism, the CERD Committee, the Human Rights Committee, United Nations subsidiary bodies such as the ILO and WHO. Numerous experts and Special Rapporteurs on Indigenous Peoples and with specialized mandates also recognize these rights as rights of Indigenous Peoples. We cite one authority of many, the Human Rights Committee and its Concluding observations on the Government of Canada's fourth periodic report on its observance of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). (CCPR/C/79/add.105, 7 April 1999). Therein, the Committee questioned Canada's application of Article 1 to Canada's Indigenous Peoples (para.8), and, citing ICCPR Art. 1 para. 2: "The Committee emphasizes that the right to self-determination requires, inter alia, that all peoples must be able to freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources and that they may not be deprived of their means of subsistence." The Human Rights Committee itself, the final arbiter of what the ICCPR means and to whom it applies, applies without qualification the right of peoples to self-determination to Canada's Indigenous Peoples. In order that the WCAR address racial discrimination against Indigenous Peoples with the required reality and urgency, it must first recognize the human rights and fundamental freedoms that are impaired or denied by racial discrimination. It would be lamentable and a sham if this Prepcom and the WCAR fell below existing norms in fashioning its recommendations. The International Indian Treaty Council would strongly urge this Prepcom to: 1/ Use the words "indigenous peoples" in its resolutions or recommendations and not use any other words like "peoples" or "populations", 2/ Recommend to the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) that it too, use the word "peoples" with reference to Indigenous Peoples, in its Declaration and Programme of Action, and not use words like "people" or "populations"; 3/ Recommend to the WCAR that it reiterate verbatim the calls of the first two World Conferences to Combat Racism, lament the lack of observance by the States, and again call for the respect of Indigenous rights to land and natural resources; that it also recommend that the states take immediate and effective measures to demarcate and protect Indigenous lands and territories and natural resources from encroachments and ruination; 4/ Recommend that the WCAR particularly condemn the alarming and massive ruination of the environments and habitat of Indigenous Peoples as invidious environmental racism; 5/ Recommend that States take immediate and effective steps to de-militarize Indigenous lands and territories; 6/ Recommend that States provide the necessary resources to educate their non-indigenous populations, including the revision of textbooks and educational curricula, to accurately portray the dignity and worth of Indigenous Peoples, their cultures, traditions and world views; and, 7/ Recommend particularly that States take effective measures to protect Indigenous sacred sites and the free and open practice of traditional Indigenous religion. To tell a person that he or she is not entitled to the enjoyment of any human right is to deny that person's humanity. To tell Indigenous Peoples they are not entitled to the rights of peoples is an equal affront to human dignity. For all our relations |
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