[IPSM] Indigenous peoples build their own strategy at the fourth Summit of the Americas (fwd)

[IPSM]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 18:26:02 -0700
From: Aukin Nahuel <latinsol at shaw.ca>
To: aukinnahuel at resist.ca
Subject: Indigenous peoples build their own strategy at the fourth Summit of the
      Americas

Native Currents
C Indian Country Today August 04, 2005.
Posted: August 04, 2005
by: Nilo Cayuqueo / Abda Yala Nexus


Indigenous peoples build their own strategy at the fourth Summit of the
Americas

Preparations for the fourth Summit of the Americas, where the heads of
all states in the Americas except Cuba will meet, are underway. It will
take place Nov. 4 - 5 in Mar del Plata, Argentina.

In the fold of globalization, the heads of state in the Americas,
including President Bush, will gather to discuss and sign new economic
and political agreements. Led by the United States and Canada, the
propagators and driving forces of these summits, it takes place every
four years. The first summit was held in Miami in 1994.

Also being organized - with economic and political support from the
Canadian government, the Assembly of First Nations of Canada and the
Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Argentina - is the second Summit
of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, to take place in Buenos Aires
one week before the presidents' summit.

The first summit of indigenous peoples, also sponsored by the Canadian
government under the theme ''Indigenous Peoples Connecting to the New
Economy,'' took place in Ottawa in March 2001 three weeks before the
third Summit of the Americas, held that year in Quebec City.

Many indigenous organizations from across the continent are in
disagreement with the planned official indigenous summit in Buenos
Aires, which they see as being manipulated by the Canadian government.
These groups have decided to organize a more independent indigenous
summit in Mar del Plata (420 kilometers to the south on the Atlantic
coast) on Oct. 30 and Nov. 1, three days prior to the presidents'
summit.

In Argentina, The Mapuche Confeder-ation of Neuquen, the Indigenous
Commission of the Argentinean Lawyers Association of Argentina (CJIRA),
in consultation with important indigenous peoples' organizations such as
the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the
National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), the Kuna Congress
of Panama and about 20 more organizations of the Americas, including
American Indians from the United States and Canada, are involved in the
organization of the independent summit and have made a call to other
indigenous organizations of the continent to come to Mar del Plata.

Some history: In March 2001, under the invitation of the Assembly of the
First Nations and entirely financed by the Canadian government, about
170 delegates from Latin America traveled to Ottawa to attend the
Indigenous Summit of the Americas. The indigenous delegates from Latin
America attended in good faith; but after studying the draft document in
the agenda submitted by the AFN, they expressed the suspicion that the
intention of the Canadian government appeared to be to make indigenous
delegates endorse globalization agreements such as Free Trade Area of
the Americas.

The document assumed a positive presentation of economic policies that
are very controversial and often opposed by many southern indigenous
organizations. The assumed theme of the conference was found in the
title: ''Indigenous Peoples Connecting to the New Economy.'' The
indigenous delegates reported that the draft would undermine their
rights and rewrote large portions of the document; later, they were
displeased to find that their final document, which they wanted to hear
discussed, was severely softened before presentation to the heads of
state.

Also, indigenous delegates from Latin America were disappointed at and
frustrated with the arbitrary and strategically intrusive decision from
the far North to hold the Indigenous Summit of the Americas three weeks
before the president's summit. To facilitate the expense for Indian
delegates, the southern groups had agreed to an indigenous meeting
within days of the nation states' summit. The northern decision confused
their own strategies, which was to lobby the presidents; it also impeded
them from joining the thousands of people who gathered in Quebec to
protest current economic globalization policies.

When asked why the change of dates, an official from the Canadian
government who wanted to remain anonymous said bluntly: ''The Canadian
government will pay for the meeting but does not want indigenous peoples
joining anti-globalization protests.''

The official indigenous summit in Buenos Aires, with a more than
half-million-dollar budget funded by the Canadian government, will
display hundreds of cultural indigenous performers, youth, women, elders
and business people, plus high-tech demonstrations. Then the delegates
will return to their countries, because there is no arrangement made for
them to travel to Mar del Plata to join the civil society forums.

An official of the Indigenous Affairs Ministry of the Canadian
government, now working for the AFN, was appointed executive secretary
of the Indigenous Summit. Last year in an informal talk in New York, he
stated that, ''We, Aboriginals, are not to get involved with
anti-globalization protesters.'' He also mentioned that a document will
be elaborated in Buenos Aires and that a delegation of indigenous
representatives chosen at the Indigenous Summit in Buenos Aires will
travel to Mar del Plata to deliver the document to the presidents'
summit.

Last March, when the conflict between indigenous organizations in
Argentina stalled progress because of the issue with the Canadian
government, a delegation from the Canadian Ministry of External Affairs
of the Canadian government traveled to Buenos Aires to try to convince
them to reconcile their differences and work together for the success of
the summit.

Community-connected representatives of indigenous peoples from the
Americas have strong and very pressing issues. We are concerned about
the economic globalization strategies conducted by transnational
corporations who are exploiting and taking away indigenous peoples' land
and territories, most often with the complicity of nation-state
governments. Many of those projects are still financed by multilateral
institutions such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development
Bank, private commercial banks and other international financial
institutions.

At the same time, indigenous leaders who are defending their rights are
repressed and even assassinated by military and paramilitary groups. The
war against terrorism driven by President Bush after 9/11 has been
adopted by governments to criminalize the peaceful demands of indigenous
peoples, accusing them of terrorist activities against democracy.
Amnesty International, in its 2005 reports, states: ''The war on terror
is a new source of abuses of human rights; it is threatening to expand
to Latin America, targeting indigenous peoples that are demanding
autonomy and protesting market policies and neo-liberal globalization.''


In our estimation, the Canadian government went a bit far this time in
trying to divide the indigenous movements and separate them from many
potential allies among genuine and representative civil society
organizations who are demanding justice and want to build a more
democratic and inclusive society. We agree with the Ecuadorian Indian
leader, Luis Macas, who said recently: ''It's a hypocrisy that the
Canadian government is sponsoring that event [the official indigenous
summit] while they are opposing and denying the indigenous rights in all
the international conferences, and their oil, mining [uranium], logging,
water and other corporations are taking advantage of the globalization,
plundering natural resources and contaminating the environment.''

In the indigenous summit's agenda in Buenos Aires, the AFN features an
indigenous business summit. There will be hundreds of cultural
performers and they will offer ''The Powwow of the Americas.'' This too
is typical of Northern Indians/Southern Indians relationships. The pow
wow is a folkloric activity and cultural element of the Native peoples
of parts of Canada and United States but it is not engaged at all by
indigenous peoples in Latin America. We indigenous peoples have to build
unity between North and South, but paternalism and political
manipulation gets in the way of our understanding, even among Indians.

Arthur Manuel, a Shushwap from British Columbia and former chief, said:
''The United Nations, in the last session of Human Rights in Geneva,
recommended to the Canadian government to make efforts to improve the
lives of Native peoples who are the poorest of the poor. Yet, the
Canadian government has been successful in co-opting the indigenous
leadership by creating a well-paid Canadian Aboriginals bureaucracy and
is now trying to export a model to Latin America.''

(For more information, visit www.cumbrecontinentalindigena at iste.org or
e-mail cumbrecontinentalindigena at yahoo.com.ar.)

Nilo Cayuqueo, Mapuche from Argentina, is the co-director of Abya Yal
Nexus for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples based in Oakland, Calif. He
can be reached at nilocayu at earthlink.net.