[IPSM] UN opens two-week forum on indigenous issues

[usman x]

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=14291&Cr=indigenous&Cr1=#

UN opens two-week forum on indigenous issues to consider ways forward

16 May 2005 – With indigenous peoples being the poorest and most
marginalized in many countries, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General
Louise Fréchette today said the failure of Member States to negotiate an
acceptable declaration on their rights is one of the major challenges facing
the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

“At the level of international law, Member States have still not adopted the
declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, despite many, many years of
negotiation and advocacy,” Ms. Fréchette said as she opened the fourth
session of the Permanent Forum.

Meeting in Geneva last month, the UN Commission on Human Rights urged all
parties involved in negotiating the declaration, a process underway since
1995, “to do their utmost to carry out successfully the mandate of the
Working Group and to present for adoption as soon as possible a final draft
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.”

“Like other vulnerable people, indigenous communities are often
disproportionately victimized by the effects of armed conflict, adding a
destructive and deadly burden to already difficult struggles,” Ms. Fréchette
said.

“There is a need for a concrete plan of action, drawn up with the
participation of indigenous peoples, that would point the way towards
measurably improved standards of living and greater respect for human
rights,” she said, urging indigenous peoples and the international community
to “take up this challenge.”

The Forum, through its decade of work, was drawing attention to neglected
issues and was playing a catalytic role in forging partnerships between
indigenous peoples, governments and the UN system, she said.

On the UN General Assembly’s September summit review of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), she said, “Each of those eight goals are, of
course, of direct concern to indigenous people, whether we are talking about
improving maternal health, ensuring access to primary education, or guarding
against the loss of land and other natural resources.”

The Working Group on Indigenous Populations, scheduled to meet in July,
should be used to work out commentaries, guidelines and studies that could
clarify concepts and principles, she said, and indigenous peoples should
contribute to an understanding of the concept of poverty UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour.

“Is an indigenous community that has lost its ancestral lands lifted out of
poverty because some of its members have found temporary work and get a
wage? Is an indigenous community poor because there is little money
circulating when its members can fish, hunt and farm and use local resources
for housing and basic necessities?” she asked.

The Working Group on Indigenous Populations had decided to hold meetings for
two weeks in October and November, as well as a week in December. “The
Government of Mexico has also offered to host an informal workshop that is
intended to help further understanding of some of the critical issues
contained in the draft declaration,” she said.

“We all look forward to a real breakthrough in the months ahead and I have
pledged that my office will contribute in any possible to a successful
outcome,” Ms. Arbour said.

The Secretary-General’s adviser on Gender Issues, Rachel Mayanja, said she
was pleased that so many women were attending the Forum and she highlighted
the close collaboration between the Forum’s Secretariat and the UN
Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality.

A recent World Bank study of indigenous people in Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico,
Nicaragua and Peru concluded that poverty had intensified among the
indigenous, Forum Chairperson Victoria Pauli-Corpuz of the Philippines said,
even though the Governments had amended their constitutions to recognize
their ethnic plurality and had ratified the relevant UN International Labour
Organization (ILO) Convention.

“How do we use all the studies and research, Special Rapporteur reports,
results of workshop seminars on rights to land and land tenure issues?” she
asked, adding that the Permanent Forum might identify a role to play here.

ILO research had shown that Governments and donors were reluctant to
disaggregate data in the search for operational strategies and in the effort
to make indigenous economies visible, while the indigenous were often the
victims of forced labour.


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Prospero, you are the master of illusion.
Lying is your trademark.
And you have lied so much to me
(lied about the world, lied about me)
that you have ended by imposing on me
an image of myself.
underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior,
That ís the way you have forced me to see myself
I detest that image!  What's more, it's a lie!
But now I know you, you old cancer,
and I know myself as well.
- Caliban, in Aime Cesaire's "The Tempest"
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