Taino and Other Caribbean Indigenous Peoples Engage the United Nations System

United Nations, NY (UCTP Taino News) – After a two week working session from May 14-25, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues came to a close at United Nations headquarters in New York. Over a thousand participants from around the world participated throughout the session, which concluded in the form of a report containing recommendations to governments and United Nations agencies.

Highlighting the session’s theme “territories, lands, and natural resources,” the Permanent Forum recommended that Governments adopt, in relevant national legislation, the principle of “free, prior and informed consent” of indigenous peoples regarding potential development projects or other activities carried out on their lands.

“It is […] clear that most local and national indigenous peoples’ movements have emerged from struggles against policies and actions that have undermined and discriminated against their customary land tenure and resource-management systems, expropriated their lands, extracted their resources without their consent and led to their displacement and dispossession from their territories,” the Forum stated in one of eight sets of draft recommendations and three draft decisions approved by consensus at the close of its sixth session.

The Permanent Forum, a 16-member subcommittee of the Economic and Social Council, is mandated chiefly to provide expert advice on indigenous issues to the Council and the United Nations system; raise awareness and promote the integration and coordination of activities relating to indigenous issues with the United Nations system; and prepare and disseminate information on indigenous issues.

Amid the diverse delegations of Indigenous Peoples highlighting the complex issues associated with land, territories, and natural resources, Caribbean Indigenous Peoples were actively presenting sound advice to Governments and intergovernmental organizations about how to meet their needs for survival. Working together in the form of the Indigenous Caucus of the Greater Caribbean (IPCGC), indigenous representatives from throughout the region presented their collective views on such topics as urban Indigenous Peoples and migration, the Second Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, and future work of the Forum.

Chief Reginaldo Fredericks of the Lokono Arawak Community of Joboshirima noted the importance of the session and looked forward to receiving more Indigenous delegates from the Caribbean at next year’s session, which will focus on climate change. “We need to be at these sessions to support each other and highlight what is happening in our communities” stated Chief Fredericks. “We need to strengthen our ancestral connections and working together as a Caucus can help us achieve these goals.”

Mildred Gandia, a Boriken Taino and a representative of the United Confederation of Taino People (UCTP) stated “We, Caribbean Indigenous Peoples made a big impact on this session and there were Taino here from Boriken, Kiskeia (Dominican Republic), and even Jamaica as well as Lokono Arawaks from Venezuela and Guyana and Garifuna from Honduras .”

Gandia continued stating “Our views were presented at the plenary sessions via the IPCGC, on panel discussions focusing on climate change, our artists were highlighted in the United Nations Art Exhibition, and we stood in solidarity with other Indigenous Peoples in supporting the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.”

The Permanent Forum strongly urged the General Assembly adopt during its sixty-first session the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the fate of which remains unclear some six months after it was approved by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council. The Declaration, which was initially opposed by countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States, is now being further endangered by proposed amendments submitted a group of Africa countries. The African Group’s proposal was roundly rejected by Indigenous leaders as “unacceptable and inconsistent with international human rights law”.

With the exception of Dominica and Haiti, countries from the Caribbean region including Guyana, Belize, and Suriname are expressly supporting the African Group’s amendment proposals, which will in fact critically weaken the Declaration adopted by the Human Rights Council after 20 years of negotiation.

Why Caribbean countries that in the past have seemingly been supportive of indigenous rights would promote a proposal inconsistent with international law is related to politics and trade arrangements. Caribbean Community leaders have recently announced that a significant new “Unity Alliance” for trade, economic, and political co-operation between Africa, South America, with Caribbean involvement, has been established. One of the highpoints of the “Abuja Declaration and Plan of Action on Peace, Security, and Development” include the creation of a permanent “Africa-South America Co-operative Forum that is to meet every two years. According to news sources the summit leaders are “anxious to demonstrate the seriousness of their collective commitment”. In light of these relations, it would appear that opposition to the rights of Indigenous Peoples is a pre-requisite for demonstrating Caribbean solidarity with Africa.

“Considering that Indigenous Peoples are mentioned in the Abuja Declaration only in the context of cultural cooperation and tourism, it is clear that Caribbean governments still do not understand the aspirations of the region’s first nations” stated Roberto Mucaro Borrero, the President of the UCTP Office of International Relations. Borrero noted that the IPCGC’s third plenary presentation at the Permanent Forum highlighted the Abuja Declaration and called for the inclusion of Caribbean Indigenous Peoples in its follow-up mechanisms.

Summing up the Permanent Forum’s work this year, Johan Schölvinck, Director of the Division for Social Policy in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs called the Forum a “celebration of the world’s cultural diversity”, in that it had seen extremely rich participation from some 1,500 representatives from indigenous peoples’ organizations, non-governmental organizations and academia, some 30 United Nations system and other intergovernmental organizations, about 70 Member States and some 30 indigenous parliaments. The Permanent Forum was not just an event; rather “a tribute to our human efforts of partnership” that offered the opportunity for inspiration, he said.

As per the recommendation of the final draft report, the Forum’s 2008 session will focus on the theme of climate change and there will also be sessions devoted to the Pacific region and to the protection of the thousands of threatened indigenous languages.

------------------

To review the Abuja Declaration visit:
http://www.africa-union.org/root/au/Conferences/Past/2006/November/SummitASA/doc/en/DECLARATION.doc

To review statments of the IPCGC visit: http://indigenouscaribbeancaucus.blogspot.com/

Two-Week Session on Indigenous Issues Opens at United Nations

New York, NY (UCTP News) - As delicate ecosystems supporting millions of lives hang in the balance, indigenous representatives from around the globe began a two-week session of discussions on Monday, May 14 with top United Nations officials, Government representatives and members of civil society to highlight the struggle to defend their rights to access and use the land and natural resources in their territories.

The sixth session was opened with an invocation from Tracy L. Shenandoah, Chief of the Onondaga Nation, Eel Clan. Acknowledging “red willow” as the leader of medicines, Shenadoah said the “ the Creator had planted medicines, including berries, for people to use." He also gave thanks to the birds, especially the eagle, and to the “three sisters of all foods: corn, beans and squash.” Shenandoah also gave thanks to the waters for their help in creating peace. His statement was followed by a performance by the Laihui cultural group from Manipur, India.

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Chairperson of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, addressed those gathered by stating “without access to and respect for the rights over their lands, territories and natural resources, indigenous peoples’ distinct cultures -- and the possibility of determining their on development -- become eroded.”

Highlighting new developments, Tauli-Corpuz stated that one of the major thrusts for 2007 would be to press for the General Assembly’s adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, approved by the Human Rights Council last year. Indigenous peoples worldwide had been “deeply disappointed” by the Assembly’s decision to defer action on the Declaration last year. Noting that amendments had been made to the text in the meantime, she said that every effort should be made to ensure that what was put before the Assembly was the Council-approved version, not one “which mangled the Declaration beyond recognition.” “The fate of this Declaration is in your hands and the Governments who are here today,” she said.

Among the many expert presentations and reports by representatives on United Nations agencies and Funds, Erica-Irene A. Daes, of Greece, an elected member of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations and Special Rapporteur on Indigenous People’s Land Rights, said one of the most acute and complex situations facing the world’s indigenous peoples was the refusal by certain Governments to promote and protect their rights to land and natural resources. To understand the profound relationship of indigenous peoples to their lands and natural resources, cultural differences between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples should be recognized.

The doctrines of dispossession that had emerged in developing modern international law, particularly the concepts of “terra nullius” and “discovery”, had well-known adverse effects on indigenous peoples, she continued. Other problems included the State’s failure to acknowledge indigenous rights to territories lands and resources; to demarcate indigenous lands; to enforce or implement laws protecting indigenous lands; and the State’s expropriation of indigenous lands for national interest without the prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples. Also, the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources and the scope of indigenous peoples’ right to own, develop and manage their territories, lands and resources, should be reviewed, she added.

Among the participants attending the meeting, Chief Reginaldo Fredericks of the Joboshirima Lokono Arawak Community of Venezuela noted the importance of meeting stating “it is critical for us as Indigenous Peoples to follow-up on the recommendations made and report on these activities to our peoples.”

Chief Fredericks is a member of the Indigenous Peoples Caucus of the Greater Caribbean, which forms annually at the UN meeting to lobby Caribbean indigenous issues.

Caribbean indigenous delegates also participated along with indigenous representatives of other regions at a rally in support of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Speaking on behalf of indigenous leaders from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Dominica, Trinidad, Guyana, Venezuela, and Barbados, UCTP President and Chairman Roberto Mucaro Borrero reaffirmed their support of the Declaration as adopted by the Human Rights Council in June 2006.

Also in attendance at the session, Taino artists John Marrero and Reina Miranda joined UCTP delegates Mildred Gandia and Borrero at the opening of the special art exhibition, which would run through the Forum. Selected works of Marrero and Miranda were on display along with various works of Lokono and Taino artists: George Simon, Mildred Torres-Speeg and Naniki Reyes Ocasio.

The Forum’s sixth session will run through 25 May and will consider solutions to end the senseless exploitation of traditional lands and natural resources, a key issue at the heart of indigenous people’s efforts to gain recognition of their rights.


UCTP delegates at the UN, (from left to right) Reina Miranda,

Roberto Borrero, Mainaku Borrero, John Marrero,

and Mildred Gandia. (UCTP Photo)

Indigenous Training Session Includes Caribbean Indigenous Peoples

United Nations (UCTP Taino News) - Sponsored by the Tribal Link Foundation in partnership with the Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, indigenous activists from around the world were selected to participate in the 2007 Project Access training session. The trainees included Mildred Gandia (Taino) and Reginaldo Fredericks (Lokono Arawak) and activities coincided with the preceding the Sixth Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York City.