(Custer, South Dakota) - While some South Dakota whites will always be bitter about the Wounded Knee standoff over three decades ago, a Native American national newspaper reporter says a recent benefit concert was a step toward healing race relations while raising money to fight an alarming increase in domestic violence and teen suicide on the Lakota Rosebud Reservation.

Michigan and South Dakota musicians preformed at the August 12, 2007 concert to help heal racial tension between whites and Native Americans while battling an alarming rise in domestic violence and teen suicide on the Lakota Rosebud Reservation.

South Dakota residents and Black Hills visitors opened their hearts and wallets during the Sunday evening free benefit concert for the country’s first and oldest Native American domestic violence shelter

The concert at the Custer Lutheran Fellowship church featured northern Michigan and Black Hills musicians and raised about $1,000 for the White Buffalo Calf Woman Society (WBCWS) in Mission, S.D. The funds will be used for preventing domestic violence, sexual assault and teen suicide.

Native American reporter Dave Melmer said the concert was the first non-political events to ever bring racial healing between whites and Native Americans in Custer - where racism by some whites is generations old.

In fact, a Custer County historical marker still stands proclaiming “whites were massacred by Sioux Indians on this spot,” Melmer said.

South Dakota is “notoriously bad when it comes to race relations,” said Melmer, a reporter for Indian Country Today who lives in Custer. “There are white people in South Dakota who have never been on a reservation and are afraid to go.

Custer Lutheran Church Pastor Dave Van Kley said his church and the South Dakota Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of American have reached out to Native Americans for more than a decade including their Lakota ministry with a presence on the Pine Ridge reservations.

Melmer said he commends all involved because the concert was “a courageous effort on their part to do this” and specifically praised the Custer Lutheran fellowship for its efforts over the years to foster a positive relationship with Native Americans.

Van Kley described the relationship with the tribe as “warm and gracious” adding that the Custer High School basketball team has participated in the Lakota Nation Invitational Basketball Tournament.

“The Custer high school has made an effort to be participate with Lakota people in athletic and other events - this has been going on for a long time,” Melmer said.

“The Lakota invitational basketball tournament is more than athletics - it’s a cultural event,” Melmer said. “It’s a celebration of native identity and now there are several whites schools that participate but in the early days the only non-Indian school to participate was Custer.”

Racism is worse in Custer, Melmer says, because the county courthouse was partially burned (February 6, 1973) in the days just prior the infamous Wounded Knee standoff between the American Indian Movement and federal agents that began on February 27, 1973 and left two Native Americans dead and two officers wounded. Custer is about 112 miles from Wounded Knee.

‘The concert was a big small step in improving race relations because it could lead to more of these kind of things,” Melmer said.

“The impact was probably was felt by both sides - the Indian and white communities - and maybe through these efforts there is a chance to bring these communities back together,” Melmer said

“There is hope for the younger generation and I would suggest they get children involved with the next concert,” Melmer said.

Rosebud unemployment is 82 percent, according to the tribe’s website.

Cattle ranching and farming is the main occupation for the 21,000 residents on the sprawling 1,400 square mile Rosebud reservation on the dusty, treeless, rolling prairies of South Dakota.

Rosebud neighbors the Lakota Pine Ridge reservation - where poverty is legendary on the southern edge of the fabled Badlands.

Family string band White water and duet Duo Borealis, both from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, performed at the request of the Turtle Island Project and its founder Rev. Lynn Hubbard, a Munising, MI pastor who is a friend of the Lakota tribe and the Custer church.

The Turtle Island Project promotes respect for the environment and the Native American culture.

The WBCWS, - founded 30 years ago by a group of courageous Native American women including current executive director Tillie Black Bear - serves all battered women and children as it fights family violence, sexual assault and teen suicide.

The Lakota Rosebud tribe has more teen suicide attempts than any other American Indian reservation in the United States, Black Bear said.

Rosebud Sioux Tribe officials recently declared a teen suicide “State of Emergency” on the reservation.

Figures from the Rosebud reservation alone are shocking: 21 rapes in the past 18 months; over 600 attempted teen suicides and 15 deaths during the past two years - most teenage boys.

Poverty, depression, a lack of jobs, drugs, alcohol and other social problems are among the reasons behind Rosebud teen suicides.

A federal report states violent crime against Native American women is 50 times higher and sexual assault is 3.5 times above other U.S. residents.

The WBCWS “is very much like a life beacon, shining in the middle of this country, showing us that there is still hope and light in this world,” said Dr. Hubbard, pastor of the Eden on the Bay Lutheran Church in Munising, MI.

Rev. Hubbard said he is reminded daily of the great work of the WBCWS because he lives in a “land of light houses, beacons that still shine showing those who sail upon the sea a way home, guiding those who have lost their way upon the sea and need a safe harbor.”

The WBCWS is a “light that shines in the darkness,” Dr. Hubbard said.

The Michigan groups traveled 1,000 miles to put on the free benefit concert, and the WBCWS is over 220 miles from the Custer church where the concert took place.

While those involved in the concert live long distances from each other, organizers said they are close on battling domestic violence, teen suicide and sexual assault.

The pastor of Custer Lutheran Fellowship church said the concert has renewed his congregation’s connection to the WBCWS and the Rosebud Reservation.

“We share in the goal of eliminating violence against women and violence in all of our families,” said Rev. Dave Van Kley. “We are also strongly committed to reconciliation between native and non-native peoples and hope that this concert was a small step in that direction.”

Black Bear said “the connection between Custer and the Rosebud reservation is once again open and strong.”

The crowd and the musicians shared stories about the Lakota reservation and social issues addressed by Tillie Black Bear of the WBCWS.

“It was like being in our own living room with some friends,” said White Water lead singer Dean B. Premo of Amasa, MI.

White water and Duo Borealis played a wide range of folk music including a “twist” on Amazing Grace that stirred the emotions of the crowd.

“Domestic violence, no matter the community, is a human travesty,” said Premo, founder of the White Water family band that has been performing together for nearly 30 years. “Addressing this problem at grass roots is an effective approach and White Water and Duo Borealis were happy to assist in a small way.”

The Michigan groups were joined by popular local singer Roxanne Sazue of Fort Thompson, S.D. who performed several songs and opened the show warming up the crow for the visiting musicians. the connection between. The three acts became one at the end and performed “I Will Fly Away.”

Black Bear closed the concert by singing a traditional Lakota song in native tongue that captured the hearts of the audience

Organizers plan to make the concert an annual event.

—
Related websites/info:

White Buffalo Calf Woman Society:
http://www.wbcws.org
http://calthunderhawk.tripod.com/wbcws/wbcws_index.html

Custer Lutheran Fellowship:
http://www.custerlutheran.com

Folk musicians White Water, Duo Borealis:
http://www.white-water-associates.com/music.htm
http://marybonhag.com/duoborealis
http://www.evanpremo.com

Rosebud Tribe website:
http://www.rosebudsiouxtribe-nsn.gov/

U.S. Department of Justice report: “American Indians and Crime” report:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/aic.htm
—
The White Buffalo Calf Woman Society, Inc.

“Domestic Violence Is Not A Lakota Tradition.”

Shelter & Safe Home Available for Emergencies

Women’s Support Group
Mon. & Wed., 7-8pm Sat. 11am-12pm

Sexual Assault Survivors
Every Monday 2-3pm

Men’s Re-Education Group
Every Wednesday 6:30-:30pm

Serving Battered Women & Children Since 1977.

White Buffalo Calf Woman Society, Inc.
Tillie Black Bear, director
North Main St.
Mission, SD
Call 605-856-2317
For Men’s Program please call 605-856-4666

During 14-15 July 2007, five indigenous Awa died due to antipersonnel landmines. The Colombian Army is carrying out military operations against the FARC guerilla in the Awa territory. This has intensified the conflict leaving five indigenous persons dead and causing various communities to displace within their own territory. A transcription of the communication sent from the CAMAWARI Organization (Council of Awa Elders of Ricaurte) follows.

16 of July 2007

The CAMAWARI is once again suffering as a result of the war in Colombia. Since 30 of June 2007, a military operation against the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) has been taking place in the CAMAWARI territory. This operation has thrown the community into mourning and obligates us to share publicly what is occurring. The CAMAWARI has expressed its rejection of conflict and has said on multiple occasions that the fight for the human rights of our indigenous people is a fight without weapons. Experience has taught us that the armed conflict primarily hurts the civilian population, and not the members of the armed groups.

On the14th of July, Juan Dionicio Ortiz Vazquez, the ex Governor of the Vegas Chagui Chimbuza Reservation, and Ademelio Pai Taicus of the Guadual Community, lost their lives to antipersonnel landmines as they walked to their fields in the countryside.

On the15th of July, Arcenio Canticus was killed when he stepped on an antipersonnel landmine while working on his land. On learning of their father’s accident, his two sons, 8-year-old Andres Canticus and 12-year-old German Canticus, approached their father’s body and also lost their lives due to antipersonnel landmines.

The Canticus family had suffered from forced displacement in 2006. They waited six months, without success, in the town of Ricaurte for assistance from the state in meeting their basic needs. Finally, they decided to return to their land, a decision that today we regret deeply.

In response to this situation, CAMAWARI has organized two Permanent Assemblies in the Reservations of Vega Chagui Chimbuza and Magui, hoping to avoid future incidents such as these. We request that the Colombian Government provide humanitarian intervention to assist the communities in the Permanent Assembly. We need food, pots, blankets, and toilets. In addition, we ask for the respect of sites where these communities reside and work. This group includes nearly 600 persons which represents nearly one percent of the Awa CAMAWARI population of Colombia.

Process
I am compiling here some notes from the process of conversation with the organizers of the event of the US Social Forum in Atlanta. It seems to be that clarifications are in order, in order to first determine: Is the USSF an EVENT based strategy, or can it be transformed into movement building instrument. In hopes of the latter, towards the principles of clarification to be established, one way or another, in order to “move” forward we must know collectively where we stand in terms of the issues.

First of all, the Indigenous Peoples can never be defined in terms of the US society, except as victims of genocide and colonization. Anything less is subjugation and domination under the guise of “civilization”, “Manifest Destiny”, “Doctrine of Discovery”, “Americanization”, etc: all of which have as prime determinant the concept of “white person” defining all social relationships in terms of the hierarchy of the system. Are we to add the term “social justice” to this list? US civil rights laws (including the aspects environmental justice) in this respect could not be more explicit, defining the civil rights for minority populations under US jurisdiction specifically in terms of “the rights ascribed to white persons”. In this legal context, within the tradition of the US legal system of precedent, we the Indigenous Peoples are defined as “savages”.

Principles:
The USSF must recognize the Indigenous Peoples as Nations with the full right of Self Determination.

The USSF must renounce the Doctrine of Discovery as an instrument of mass destruction, being an attribute of the ongoing genocide of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas in terms of the jurisprudence of racism evidenced by the Papal Bull Inter Caetera of 1493 to recent US Supreme Court decisions.

The USSF must demand that the US Government cease and desist from further actions in violation the territorial rights of the Nations of the Indigenous Peoples, specifically in fulfillment of the orders issued by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination (CERD) in the case of the Western Shoshone Nation.

The USSF must demand that the US government stop blocking the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as adopted by the UN Human Rights Council on June 29, 2006 and take immediate action at all levels of government to recognize, respect, and protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples described in the declaration as a minimum standard of affirmation of the inherent rights of the Indigenous Peoples globally.

In absence of the above, or in the interim, the USSF must take action to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the UN Human rights council on June 29th, 2006 at the community, organization, regional, and national level of networks, coalitions, and alliances as a common bond of commitment to authenticate the process of decolonization, internal and external, by means of collective actions of self empowerment.

The USSF commitment to the principles of decolonization, by means of collective actions of self-empowerment, must extend to the entirety of the continent and the globe, in solidarity and in complement to the decolonization strategies of the Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala [the Americas], Africa, Asia, Europe, the Artic, and Oceanic territories of the Mother Earth globally.

The USSF must acknowledge that unless the forgoing principles are in place in terms of clarifications and commitments, the discussions on the issues of immigration will not be framed within the dynamics of collective actions of self empowerment, but will instead serve as justifications to merely reform, not transform the system specifically in terms of the relationships of our common humanity distorted by the imposition by force on our continent of Abya Yala by the borders of the government states currently accorded international recognition in the international regime of the UN, and the Organization of American States.

The USSF must move to redefine the principle of sustainability, beyond the context of the control concepts of allegiance to the state, racism, or the survival of the meta-national corporate regimes, which are in self-destruct presently with the Wars of Petropolis, and heading to world water war. The Principles of Community Ecology: Respect, Inclusion, Reciprocity-Community, and Peace should be considered as guide for strategies of collective actions of self-empowerment, which may serve as base for the global social transformation necessary to effectively address the climate crisis and the degradation of planetary ecosystems, including that of humanity itself.

The USSF should consider an collective act of categorical rejection of the concept of “white persons” as a false construct of racism and institutionalized discrimination within all strata of US society, in violation of the human rights of all US constituencies in particular the right to humanity of our European American relatives. (When did the thirteen colonies stop colonizing?)

Concept
The USSF should consider redefining the national motto from E Pluribus Unam (from the many one) to E Pluribus Diversitas (from the many, Diversity).

Respectfuly submitted,

Tupac Enrique Acosta, Yaotachcauh
Tlahtokan Nahuacalli
TONATIERRA
Email: chantlaca@aol.com

Notes:

I was on a conference call yesterday re: the USSF, and brought up the Doctrine of Discovery as the continent cutter cross cutting issue that MUST be addressed in solidarity and with instruments of commitment and accountability by the US Social Justice individuals, groups, organizations, etc., in attendance in ATLANTA.

My opinion is this is not a recommendation for a workshop or content for an article but should be a demand, prior to attending the event.

If we do not have this in place, at least in the form of a well defined mechanisms of accountability to the positions of the Nations of the Indigenous Peoples across Turtle Island and continentally Abya Yala - not just within the “BOX” [USofA] of the colonizing states of mind that derive justification from the “Doctrine of Discovery” : then what will we have in terms of alliances or even coalitions to the benefit of the cause of the Indigenous Peoples in a year, in five years, in a generation??

The case of the Western Shoshone is one prime example where these issues converge, presenting a historic opportunity for an Agenda of Action at the USSF.

Will the social justice movements of north america stay behind inside the fort, within the circled wagons, as the rest of the hemisphere moves to decolonize? Or are we to buy the trinket argument that self-determination of the Indigenous Peoples of north america is only a domestic contruct? (The official US position) Does the social justice movement of north american view the indigenous cause in the shadow of the same intellectual edifice of: domesticated Indians?

If not, the Doctrine of Discovery and the derivitory violations of our common humanity must be effectively addressed, with a strategy that moves beyond the Civil Rights context into the realms of Human Rights and in affirmation of the full right of self determination of Indigenous Peoples: in accord with the natural LAWS of the Land, Air, Water, and Spirituality of life globally.

Agenda of Action: During the conference call, we also made the connection of the issue of the Doctrine of Discovery with the fight at the UN over the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, specifically the position of the US government in this regard.

Agenda of Action: We have shared with the USSF organizers the Declaration of Iximche, proclaimed at the Continental Indigenous Summit Abya Yala held in Guatemala in March of 2007.

PS:

We were told by the Papal Nuncio at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on Thursday May 17 in New York that the Papal Bull Inter Caetera of 1493 has been institutionally abrogated within the context of doctrines upheld by the Catholic Church. At the same time, the Papal Nuncio and his staff attempted a holy brush off of the issue by making the statement that the Vatican could not be held culpable, much less responsible for the Domestic Jurisprudence derived from the imposition of the Doctrine of Discovery which is based upon the precepts, concepts, and moral justifications whose intellectual author remains the Vatican State, specifically evidenced by the papal bull Inter Caetera of 1493.

FYI: We are awaiting the follow up letter from Steve Newcomb to the Vatican to move forward on the issue as a Continental Indigenous Commission on the Doctrine of Discovery.

all for now

tupac

The Lummi Indian Nation Governing Council is pleased to extend an invitation to US Indian Tribal Nations and First Nations of Canada to meet on July 31 – August 1, 2007, to consider the draft Treaty of Indigenous Nations. The National Congress of American Indians, Special Committee on Indigenous Nation Relationships — working with the Assembly of First Nations and the Ngati Awa Tribe of Aotearoa, New Zealand — collaborated on the development of this proposed treaty.

The meeting will be conducted in conjunction with the “Paddle to Lummi,” a gathering of traditional canoes from over 60 tribal nations of the Salish Sea (Puget Sound/Victoria Straights/Straight of Juan de Fuca).

After the welcome ceremonies marking the end of the Paddle to Lummi 2007 Tribal Journey on July 30, the Lummi Indian Business Council will host a gathering of indigenous nation political leadership to discuss the treaty.

Representation: All interested parties are welcome. Official delegates of Indigenous Nations bearing credentials signed by the Nation’s authorized official will be issued a credentialed delegate’s identification for voting privileges.

Proposed Agenda:

JULY 31 – 9:00 AM – 12:00 NOON
• Welcome and Introductions: Opening Prayers

• Background and Purpose for Treaty:
o The Treaty is intended to lead to the establishment of a United League of Indigenous Nations as a political and cultural network to unite indigenous nations around issues of trade, climate change, cultural property rights, human rights and border crossing.

o The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation initiated this effort by introducing a resolution to create a task force to study the idea of a treaty with indigenous nations of the Pacific Rim in the spring of 2004. Subsequently, the NCAI established a special committee on indigenous nation relationships and charged it with the mandate of the Umatilla Tribes resolution. The committee met with other NCAI tribal delegates and then with Maori and First Nation officials over the next several years. Their ideas were incorporated into a draft treaty that was approved by the special committee during the most recent annual meeting of the NCAI in the fall of 2006. This draft is attached to our invitation.

• De-Colonizing The Political Identity of Indigenous Nations – Indigenous Nation Treaty-making:
o The domestic laws of the United States, Canada and New Zealand have followed the political formula of US Justice John Marshall developed in the lead case of Johnson v. MacIntosh, (1824) wherein, based on his analysis of international law and the import of the so-called “discovery doctrine,” he defined US Indian tribes as “domestic, dependent nations.” Yet, all of these states have entered into treaties, nation-to-nation agreements with the indigenous nations residing within their political borders.

o The NCAI Special Committee on Indigenous Nation Relationships determined that, from the perspective of US Tribal Nation representatives and legal scholars, the laws of participating indigenous nations define their own relationships with other indigenous nations — the laws of former colonial nations do not define those relationships. To the extent the indigenous nations may be bound by international laws that have been formulated and promulgated without their participation, such laws cannot be regarded as binding on the ability of indigenous nations to enter into nation-to-nation agreements with each other for their mutual benefit.

JULY 31 — 1:30 PM – 5:00 PM
• Concurrent Breakout Sessions
o Cultural Properties — The Treaty as a political alliance to assert the primacy of indigenous nation law regarding the definition of rights to the cultural properties, sacred objects and traditional knowledge base of each indigenous nation.

o Climate Change — The Treaty as an alliance to unify our concerns over the impacts of climate change on our traditional homeland and to seek independent representation of these concerns before international bodies considering the regulation of climate change causing agents.

o Trade and Commerce — The Treaty as a structure to facilitate and regulate inter-tribal and inter-indigenous-nation trade and commerce: An economic alliance for mutual support and benefit in the pursuit of indigenous nation self-sufficiency and sustainability.

o Border Crossings — The Treaty as a political alliance to unify our positions and efforts regarding border crossing rights and responsibilities.

AUGUST 1 – 9:00 AM – 12:00 NOON
• Summary and reports on discussions in concurrent breakout sessions from previous afternoon.

• What is our Vision for our future as individual indigenous nations struggling for survival within a dominant society that is often hostile to our existence? Is there a common vision? How can the Treaty serve to advance that common vision?

1:30 pm – 5:30 pm
• What are the next steps?

Adjourn

Contact Information
Alan Parker at (360) 867-5075 or parkeral@evergreen.edu
Jewell James at (360) 384-2337 or jewellj@lummi-nsn.gov

UNITED LEAGUE OF INDIGENOUS NATIONS TREATY - DRAFT
PREAMBLE
We the Indigenous Nations and Peoples of the Pacific Rim hereby pledge mutual recognition of our inherent rights and power to govern ourselves and our ancestral homelands and traditional territories. Each signatory nation, having provided evidence that their respective governing body has taken action in accordance with their own custom, law and or tradition to knowingly agree to and adopt the terms of this treaty, hereby establishes the political, social, cultural and economic relations contemplated herein.
PRINCIPLES
Recognizing each other as self-governing indigenous nations, we subscribe to the following principles:
1. The Creator has made us part of and inseparable from the natural world around us. This truth binds us together and gives rise to a shared commitment to care for, conserve and protect the land, water and animal life within our usual, customary and traditional territories.
2. Our inherent customary rights to self-governance and self-determination have existed since time immemorial, have been bestowed by the Creator and are defined in accordance with our own laws, values, customs and mores.
3. Political, social, cultural and economic relationships between our indigenous nations have existed since a time immemorial and our right to continue such relationships are inseparable from our inherent indigenous rights of nationhood.
4. No other political jurisdiction, including nation states and their governmental agencies or subdivisions, possess governmental power over any of our indigenous nations, our people and our usual, customary and traditional territories, except in accordance with the freely expressed wishes of such indigenous nation.
5. Our inherent, aboriginal control and enjoyment of our territories includes our collective rights over the environment consisting of the air, lands, inland waters, oceans, seas, sea ice, flora, fauna and all other surface and sub-surface resources.
6. Our indigenous rights include all traditional and ecological knowledge derived from our contact with our lands for time immemorial, the exercise of conservation practices, traditional ceremonies, medicinal and healing practices and all other expressions of art and culture.
GOALS
This Treaty is for the purpose of achieving the following goals:
1. To establish a supportive bond between each signatory indigenous nation in order to secure and promote, through political, social, cultural and economic unity, the rights of all our peoples and for the well-being of all our future generations.
2. To establish a foundation for the exercise of contemporary indigenous nation sovereignty, without regard to existing or future international boundaries, for the following purposes: (a) protecting our cultural properties, including but not limited to sacred songs, signs and symbols, traditional ecological knowledge and other forms of intellectual property rights by jointly asserting the principle that our own indigenous laws and customs regarding our cultural properties are prior and paramount to the application of any other sovereign’s laws or jurisdiction including international bodies and agencies, (b) protecting our indigenous lands from environmental destruction through asserting our rights of political representation as indigenous nations before all national and international bodies that have been charged, through international treaties, agreements and conventions with environmental protection responsibilities, (c) engaging in mutually beneficial trade and commerce between indigenous nations and the economic enterprises owned and operated collectively by indigenous peoples and by individual citizens of our indigenous nations, and, (d) Preserving and protecting the human rights of our indigenous people from such evils as involuntary servitude, human trafficking, etc..
3. To develop an effective and meaningful process to promote communication and cooperation between the indigenous nations on all other common issues, concerns, pursuits, and initiatives.
4. To ensure that scholarly exchanges and joint study on strategies of self-determination are undertaken by indigenous scholars.
MUTUAL COVENANTS
We, the signatory indigenous nations, are committed to providing the following mutual aid and assistance, to the best of our ability and in accordance with our own prior and paramount indigenous laws, customs and traditions:
1. Exchanging economic, legal, political, traditional and technical knowledge regarding the protection of indigenous cultural properties.
2. Collaborating on research on environmental issues that impact indigenous homelands including baseline studies and socio-economic assessments that consider the cultural, social and sustainable uses of indigenous peoples’ territories and resources.
3. Participating in trade and commerce missions to lay a foundation for business relations and the development of an international, integrated indigenous economy, and
Each signatory indigenous nation shall:
1. Appoint a coordinator or responsible official for Treaty matters;
2. Identify and establish an inter-Nation (i.e., US, Canada, NZ, etc.) coordination office and communication network to assist in assembling data, information, knowledge and research needed to effectively address substantial issues of common concern (i.e., NCAI, AFN, etc.);
3. Coordinate statements of policy and information on Treaty matters, especially information to be disseminated to the media;
4. Participate in periodic reviews and strategy planning sessions as needed.
RATIFICATION
This Treaty shall “come into force” when formally ratified, in accordance with their customary or constitutional processes, by two or more of the indigenous nations residing within the various nation states of the Pacific Rim. Following the coming into force of the Treaty, any other indigenous nation may ratify this Treaty at their pleasure provided that there are no objections by the indigenous nations already signatory to this Treaty. Each ratifying indigenous nation may attach explanations or clarifications expressing different meanings associated with the provisions of the Treaty through a Statement of Understandings. These Reservations of Understandings shall become a part of this Treaty and receive full respect by other ratifying Nations.
EXPLANATORY NOTE:
The proposed “United League of Indigenous Nations Treaty”, is a proposal of the Special Committee on Indigenous Nations Relationships of the National Congress of American Indians (USA). This October 6, 2006 draft was prepared by a drafting committee convened initially at the 2004 Annual Conference of the NCAI in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The Fort Lauderdale draft was subsequently modified and amended by a special “treaty drafting committee” that met on the Tulalip Indian Reservation, USA, on August 10-11, 2006 and was comprised of NCAI Special Committee co-chair, Alan Parker, AFN Special Assistant to the National Chief, Sheldon Cardinal, Mataatua Assembly delegate, Graham Smith (Maori) and the following US tribal representatives; Terry Williams and Preston Hardiston, Tulalip, Jeffrey Thomas, Puyallup and Celine Volger, Cowlitz. This 2nd draft was subsequently presented for discussion at the 2006 Annual Conference of the NCAI in Sacramento, CA and further modified and amended. The NCAI Executive Committee has now charged the Special Committee on Indigenous Nation Relationships with the task of convening a special meeting on this draft of interested parties and US tribal representatives before the end of this calendar year (2006) The purpose of this special meeting is to provide an opportunity for broad based participation by US tribal nation representatives in a detailed discussion of this draft, consideration of additional amendments to the draft by such representatives prior to finalization and the development of a Treaty Ratification and Implementation Plan.

Dear Colleague,

Your help is urgently needed to protect indigenous peoples’ rights worldwide. Please sign on to our letter to the President of the United Nations General Assembly, as the head of your organization.

After 24 years of negotiation, last June the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and forwarded it to the United Nations General Assembly. Given the Human Rights Council’s strong endorsement, General Assembly approval should have been a matter of course. No other group ( i.e. women, children, migrants, disabled, workers) has had to wait so long.

However, in November, at the request of African states, the General Assembly postponed consideration of the Declaration to allow governments more time to consider it.

Thursday, May 17, the Group of African States issued a new proposed Declaration that guts the Human Rights Council’s text. It removes indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination, restricts their rights to their lands and resources, and leaves it to governments to determine who is indigenous. Indigenous peoples around the globe categorically reject this 11th hour effort to undermine a quarter century of work to have their rights recognized by the United Nations.

We urgently need your help to persuade the General Assembly to reject the African text and to adopt the Human Rights Council’s text.

Please sign on to our letter immediately by replying to this email. The letter is included below.

To read more about the importance of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples go to http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/csv/index.cfm.

Sincerely yours,

Ellen L. Lutz
Executive Director
Cultural Survival
215 Prospect St.
Cambridge, MA 02139
617-441-5404
www.cs.org

Letter to the President of the United Nations General Assembly:

June 12, 2007

H.E. Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa
President of the 61st Session of the General Assembly
United Nations
New York, NY 10017

Madame President,

Over the past twenty-four years, indigenous peoples and governments have patiently negotiated a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. After much compromise on all sides, a text acceptable to all was adopted by the Human Rights Council at its inaugural session last June.

Now, a group of states calling itself the “African Group” has submitted an alternative text that was prepared with no input from indigenous peoples. This text strips out all reference to “self-determination,” and gives states complete control to determine who is indigenous. Further, it gives states, through their law-making powers, absolute power over indigenous peoples’ lands and resources. In many other instances, indigenous peoples’ rights are subordinated to “national laws” or the “national legal system.”

This alternative text is the antithesis of what a human rights instrument is supposed to be: a backstop against arbitrary, harmful state action. The central purpose of the Declaration, as with all such human rights instruments, is to provide indigenous peoples with a measure of protection from such abuse. Instead the African Group proposes to retain the status quo ante by means of a process that utterly disrespects indigenous peoples, and the decades of efforts of both indigenous and governmental negotiators.

Madame President, we urge you not to submit the African Group proposal to the General Assembly. Rather, we urge you to use your good offices to help the African states understand that the Human Rights Council’s text contains nothing that threatens state sovereignty or opportunity for development. To the contrary, it levels the playing field so that small, marginal, and in most cases impoverished indigenous communities can engage as citizens with the state without losing their identities or cultures. Rather than fuel conflict, it quiets the potential for conflict by creating a framework for fair cooperation and respectful resolution of differences.

Thank you for your consideration.

Respectfully,

Ellen L. Lutz
Executive Director
Cultural Survival

We are hereby informing organizations concerned with human rights and international humanitarian law of the persecution of the indigenous communities of Camawari by the National Police and the District Attorney’s office.

Communique 2

May 30, 2007.

CAMAWARI hereby informs the Colombian state and the national and international community of the aggressions recently committed by the National Police operating in the municipality of Ricaurte and the sector of Ospina Perez against the organization CAMAWARI and members of the Palpi indigenous community.

On the 24th of May, members of the National Police filmed and photographed the office in Ricaurte from a pick-up parked in front of the building. At no time did the police inform CAMAWARI of their actions, but instead acted suspiciously, leaving their windows half-closed, with only the video and still cameras visible.

On May 25, in the community of Palpis, members of the National Police operating in Ospina Perez verbally attacked CELIO PAI, member of the Governing Council of Palbi Gualtal, and representative of the Awa indigenous communities on the health authority board, accusing him of being a guerrilla and intimidating him by shooting into the air when he refused to accompany them.

On May 26th, the National Police from Ospina Perez detained ten governors in the community of Palpis. The police immediately called the District Attorney’s office and officials shortly arrived in a yellow civilian vehicle. They asked for identity documents from the governors, took their fingerprints and photographs, and filmed them, transferring all this information to laptop computers that they carried.

In recent days, members of state security forces have been circulating in civilian vehicles, which causes uncertainty in the indigenous community (and violates international humanitarian law)

Since the municipality of Ricaurte has a heavy presence of different armed actors, we are concerned by these actions of the security forces. In the past people have been detained and months later assassinated in unclear circumstances. A concrete case is the massacre of Altaquer, perpetrated on August 9, 2006.

We condemn these actions by the National Police and the District Attorney’s office, just as we have in the past condemned violations committed by the insurgency. As a matter of policy, CAMAWARI does not agree with the armed conflict taking place on indigenous territory, which has caused the deaths of many in the indigenous community, and currently has displaced eighty families who cannot go back to their reserves because of the armed confrontation.

AWA INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES, COUNCIL OF AWA ELDERS OF RICAURTE, CAMAWARI, DEPARTMENT OF NARIÑO

Colombia, South America

The Institute for Advanced Sovereignty is a four-day program focused on enhancing the legitimacy and effectiveness of American Indian tribal governance. To ensure stronger self-government, Indigenous peoples must appreciate the transformation that has occurred in tribal governance to date, as well as the various pathways to reform that exist. Achieving this goal requires an understanding not only of historic approaches to governance, but also of the ways in which colonial Indian control laws may have had a disruptive effect. Ideally, to be successful, Indigenous nations must move beyond purely western conceptions of law and governance and embrace modern Indigenous governing philosophies.

The Institute for Advanced Sovereignty is an opportunity for tribal leaders meet in an informal educational environment and study various ways for strengthening their sovereignty through government reform. The course will include instruction on Indigenous sovereignty, concepts of good governance, and how to engage in a successful government reform process.

THE FACULTY

Robert Odawi Porter
Robert Odawi Porter, the founding director of the Center for Indigenous Law, Governance & Citizenship, is Senior Associate Dean for Research, Professor of Law and Dean’s Research Scholar of Indigenous Nations Law at Syracuse University College of Law. Porter is a citizen of the Seneca Nation (Heron Clan) and was raised in the Nation’s Allegany Territory. He earned his undergraduate degree from SU’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and his law degree from Harvard Law School.

Porter’s professional experience includes private law practice in Washington, D.C. and government service as the first Attorney General of the Seneca Nation and the first Chief Justice of the Sac & Fox Nation of Missouri. He has been a member of the tenured law faculty at the University of Kansas and the University of Iowa. Porter is also the Senior Policy Advisor and Counsel for the Seneca Nation. Porter’s scholarship has appeared in leading law reviews and has focused on American Indian law and governance (particularly the Haudenosaunee), as well as Indigenous citizenship and political participation, eurocolonialism, and indigenization. His commentary has appeared in national newspapers and newsmagazines, including the New York Times. He is also the author and editor of Sovereignty, Colonialism and the Indigenous Nations: A Reader (Carolina Academic Press 2005).

Carrie E. Garrow
Carrie E. Garrow, the Executive Director of the Center for Indigenous Law, Governance & Citizenship, is a member of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe and was raised at the Akwesasne Territory in New York. She received her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College, her law degree from Stanford Law School, and a Master’s in Public Policy degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Garrow is a former deputy district attorney, Chief Judge of the St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Courts, and the co-author of Tribal Criminal Law and Procedure (Altamira, 2004). Her work has focused on tribal justice issues, including assistance to the Oglala Sioux Tribe with a participatory evaluation of a U.S. Department of Justice initiative (Comprehensive Indian Resources for Community and Law Enforcement) and also to the Grand Traverse Band of Chippewa Ottawa Indians with a juvenile code reform project. She has worked previously as a consultant for the Tribal Law and Policy Institute, the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, and the Native Nations Institute. She is also a beadwork artist and won Best of Division for Beadwork at the 12th Annual Eiteljorg Museum Indian Market in June 2004.

ENROLLMENT

The course has a limit of twenty (20) students. No prior courses or degrees are required, however, preference will be given to tribal leaders and staff.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Date: June 19 – June 22, 2007

Location: Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel http://www.senecaniagaracasino.com/hotel.cfm

Course Cost: $595 (which includes course materials)

Room and Board: Participants are responsible for their own lodging.

Registration deadline: An initial nonrefundable deposit of $100 is due by May 31, 2007 to reserve a place in the Institute. Full payment of $595 minus your deposit must be made by June 18, 2007.

For more information contact:
Carrie Garrow, Executive Director
(315)-443-9558
ndnlaw@law.syr.edu

AGENDA –[DRAFT]

Each class session will run approximately 3 hours and 15 minutes with a break.

June 19, 2007

Morning Session – Introduction to Indigenous Law and Sovereignty

Afternoon Session – Federal Indian Control Law – the Scope of Federal Powers

June 20, 2007

Morning Session – The Threats to Tribal Sovereignty

Afternoon Session – Tribal Sovereignty Development

June 21, 2007

Morning Session – Why a Constitution?

Afternoon Session – Drafting Codes and Constitutions

June 22, 2007

Morning Session – Drafting Codes and Constitutions continued

Afternoon Session - Politics and Government Reform

By Tom Hamburger, LA Times — May 31, 2007

WASHINGTON - For more than 15 years, clean-cut, square-jawed Tom Heffelfinger was the embodiment of a tough Republican prosecutor. Named U.S. attorney for Minnesota in 1991, he won a series of high-profile white-collar crime and gun and explosives cases. By the time Heffelfinger resigned last year, his office had collected a string of awards and commendations from the Justice Department.

So it came as a surprise - and something of a mystery - when he turned up on a list of U.S. attorneys who had been targeted for firing. Part of the reason, government documents and other evidence suggest, is that he tried to protect voting rights for Native Americans.

At a time when GOP activists wanted U.S. attorneys to concentrate on pursuing voter fraud cases, Heffelfinger’s office was expressing deep concern about the effect of a state directive that could have the effect of discouraging Indians in Minnesota from casting ballots.

Citing requirements in a new state election law, Republican Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer directed that tribal ID cards could not be used for voter identification by Native Americans living off reservations. Heffelfinger and his staff feared that the ruling could result in discrimination against Indian voters. Many do not have driver’s licenses or forms of identification other than the tribes’ photo IDs.

Kiffmeyer said she was only following the law.

The issue was politically sensitive because the Indian vote can be pivotal in close elections in Minnesota. The Minneapolis-St. Paul area has one of the largest urban Native American populations in the United States. Its members turn out in relatively large numbers and are predominantly Democratic.

Heffelfinger resigned last year for personal reasons and says he had no idea he was being targeted for possible firing. But his stance fits a pattern that has emerged in the cases of several U.S. attorneys fired last year in states where Republicans wanted more vigorous efforts to legally challenge questionable voters.

Politics have always played a role at Justice and other Cabinet-level departments. But, critics say, Bush administration strategists went beyond most of their predecessors - Democratic or Republican - in seeking ways to convert control of the federal government into advantages on election day.

And the Heffelfinger episode has contributed to a backlash among some Minnesota Republicans. Sen. Norm Coleman, a Bush loyalist in the past who is facing reelection next year, has called on Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales to resign - largely as a result of the U.S. attorney firings and the revelations about Heffelfinger.

A hint at why Heffelfinger’s name was on termination lists that Justice Department officials and Bush political strategists put together emerged when Monica M. Goodling, the department’s former White House liaison, testified last week before the House Judiciary Committee about the firings.

Goodling said she had heard Heffelfinger criticized for “spending an excessive amount of time” on Native American issues.

Her comment caused bewilderment and anger among the former U.S. attorney’s supporters in Minnesota. And Heffelfinger said it was “shameful” if the time he spent on the problems of Native Americans had landed him in trouble with his superiors in Washington.

But newly obtained documents and interviews with government officials suggest that what displeased some of his superiors and GOP politicians was narrower and more politically charged - his actions on Indian voting.

About three months after Heffelfinger’s office raised the issue of tribal ID cards and nonreservation Indians in an October 2004 memo, his name appeared on a list of U.S. attorneys singled out for possible firing.

“I have come to the conclusion that his expressed concern for Indian voting rights is at least part of the reason that Tom Heffelfinger was placed on the list to be fired,” said Joseph D. Rich, former head of the voting section of the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Rich, who retired in 2005 after 37 years as a career department lawyer - 24 of them in Republican administrations - was closely involved in the Minnesota ID issue. He played no role in drafting the termination lists, which were prepared by political appointees.

Justice Department officials refused Tuesday to confirm whether particular U.S. attorneys may or may not have been on one of the termination lists prepared by D. Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Gonzales. But Dean Boyd, a department spokesman, did say that “the Justice Department and the attorney general have been and remain committed to working on issues of importance to Native Americans.”

Boyd cited cases in which Justice Department lawyers have gone to court to uphold Indian voting rights.

Suspicion of Indian voter fraud was strong among Republicans in the upper Midwest in advance of the 2004 election. The GOP blamed what it said was fraud on Indian reservations for the narrow victory of South Dakota Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson over Republican candidate John Thune in 2002.

It was in this environment, Rich says, that he got an Oct. 19, 2004, e-mail from an assistant U.S. attorney in Minnesota named Rob Lewis, informing him about possible voter discrimination against Indians.

Described as a matter of “deep concern” to Heffelfinger, the issue arose from Kiffmeyer’s directive in the fall of 2004 that tribal ID cards could not be used for voter identification off reservations. About 32,000 Indians live off-reservation in Minnesota, mostly in the Twin Cities.

In the e-mail - which Rich described to The Times - Lewis wrote that Kiffmeyer’s memo had sparked “concerns regarding possible disparate impact among the state’s substantial Indian population.” “Disparate impact” is a term used in civil rights litigation to describe a circumstantial case of discrimination.

After reviewing the matter, Rich recommended opening an investigation.

In response, he said, Bradley Schlozman, a political appointee in the department, told Rich “not to do anything without his approval” because of the “special sensitivity of this matter.” Rich responded by suggesting that more information be gathered from voting officials in the Twin Cities area, which includes Minnesota’s two most populous counties.

A message came back from another Republican official in the department, Hans von Spakovsky, saying Rich should not contact the county officials but should instead deal only with the secretary of state’s office.

Von Spakovsky indicated, Rich said, that working with Kiffmeyer’s office reduced the likelihood of a leak to the news media.

The orders from Schlozman and Von Spakovsky, who wielded unusual power in the civil rights division, effectively ended any department inquiry, Rich said. “It was apparent to me that because of these extremely tight and unusual restrictions on the investigation that this matter had political implications,” Rich said in an interview.

Rich is now working for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which was formed at the request of President Kennedy in 1963 to combat discrimination.

Schlozman, who served briefly as U.S. attorney in Missouri and brought a voting fraud case shortly before election day last year, was not available for comment, Justice Department officials said. Von Spakovsky, now at the Federal Election Commission, said through a spokesman that he could not comment. Kiffmeyer also did not respond to requests for comment.

With the Justice Department inquiry going nowhere, lawyers for the Indians asked the federal courts to intervene. A few days before the November 2004 election, federal District Judge James Rosenbaum ordered that tribal identification cards be accepted at the polls.

After Heffelfinger resigned, the Justice Department replaced him with someone more attuned to the administration’s views.

On his way out, Heffelfinger recommended that Joan Humes, the No. 2 person in the office, be named interim U.S. attorney. But Humes was rejected by the Justice Department - in part, Goodling testified, because she was known to be a “liberal.”

The job went to a conservative Justice Department employee, Rachel Paulose. She had Ivy League credentials, brief experience as a prosecutor, and as a private lawyer had helped bring election lawsuits on behalf of the Minnesota GOP. She declined to comment for this article.

One of Paulose’s first acts in office was to remove Lewis, who had written the 2004 e-mails to Washington expressing concern about Native American voting rights in Minnesota, from overseeing voting rights cases.

For his part, Heffelfinger said, he took Goodling at her word and believed that he was on the termination lists for his zeal in confronting problems facing Indian country. But Heffelfinger said he did not know whether voting rights in particular affected his standing with Washington.

“I was just flagging an issue and giving an opinion,” he said. “I think that’s the kind of analysis a U.S. attorney is supposed to do.”

In the wake of HBO’ s disappointing and history-deranging adaptation of Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, American Indian actors, writers, aspiring directors and producers arrive at the end of the trail for their decades-long struggle to gain a footing in Hollywood: our cause is lost in the American film and television industry.
It is now time for us to abandon our stake in the Hollywood camp, this distressed outpost, now time for us to gather on the open beach at Santa Monica and there bury in the sand our hopes for participation and inclusion, then head out of town with our heads held a high as we can hold them. We will be better off re-locating our work back to the reservations, to the tribal communities and scattered remnants of land allotments that were given to us in treaties with the United States government over a hundred years ago in the epic tragedy which Dee Brown described so vividly and thoroughly in his iconic history. And there, hopefully safe from the misbegotten creative and economic forces of the industry, we must knuckle down and produce our own films, our own television dramas, write our own accounts of our history, and present them in images that we create and that we will control. We have an audience of two million American Indians waiting.
With Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, the power brokers of the industry have demonstrated that their entertainment values and demands prevail over anything we say or do, write or create, that our history is for them to tell, to fictionalize, to distort with false love stories and character portrayals, and to trivialize all that is complex and tragic. HBO did not ask for or seek the help and guidance of any of the experienced American Indian creative professionals who might have helped steer them away from this debacle. Yes, Indian actors played the Indians, but that was all.
With breathtaking arrogance, Bury My Heart’s narrative forcibly inducts American Indians into the brotherhood of savagery as a way of universalizing them and making them like all other people.
Genocide is dramatized as just as much the result of the mean-spirited and physically cruel behavior of American Indians, who were fighting for their very survival, as it was of the inhumanity of the American armies. The last shreds of Indian nobility are eliminated once and for all.
A feature article on the making of Bury My Heart titled “The Last Stand” in the May 27 Los Angeles Times gives a brief, perplexing account of how Hollywood came to the view that American Indians can now be justly and fairly seen as co-agents of their own destruction. As a two-hour condensation of the book, “The film didn’t have time to dwell on the spiritual, Earth-friendly image of Native Americans,” says the article’s author, Graham Fuller. “Nor does it offer a politically correct perspective,” he adds. The Sioux, we’re told, were “as rapacious as their white conquerers.”
This view is scaldingly laid out with the portrayal of Sitting Bull as a baby killer, as a coward who hid in his tipi at the height of the Battle of Little Bighorn, and as a greedy buffoon who lusts for the white man’s money and approval.
The scriptwriter, Daniel Giat, confidently tells The Times, “My primary objective was to fully dimensionalize these people. Sitting Bull was vain. He was desperate to hold onto the esteem of his people and win the esteem of the whites. But I think in depicting his desperation and the measures he took in acting on it, it makes it all the more sad and tragic, and I think we identify with him all the more for it.”

To complete this grim, determined view, the film presents every Indian cliche imaginable in graphic, full-bodied images without context or explanation: brutal scalpings; stoic, saddened faces of Indian elders; sick, dying babies; herds of wild horses surging across open prairies; vast armies of Indian warriors mounted along high vistas; war ponies being ceremonially painted; desperate ghost dancers, and heartless Indian agents and schoolteachers. We’ve seen them all far too many times
And to all of this, unbelievably, the article tells us, “The passel of Lakota and other Indian consultants hired for the project obviously didn’t object too strenuously.” No credible American Indian historians, scholars or film makers are quoted in The Times article. I was astonished to see the names of two highly respected scholars and historians listed in the film’s credit crawl and was grateful that this embarrassment for them would not be seen by many.
As students in the early 1970s, members of my generation of American Indians carried paperback copies of Bury My Heart in our backpacks as talismans of hope. Thirty-seven years later, we must sadly accept that HBO, the avatar of original television programming and creative innovation, has failed to deliver a truthful, even recognizable telling of Dee Brown’s history. The more cynical among us back then forecast that this would happen, and, alas….
By letting go of our Hollywood dreams, we American Indians can take control of our stories and images and establish creative sovereignty. Affordable digital cameras and production equipment and scripts written by the Indian writers whom Hollywood rejected and left blowing in the wind will help us to become free and independent tellers our our own stories. The failure of Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee urgently tells us that we must, must do this. Aho, thank you.

Hanay Geiogamah
Professor of Theater, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television
Director, UCLA American Indian Studies Center

Madam President,

In name of the Caucus of Abya Yala South we greet you and congratulate you as president of this period of sessions, in the same way may we once again show our respect and brotherhood with the other Indigenous Nations that have come as we have to reaffirm the demand of our millennial right of Freedom of Transit upon our continent Abya Yala in all its extension. For the actual illegal immigration which began the 12th of October of 1492, came in the form of an invasion with intent to exterminate our Indigenous Peoples, the true inhabitants of Abya Yala.

Paradoxically in a world of globalization where the borders for the regimes of commerce are eliminated at every turn, the mobility of the Indigenous Peoples is increasingly restricted more and more. In the intervention read by the representative of the IMF, during this session of the Forum the issue of climatic change was mentioned as a prime cause of the displacement of our communities and nations.

Nevertheless we as Indigenous Peoples state that both internal and external displacement has to do mostly to do with the terrorism of the state, as well as the illegal concession of our natural resources such as: petroleum, minerals, and others, which occur in blatant violation of our right of self determination. As Indigenous Peoples, we are forced to suffer invasion and usurpation of our economic resources constantly.

The normative efforts in the theme of legislation related to migratory issues reflects an immense lack of political will that in no way contributes to mitigate the centuries old design of segregation in terms of the state instruments of justice, the pervasive racial violence and xenophobia, and the unequal distribution of opportunity and access to the enjoyment of benefits within the countries of origin. In fact the implementation of these laws, denominated migratory, leads to the criminalization of the displaced and contributes in collusion to the subjugation and the total decay of the dignity of the Indigenous Pueblos and Nations continentally.

As the Indigenous Peoples of the continent Abya Yala as a whole, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from the Eastern end of Brazil to Rapanui: We must have the right of free mobility, without passport, visa and state credential. On our lands nobody is “irregular”, nobody is “illegal”, nobody is undocumented, and nobody is foreign. Here, we are all originations of Abya Yala, and the universe that belongs to us.

Thus, in this context we express our sentiments and reasons now as we come to demand the adoption, ratification and implementation of the following recommendations:

1. We recommended that the Permanent Forum elaborate an integral study of the problems that confront the Indigenous Peoples related to internal and external displacements continentally, with indicators describing issues within the countries of origin, transit and destination.

2. We recommended that a study be elaborated on the conditions of security, well being and respect for the displaced constituencies of Indigenous Peoples when they are detained by the different police agencies of the countries of transit, in addition the health conditions in the detention centers of the different countries of transit and destination.

3. We recommended that the United Nations engage in official review of the countries of destination, in order to monitor that the guarantees of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are recognized and respected. This is necessary since in some countries the state authorities implement incarceration techniques without concern for the separation of minors and families, and in another case the existence of paramilitary groups is openly tolerated which causes intentional harassment further victimizing the displaced incarcerated populations.

4. We recommended that the United Nations specifically review the implementation of the International Treaty of Protection Against Torture, since many displaced individuals facing the deportation processes are expelled to the country of origin without taking into account the security of their lives. The officials only take into account the reports from the Department of State or the report of the chancellery of the country of origin, where the states manipulate a double standard since politically the rights of the Indigenous are nominally recognized nevertheless implementation of mechanisms of protection are non existent.

5. We recommended that the agencies and mechanisms of the system of United Nations develop programs that comprehensively guarantee the access to housing, education and nutrition for displaced indigenous families since it is not enough to advocate solely for their cultural preservation.

6. We recommended the United Nations and their internal agencies, as well as with the states of the world, together with the Indigenous Peoples, join efforts with the task of implementing mechanisms that allow to construct indicators that will help to differentiate the Indigenous Peoples who are forced into displacement under stress of force in order to develop a realistic statistical base with the intention of evaluating the general panorama in this matter and contributing to the construction and implementation of policies grounded in the reality of the displaced indigenous communities.

7. We recommended that an official study be elaborated regarding the guarantees of Indigenous Rights in relation to the borders of the government-states.

Presented by: Caucus Abya Yala South

www.tonatierra.org

Weblink:
Reporting of the sixth session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues:

http://web.mac.com/seventhgeneration/iWeb/Site%204/UNPFII2007.html

Forced Displacement of Indigenous Peoples - UNPFII Caucus Abya Yala South