| The State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples |
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Indigenous peoples make up one third of the world’s poor and are often disproportionately affected by the economic globalisation. Governments should prioritise self-determination and land rights to protect indigenous communities and their knowledge, says a report by UN DESA. UN Report Paints Grim Picture of Conditions of World’s Indigenous Peoples - UN News Centre UN Condemns Land Grabs in Native Territories - Haider Rizvi, Inter Press Service Link to full report: State of the World's Indigenous Peoples 15th January 2010 UN Report Paints Grim Picture of Conditions of World’s Indigenous Peoples 14th January 2010 - UN News Centre The world’s 370 million indigenous peoples suffer from disproportionately, often exponentially, higher rates of poverty, health problems, crime and human rights abuses, the first ever United Nations study on the issue reported today, stressing that self-determination and land rights are vital for their survival. Startling figures contained in The State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples include:
“Every day, indigenous communities all over the world face issues of violence and brutality, continuing assimilation policies, dispossession of land, marginalization, forced removal or relocation, denial of land rights, impacts of large-scale development, abuses by military forces and a host of other abuses,” the report’s authors said in a news release. Although indigenous peoples make up only 5 per cent of the global population, they constitute around one third of the world’s 900 million extremely poor rural people. In both developed and developing countries, poor nutrition, limited access to care, lack of resources crucial to maintaining health and well-being and contamination of natural resources are all contributing factors to the terrible state of indigenous health worldwide. At the report’s launch at UN Headquarters in New York, UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Chairperson Vicki Tauli-Corpuz said its value would be far-reaching because it comprises for the first time very clearly aggregated data. “We believe this is going to be crucial for Governments and for the UN to address more seriously and comprehensively the issues of indigenous people,” she told a news briefing. “It’s very daring and bold in a sense because it does identify countries and the situation of indigenous peoples in various countries both in the developed world as well as in the developing world.” Indigenous peoples experience disproportionately high levels of maternal and infant mortality, malnutrition, cardiovascular illnesses, HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis (TB), while suicide rates, particularly among youth, are considerably higher in many countries, for example up to 11 times the national average for the Inuit in Canada. The Inuit TB rate is over 150 times higher. The study repeatedly identifies displacement from lands, territories and resources as one of the most significant threats for indigenous peoples, citing many examples, including in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Hawaii, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Colombia. “When indigenous peoples have reacted and tried to assert their rights, they have suffered physical abuse, imprisonment, torture and even death,” it says, stressing that their rights to their own lands and territories must be respected while they need to develop their own definitions and indicators of poverty and well-being. “Indigenous peoples suffer from the consequences of historic injustice, including colonization, dispossession of their lands, territories and resources, oppression and discrimination, as well as lack of control over their own ways of life. Their right to development has been largely denied by colonial and modern States in the pursuit of economic growth,” it adds, warning that the importance of land and territories to indigenous cultural identity cannot be stressed enough. Of the world’s 6,000 to 7,000 languages, a great majority are spoken by indigenous peoples, and many, if not most, are in danger of becoming extinct, with some 90 per cent possibly doomed within the next 100 years. About 97 per cent of the world’s population currently speaks 4 per cent of its languages, while only 3 per cent speaks 96 per cent of them. Indigenous peoples, who are the stewards of some of the most biologically diverse areas, accumulating an immeasurable amount of traditional knowledge about their ecosystems, also face the dual and somewhat contradictory threats of discrimination and commodification. They face racism and discrimination that sees them as inferior, yet they are increasingly recognized for their unique relationship with their environment, their traditional knowledge and their spirituality, leading to external efforts to profit from their culture which are frequently out of their control, providing them no benefits, and often a great deal of harm. UN Condemns Land Grabs in Native Territories 14th January 2010 - Haider Rizvi, Inter Press Service Millions of people around the world who belong to indigenous communities continue to face discrimination and abuse at the hands of authorities and private business concerns, says a new U.N. report. It is happening not only in the developing parts of the world but also in countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which champion the causes of human rights and democracy, the report says. Despite all the "positive developments" in international human rights setting in recent years, the study's findings suggest that indigenous peoples remain vulnerable to state-sponsored violence and brutality, which is often aimed at confiscating their lands. "Governments and the United Nations need to be serious about this," said Victoria Tauli-Corpus, chairperson of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, an advisory body that works with the 54-member Economic and Social Council, after launching the report. The 222 page-report, entitled "State of the World's Indigenous Peoples", points out that an overwhelming majority of the indigenous population is condemned to live in extreme poverty. Its authors noted that while indigenous peoples are around five percent of the world's population, they comprise 15 percent of people living in extreme poverty. The first-ever comprehensive report on indigenous peoples' rights comes as the U.N. is reviewing progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), globally agreed targets to reduce, poverty, disease and environmental destruction, among other issues, by the year 2015. Explaining her findings, one of the report's authors, Myrna Cunningham, said indigenous communities in many countries are living in abject poverty because they have lost their lands to private interests that are often backed by state authorities. She also raised concerns about the extrajudicial killing of indigenous people in some parts of the world. In this context, she cited the examples of Colombia and Peru, where extreme hostility towards native people has been well-documented by human rights organisations. "There are several cases where indigenous peoples are being identified by governments as terrorists," Cunningham told IPS, adding that it was in clear violation of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The U.N. Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly in 2007. The historic document calls for the recognition of native populations' right to control their lands and protect their culture and language. The report's chapter dealing with environmental issues suggests that most of the deforestation is taking place on indigenous territories due to massive operations by mining corporations. It says many of the business ventures on native lands are illegal. "We have agonised over many ongoing situations," said Ben Powless, an indigenous activist in Canada who has attended numerous international meetings on climate change and biodiversity, including the U.N. summit held in Copenhagen, Denmark last month. Powless said those situations included "the massacres of our relatives in the Peruvian Amazon, the evictions of our Masai families in Kenya, and the devastation of our communities by the impacts of climate change." Large dams and mining activities have caused massive displacements of indigenous peoples in many countries. The study's authors documented several cases where native people were forced by the tourism industry to leave their ancestral lands. The report points out that in many countries around the world, indigenous children are not only deprived of education, but also lack adequate access to health care and nutritious food. That, according to Cunningham, is against "our right to self-determination". The U.N. General Assembly fully recognises indigenous populations' right to exercise their right to "self-determination". However, some powerful countries, including the United States and Canada, have rejected the Declaration. Contrary to the previous U.S. administration's stance, President Barack Obama seems willing to sign on to the declaration. ¨We are having a dialogue with the U.S. government," Tauli-Corpus told IPS. "We are doing all we can." At the news conference, Tauli-Corpus raised hopes that at future talks on climate change, indigenous peoples' rights to control their lands and forests will be given due consideration. But not all indigenous leaders think along the same lines. Recent negotiations on climate change have suggested that deforestation in indigenous lands could be tackled by means of carbon trading. Many indigenous peoples see that as a tool of corruption and a threat to their cultural survival. "Carbon trading and carbon offsets are a crime against humanity and Creation," said Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network. "The sky is sacred." "This carbon market insanity privatises the air and sells it to climate criminals like Shell so they can continue to pollute and destroy the climate and our future, rather than reducing their emissions at source," he added in a statement. Considering the fact that much of the world's forests are located in indigenous peoples' lands, Goldtooth fears that carbon trading would pave the way for more "land grabs, killings, evictions and forced displacement" of native communities. |
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