The Algorithms of the Gatekeepers -- Testimony at the United Nations

Consejo Indio Exterior's delegate describes the doctrine of genocide in America and Palestine
during testimony at the United Nations. (Screenshot Censored News)

The Algorithms of the Gatekeepers -- Testimony at the United Nations 

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, July 29, 2026

"History was written and taught by the invader, it is their history," the delegate of Consejo Indio Exterior, told the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous human rights defenders from the Pacific, South Africa and Colombia spoke on protecting Indigenous rights in the oceans, protection from artificial intelligence's surveillance, and upholding Indigenous heritage and identity, during the week long session in Geneva.

"History was written and taught by the invader, it's their history and therefore it's false and inconclusive. That's why it's necessary to work from a different assumption, the word of Indians," said the delegate from Consejo Indio Exterior.

"We are a fundamental spirit. Our bodies, our brains, our emotions, everything changes. Everything disappears when we die, but our spirit stays the same."

"And if you work on that spiritual basis, it doesn't matter if you're struggling, there's something you can build on because our spirituality is a fundamental part of what we are. It's our very identity."

The English colonialists displaced from the lands and exterminated Indians.

"Their doctrine based on America for the Americans was a clear example of the genocide used on the kindred people in Palestine."

"Our lands don't belong to them. Our past doesn't belong to them. Our destiny is not theirs. Our resistance is ours. Donald Trump, abducted by the Zionist Israeli agenda, owes his loyalty to them for financing his election campaign."

"With his policy of imperialism, he cuts funds for educating Indigenous People, fosters the disappearance of languages to promote only the English language, takes funds and splits our hearts in two, and prevents the construction for water, and is sending money to Wall Street and sending agents against immigrants, against our Indigenous Peoples, but our voices shall not be silenced."

Consejo Indio Interior said it is the people's responsibility to make Trump unwelcome in all territories.

"That's why it is our responsibility to fight for freedom to make Donald Trump persona non grata in all territories and to make him go back to where he came from."

Ngelmau Polloi, U.N. Fellow from the Republic of Palau in the Pacific (Censored News)

The Algorithms of the Gatekeepers: The Threat to the Oceans

The Palau Resource Institute's Indigenous Fellow Ngelmau Polloi described the dangers of the algorithms of the gatekeepers, and the threats to the genetic resources of the oceans.

"As a large ocean state in the Pacific, one of the greatest threats to our marine heritage today is the extraction of our marine genetic resources," said Polloi, a U.N. Fellow from the Republic of Palau in the Pacific.

"Through environmental DNA and artificial intelligence, corporations and researchers no longer need to physically harvest our reefs."

"They simply sample water to extract digital sequence information. Because marine life drifts across ocean currents, our genetic heritage is easily digitized in international waters and appropriated without our consent. This creates a profound injustice."

Money paves the way for the gatekeepers.

"Those with the capital to build AI platforms become the gatekeepers of biological discovery, while Indigenous peoples who have stewarded this biodiversity for millennia risk being excluded completely from the process."

She points out that AI datasets that absorb genetic heritage violate the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

"Allowing our genetic heritage to be absorbed into global AI datasets without our consent or equitable benefit-sharing deprives us of our cultural heritage, economic opportunities, and self-determination, which violates Articles 3, 29, 31, and 32 of UNDRIP."

"As Indigenous peoples, we cannot welcome a future of digital feudalism, where control falls into the hands of whoever has the most powerful algorithms," she said of algorithms, which are often referred to as recipes for computers.

She called on the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to protect marine genetic resources.

"Therefore, we call on EMRIP to develop targeted expert guidance on applying free, prior, and informed consent to the digitization of marine genetic resources and to advise member states to explicitly center Indigenous data sovereignty in the implementation of a new High Seas Treaty and similar global digital sequence information frameworks."

The Palau Resource Institute said it was a proud moment when Polloi testified. She began her training at the Australian National University.

"At the session, she delivered an intervention on Agenda Item 8, on Indigenous Peoples and Artificial Intelligence. She spoke about how environmental DNA (eDNA) and AI can be used to collect genetic material from the ocean without the consent or inclusion of Indigenous Peoples, which is an issue of real relevance for Pacific Island nations like Palau," the Institute said. 

"PRI is proud to see a Palauan voice at the table on issues that matter for our ocean, our data, and our future."

Saba Zahara HoneyBush, from Cape Town, South Africa. (Screenshot Censored News)

Artificial Intelligence Can't Replace the Human Soul

Saba Zahara HoneyBush, from Cape Town, South Africa, began by saying that she was born close to the historic Hoerikwaggo Mountain, known as Table Mountain, the mountain within the sea.

"We are witnessing a new wave of extraction of land, water, data, knowledge, and even space. Indigenous Peoples are facing these same patterns through artificial and super-intelligence, digital infrastructure, surveillance systems, and emerging technologies," said HoneyBush, representing the Botanical Society of South Africa.

"Technology may replicate images, voices, and behaviors, but it cannot replace the human soul, spirit, cultural connection, and lived knowledge of Indigenous peoples."

"Today, much of the world's data from the Global South is stored, processed, and governed in the Global North -- raising urgent questions of digital inequality, sovereignty, accountability, and justice."

"Data cannot continue to be extracted, from our communities and controlled elsewhere without our participation, ownership, and consent. Indigenous peoples must have control where our data is stored, who accesses it, how it is used, and under which laws it operates."

She pointed out the danger of digital systems that are being used for surveillance.

"Digital identity systems must not become tools of surveillance, cyber exploitation, or exclusion."

"The solution is not only access to technology, but Indigenous-led digital systems, community networks, and locally governed infrastructure that allows communities to become owners, creators, and decision makers in their digital future."

The testimony was on July 14, 2026, during the week-long session of the U.N. Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Geneva. The final report goes to the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

Coming from Indigenous ancestral lands in Colombia, the delegate said, "A.I. is transforming the world, but it cannot advance ignoring our rights. For indigenous peoples, land is not a resource. It is our heritage. It is our spirituality. It's our history, our spirituality that we've protected for generations."

"We're troubled that with AI development, there's growing exploitation of minerals, consumption of water and energy, and pressure on our territories, often without any ethic."

"And when a territory is destroyed, not only do you lose biodiversity, but also they break our spiritual relations with Mother Earth. Our ceremonies, sacred places are affected. AI also raises risks to our traditional knowledge, our languages, medicine, cultural practices and ancestral knowledge cannot be misused for training AI systems without our ethic. That consent is not just free access data. They're part of our collective identity."

"Therefore, we urge the United Nations and states to ensure that AI governance should fully incorporate the rights of Indigenous peoples, guarantee our participation and respect our self— free self-determination. Technological innovation should never be built at the cost of our territories, culture, or spirituality. AI should not be converted into a new form of digital colonialism."

Censored News Original Series from the Testimony

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Copyright Brenda Norrell, Censored News, 2026