Amazon Watch: Free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples

New Report Highlights Why Companies Need to Operate with Free, Prior and Informed Consent of Indigenous Peoples
By Amazon Watch
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 3, 2011 -- Industrial resource extraction is posing grave threats to the survival of indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin and there are serious moral, legal and financial reasons for corporations to stem the tide of abuse and respect indigenous peoples' rights, Amazon Watch said in a briefing paper released today.

The paper, entitled The Right to Decide: The Importance of Respecting Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), makes the case that respecting indigenous peoples' rights is not just a moral imperative, but also a business necessity for corporations to avoid financial risk, reputational damage, divestment campaigns, operational delays due to social unrest, multi-billion dollar legal liabilities, and loss of license to operate.

In the wake of recent U.S. endorsement of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and as the historic multi-billion dollar lawsuit against Chevron for massive environmental contamination in Ecuador is set for a ruling, Amazon Watch is urging large-scale institutional investors and socially responsible investors to closely monitor corporate behavior in indigenous territory and demand that corporations only operate where they have the free, prior and informed consent of any indigenous peoples potentially affected by operations.

"As resource extraction increasingly moves into socially and environmentally fragile areas of the world, like the Amazon rainforest, companies must take affirmative steps to avoid violating indigenous peoples' rights," stated Gregor MacLennan, Peru Program Coordinator of Amazon Watch. "This report demonstrates that from both a human rights and a business perspective, companies should only operate with the free, prior and informed consent of any affected indigenous peoples."

While states traditionally bear responsibility to protect human rights, companies have an independent responsibility to respect them. To avoid complicity in human rights abuses and related legal, financial and reputational harms, companies need policies and due diligence to ensure operations do not violate indigenous rights.

FPIC is an internationally recognized norm, designed to ensure respect for indigenous peoples' right to self-determination, the right to decide their own future. The paper defines FPIC as "consent that is given freely, by people fully informed of the consequences, prior to any decision being made, and according to their own decision-making processes."

To download report: http://amazonwatch.org/news/2011/0202-fpic-the-right-to-decide
Website
http://www.amazonwatch.org

The emporers, the diplomats, have no clothes: Hillary asks for DNA and iris scans

Sec. of State Hillary Clinton in Africa

Clinton to US Ambassadors: Get DNA, fingerprints and iris scans on world leaders

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

Wikileaks has laid bare the inner workings of the minds of US Ambassadors.
The cables, whether bearing facts or merely the fancies of diplomats, will have one impact on the future diplomatic negotiations of the world.

The US Ambassadors will no longer be trusted, if they ever were.

Now, every world leader will know, and probably already did, that US Ambassadors scribble down everything they say, injecting the US Ambassador's own agenda into each report, and sends it off to Washington.

There is one fact that will be Wikileaks' trademark on world relations: The State Department asked US Ambassadors to engage in espionage.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered US Ambassadors to get DNA, fingerprints and iris scans on world leaders.

Iris scans?

Clinton wrote, "Data should include email addresses, telephone and fax numbers, fingerprints, facial images, DNA, and iris scans."

The April 16, 2009, cable was for "reporting and collection needs: African Great Lakes," for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Rwanda. Similar cables were written for other parts of the world.

Along with ethnicity (tribe and clan) and religious information, Clinton asked for "compendia of contact information, such as telephone directories (in compact disc or electronic format if available) and e-mail listings; internet and intranet 'handles,' internet e-mail addresses, web site identification-URLs; credit card account numbers; frequent flyer account numbers; work schedules."

Clinton's cable to Paraguay inquired about "rifts" and "internal factions" of politicians. The "reporting and collection" needs again included iris scans and DNA.

Clinton asked US diplomats in Paraguay for: "Biographic and financial information on all leading contenders, and especially on Minister of Education Blanca Ovelar, former Vice President Castiglioni, Lino Oviedo, and Fernando Lugo; and biometric data, to include fingerprints, facial images, iris scans, and DNA, on these individuals."

Africa cable:
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/04/09STATE37561.html
Paraguay cable:
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2008/03/08STATE30340.html

Video Russell Means: Average American now lives on reservation

Welcome to the Reservation

Protesters: NAU get off Mount Graham!

http://www.indigenousaction.org/

Protesters: NAU Get Off Mount Graham!
Winona LaDuke, 'It's Time to say NO'

Article and photo by Klee Benally and MT Garcia

FLAGSTAFF, AZ -- On Tuesday, February 1, a dozen people including students and community members gathered at Northern Arizona University to protest the college's partnership with a telescope development located on a sacred site.

NAU is listed on the telescope project's website as a "project partner" along with University of Arizona and Arizona State University at 25% of the development's partnership.

Mount Graham, located near Tucson, Arizona, is holy to San Carlos Apache, White Mountain Apache, Pascua Yaqui, Chiracahua and other Indigenous Nations who have struggled for years to stop the development with support of environmental groups.

The protest started at 5pm on the corner of Butler and Milton. The demonstrators held banners that read, "Stop desecration and extinction on Mount Graham," and "Protect sacred sites, defend human rights."

At the Highcountry conference center parking garage, a banner was dropped that read, "NAU off Mount Graham, protect sacred places".

At 6pm the group started marching to Ardry Auditorium where it planned to support prominent Indigenous activist and author, Winona LaDuke's speech for Holocaust Remembrance Day. On the way to the Auditorium, the protesters marched and chanted through the Union surprising NAU students.

The march grew to more than 30 people, who at times took to the streets and were chanting, "NAU off Mount Graham," and connecting the struggle to protect the San Francisco Peaks with "Save the Peaks, save Mount Graham."

"This is an issue of Indigenous People's religious freedom and protection of sacred places. We're here to address NAU's complicity in desecrating a very sacred site." said Bobby Lynn, a student at NAU who was part of the protest and march, "NAU should know better than to partner with the Mount Graham telescope. Here in Northern Arizona, Snowbowl ski area is attempting to further it's desecration by expanding and making snow from treated sewage. This issue has divided our community and caused so much harm. We are in solidarity with those struggling to protect Mount Graham!" said Lynn.

Winona LaDuke urged everyone in attendance to "deconstruct empire" and addressed issues in Arizona, such as the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort, Mount Graham telescope, uranium mining, and copper mining. "I wanna encourage you all, to do good work, to make things better. I want to encourage you, whether it is the uranium mining at the Grand Canyon, leave it in the ground. Whether it is the Snowbowl. Whether it's the copper mining, and the sacred lands of the Apache or the telescope project that this University here became complicity in. Its time to say no."

TAKE ACTION TODAY:
Contact NAU President Haeger and urge him to respect the Apache, to save the Mount
Graham red squirrel and to get NAU out of the Mount Graham telescope project.
Phone: (928) 523-3232
Email: John.Haeger@nau.edu

More information about the issues:
http://www.mountgraham.org/
http://www.savethepeaks.org/
http://www.truesnow.org/
http://www.stopuraniummining.org/


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