UN Indigenous Forum: South and Central America, Caribbean 2011

Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Tenth session New York, 16-27 May 2011
Draft report Rapporteur : Ms. Paimaneh
Hasteh Chapter I
Matters calling for action by the Economic and Social Council or brought to its attention
B. Matters brought to the attention of the Economic and Social Council
Half-day discussion on South and Central America and the Caribbean
1. The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues recommends that Member States implement precautionary measures and recommendations provided by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and the Permanent Forum to prevent irreparable harm to indigenous peoples, their authorities and indigenous organizations.
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Global Indigenous Youth at UN focus on human rights

Photo copyright Ben Powless, Mohawk

Global Indigenous Youth Statement: Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms


Intervention to the Tenth Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues 20ll
Global Indigenous Youth Caucus Statement
May 19, 20ll
Censored News

Photos UN 2011 by Ben Powless, Mohawk, published with permission at Censored News.

Agenda Item 4b: Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of Indigenous peoples and other United Nations human rights mechanisms

Thank you Madam Chair.

The Global Indigenous Youth Caucus would like to once again remind the Permanent Forum and all present, that Indigenous youth compose the "majority" of our communities -yet we remain under represented and poorly supported in this Forum. We would also like to remind you that we have been repeating our issues and concerns for many years, with little to no implementation.

Photo copyright Ben Powless, Mohawk

We, the Indigenous youth representatives that are present here today, are not only speaking for ourselves and our issues -we are speaking on behalf of our younger brothers and sisters, nieces, nephews, and children of our own. We recognize the strong will and noble ability of the Global Indigenous Youth who have the privilege of being present and acknowledge those who are not present here, who are working, surviving and advocating for the fulfillment of our rights as Indigenous Peoples.

The Global Indigenous Youth Caucus recommends the following:

1. We urge the Special Rapporteur to investigate development aggression toward, migration of and the forced and coerced removal of Indigenous children and youth from their families and communities to fulfill their basic human rights -such as education, employment, health care and personal safety -as well as for the purposes of gaining access to Indigenous lands and resources. We ask that when calls for information are requested -information specifically pertaining to youth are submitted.

2. We request a specific report about Indigenous youth and identity, specifically, how the lack of identity including factors such as land, education, Indigenous religion and spiritual practices, gender, and social structures, is often the root cause of violence towards them. Simply because of our Indigeneity, youth experience discrimination of all forms, at varying levels. Whether it is States not recognizing our rights as peoples, or the rates of poverty -until our basic needs are met, any human rights discourse is irrelevant. We ask that this report compare the situation of youth globally to the issues affecting Indigenous youth.

3. We once again urge the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of lndigenous Peoples to look into the study on indigenous youth's participation in decision-making prepared and presented by the Indigenous Youth Caucus in its 3rd session, and to include a section especially addressing the role and the good practice of indigenous youth's participation in decision-making in its final report on Indigenous Peoples' right to participation. We further request the Expert Mechanism to include paragraphs addressing indigenous youth in its future studies.

4. We urge the permanent forum to collaborate with the UN Commission on the Rights of the Child and Member state reporting processes and other UN organizations with the mandate for children so that youth specific mandates are complied with.

5. We recommend the Expert Mechanism, the Permanent Forum, and the Special Rapporteur to encourage Indigenous peoples and their organizations in organizing for the collection of their own population data. Basic and accurate Indigenous population data within States is currently unavailable or inaccurate. This impedes the ability for Indigenous Peoples to accurately forecast their populations and make plans for education, child care, and health care needs. State measures are not adequate as they have a vested interest in reducing our numbers, both within data collection and in reality. This information is vital to advocate for the means of Indigenous Peoples to govern themselves and fully participate in negotiation and other decision making processes. Any data collection processes must be conducted in conjunction with Indigenous Peoples and their respective organizations.

6. We recommend that the Expert mechanism to request information to States on Indigenous youth engagement so that they report on these efforts and both their prevalence and efficacy. While some states may not be directly blocking the realization of rights -funding and resources are not made available, particularly for Indigenous youth. lf it is true that States, our leadership and representative organizations believe that youth are a priority, then our presence must be a priority and therefore funding our participation must also be a priority. Currently, the youth specific mandate of the Permanent Forum and the Special Rapporteur is not being met. In the future, we would like to see the Special Rapporteur fully embrace hit mandate to consider Indigenous children and youth issues.

Thank you madam chair.

Seneca to Obama at UN 2011: Adopt the UN Indigenous Rights Declaration


Seneca Nation points out that the US has not adopted the UN Indigenous Rights Declaration -- which President Obama earlier gave lip service to

Photo Susan Andrews/Salamanca Public Schools at UN

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

NEW YORK -- (May 26, 2011) The Seneca Nation encouraged the United States to move forward with full adoption and implementation of the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Rights, during the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

"In December 2010 President Barack Obama announced his support of the Declaration but the United States, which to date has failed to formally adopt the document, has taken no meaningful action," the Seneca Nation said.

Speaking at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the Seneca pointed out what others at the UN Permanent Forum failed to point out. During the Permanent Forum this month, presenters praised Obama's verbal support of the Declaration. However, Obama's support was followed with stipulations from the US State Department.

In a similar manner, Canada is attempting to sidestep implementation of the Declaration, which would give the Declaration the full force of law regarding rights to ancestral territories and ensure free, prior and informed consent, along with other Indigenous rights inherent to sovereign nations stated in the Declaration.

Seneca Nation Councilor Nikki Seneca traveled to New York City to deliver a statement to the Tenth Session of the Permanent Forum. This is the first time the Seneca Nation has taken issues, including treaty rights, to the international arena, according to the Seneca's statement.

"Councilor Seneca urged the members of the Permanent Forum and the international community to examine the federal and state obligations to respect and honor Native treaty rights and guarantees. The Seneca Nation is calling for the UN Permanent Forum to provide recommendations for developing an international mechanism for resolving conflicts arising from treaty violations."

“We join with the other distinguished delegates who have requested that the Permanent Forum continue its call for the 3rd UN Seminar on Treaties, Agreements and Other Constructive Arrangements to be held in 2012.”

Seneca Nation President Robert Odawi Porter pointed out that the UN Declaration was not adopted and its goals have not been realized in the US.

“The UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights is a broad all-encompassing document that speaks to the many issues and concerns affecting Native people in the Western Hemisphere. The Seneca Nation looks forward to the day when the Declaration is not only adopted by the United States and all other major countries and nations, but when the goals of the Declaration are realized. For us of primary significance is enforcement of the treaties. Given our current struggles with New York State, the Seneca, along with other indigenous peoples could benefit from the backing of the world community to recognize basic human rights and to uphold the significant treaty rights of Native people," President Porter said.

Courtney Crouse, a Seneca student at Salamanca High delivered the statement in New York City. The focus for the student group centered on the need for informed consent in the wake of major construction projects such as dams and the impacts on indigenous peoples and communities.

Crouse stated, “We would like to bring attention to the negative effects of dams on indigenous peoples. About 50 years ago, a third of our beloved homelands were flooded due to the construction of the Kinzua Dam. The dam was built to improve flood control and water quality for various communities downstream. Many of the students here are grandchildren to the heartbroken elders that had everything taken from them. Our people fought on all levels - even submitted alternative plans, but all were rejected. We were given money and new homes as compensation to cover up the truth of what the Army Corps of Engineers had done. But no amount of money and no new homes could ever bring back what we lost. We did not just lose land. We lost our way of life.”

In 1954 the Army Corps of Engineers undertook the building of the Kinzua Dam for the purpose of flood control protections several hundred miles downstream in Pennsylvania. The Seneca lost 10,000 acres of prime agricultural homelands.

The Seneca Nation also stressed the need for the Permanent Forum to support development of a legal framework enabling implementation of Article 37 and Articles 20 and 21 of the UNDRIP which speaks to the interaction between treaty rights and Indigenous peoples’ right to economic development.


Read more of the Seneca Nation statement at Pechanga Net:
http://www.pechanga.net/content/seneca-nation-delivers-statement-un-permanent-forum-indigenous-issues

Indigenous Environmental Network at UN: The Right to Water and Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous Environmental Network
Statement on Agenda Item 7 – The Right to Water and Indigenous Peoples
10th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
May 24, 2011

Tar Sands

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Read by Benjamin Powless
Posted from the UNPFII 10 Network
http://unpfii10.blogspot.com/
Thank you Madame Chairperson,

The right to clean and abundant water is fundamental to preserving and upholding the sovereignty, self-determination, health, and cultural survival of Indigenous Peoples in North America and the rest of the world. As Indigenous Peoples, we have a sacred relationship to water, but this relationship is being undermined and our rights violated on a consistent basis, which requires immediate action.

Tar Sands

In North America, we have been witnessing the accelerated development of the Tar Sands megaproject, with devastating effects on Indigenous communities and the water sources they rely upon.

Primarily, the water used in the extraction and processing of the Tar Sands into oil requires between three and five barrels of water per barrel of oil. Much of this water must be then kept in giant toxic pools, called ‘tailings ponds’, which kill many birds and animals, and have been found to leak back into the waterways and traditional lands of Indigenous Peoples.

The contamination of the water has lead to the cumulative poisoning of many animals and fish that Indigenous communities depend upon, as well as the water bodies which have always been used for consumption. This has lead to outrageous levels of sickness and disease in remote communities.

Further to that, numerous companies are attempting to build pipelines on the lands of Indigenous communities, without their Free, Prior and Informed Consent, in highly ecologically- and culturally-sensitive areas. Just a month ago, a pipeline spill of over 4.5 million barrels in Lubicon Cree territories went unreported for days, while the government of Canada and Alberta failed to notify the community, as many people got sick and a nearby school had to be shut down.

Lastly on the issue of the Tar Sands, Indigenous communities have been clear in support to maintain a ban on tanker traffic on the coasts of British Colombia, with the oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico and the Exxon Valdeez disaster still fresh in memory.

Mining

Moving to the subject of mining, we note that for sixty years, the United States has failed to address widespread contamination of Navajo water and land from uranium mining and milling. Despite this tragic history, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has licensed a uranium project in the middle of two Navajo communities it concedes will contaminate those communities' drinking water sources. Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium mining has filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to stop this project because it will violate the rights to life, health and cultural integrity guaranteed under international law.

Offshore drilling

Finally, the idea offshore drilling in the Arctic has become popular with some governments. However, drilling in cold Arctic waters comes at increased and unacceptable risks. Oil and gas production is never risk-free and the consequences in Arctic waters would be disastrous.

Arctic conditions such as freezing temperatures, reduced visibility, seasonal ice and extreme weather all increase the probability and consequences of a spill. The presence of sea ice poses significant challenges to cleaning up spilled oil, as do potential remote drilling locations.

Offshore drilling in the Arctic threatens to have devastating impacts on fragile ice edge ecosystems upon which indigenous peoples and coastal communities rely for food security, economic, social and cultural needs.

We therefore respectfully submit the following recommendations for consideration and adoption:

- The Permanent Forum should stress to states that they must start leaving identified fossil fuel deposits, including Tar Sands deposits, in the ground if we are to avoid serious violations of Indigenous rights and impacts of climate change

- The governments of Canada, the United States, and their sub-governments must obtain the Free, Prior and Informed Consent from Indigenous Peoples and communities, and stop current projects taking place without consent

- We urge the Permanent Forum to work with UN bodies whose mandate relates to water to provide full financial support for an Indigenous World Forum on Water and Peace, that is led by, planned and developed with full representation of Indigenous Peoples from all regions throughout the entire process

Nia:wenkowa, Thank you.

http://www.ienearth.org/news/statement_on_agenda_item_7_the_right_to_water_and_indigenous_peoples.html

Indigenous Environmental Network at UN: Free, prior and informed consent

Photo by Ben Powless, Mohawk

FREE, PRIOR AND INFORMED CONSENT

Indigenous Environmental Network Statement

United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
May 16th to May 27th, 2011
UN Headquarters, New York, NY


Madam Chairwoman,

The principles and rights of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent are vital to upholding the human rights and fundamental and inherent right to self-determination of Indigenous Peoples in North America and throughout the world. FPIC is a basic underpinning of Indigenous Peoples’ ability to conclude and implement valid treaties and agreements, to have sovereignty over and protection of our lands, waters, air, and natural resources, and to develop and participate in processes that redress violations of our land, water and treaty rights.

FPIC must immediately be implemented at all levels as the right of our Indigenous Nations and communities to be thoroughly informed about any development affecting our lands and resources, particularly in connection with our environment, forests, minerals, air, water – both freshwater, our oceans and our sea ice and any development affecting our intellectual knowledge, the human health of our women and families, and any development involving genetic manipulation that could have affect on our security, balance and well-being.

FPIC is more than mere consultation. Related to development, governments, financial institutions such as the World Bank, and corporations frequently achieve their version of a FPIC standard through the policy of consultation. But consultation, on its own, does not constitute FPIC. Consultation is not equivalent to consent. Indigenous Peoples have to right to say no.

Our network of Indigenous Peoples is based in the United States, with affiliates in Canada. I do not have time to list the hundreds of western forms of industrial development involving the devastation and degradation of indigenous territories from mining and mineral extraction. Our Indigenous network, as an example of a few Indigenous Nations and organizations negatively affected by unsustainable energy and mineral extraction are the Lipan Apache Women Defense; the San Carlos Apache Tribe of Arizona; the Lipan Apache Band of Texas; the Navajo Nation Dependents of Uranium Workers (Dine’ Nation); and in Canadian, the Dene, Cree and Metis peoples fighting the Canadian Tar Sands as the largest construction project ever in the history of mankind, more earth has been moved since its beginning then the Suez Canal, the Great Pyramids and the Great Wall of China. If the rights of FPIC were legislated domestically, these devastations would not be happening.

The standards, policy and right of FPIC and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP) must be immediately implemented at every level of government, within financial institutions, and in decision-making bodies within the United States and Canada and throughout the world where Indigenous Peoples live.

Madam Chair, my concluding point and recommendation is on the matter of the climate crisis. The policy and rights of FPIC are not being recognized with the danger of not being implemented in UN climate mitigation and adaptation policy. One of the key area of climate mitigation is a carbon market regime consisting of emissions-carbon trading and offset projects with no guarantees for adequate nor enforceable safeguards. Therefore, we recommend the appointment of a member of the Permanent Forum as Special Rapporteur to conduct a study on existing and potential violations of the human rights of Indigenous Peoples affected by carbon markets, the Clean Development Mechanism and REDD-type projects (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), and to report thereon to the Forum at its eleventh session, in 2012.

El Salvador Mayor to UN Indigenous Forum 2011

10thSession of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
Agenda item 4: Human Rights a) Implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples May 16-27, 2011
Oral Statement by Roberto A.A. Barrientos,
Mayor of Izalco, Sonsonate, El Salvador
(On Behalf of the Common Town Hall and the Municipal Town Hall of Izalco, Sonsonate, El Salvador)
Photo: Mayor Roberto Barrientos/AIM West

Dr. Myrna Cunningham,
Distinguished Chairperson of the Tenth Session of the Permanent Forum, in the name of the Indigenous peoples of El Salvador, we congratulate you for your designation as the chairperson of this honorable agency; and we ask the creator to bless you in your business.
Likewise, we would like to call your attention to the following: We, the Indigenous peoples of El Salvador, have suffered the systematic denial of our human, economic, cultural and socio-political rights for the last 500 years, endured under the imposition of Frontiers and the state alien to our ancestral models of life.We are taking advantage of this opportunity at the Permanent Forum to denounce before the peoples of the world the genocide committed by the Salvadorian State against our Indigenous brothers through the massacres of our peoples, especially the massacre of 1932, when more than 35,000 Indigenous persons died in the Western zone of the country, and that of 1944, when Indigenous leaders were selectively assassinated throughout the country. More ...
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