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This
Monday marks the International Day of Indigenous
Peoples. The meeting of the Working Group on Indigenous
Populations of the United Nations will be held on the 9th
of August, the first since 1982.
According
to UN estimates, there are 370 million indigenous people
worldwide, but despite progress, indigenous people are
still discriminated against and continue to have their
human rights violated.
“The
International Day of Indigenous Peoples of the World is
also an occasion to remember that there is no room for
complacency” said Navy Pillay, the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights.
Statements and reality
“The
gap between the principles of the UN Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples and reality remains wide.
They continue to suffer discrimination, marginalization
in areas such as health and education, extreme poverty,
disregard for environmental concerns, the displacement
of their traditional lands and exclusion from effective
participation in decision making," he stressed.
"It is particularly disconcerting
that those who work to correct these errors are too
often persecuted for defending human rights."
The case of the Mapuche in Chile
An example of the charges by the High
Commissioner is what is happening to the Mapuche people
of Chile today. Chile, which continues to pursue an
anti-terrorism law despite several calls to abolish it,
leading to condemnation by the UN Human Rights Council.
Recently, the NGO Human Rights Watch
and the Committee on Indigenous Rights and the UN have
criticized and condemned the use of terrorist laws
against Mapuche. The law according to these agencies is
racist.
For the president of Amnesty
International in Chile, Hernan Vergara, "the situation
is worrying because in Chile there is no political will
to remedy this situation, applying the Patriot Act is
the easiest option for each State to punish those who
are fighting for a social claim."
On the
other hand, from the European Parliament, Joe Higgins,
the Irish Socialist deputy who visited Chile in 2008,
the Chilean government requested an early solution to
the hunger strike held by the Mapuche prisoners in
different jails of the country who were charged under
the Terrorism Act.
Indigenous Salvadorans may recover their surnames
For its
part, the UN Committee on Racial Discrimination accepted
with pleasure this Friday in Geneva, the announcement by
Alfonso Avelar, Director of the Indigenous Peoples of
the Social Integration Secretariat of El Salvador, that
the Indians may now recover
their surnames.
It is
recalled that in 1932 the Salvadoran government enacted
a law forcing all people with Indian names to change
them to Spanish surnames. Only now in 2010 the
Government of President Mauricio Funes agreed under
pressure from international organizations and indigenous
claims to this "moral reparation" of a law considered
discriminatory.
In El Salvador there are four
indigenous peoples, Nahuat, Pipiles, Lencas and
Kakawiras (or Cacaopera), concentrated mainly in the
departments of Sonsonate, Ahuachapan, La Paz and
Morazán. According to the UN, they continue to suffer
from racial discrimination and violation of their human
rights.
New tools
Navy
Pillay, who notes that in several countries, new tools
have been created to give voice to indigenous peoples in
decision making and to end human rights violations.
"We must
redouble our efforts to build a true Partnership for
action and dignity - the theme given by the General
Assembly for the Second International Decade of
Indigenous Peoples of the World - as we work together to
achieve full implementation of the rights enunciated in
the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples for
the survival, dignity and welfare of the indigenous
peoples of the world.”
“We need
to bring the rights and dignity of those who suffer most
to the centre of our efforts. This requires changes in
practices, but we need better laws and institutions, for
without such changes, progress will be unsustainable.”
Swisslatin/Alberto Dufey / Tranlated by Stephen Hinch
(9.08.2010)
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