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RIO DE JANEIRO - In the
late 1970s a number of indigenous leaders originating
from the most distant corners of the world left their
villages and discovered a new route for defending
their rights.
The first steps they took
in the corridors of the United Nations would turn
out to be decisive for their peoples, who for centuries
had been denied their basic rights in the name of
the new civilization, development and modernity.
Year after year, other
indigenous leaders would follow in their footsteps,
gathering at the foot of the mountains in Geneva,
home to the UN Commission on Human Rights.
There, they began to question
the role of the great economic powers and the very
meaning of ''civilization'' and ''modernity.'' They
did so without resentment but clearly conscious that
it would be necessary to change many biases so that
the Indians, the planet's first ecologists, would
be recognized as allies in building the future and
in the search for a better world.
A great conquest was made
in 1982 when the UN decided to create a working group
on indigenous peoples, with annual sessions in Geneva,
where nearly 1,000 leaders deliberated and demanded
resources, legal and political measures for the protection
of their rights, access to land, to health services,
to culture, the preservation of their languages and
their religions.
In 1993, the International
Year of Indigenous Peoples was declared and the Nobel
Peace Prize was awarded to Guatemalan indigenous leader,
Rigoberta Menchú.
Later, the UN declared
the International Decade of Indigenous Peoples for
the period 1995-2004.
The latest great step forward
was in October 2000, when the UN Economic and Social
Council (ECOSOC) approved a 1993 recommendation by
the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights to create
the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
The importance of the Forum
lies in the fact that it is a subsidiary and advisory
body to the Economic and Social Council, and is the
first time that the UN has resolved on establishing
a specific organism for peoples, meaning communities
that otherwise lack governmental representation.
The Forum is made up of
16 members, eight designated by governments and eight
by indigenous communities. This year, they will hold
the first plenary meeting with the goal of outlining
the Forum's activities.
This process of progressive
recognition of communities' rights has had its ups
and downs. During the negotiations, some governments
acted against the communities without any justifiable
motive, perhaps out of fear of the unknown or out
of ignorance.
But the indigenous leaders
obtained from their own cosmic vision the strength
necessary to counteract the colonizing project of
white man, who attempted to suppress their world.
Modern man has constructed
with his advanced technologies a cold civilization,
which has instilled upon him a sad smile, perhaps
due to the impossibility of achieving the joyous future
he had envisioned.
He is paralyzed by contradictions
that make him incapable of responding to the mounting
challenges of environmental destruction, wars and
hungry peoples, who with their sores represent the
exploitation and deterioration of life.
Civilization is now a dead-end
street and requires learning to listen to the indigenous
messages about wealth (ecological and economic) in
order to improve the quality of life. But that is
not happening. So far dialogue between the different
civilizations has been nearly non-existent.
In that sense, the Permanent
Forum must not be seen as a unilateral concession
of the governments to our peoples. It is an indigenous
conquest and, at the same time, is an arena where
we can make our contribution to the multicultural
dialogue and to the necessary reformulation of the
United Nations in order to make it more representative.
Within that framework,
the role must be recognized of those who, like us,
have always been treated like the great voiceless
ones of history. The movement that began its journey
more than 20 years ago begins the 21st century with
a statute of recognition from the UN and is preparing
to write a new page in the history of the world's
indigenous peoples.
(Copyright IPS)
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