Friday 14 November 2008, San José, Costa
Rica
LATIN AMERICA:
Elusive Right to Land
Inflames Indigenous
Protests
By Milagros Salazar*
LIMA (Tierramérica) - In
the past two decades
Latin America has made
advances in signing
international and
national instruments
that recognise and
protect the rights of
indigenous peoples. The
problem is that these
laws are not always
heeded by governments,
and the lack of
enforcement has fuelled
protests.
For native peoples, the
land is associated with
vital sustenance, but
also with the way they
perceive the world, and
is linked to the culture
and legacy from their
ancestors -- and what
they will leave to their
own descendants.
Mexico, Colombia,
Ecuador and Peru have
ratified International
Labour Organisation (ILO)
Convention 169, adopted
in 1989 to ensure the
territorial, social,
cultural and economic
rights of indigenous and
tribal peoples.
All, except for
Colombia, voted in 2007
for the United Nations
Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous
Peoples.
"In theory there is an
important recognition,
but in practice it
doesn't exist,"
Colombian Senator Jesús
Enrique Piñacué, of the
Indigenous Social
Alliance, told
Tierramérica.
A major problem is that
the government does not
bring policies and
measures that could
affect their communities
to the indigenous groups
for consultation, such
as the government's
approval of private
investment in their
territories. Prior
consultation with native
communities is required
by Article 6 of
Convention 169, says
Piñacué.
Starting Oct. 12,
Colombian indigenous
groups held an
unprecedented
mobilisation in open
defiance of policies of
right-wing President
Álvaro Uribe and in
demand for recognition
of their collective
rights.
In that country of 44
million people, of which
1.6 million are
indigenous, one
indigenous person is
killed in the
decades-long civil war
every 53 hours on
average, and since 2002
at least 54,000 have
been displaced from
their ancestral lands,
according to the
National Indigenous
Organisation of
Colombia.
Colombia's 1991
constitution recognises
native populations as
autonomous and with the
right to collective
ownership of their
lands, and the right to
maintain their own
languages, beliefs and
justice systems.
Colombia did not vote in
favour of the U.N.
Declaration, citing
national security
concerns, because the
document recommends
against conducting
military actions in
indigenous territories,
and states that if such
activities are to take
place, the native
community should be
consulted.
In Peru’s Amazon jungle
region, local indigenous
communities staged
massive protests in
August to demand the
reversal of several
decrees that promote
private investment in
their territories.
Congress agreed to
repeal two of the most
controversial decrees
that had been approved
in the context of the
free trade agreement
with the United States.
But the government
insists that ILO
Convention 169, ratified
by Peru in 1994, does
not give the communities
the right to veto
activities that are
conducted on their land,
and has merely held
informational workshops
as "consultations" with
the people about mining
and petroleum
concessions that have
already been granted to
corporations.
"Many officials don't
even know the content of
the agreements, and
others misinterpret it,"
Graham Gordon, of the
non-governmental Peace
and Hope Association,
which participated in
drafting the civil
society report on
compliance with
Convention 169, told
Tierramérica.
Peru was one of the main
proponents of the U.N.
Declaration, but the
government now
emphasises its
"non-binding" character.
Article 42 of the
Declaration maintains
that the United Nations
and the states party
"promote respect for and
full application of the
provisions of this
Declaration and follow
up the effectiveness of
this Declaration" --
which is not a binding
legal provision.
The Peruvian
constitution of 1993
recognises the cultural
diversity and political
participation of peoples
as groups, but it refers
to native and rural
communities who occupy
55 percent of the
farmland, and not ethnic
indigenous peoples as
such.
Ecuador, meanwhile, has
made great strides in
the area of indigenous
rights. After the June
1990 Inti Raymi uprising
led by the Ecuadorean
Confederation of
Indigenous Nationalities
(CONAIE), the indigenous
movement became a key
actor on the national
stage.
The lawmakers elected to
Congress in
representation of the
Pachakutik Plurinational
Unity Movement/New
Country spearheaded the
ratification of
Convention 169 in 1997
and, the following year,
the constitutional
recognition of prior
consultation of
indigenous communities
before the start of
mining and oil projects
on their lands.
This year, with the new
constitution approved on
Sept. 28, Ecuador
declared itself a
plurinational and
intercultural nation --
not just multiethnic.
Thirty-five percent of
the population is
indigenous, according to
native groups.
However, indigenous
leader Luis Macas,
former CONAIE president,
explained to
Tierramérica that the
new constitution should
have established not
just the requirement of
prior consultation, but
prior consent by local
native populations,
because only then would
the government be
obligated to respect
their demands.
Indigenous groups have
announced an uprising if
large-scale mining
operations begin on
their lands, but
President Rafael Correa
insists that the
investment initiatives
will provide funding for
social development
projects in their
communities.
In 1990, Mexico became
one of the first
countries to ratify
Convention 169, but its
measures have failed to
reflect and recognise
the enormous,
long-standing problems
that native peoples
face, Nahua Indian
Matías Trejo, a
sociologist at the
Autonomous National
University of Mexico,
told Tierramérica.
Under pressure from the
barely-armed Zapatista
indigenous guerrilla
movement in southern
Mexico, the 2001
constitution recognised
the pluricultural nature
of the country, home to
indigenous peoples who
conserve their own
social, economic,
cultural and political
institutions.
But it is still the
government that
determines what to do
with the territories of
the 62 distinct
indigenous ethnic groups
in Mexico, where
indigenous people are
variously estimated to
make up between 12 and
30 percent of the
country’s 104 million
people (the smaller
estimate is based on the
number of people who
actually speak an
indigenous language).
Unlike other countries
in the Americas, in
Mexico there are no
signs of massive
indigenous mobilisations.
Forty percent of
indigenous Mexicans age
15 or older have not
completed primary
school, and 18 percent
of these have had no
formal schooling at all.
More than 40 percent of
their homes have dirt
floors and are not built
to withstand
catastrophes like
earthquakes or floods.
In Peru, the poorest
district in the country
is Balsapuerto, in the
Amazon rainforest. More
than 90 percent of the
native peoples living
there lack basic
services like water and
sanitation.
(*With reporting by
Helda Martínez from
Bogotá, Kintto Lucas
from Quito and Diego
Cevallos from Mexico
City. This story was
originally published by
Latin American
newspapers that are part
of the Tierramérica
network. Tierramérica is
a specialised news
service produced by IPS
with the backing of the
United Nations
Development Programme,
United Nations
Environment Programme
and the World Bank.) |
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