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Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 03:16:47 -0000
From: "ngo_ip_undecade" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15th Report on the 10th Working Group on the Draft Declaration
Greetings,
This morning, the hunger strike was called to an end by Clifford
White Eyes, and Elder of the Lakota Nation. I have attached the
statement read by Saul Vicente at the opening of the morning's
session and it details the success of the hunger strike and spiritual
famine in terms of moving the adoption of a strong Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples forward. The hunger strikers received
hundreds of emails of support from around the world, which continue
to be posted on a bulletin board outside the conference room in the
UN. After this announcement, the plenary session was closed and the
masses flowed into various informal small group discussions.
The informal discussions continued with the quiet anarchy of
yesterday as informal consultations and discussions continued on the
themes of self-determination, lands and resources, treaties as well
as cross-cutting themes of collective rights, self-identification and
third party rights. Alberto Saldamando noted the carnivalesque
atmosphere, too many rooms/rides and too little time for everyone to
visit them all. Within the rooms themselves, the discussions
continued like the spinning teacup rides, or possibly more aptly,
like the merry-go-round with everyone sitting on a horse that doesn't
move and going round and round in circles.
The issues of self-determination and lands and resources are still
working on consolidating a variety of proposals, and there have been
a large number of participants involved in these discussions. The
meeting on Article 36 regarding treaties has only been attended by
delegates from the USA and Canada, as well as IITC, the Navajo Nation
and IORD.
The cross-cutting themes talks revolved around three proposals: one
from the UK, another from Portugal, and the third from the Grand
Council of the Crees which is linked with the Indigenous Proposal
presented by ICC and Dalee Sambo. All three proposals are new
preambular paragraphs that are attempting to clarify the issues of
collective rights, self-identification, and third party rights.
Furthermore, there are concerns from governments regarding national
security, multinational corporations and the rights of individuals in
the context of collective rights. A concern of governments, as
stated by the UK, is that the Declaration must ensure that the
collective rights of indigenous communities must be on the same level
as individual rights and thus the text they have proposed attempts to
clarify this point. The Portugal proposal has more to do with the
issue of self-governance as opposed to self-determination and
outlines what they claim to be a clear and equal right of self-
governance to indigenous peoples. The GCC presented text that gave
an expansive view of how to balance between collective and individual
rights, and would be linked with the proposed PP put forth in the
Indigenous Proposal that has a multitude of support from indigenous
organizations and governments.
Among the comments included taking note that much of the language
included in the UK and Portugal text had no basis in international
standard setting nor international law, such as `integral
development' and `self-governance.' It was noted that the issue
of `self-governance' seemed very similar to self-determination, but
in a masked and watered down form.
I'm sorry there is not much to report, but tomorrow's meeting will be
the decisive one as the issue of provisional adoption of articles
will be tabled on the floor of the plenary. The atmosphere has been
one of more confusion than tension these past days, and it has been
difficult for many to follow what has been going on in the various
discussion groups. Furthermore, there are many private consultations
going on in the hallways to consolidate proposals and the like, so we
shall all see tomorrow what has really been going on these last two
days.
There is also the draft report of the 10th WGDD from the Chairperson,
and this will be discussed in tomorrow's session as well.
Please everyone send up prayers for everyone in the negotiations
tomorrow, it will be a very strong day no matter what the outcome.
And as you will read in the attached statement from the hunger
strikers, there is no way that this process will be halted before a
strong text is adopted and most importantly, there will be no
Chairman's Text that will be brought forward to the Commission. This
is very good news for the Declaration and in terms of social justice
for indigenous peoples. I will send out the report after tomorrow's
session as soon as I can. I hope this finds you all doing well and
smiling.
In honor of Tony Black Feather and in the spirit of Crazy Horse,
Sezin
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