U.N. Set to Designate Second Indigenous Decade
The decision will go before the 191-member U.N. General Assembly (GA) whose annual meeting begins in September.
In their recommendation the members of ECOSOC, one of the U.N.'s five main bodies, said a second decade would have to take its mandate from a review of the first 10 years, and include concrete goals and adequate resources to ensure those aims could be met..
The ongoing International Decade of the World's Indigenous People is aimed at strengthening international cooperation to solve problems faced by indigenous peoples -- also known as aborigines, native, first nations or tribal peoples -- in areas such as human rights, environment, development, education and health. The decade's theme is "indigenous people: partnership in action".
There are roughly 300 million indigenous peoples worldwide, many of them among the poorest and most marginalized people in their countries.
Despite some progress in improving their living conditions, challenges remain, according to a report that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan presented to ECOSOC, which reviewed U.N. activities on indigenous peoples during the nearly completed decade.
Among unfinished business, the report cited the U.N. draft declaration on the human rights of indigenous peoples. That document has been under discussion for a decade by a U.N. working group that meets annually in Geneva, and to date has adopted only two articles.
Progress has stalled on the issues of states recognising the collective rights of indigenous peoples, including their ownership of land and natural resources.
The report suggested that the integration of indigenous issues in U.N. bodies, such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and development of institutional mechanisms especially for indigenous peoples, like a special rapporteur of the committee on human rights should be used as indicators of the success of the first decade.
ECOSOC's decision to recommend a second decade -- which has previously been done for women's issues and development -- during its substantive session last week was recommended in a report of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, which held its third session in New York in May.
But a second decade should not be linked to discussions of the draft declaration, according to John Scott of the Permanent Forum secretariat. "People do not want (the draft declaration) to take another 10 years," he told IPS, because that would undermine the meaning of the decade, for which a clear definition of goals and budget is needed.
The forum, whose indigenous members from all the world's regions are a mix of government appointees and representatives nominated by their peers, is the first full-time U.N. office dedicated to indigenous issues. Its mandate is to advise the U.N. system on indigenous people's issues.
ECOSOC aims to promote higher standards of living, full employment and economic and social progress; identify solutions to international economic, social and health problems; facilitate cultural and educational cooperation; and encourage universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Its decisions are not binding; it only makes recommendations to the GA.
Its decision to recommend a new decade erred in not giving the Permanent Forum the lead role, according to one non-governmental organisation.
"We were disappointed that the Permanent Forum was not the coordinator of the decade," said Marie-Danielle Samuel, vice president of the Peruvian group Yachai Wasi. According to her, the forum should be recognised as the world body's true representative for indigenous issues.
But several ECOSOC members criticised the forum's 2004 report for singling out their governments for violating the human rights of indigenous people.
"Political motivation, rather than concern for the rights of indigenous people, seem to have dominated the forum's deliberation," said Ethiopian representative Azanaw Tadesse Abreha, who added that no nation, nationality or people in Ethiopia have ever been officially designated "indigenous."
Colombia's representative accused the Permanent Forum of having been ignorant of the circumstances of the internal armed conflict in that country, and asked ECOSOC to urge it to follow its mandate and revise its method of work so that it does not address only selective issues.
"This is a bigger issue," said John Scott of the Permanent Forum secretariat. Singling out U.N. member states in reports is a practice that is debated within the entire U.N. system, he added.
Indonesia criticised the report for listing West Papua, the western half of the island of New Guinea -- which has a strong indigenous rights movement -- as independent from Indonesia. "This did not only serve to bring into question the territorial integrity of Indonesia but it also constituted a grave infringement of the U.N. Charter," said Indonesia's representative Sunu Mahadi Soemarno.
Several ECOSOC members also criticised Annan's report for not having fulfilled its mandate. Australian representative James Choi said it failed to comment on the effectiveness of the U.N.'s indigenous mechanisms while New Zealand representative Andrew Begg said it lacked analysis.
The body authorised the fourth session of the Permanent Forum, to be held at U.N. headquarters in May 2005. Its theme will be "Millennium Development Goals and indigenous people."
The eight goals, or MDGs, were launched at the U.N. Millennium Summit in 2000. They set clear targets for reducing poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women by 2015.
ECOSOC also endorsed a workshop on the MDGs for the Permanent Forum and a pre-sessional meeting between forum members and representatives of other U.N. agencies.
Source: allAfrica.com
