THE DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL
ADDRESS TO THE FIRST SESSION
OF THE PERMANENT FORUM ON INDIGENOUS ISSUES
New York, 13 May 2002

Louise Fréchette
Mr. President, [of ECOSOC]
[Mr. Malloch Brown,]
[Ms. Tibaijuka,]
[Ms. Robinson,]
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a great pleasure to join you on a truly historic day for the world's
indigenous peoples and for the United Nations.
I would like to thank Mr. Sid Hill for that beautiful and very moving
traditional welcome. Mr. Hill is the Tadodaho, or spiritual leader - a
title believed to date back 1,000 years -- of the six nations that make up
the Haudenosaunee People [of North America].
The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is a milestone in the struggle of
thousands of indigenous peoples to win recognition of their rights and
identities. We should give credit first and foremost to indigenous peoples
themselves for coming together behind the idea of a Forum. Next, the
Economic and Social Council - and in particular those members that long
argued for greater participation of indigenous peoples in the United
Nations -- deserves congratulations for its visionary decision to
establish the Forum. And last but not least, the High Commissioner for
Human Rights and her staff deserve praise for their hard work.
This moment has been a long time coming. In the 1920s, Native Americans
approached the League of Nations, but were met with indifference. Early
efforts within the UN system achieved similarly little result until the
1950s, when the International Labour Organization became one of the most
staunch defenders of indigenous rights. For far too long, indigenous
peoples were justified in saying that their voices were smothered by the
darkness of intolerance and neglect. From now on, this Forum will be there
to bring their concerns to light.
The world's 300- to 500 million indigenous people are very diverse. Some
are hunter-gatherers; others are cosmopolitan city-dwellers. Some are tiny
minorities; while others form the majority in their countries. Some live
in the world's most developed and powerful countries, others in the
remotest, most undeveloped places on earth. But a joint sense of their
distinct cultures binds them all.
At the same time, with such extraordinary diversity there is necessarily
great complexity. Not all indigenous people share the same priorities;
some are concerned primarily with land, others with culture. Nor do all
members of each indigenous people share the same point of view. Some may
want to preserve, unchanged, their ways of life, while others want to
participate fully in the material and cultural life of the societies
around them. It would be a mistake to see the world's indigenous peoples
as monolithic, or individual indigenous people as uniformly one way or the
other. Such an approach only leads to caricature. Like the rest of
humankind, like all cultures and civilizations, they are always changing,
growing, and adapting themselves to new times and new realities.
One thing indigenous peoples do share is a terrible history of injustice.
Indigenous people have been killed, tortured and enslaved. They have been
deprived of their political rights, such as the right to vote. Their lands
have been taken over by conquest and colonization, or decreed to be terra
nullius and claimed for "national" development. Even today, their children
too often grow up in poverty, and die from malnutrition and disease. In
some countries, indigenous people are still not allowed to study their own
languages in schools. Their sacred objects have been stolen and displayed,
in violation of their beliefs. They face discrimination and exploitation.
And all too often, governments have resisted the use of the word
"peoples", with an "s". Instead they have preferred the singular, so as to
avoid recognizing collective rights.
This Forum will certainly have its hands full. Questions of
self-determination, self-rule, and autonomy raise fundamental issues of
sovereignty and the prerogatives of the nation-state. Questions of
intellectual property and cultural diversity touch the core of human
dignity and identity. Questions of land and resource rights - which make
up most of the human rights complaints indigenous peoples bring to the
United Nations - are matters of life and death for many of them. Visions
of development may clash. Good-faith efforts to ensure that indigenous
peoples have full access to the benefits and opportunities of
modernization could well collide with equally responsible efforts to
preserve some indigenous life-styles.
As you tackle these challenges, I hope you will not only focus on
grievances but will also make this Forum a showcase for the many
contributions that indigenous peoples can make. The tradition of consensus
found among many indigenous peoples can contribute to conflict resolution
and good governance. Medicinal knowledge -- discovered, developed and
passed from generation to generation by indigenous peoples -- is of
enormous value. Likewise, the world has much to learn from indigenous
peoples in managing complex ecosystems, promoting biodiversity, increasing
crop productivity and conserving land.
Such fruitful interaction between indigenous peoples and the rest of the
international community can only proceed, and succeed, if indigenous
peoples are secure in their human rights. As yet, however, there are no
universal standards on the rights of indigenous peoples as such. The
Commission on Human Rights is now studying a draft declaration, and the
drafting process has done much to raise awareness. The declaration would
not be legally binding. But it would carry considerable moral force, and
complement existing international human rights instruments, which do not
by themselves cover the full range of indigenous peoples' concerns. I
sincerely hope that consensus can be reached in time for the General
Assembly to adopt the declaration before 2004, when the International
Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples comes to an end.
Ladies and gentlemen,
An indigenous leader once said, ** "Even though you
are in your boat and I in my canoe, we share the same river of life." That is wisdom for the ages.
Most of all, it is wisdom for our interdependent era and these troubled
times. I wish you every success in your new home here at the United
Nations. Thank you very much.
**Quote by Chief Oren Lyons, Onondaga
Nation Haudenosaunee speaking in the General Assembly, Inauguration of the
UN Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, 1992
UN Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, 1992 |
Launch of the UN Permanent Forum, 2002 |
|