Roberto Mucaro Borrero

Tony Belcourt



ROBERTO MUCARO BORRERO
Taino

I'd just like to briefly talk about the Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. We have a wide diversity of Indigenous Peoples throughout that region in countries like Mexico, throughout Central America, throughout South America and of course the Caribbean Islands. There's various levels of development in many of the countries and as Kenneth said right in the beginning of his introduction, still many people who live in the region still don't have access to basic human infrastructure.

Many people from Latin America gathered in Geneva at the first phase of this conference and they were very concerned also as a people with a long tradition of communication on various levels; on a practical level, but also on a spiritual level with the world around them … were very concerned that this whole process is driven towards technology and information needs, not the really human needs, of human perspectives. And this of course leads into human rights abuses and the lack of recognition of rights that our brother Hassan just spoke about.

Also just as our brother Hassan just mentioned, the idea of indigenous languages and having access to the popular government or dominant government society around them is also very important because this also isolates people further from actively participating as equals in human rights and dignity. You can go on and on about the levels of governmental abuses of power, market-driven resources, and trade agreements that have also affected … and these are all playing part within the information society because technology is also being used as a driving force in those areas.