DAILY BULLETIN – DAY ONE
21 April 2008
Produced by Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action (FAIRA) for the Indigenous Peoples Organisations of Australia Network
CONTENTS
- UN Indigenous Forum Opens
- Message from UN Secretary General
- Young Aboriginal Leaders Attend UN Forum
- UN Meeting Mistakenly Applauds Racism in Australia
UN Indigenous Forum Opens
Today the seventh session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues began its 2008 session.
The Permanent Forum is an extremely important and highly placed meeting attracting up to 3,000 participants from around the world, including Indigenous Peoples’ delegations, governments, UN agencies and experts.
The Forum was established by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in 2002 to advise the Council on the protection of indigenous rights in the light of continuing and severe oppressions in most countries where indigenous populations exist.
The work of the Forum has become particularly important this year following the adoption of the universal Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples.
The Chairperson of the Forum, Ms Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, has called for the Declaration to be a “living document at the national and international level”.
Ms Tauli-Corpuz hoped that implementation of the Declaration would be a permanent agenda item of the Forum, where governments and agencies would report on progress.
The Forum will also give particular attention to the critical issue of climate change and the direct impacts the changes are having upon indigenous communities around the world.
Most of the world’s biological diversity and cultural diversity exists within the territories of indigenous peoples, and this diversity is now under real and direct threat due to global pollution of the environment.
Unfortunately, governments have so far failed to recognize the impact upon these populations and have not addressed the right of self- determination and related human rights regarding Indigenous Peoples lands, territories and resources.
International law is as yet insufficiently developed to cope with the rights of ‘environmental refugees’ and Indigenous Peoples sovereign rights when their terrestrial lands, sea ice and resources have disappeared.
The Permanent Forum has also included on its agenda an item on the Pacific Region, to allow the Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific Region to present their concerns and recommendations for regional development and human rights.
The session is convened for two weeks and concludes on 2 May 2008.
The recommendations from the Permanent Forum will be sent in a report to the Economic and Social Council for consideration.
Many of these recommendations will consider and make comment upon the roles and responsibilities of the many UN and international agencies operating at the global level.
All governments with Indigenous Peoples in their jurisdictions are expected and encouraged to participate in the work of the Forum.
Governments are called to report on progress in the promotion and protection of indigenous rights, and the situation of Indigenous Peoples rights of self-determination and ownership of lands, territories and resources.
Message from UN Secretary General
The following statement is a message by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon to the seventh session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today, 21 April, in New York
This session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues meets at a historic crossroads.
With the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Permanent Forum takes on a new role.
You will work to translate the Declaration into a living document at the national and international levels.
As you do, you will promote the United Nations development agenda and its vision of development for all.
This includes the poorest and most vulnerable, a group to which many indigenous peoples belong.
I applaud your choice of climate change as the special theme of this session.
Indigenous peoples live in many of the world’s most biologically diverse areas.
As custodians of these lands, they have accumulated deep, first-hand knowledge about the impacts of environmental degradation, including climate change.
They know the economic and social consequences, and they can and should play a role in the global response.
I also welcome your focus on the Pacific for this session.
This will spur greater cooperation and solidarity among Governments, indigenous peoples and the United Nations family in this important region.
And you meet in the International Year of Languages.
Appropriately, the Forum is paying close attention to this issue.
Indigenous languages represent an overwhelming majority of all languages spoken today, with most facing the threat of extinction.
By protecting and promoting indigenous languages, we advance the dignity and human rights of indigenous people, and preserve the cultural diversity of all humankind.
I look forward to the Forum’s recommendations on all these important fronts, and wish you a most successful session.
Young Aboriginal Leaders Attend UN Forum
A number of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders have arrived in New York to undertake training at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
These leaders are learning about the international structures and mechanisms established by the United Nations to promote and protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples around the world.
The Permanent Forum is the most highly-placed mechanism in the United Nations to specifically address indigenous issues.
It reports directly to the Economic and Social Council.
As the title suggests this permanent body has a wide mandate to address the issues of concern for Indigenous Peoples.
The young leaders will participate in the meetings of the Forum, which is in session for two weeks until 2 May 2008.
During this time they will gain very practical experience in the meetings, as well as receive expert information and advice from UN experts and Indigenous Peoples delegations from around the world.
Their training will include reporting on UN events and preparing information for their communities about how the UN can assist their development.
They will also study the experience of Indigenous Peoples from other regions of the world and examine how those Indigenous Peoples have used the UN to address the abuse of human rights in their communities.
The purpose of the training is to build a wide and structured network of experts in Australia who can help communities respond to government and social intrusions into their right of self-determination.
The young leaders have come from locations including Mornington Island, Alice Springs, Cairns, Sydney and Townsville and already have considerable knowledge and experience about leadership, development and human rights.
For all these participants it is a new experience to be in New York and at the UN Headquarters.
They also are being challenged to cope with other languages, cultures, and worldviews.
Their training will equip them with the capacity over the long term to instigate and oversight much needed changes consistent with the right of self-determination for Indigenous Peoples.
UN Meeting Mistakenly Applauds Racism in Australia
In a bizarre twist the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has applauded a statement by the government of Australia which clearly states it will continue to commit racial discrimination against the Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
On the opening day of the seventh session of the Permanent Forum, Mr Bernie Yates, Deputy Secretary, Australian Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, took the floor to deliver a comprehensive statement on behalf of the Government of Australia.
Australia was the first government to speak, although the President of Bolivia did present an address in the opening ceremony.
Mr Yates referred to the Northern Territory ‘invasion’ of the Aboriginal remote communities as a commitment to the abuse and neglect reported in the ‘Little Children Are Sacred’ Report.
The government failed to reveal that it has suspended the federal Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) in law to allow draconian actions to be taken against poor and vulnerable Aboriginal people.
The suspension of the RDA removes any opportunity for the victims to appeal to the courts on the grounds of racial discrimination.
It also permits ‘star chamber’ powers for allow police to interrogate defenseless Aboriginal people, many of whom have little grasp of the english language and the language of law in Australia, without any accountability or transparency.
The suspension is a breach of Australia’s obligations to the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, a treaty signed in 1966 and ratified in 1975.
For many of the Aboriginal delegates in the meeting it was offensive, for this reason, that the meeting applauded the government’s statement.
However the applause was more likely given in response to the Australian Government’s most positive reference to the apology to the Stolen Generation and the comitmment to improve the social status of the Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
The statement gave much attention to these issues.
Mr Yates said the national apology to the Stolen Generations was a significant change in Australia’s political direction.
‘It was a remarkable day in our nation’s history – acknowledging past injustices but just as importantly laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians,’ said Mr Yates.
‘The Prime Minister said through the apology we could build a bridge of respect – a new relationship characterised by mutual respect and mutual responsibility,’ he said.
Mr Yates even went on to refer to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, saying that ‘the new Government recognises the importance of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples globally’.
He said that detailed consultations are currently being undertaken in Australia with Indigenous organisations ‘and other key stakeholders’
on the Declaration.
However other parts of the statement made on behalf of the Government of Australia offended the right of Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islander Peoples to self-determination.
The goals and targets set by the government, and the launch of national strategies, had never been discussed with the Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
There are questions yet to be answered about how positive changes in the social status of the Indigenous Peoples are to be achieved.
The imposition of programs, even those laden with ‘good intent’, are a path to destruction of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities without their ‘free, prior and informed consent’.
It is the one truth that history has taught us in Australia; it is the one truth this new government has yet to learn.
Yes, the government does deserve applause for its national apology and strong words of a new relationship but the UN Permanent Forum is not the place to put the stamp of government authority over the Indigenous Peoples
ENDS
