/* Written 4:47 pm Dec 18, 1992 by peacenews@gn.apc.org in
igc:wri.news */ by RENE WADLOW
*** Hope and realism were the dominant themes at the start of the
International Year of the World's Indigenous People at the UN in
New York on 10 December, International Human Rights Day.
"Today ... is finally a day which marks a resurrection of hope for
millions of people designated as indigenous or tribal" said the
Ven Bimal, a Buddhist monk from the Chittagong Hill Tracts in
Bangladesh. The Year is sponsored by the UN, but its impact on
policymaking will largely depend on the work of non-governmental
organisations and the tribal communities themselves.
The Year is an outgrowth of a decade of effort carried out in
Geneva each summer by the Working Group on Indigenous Populations,
which has considered the special needs for action in the fields of
health, housing, education, land rights, and equality in the
administration of justice. The Working Group has become a highly
respected world forum for the representatives of indigenous and
tribal groups. It is the only UN body where representatives of
tribes can speak directly and not as members of UN-recognised NGOs
-- although NGOs with a broad mandate such as Amnesty
International, the Anti-Slavery Society, and the International
Fellowship of Reconciliation have played active roles in the
Working Group.
The Year serves to draw attention to some 300 million people who
are currently thought of as indigenous and tribal. However, member
states of the Organisation of African Unity refuse the concept and
have never participated in the activities of the Working Group,
even though most African societies can be considered "tribal"
according to the UN's own definition. This is a troubling
omission, particularly given the current situation in Somalia,
where a civil war is being fought by groups defined at clan level,
and where the UN's armed intervention appears not to fully
comprehend these dynamics [see elsewhere this issue].
World society is filled with many different types of collective
actors: clans, tribes, castes, ethnic groups, cities, races,
social classes, nation-states, multi-state alliances. There has
been a long history of the state destroying alternative
institutions of governance on its territory. The nation-states of
Europe were built upon the ruins of feudal institutions, much of
Asia on the destruction of local rulers. We see the pattern today
as we watch traditional chiefs in Africa cede their authority to
heads of state and the military.
The UN has only begun to grapple with the reality of tribal
societies, the violence often directed against them and the
transformation -- and frequent destruction -- of such societies
through their contacts with other entities, particularly those of
the industrialised world.
A newsletter for the Year of Indigenous People, and other UN
material, are available on request from Julien Berger,
Centre for Human Rights, Palais des Nations, CH-1211 Geneve
10, Switzerland
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* Reprinted from _Peace News_ 2362 (January 1993). Please *
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