Amnesty International
International Secretariat
1 Easton Street
London WC1X 8DJ
United Kingdom
DATE: 29 JULY 1993
ORAL STATEMENT ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities
45th Session Working Group on Indigenous Populations
Delivered: 28 July 1993
Oral Statement by Amnesty International
Madam Chairperson,
Governments have for centuries treated the rights of indigenous peoples with
contempt, torturing, "disappearing" and killing them in the tens of thousands
when they have attempted to defend their lands, resources, culture,
traditions, languages, and even their lives, and doing virtually nothing when
they are victims of attack by others.
In recent years however, indigenous peoples have moved strongly to alert
the world to their concerns and the abuses they suffer when they try to attain
or protect their rights. Last year, the indigenous peoples of the Americas
drew attention to their needs and demands in the context of the 500th
anniversary of the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. In 1993, the United
Nations (UN) International Year for the World's Indigenous People, indigenous
peoples throughout the world have vigorously pressed their case for
recognition and protection of their rights, including at the UN World
Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in June and throughout the preparatory
process. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Rigoberta Mench#, and her
naming by the UN as its Special Goodwill Ambassador for the Year gave further
recognition to what you, Madam Chairperson, described in Vienna as the
"challenge to struggle for the recognition, protection and realization of
human rights, the dignity and justice of the indigenous peoples of the world
community."
Throughout its 32 year history Amnesty International has joined in the
work to bring an end to abuses against the world's indigenous peoples. In
recent years it has made a special effort to work alongside indigenous peoples
as they struggle for their rights. In 1992, Amnesty International published
its first ever report to focus solely on indigenous peoples and undertook a
worldwide campaign to halt serious abuses against the descendants of the
original inhabitants of the Americas -- extrajudicial executions and the
judicial death penalty, "disappearance," torture and ill-treatment, the unfair
trial of political prisoners and their imprisonment as prisoners of
conscience. This year, progress in the protection of indigenous rights was a
key issue for Amnesty International at the UN World Conference on Human
Rights.
Yet, despite efforts by indigenous organizations, bodies like this
Working Group and non-governmental groups, outrages against indigenous peoples
in the Americas and elsewhere continue, arising from land and resource
disputes, repression of indigenous activists, the so-called "war against
drugs," and internal conflicts, which can find indigenous peoples "caught
between two fires" and subjected to abuses by both sides. Though the
manifestations may differ in different countries, the root causes are the same
throughout the world, lying in the discrimination, deprivation and
marginalisation to which indigenous peoples have for so long been subjected.
In the USA for example, Amnesty International has found that the death
penalty is arbitrary, discriminatory and unjust in general including as
applied against Native Americans. It has also reported on irregularities in
the proceedings which condemned American Indian activist Leonard Peltier to
two consecutive life sentences in 1977 - irregularities of such a nature that
Amnesty International has long believed that the interests of justice would
best be served by a re-trial in that case. Allegations of ill- treatment of
Native American persons have also been of long-term concern to the
organization.
In Canada, several provincial aboriginal justice inquiries have found
discrimination with respect to arrests, convictions, sentencing, legal
representation and redress as regards the country's native peoples. The same
holds true in Mexico, where abuses including torture are carried out against
indigenous peoples with impunity, while an Amnesty International study
published in February 1993 found that the criminal justice system in Australia
makes Aboriginals vulnerable to highly disproportionate incarceration rates,
in conditions sometimes amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. In
this context, Amnesty International is especially concerned at the high
incidence of aboriginal deaths in custody in Australia over a long period of
years.
In Brazil, Amnesty International continues to find that Indians are
regularly harassed, threatened, and killed to drive them from resource-rich
areas. The authorities at all levels consistently fail to protect them
effectively or to bring to justice those responsible. In the Philippines, many
members of tribal communities have suffered violations primarily because of
the political and economic significance of the lands they inhabit. Human
rights workers there, including indigenous leaders, have also been subjected
to gross abuses including extrajudicial execution; few of the perpetrators
have been brought to justice. Indigenous religious leaders have also been
victimised with impunity, as in Colombia.
In a special summary of its concerns regarding indigenous peoples
distributed at the UN World Conference [on Human Rights], Amnesty
International reiterated long-standing concerns regarding the impunity with
which soldiers have arbitrarily detained, tortured, extrajudicially executed
or caused the "disappearance" of hundreds of tribal people in remote states of
northeast India in recent years. Indigenous women have been particularly
victimised, and in Tripura state, rape by the security forces is one of the
most frequently reported human rights violations. In the same document,
Amnesty International also raised its long-term concerns regarding killings of
defenceless tribal villagers by armed civilians, para-militaries and
government forces in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, while in
Myanmar, the main targets of the army counter- insurgency campaign, which has
claimed tens of thousands of victims in the context of ongoing internal
conflict, have been members of the Karen, Kayah, Shan and Mon ethnic groups.
In Western Sudan, Nuba villages have been attacked and destroyed in a
campaign of destruction and displacement involving the deliberate killings by
government forces of thousands of Nuba civilians during a 10-year civil war
against the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), during which the SPLA
has itself been accused of the targeted assassination of a number of Nuba. In
Niger the nomadic Tuaregs have suffered abuses at the hands of armed forces in
reprisal for attacks by armed groups, while in Peru indigenous peoples have
been victimised by both sides in that country's long-term internal conflict.
Even the most defenceless can be victimised, as in Guatemala where old
people, women and children -- including babies as young as one month -- have
been victims of the ferocious counter-insurgency campaign which the Guatemalan
army has unleashed against the country's native peoples over more than two
decades.
In many of these situations, some members of the indigenous population
have reportedly taken up arms against the government, but neither this nor any
other exceptional circumstances whatsoever can be invoked as a justification
for torture, "disappearance," or extrajudicial execution. The abuses
detailed here are just some of the violations against indigenous peoples that
Amnesty International has documented since this Working Group last met. What
can be done to put a stop to such outrages?
In its 1992 report on human rights abuses against indigenous peoples in
the Americas, Amnesty International made extensive recommendations about steps
it believes should be taken to stop abuses against them.
For example, indigenous peoples must enjoy full protection of basic human
rights. Effective mechanisms for identifying human rights abuses against them
should be put into place, and thorough and impartial investigations conducted
into all reported abuses to make the full truth known and bring the
perpetrators to justice.
Toward these ends, governments should support efforts by this Working
Group to promote better protection of the fundamental internationally-
recognised rights of indigenous peoples by being responsive to the Group's
requests for information and on-site visits, and taking full account of its
conclusions, recommendations and proposals. Member states of the UN should
ensure that both the Working Group and the UN's Voluntary Fund for Indigenous
Populations are adequately funded to carry out their important tasks, and
should implement fully the recommendations of the World Conference which seek
to strengthen the role of UN bodies, including the Working Group, the UN
Centre for Human Rights and the UN technical assistance and advisory services
programs, in the protection of indigenous peoples. Amnesty International also
supports the call by the World Conference that the establishment of a
permanent forum for indigenous peoples within the UN system be considered.
Governments should also take preventive measures to protect indigenous
peoples. For example, as so many abuses against indigenous peoples stem from
land or resource disputes, governments should implement the principle
reflected in Article 18 of the International Labour Organization's (ILO)
Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention 169 (1989), which requires that:
"Adequate penalties shall be established by law for unauthorised intrusion
upon, or use of, the lands of the peoples concerned, and governments shall
take measures to prevent such offenses."
Governments should also recognise that discrimination against indigenous
people is a key contributory factor to human rights violations and should
initiate a plan of action to combat such discrimination.
Governments must also ensure that bilateral and multilateral development
assistance and lending programs take due consideration of the welfare of
indigenous peoples and should, in consultation with relevant indigenous
groups, ensure that fundamental rights, including the rights to life and
physical integrity, are effectively protected in the course of development
projects.
Finally, Amnesty International again calls for all governments of
countries where indigenous peoples reside to mark the International Year for
the World's Indigenous Peoples by urgently initiating an independent national
review of the extent to which indigenous peoples' fundamental human rights are
respected and the steps necessary to ensure their full implementation.
It is important to act on these recommendations now. If these and other
urgent steps are not taken, there is a real danger that the UN's International
Year for the World's Indigenous Peoples will not see any significant progress
towards protecting the human rights of indigenous peoples throughout the
world. From the local to the international level, the message must be
proclaimed clearly that centuries of violating the rights of indigenous
peoples must end now, once and for all.
Thank you, Madam Chairperson.