Tupac Enrique Acosta
When the United Nations passed
General Assembly resolution 1514 in 1960, declaring “All peoples have the right
of self determination”, one of the arguments put forward by the member states
of the UN was to clothe the concept of territorial integrity of the states
themselves as being protected under the same principle. In fact, section 6 of the same
resolution GA1514 states:
“Any attempt aimed at the partial
or total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity of a
country is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the
United Nations.”
In essence, these two statements
from the seminal document that made colonization a crime for the first time in
international law established an inherent conflict in the UN processes that
now, half a century later, have come to a definitive point in terms of
historical resolution.
Nowhere is this more evident than by the blatant efforts by the anglophile bloc of government
states (US-Canada-New Zealand-Australia) to block the full recognition of the
Right of Self Determination in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples. The position of these government
states is an attempt to place the right of self-determination of Indigenous
Peoples as existing only within the parameters of domestic policy and legal
systems, even though these same systems are products of colonization itself.
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The political arguments on both
sides of the issue are in conflict, not just because of the doctrines of power
that gave birth to the concepts of dominion which define the states and the
social relations of their member constituencies, but also because the framework
for resolution of the issues within the UN system is incompetent to address the
spirituality of the earth based territorial reality of the Indigenous Nations,
and the system itself is incoherent according to the geographic sciences of
modern times.
What is lacking is a mechanism to
define the issues in common terms, outside of the intellectual framework of
colonization and dominion. What is missing is a clarification of the concept of
territorial integrity, as a
dimension of ecological and social sustainability and not a bastard relic from
the intellectual Regime of Doctrines spawned by the Divine Right of Kings.
Emergence of the Fourth Principle
GA 1514 was followed by GA1541,
which specified principles that defined three options for the attainment of “a
full measure of self-government”, as the only contemplated political
trajectories at the time for relief
from colonization. These are:
(a) Emergence as a sovereign independent State;
(b)
Free association with an independent state; or
(c) Integration with an independent state.
It is an incontrovertible fact
that the transfer of territorial jurisdiction from Indigenous Nations
authorities to dominion concepts of control and allegiance by the states is
historically flawed and legally suspect.
There are unquantifiable elements. The case of the Western Shoshone is contemporary evidence that this is not just
history but reality in the context of the hemisphere of the Americas, yet there
is a larger issue.
The social and geographic
realities of the Indigenous Peoples as Nations continue to exist as a political
anomaly in terms of the international legal system of the United Nations. Specifically, in this hemisphere of
Abya Yala [the Americas] not only is this true in the face of centuries of
colonization but also in terms of the options for relief from the crime.
Self definition being the precept
of self determination, the three options of GA 1541 do not adequately describe
the outcome of principles of self-determination which would define the
Indigenous Peoples and our continuing relationship to our ancestral territories
and surviving traditional societies.
The Emergence of the Indigenous
Nations is a daily occurrence, one which is manifested in accord with natural
laws of complementarity and harmony with the natural world, which includes our
fellow human beings. This ancient
tradition is the shared cultural infrastructure of our confederations of
families, clans, communities Pueblos and Nations. It could be characterized as
a State of Integrity, which is not independent but interdependent within the
network of ecosystems that describe our traditional homelands, sacred sites,
territories and nations: the Territorial
Integrity of Mother Earth.
Thus the Emergence of the Fourth Principle for decolonization: INTERDEPENDENCE, self-determination as an expression of community ecology and environmental
sustainability. It is a particular and universal principle that may serve as a
threshold concept to arrive at that ancient place once called the New World, if
only we could create and travel guided by maps of the geography of
self-determination.
Embassy
of Indigenous Peoples
802 N. 7th Street Phoenix, AZ 85006
802 N. 7th Street Phoenix, AZ 85006
c/o
TONATIERRA
P.O. Box
24009 Phoenix, AZ 85074
tonal@tonatierra.org
tonal@tonatierra.org
TONATIERRA
www.tonatierra.org
#TIMEisNOW
Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth
******************
Therefore we proclaim and hereby reaffirm in collective Responsibility as Peoples of Mother Earth, in Equality with all Peoples, our collective Right of Representation and Self Determination in addressing the issues before the COP20 beyond the constraints of the architecture of the States and their agreements;
www.tonatierra.org
#TIMEisNOW
Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth
******************
Architectures of the States and the
Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth
Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth
As Peoples of Mother Earth, we collectively determine to
regenerate our relationships among ourselves within a Cultural Climate of
Mutual Respect, Inclusion, Complementarity, and Self Determination beyond the
existing constrains of the international systems of state sovereignty and in
responsibility to the well being of the future generations;
Recognizing that unless this fundamental dimension of
international relationships among human societies at the planetary level is
first recognized, established and affirmed, there will be no sustainable
progress in addressing effectively and in timely manner the Climate Chaos
scenario that now befalls all of Humanity due to the impacts on Global Climate
exacerbated greenhouse gas emissions by industrial society and extractive
industries in particular in complicity with national government states and
existing international monetary systems and institutions.
Therefore we proclaim and hereby reaffirm in collective Responsibility as Peoples of Mother Earth, in Equality with all Peoples, our collective Right of Representation and Self Determination in addressing the issues before the COP20 beyond the constraints of the architecture of the States and their agreements;
We further affirm and proclaim in Full, Effective, and Complete
exercise of our equally shared Right of Self Determination as Peoples of Mother
Earth, that our Sacred Mother Earth is subject of the Right of Self
Determination beyond the limited juridical constraints of the Westphalian
System of State Sovereignty represented in UN system and the international
architectures of personality and procedures of negotiation and agreements.
NAHUACALLI
www.nahuacalli.org
Embassy of Indigenous Peoples
c/o TONATIERRA
P.O. Box 24009 Phoenix, AZ 85074
Email: tonal@tonatierra.org
www.tonatierra.org
