UNPFIP Network: Mandate of the Indigenous Peoples

May 9, 2012
UN Headquarters, New York NY

To attempt to institute the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the United Nations Permanent Forum for Indigenous Peoples under a single mandate, that of the states of the UN system, is equivalent to the imposition by diplomacy of domination of the same monopolistic ideology of the Doctrine of Discovery in present tense, and in violation of the right of Right of Self Determination of the Indigenous Peoples.

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E’ehecatl

El Viento de Aztlan

Primavera Xihuitl Nahui Acatl Spring 2003

Mandate of the Indigenous Peoples

“All peoples have the right to self determination.” These are the words of United Nations General Assembly resolution 1514, passed on December 14, 1960, in the wake of the cresting global movement to declare colonization a crime against humanity, a violation of the international law of nation states.

The declaration of colonization as a violation of international law for the first time in the context of the United Nations system, placed the government states who were in violation under the scrutiny of the General Assembly, and procedures were put in place to identify criteria that would specifically describe the Non-Self-Governing Territories under colonization and also establish a reporting system for the violating government states.

From the same resolution, GA 1514:

The General Assembly,

Solemnly proclaims the necessity of bringing to speedy and unconditional end colonialism in all its forms and manifestations…

For over 3,500 years our relatives have been contending with colonization under the Aryan philosophy of racial and cultural superiority in their traditional territories, ever since even before they were invaded by Alexander the Great. They also, like we native nations of this continent of Abya Yala are called Indians. They call themselves the ADIVASI, one of the Indigenous Peoples of the Indian subcontinent. Along with the Adivasi, the Maori of Aotearoa (AKA New Zealand), the multiple and diverse Indigenous Nations from the former Soviet Union, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, the Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, Indigenous Peoples of the Southeast Asian Peninsula as well as the Mainland, we joined as the Indigenous Nations of Abya Yala, Turtle Island (AKA the Americas), Africa, Europe and Australia to witness and strengthen the global political position of the Indigenous Peoples upon the inauguration of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, May 13, 2002 in New York.

The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is a 16 member body of independent experts, eight of whom are nominated by the government states, and eight nominated by the Indigenous Peoples themselves in a process that reflects 7 geo-cultural regions of the world with one rotating seat. Established as an advisory body to the Economic and Social Council, the Permanent Forum creates for the first time within the global system of governance that is the United Nations, a vehicle by which the Indigenous Peoples and Nations can represent their interests directly to the UN.

The inaugural session of the Permanent Forum was opened by the Tadodaho (traditional chief) from Onandaga, guardians of the Grand Council Fire of the Haudenosaunee Six Nations Iroquois

Confederacy.

Among the Nican Tlacah of Anahuac, there exists an especially strong tie of culture and kinship with the Haudenosaunee that goes back to the Wounded Knee conflict of 1973, and further still to Mad Bear Anderson's continental Unity Caravan under the White Roots of Peace and the initiative he led to Cuba, attempting to achieve international recognition for the Haudenosaunee passport and nationality on a par with those of the US or any other government state. More profoundly, among the archives of traditional memory of the Tezcatlipoca Azteca, there exists the legends of the teaching of relations between the founder of the Six Nations Confederacy, called the Peacekeeper, and the disciples of the teachings of Quetzalcoatl Ce Acatl in Mexico.

As the first week of the Permanent Forum drew to a close, a sense of urgency and acknowledgment united the indigenous representatives at the UN. The Indigenous Peoples - our nations, communities, and families are on the front line of the assault being systematically waged as the global multinational corporate structure voraciously extracts natural resources and spews contamination in order to maintain industrial dominance of the current consumer market model of economic globalization. At the Permanent Forum, the Indigenous Nations testified repeatedly that time is running out to rectify the relationship of the human society globally in order to achieve sustainability within the natural ecosystems of the Earth. It will soon be too late for words, too late to reverse the effects of the petroleum based industrial model that has pushed the world into the scenario of what will inevitably be the terrible effects of global warming, environmental degradation, and deforestation.

Among the Indigenous Caucus convened at the UN in New York, it has also become mutually acknowledged and reinforced at each international conference where the Indigenous Peoples are in attendance, that the Indigenous Peoples worldwide are the best hope as a strategic political bloc with global context, history, and coherence that is not controlled by the fractured allegiances or ideologies of the nation state paradigm, nor captured by the values of the multinational corporate regime of global resource expropriation. At the core of this mutual acknowledgment is an appreciation for the spirituality of the ancient and diverse Indigenous Peoples as caretakers of the Earth.

This enduring foundation has provided the precept of a planetary constitution that describes the Indigenous Nations and Peoples as a global confederation of families, communities, organizations, nations, and Nations of Nations in alliance. In this hemisphere, this precept is known as the prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor.

When Pope Alexander the VI, himself a member of the infamous Borgia family, issued the Papal Bull Inter Cetera on May 3-4,1493 the precursor estates that have led to the present colonial nation state formation on this continent were given their empowerment in terms of the international legal system of the so called “West.” It was under the jurisprudence of this international decree, clothed in the religious authority of the Vatican, that the colonization, terracide and genocide of this hemisphere acquired its initial justification as a civilized action, again in terms of the “West”, and specifically for the representative political powers of the time: the royal families of Spain and Portugal. Under this edict, the geographical fact of discovery was tied to the politico-religious act of dominion implemented with exclusivity in favor of the European American invaders.

The New World was such for the West not just in the geographical sense, it was new and revolutionary in the fact that the Indigenous Peoples social contract that gave context to the political infrastructure of the culture emanated through a spirituality appreciative of the elemental forces of nature, in which there was no concept of things outside of nature or “supernatural.” Nor was the human society given preference or exclusivity as the being the dominant personality of society, which included the other life forms of winged, crawling, swimming, etc., creatures in the natural world order. It was these egalitarian political precepts that upon arrival in the Europe of the 1500’s, gave germination to the revolutions of liberation which eventually toppled the rule by royalty in this hemisphere, and gave birth to the modern republic-states presently internationally recognized and in status as members of the UN. In the transition, however, from colony to republic, not one of the newly formed nation states of the hemisphere has revoked the initial claim to jurisdiction established under the Papal Bull of 1493.

In fact, although the UN General Assembly resolution 1514 proclaims colonization as a violation of international law, and the criteria and protocols for decolonization clearly are relevant and should be applied to the indigenous nation territories, a Doctrine of Denial and complicity exists among the government states of the western hemisphere to block implementation by the Indigenous Nations and Peoples to the right to decolonization.

In other words, the processes of decolonization applied after World War II to the African continent and other colonial territories is not to be repeated or made inclusive of the Indigenous Peoples. To accomplish this duplicity, the government states of the United Nation systems refused to accede to identifying the Indigenous Peoples as Peoples, referring to us as "indigenous populations" only or in the singular as “indigenous people” thus precluding the right to self determination and collective rights within the global matrix which is the established international legal system of the so called “civilized world.” Specific to North, South and Central America, the government states of the continent have colluded to enforce the Doctrine of Denial under the international legal system and the United Nations, within which these governments are recognized as "indigenous to the hemisphere" thus shielding them collectively as violators of UN General Assembly Resolution 1514.

The call for a permanent forum within the United Nations system for Indigenous Peoples derives from the historical resistance movement of the Indigenous Peoples and Nations worldwide to colonization. In the implementation, the UN has established within the Economic and Social Council the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. The concept of a forum is a description of social space, wherein a dialogue is possible. Any true dialogue requires a minimum of two perspectives, a dynamic of duality must be present at all phases of the process, including planning, implementation, and evaluation. Within the diplomatic language of the international system, unless the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is to be simply a dis-empowering token exercise for the Indigenous Peoples, there must be recognition from the start that the Permanent Forum operates under a Dual Mandate.

We have arrived at the moment in history of the world where a dialogue among civilizations and world views is necessary at the global level. Only so will the hope for Peace and Dignity with justice for our human society survive, established through a sustainable ecological relationship to the Mother Earth itself as foundation. This is the Mandate of the Indigenous Peoples; it supersedes that of the United Nations system; it is an expression of the jurisprudence of indigenous international law: it is the path of Tradition and Liberation.