Friday, May 16, 2014

Good Governance and the Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth



Territorial  Integrity  of  Mother Earth
The
TIME
Is
NOW
 
Recommendation to the 13th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples

12-23 May 2014   UN Headquarters   New York

Good Governance

and the

Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth



Statement of Tupac Enrique Acosta, Huehuecoyotl

Callpolli Nahuacalco, Izkaloteka

In the Spirit of the Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth


Good greetings to you all: 

To the ancestors and the Nations of Indigenous Peoples of these territories, to the Memory and Spirit of each of the Indigenous Peoples of Tonantzin, Our Sacred Mother Earth now in attendance, to the members of the UN Permanent Forum and all the support staff at this 13th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. 

A special greeting and congratulations to our Chairperson, Ms. Dalee Sambo Dorough and also a word of recognition for the deceased leaders and spiritual guides of our Nations of Indigenous Peoples who led the way in the struggle in the international arena for recognition, respect, and protection for the rights of Indigenous Peoples. We invoke their vision and strength once again here today, we call upon the leadership of Billy Frank, we call upon the strength of Tomas Banyacya, and all the others relatives of our Indigenous Peoples who acted upon the responsibility for our future in their times.

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Fundamental to the right of nationality, as members of the Nations of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala, the Great Turtle Island which is referenced in article 6 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and evidenced unequivocally by the Treaty Status, namely international personality which was subject of the UN Treaty Study conducted by Dr. Miguel Alfonso Martinez, is the collective right of nationhood of Indigenous Peoples beyond the contextual constraints of the Westphalian system of sovereignty of states.  It is a collective right, similar to how the present UN system of mutual international recognition as sovereign states provides the framework of jurisprudence for the purported jurisdiction of the states individually and then collectively at the global dimension under the dominion of the UN system, the jurisprudence which articulates the nationhood of Indigenous Peoples is also is a projection of jurisdiction at the planetary level, with mutual responsibilities towards the Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth, and the well being of the Future Generations.  The distinction being that our Rights of Nationhood emerge from the COGNITION, and then thus RECOGNITION, of our responsibilities as ONE of the Nations (two legged species of kindom) – among ALL of the RELATIONS to whom and with we share as human society collectively, the responsibility to act in complementarity within the equally shared environment of the Natural World. 

We are Original Nations of Mother Earth, and will not consent to be diminished or to be dominated under the regime of the government states of the UN system as mere ethnic groups, or minorities.

Good Governance 

Colonialism and colonization are incompatible and irreconcilable to the principles and practices of good governance.  With the adoption of UN GA1514 (1960), this reality became evident and standardized within the UN system by mechanisms of assessment, prosecution, and restorative justice exemplified by UN GA1541 (1960).  The intent in 1960 at the dawn of the era decolonization was a determination by global society not to simply to redress the international crime of colonization, but instead to act deliberately and collectively on the mandate “to bring colonialism to a speedy end." 

That was 54 years ago. It was only seven years ago upon the adoption in 2007 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that the rights of Indigenous Peoples “equal to all other peoples” became a norm in the international system of the United Nations in the context of colonialism and decolonization referenced by UN GA1514. 

But in terms of good governance, it is not only seven years, or 54 years or 522 years (October 12, 1492) since the pogrom of colonization inflicted upon the Nations of Indigenous Peoples became a crime against humanity.  Colonialism and genocide have always been criminal acts against humanity.  These dates simply mark the codification within the Westphalian system of the states now known as the United Nations when the crime of colonization became an actionable crime in international law.  And again the call for action under UN GA1514 in 1960 was to “bring to a speedy end”, not simply camouflage the crime and become accomplice by dressing the body of the victim (the colonized) with a set of domesticated rights that actually diminish and would eventually destroy the Nationhood of Indigenous Peoples. 
 
 
These codes of common conduct also mark the beginning of the processes of articulation and institutionalizing of mechanisms of decolonization.

One of the other international bodies which emerged in the processes was the UN Special Committee on Decolonization, where the UN system currently still monitors the situation of “non-self governing territories” in terms of the application of the principles of UNGA1514 and UNGA1541.  The government of the United States of America, for example reported to this body which was established under section 73(e) of the UN Charter until 1960, informing the UN on the status of the non-self governing territories of Hawaii and Alaska.  Currently, the USA reports to the UN Decolonization committee on the colonial status of American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands, while Puerto Rico is presented as an “associate free state” per UN GA1541. 

Therefore, in view of the High-level Plenary Meeting of the UN in 2014 and in relation to the interactive dialogue on the special theme of Good Governance of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, 2014, the Permanent Forum should address without discrimination violations of the right to self-determination and full and equal participation of Indigenous Peoples, equal to all other peoples in the concept, design, implementation and evaluation of each and every one of the UN actions and policies that involve our Indigenous Peoples and the protection of our collective rights.  In particular, regional trade agreements among member states of the UN, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the imminent threat of Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP for short English) should be juridically evaluated as instruments that violate of the right of Full and Equal Pariticipation as Peoples, equal to all other peoples. 

Likewise, in evaluating with these same criteria the UNHLPM 2014, the lack of respect and consideration to be considered in Equality as Peoples with all other Peoples in the proceedings is evident from conception, completely absent from the design, not even being considered in the implementation, and there are no mechanisms integrate equality in the evaluation of the HLPM 2014 which is not a UN conference.  We see individual advisors being selected by extractive and non-representational processes, international peons whose role in the projected UN High Level Plenary Meeting of States of the General Assembly, which arrogantly is to be known as World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, is to repeat what the states have scripted to be told, facilitating the assault of neo-liberal colonization by the corporations that dictate the policies of the states, and whose role is to provide legitimacy for development projects which the international financial consortia require in order to market the concept that there is justice and consent of indigenous peoples:

Colonization is inconsistent with the Good Governance.
The UN General Assembly High-level Plenary Meeting 2014
IS NOT A UN CONFERENCE.

It is a schema of the states which is actively and openly but unrealistically being promoted to be named a CONFERENCE, in the same degrading naming process that we became known as INDIANS, AMERICA, AMERICAN INDIANS, LATIN AMERICA, etc.  The HLPM is a semiotic schema (doctrine) being constructed to contextualize the process INDIGENOUS CONSENT inside the Westphalian System of the Divine Right of States in order to domesticate the Universal Human Right in International Law of Indigenous Peoples, equal to all other peoples of the world.

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The Doctrine of Discovery as a Violation of the Rule of Law and the UN Decolonization Committee 

As a systemic violation of the rule of law, discriminatory and racist in conception and perpetration since October 12, 1492 until the present, the Doctrine of Christian Discovery of the Americas must not and cannot be simply be redressed through advisory bodies of the UN system.  Colonization must be brought to an end, not dressed up as domestic policy and repackaged for sanitized consumption under the guise of reconciliation. To do so would not invoke Good Governance.  It would not be governance at all, but instead complicity in the perpetuation of the crime of colonization.  The issues of colonization and genocide which are normalized socially and politically by the Doctrine must be criminally prosecuted and dismantled as violation of the rule of law, with the full effective and equal participation of the Nations of Indigenous Peoples, equal to all other peoples.  The Doctrine of Discovery is a violation of the rule of law.
 
 

Madam Chair and members of the Permanent Forum: 

We have taken note that the dispute over the Islas Malvinas/Falkland Islands between Great Britain and Argentina is an agenda item before the United Nations Decolonization Committee, and as we also have intervened on this matter as Nations of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala at the V Continental Summit held in November 2013 in the Cauca Territories [Colombia], we now submit the call for clarification presented here at the Permanent Forum to the Representative of the Holy See on this issue.  In exercising our collective continental Right of Self Determination and Nationhood as Indigenous Peoples, the mechanisms of the UN bodies such as the UN Decolonizing Committee must not be complicit in legitimizing and perpetuating the Crime of Colonization by masking the issue of the Universal Call for Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery in their criteria and proceedings.  We call for accountability and justice in this regard, in order to move forward with collective corrective actions to address the systemic discrimination against Indigenous Peoples inscribed in the Decolonization Committee mandates and procedures.

The processes and mechanisms of the UN Decolonization Committee must address the impact of the Doctrine of Discovery as a Violation of the Rule of Law, which must be prosecuted and procedurally engaged in order to realize the Full, Effective, and Equal participation of Indigenous Peoples in peaceful co-existence with (but not under) those colonial settler societies in the Americas who derive their juridical personality through the regimes of succession of the Doctrine of Discovery (1492), the Papal Bulls (1493), the Monroe Doctrine (1823), and are contextualized regionally and globally under the present UN systems such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Westphalian system of State Sovereignty (AKA The Divine Right of States). 
 
 
 
Recommendation:

We call for the restitution of the primary source materials and testimony that was lent to the United Nations system as fundamental to the evidence in document form of the systemic (system to system) nature of the legal relationships between the Nations of Indigenous Peoples and the member states of the UN system for the purpose of the Treaty Study conducted by Dr. Miguel Alfonso Martinez of Cuba. 
 
 
 

 
Such delivery, should be initial act of good faith in terms of the continuing process of systemic documentation among the Nations of Indigenous Peoples and the UN system prior to and as a necessary act of condition to allow for the full and effective participation of the Indigenous Peoples with the High Level Plenary Meeting on an equal basis and without systemic discrimination in the process of producing the Final Outcome Document of the High Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly 2014.
 
 
Tupac Enrique Acosta, Huehuecoyotl
chantlaca@tonatierra.org
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Endorsers: Maya Vision - Centro Cultural Techantit
NAHUACALLI
Embassy of Indigenous Peoples 
Mandate of the Indigenous Peoples