Human Rights Law

"First they will have to kill us."

By melvin

Pop Quiz

Tomorrow, August 9th, is:

a) Gillian Anderson's birthday

b) The anniversary of the destruction of Nagasaki

c) International Day of the World's Indigenous People

d) The first day of John Edwards' life as a has-been

To kickstart the celebration of the UN's International Day of the World's Indigenous People on August 9, Survival International has named what it calls the "Unholy Trinity" - the corporations guilty of the most flagrant abuse of tribal peoples. It comes as no surprise that all are global "leaders" in the extractive industries. The winners:

§ Vedanta, now racing after its latest green light from the Indian courts to destroy Niyamgiri Mountain and the ten thousand Dongria Kondh people who hold it sacred, for a few years of aluminum production.

These people are not buying for one second the phony promises of reforestation, restored biodiversity, or a new sacred site plopped down somewhere else.

This is our religious place. It provides everything. Vedanta cannot give us food, the streams, the animals... If the Supreme Court decides to give them the mountain, first they will have to kill us and then they will have to kill the mountain.

Parvinder Singh's petition to Indian political leaders asking them to stop the destruction of Niyamgiri.

Survival International strongly suggests a personal letter, and provides a template.
§ Perenco for its utter disregard for the welfare of northern Peru's uncontacted tribes, some of whom have the great misfortune of living on top of oil reserves. Perenco by turns denies the existence of the uncontacted tribes and details its plans on how to frighten them off with loud noises and amplified speeches in languages they do not understand. This lack of consistency tracks perfectly that of the Peruvian government. There is no reason to believe that Perenco will wait any longer for the inevitable post-contact respiratory diseases to ravage the tribes than have the logging companies that are already burning them out and shooting them on sight.

Amazon watch has discussed this Potential Disaster in Peru, and its disastrous previous iterations.

SI's template for a letter to the President of Peru

SI just submitted a report to the UN's Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination:

Comments concerning CERD's review of Peru, with specific reference to uncontacted tribes in Peru (4 page pdf)

The future of Peru's uncontacted tribes remains desperate. Their lands are being invaded with and without consent of the government and as long as this continues the prospect of contact between them and outsiders remains a very real one. Contact could either lead to violent conflict, or an epidemic in which a large percentage of the tribe is likely to die.

In accordance with international law, the government should immediately recognise the uncontacted tribes as the rightful owners of their land and prohibit any form of natural resource extraction there. It should also prohibit any other form of activity on their land, remove any outsiders who have invaded, and take measures to ensure that no other outsiders can enter in the future.

This is not a question of 'preserving' or 'freezing' Peru's uncontacted tribes. Rather, it is a question of giving them the time and space to make their own decisions about how they want to live their lives or what they want to happen on their land, instead of having those decisions made for them by the government, oil and gas companies, or others. One of the things that is clear from all the existing evidence of these tribes is that they do not want contact: on the very rare occasions when they are seen or encountered in the rainforest, they retreat or act aggressively.

We urge the members of CERD to raise these issues with the government of Peru and ask for a concerted effort to recognise the uncontacted tribes' rights and protect their territory. If this does not happen, Peru's uncontacted tribes may well be some of the first people to be made extinct in the 21st century.

Peru theoretically faces a hearing before CERD on the matter of its treatment of the tribes, and has promised to submit a report by the end of the year. That promised report is already ten years overdue.

§ Samling for forty years and counting of ravaging the rainforest of Sarawak, where the Penan people are experiencing the fastest rate of deforestation in the world and with it the loss of the great biodiversity that formerly sustained them.

Most of these former nomads are now settled, and reduced to poverty. The video at right includes a brief description of some of the Penan resistance effort.

Samling has a lengthy record of lies, subterfuge, and going back on its word. But wealth on the Samling scale means never having to say you're sorry.

Here's Samling bragging about its latest acquisition, a Chinese flooring company.

Samling Global Limited aims to open up to 1,000 Elegant Living flooring distributor outlets throughout China by 2010.

Elegant Living is a well-established brand for engineered wood flooring in China, with a network of approximately 340 distributor outlets in China and an annual flooring production capacity of approximately 4.5 million square metres ("m²"), equivalent to more than 60,000 residential units with a typical build-up of 800 square feet per unit. Its product range includes engineered wood flooring, solid wood flooring and laminate flooring.

Lovely hardwood flooring from Sarawak, the last of its kind.

Letter to the Chief Minister of Sarawak

Plans are well underway to drown much of the Penan territory behind hydroelectric dams once logging is complete. Some of those plans recently surfaced by accident.

_________________________

As always, a lot of fine talk from the UN:

UN rights officials call on countries to back declaration on indigenous peoples

In a separate statement, Mr. Anaya expressed his concern at reports of arbitrary displacement and other abuses suffered by members of the Charco la Pava community, which is part of the Ngöbe indigenous community in Bocas del Toro Province in Panama, where the construction of a hydroelectric project, called CHAN 75, is taking place.

This is especially rich. The UN could start by pulling the plug on its own Clean Development Mechanism - the UN version of the Healthy Forests Initiative in the US, a "subsidy stream for environmentally destructive projects" as CarbonTradeWatch calls it - which has financed any number of infamous projects destructive of indigenous life and culture, from the Plantar monstrosity in Minas Gerais up to, quite possibly including, CHAN 75 itself.

Ana Castillo, below, could surely sympathize with the Penan, the Dongria Kondh, and the uncontacted tribes of Peru, none of whom know that tomorrow is their big day. How would they?

Full post as published by Never In Our Names on August 08, 2008 (boomark / email).