Chile has a new President. The billionaire Sebastián Piñera was elected recently.
The outgoing President, Michelle Bachelet, has overseen a real shift in the future of indigenous peoples’ rights in Chile.
Under her government, the country became only the 20th to commit to the international law for tribal peoples, ILO Convention 169, in 2008 and late last year the country’s Supreme Court applied that law for the first time, protecting an indigenous group’s right to water.
Chile’s Supreme Court was asked to decide if a water bottling company could divert water from a river source historically used by indigenous communities in the Andean foothills of northern Chile.
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We cried, we sang, I can’t describe it…this is history, an enormous precedent to ensure that water is not taken away from other communities.Luis Carvajal of the Aymara communities whose water was protected
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The Court decided that the communities must be guaranteed a steady flow of water from the river, in accordance with their rights to resources recognized in Convention 169.
This major victory is an example to all countries on how to apply Convention 169 in practice, making a tangible difference to the lives and security of indigenous people.
ILO Convention 169 on indigenous and tribal peoples protects in law the rights of indigenous peoples to control their own lives, on their own lands. Chile signed up to the law in 2008, and it took full effect in September 2009.
The incoming President Piñera has the opportunity to usher in a new era for indigenous rights in Chile. We will have to wait and see if he does.
Crude is a new movie , just out in the UK, looking at the legal struggle over what’s been dubbed the ‘Amazon’s Chernobyl’ in Ecuador.
It tracks the dramatic case of Texaco’s ongoing battle to avoid payment for the cleanup of oil contamination of an area compared in size to the US state of Rhode Island.
The disaster is said to have enormously increased cancer, leukemia, birth defects and a multiplicity of other health ailments amongst indigenous peoples in the region.
A new documentary investigating the lives of people living in a region of India dominated by the British company, Vedanta Resources, will be aired next week in the UK.
Cowboys in India is a Simon Chambers' documentary on questionable corporate activity.
The programme follows filmmaker Simon Chambers’ attempt to get to the bottom of what is really happening in Orissa, India, where Vedanta has built a large plant for processing aluminium ore.
Along the way, Simon meets people who’ve seen how the region has changed, while his guides are harassed for taking him around.
Since the film was shot, in 2007, it has become even more difficult to film the area. Survival’s own researchers were repeatedly harassed by thugs during a visit there in December 2009.
Vedanta’s refinery, shown in the Channel 4 documentary, is supposed to complement a mine planned on a sacred mountain of the Dongria Kondh tribe. Survival’s own short film, Mine, shows how the Dongria Kondh are prepared to defend their land and their way of life at any cost.
The documentary, Cowboys in India will show on the More4 channel on Tuesday 19 January at 10pm, and again at 2.25 am on Wednesday 20th January.
Bangladesh has made some moves towards ratification. State Minister Dipankar Talukder recently said ratification should be possible and expressed the government’s commitment to protecting the rights of indigenous people.
Others flatly reject the Convention. The UK says it won’t ratify it because there are no tribal peoples in the country.
But that hasn’t stopped the Netherlands from ratifying it, and the UK’s Joint Human Rights Committee recently acknowledged that British companies ‘frequently exert an enormous impact on indigenous peoples… and their activities escape effective regulation’.
ILO 169 is the only international law for tribal peoples, recognizing their rights to land ownership and to consultation about projects that affect them. It’s 20 years old, but only 20 countries have ratified it.
Governments should take the opportunity to make 2010 the start of a new decade of respect for indigenous rights. First on their list should be ratifying Convention 169.
Living alone, doubtless haunted by memories of his tribe’s massacre, he hides from outsiders on a patch of rainforest surrounded by cattle ranches. He grows basic crops and attempts to survive unnoticed.
Despite his past and his plight, the man’s existence in this segment of forest adds up to lost earnings for some local rancher, making the land, and the man, a target.
It’s not far-fetched to suppose that there is a price on his head, with thugs at large plotting to collect that fee. It’s the sort of scenario that other Brazilian tribesknowalltoowell.
And so it is that this quiet survivor of a wiped-out people teeters on the edge, as those around him with their eyes on his land move in with ruthless zeal.
The debate pokes fun at Monckton’s views on climate change and Gore’s proposals to stop it, but makes the serious point that indigenous people, despite having a ‘60,000 years track record in ecology’, have been left out of climate change negotiations.
‘At what stage will we consult that missing voice?’ Foster raps. ‘In April an indigenous summit met in Anchorage pledging knowledge to enable us to handle this [climate change]. We have technology, but lack philosophy. How’s 60,000 years track record in ecology? To give COP-15 any kind of relevance, shouldn’t we invite the world’s true environmentalists?’
One of Brazil’s most courageous and dedicated indigenous leaders, he campaigned for 30 years for the successful recognition of Raposa-Serra do Sol, the Land of the Fox and Hill of the Sun, home to the Makuxi and other tribes.
Despite meeting popes and presidents and travelling the world advocating for his people’s rights, Jacir has always remained deeply rooted in the land and especially his community, Maturuca which sits high in the mountains near the Guyanese border.
It was here he developed his vision for the future based on strengthening indigenous identity, organisation and economic self-sufficiency.
Survival has worked with Jacir and the Indigenous Council of Roraima, which he founded, for many years.
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At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realise I am fighting for humanity. Chico Mendes
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The prize is named in honour of Chico Mendes, the rubber tapper who organised protests to stop the destruction of the Amazon for cattle ranches.
Mendes lobbied for the creation of ‘extractive reserves’ where rubber tappers could harvest rubber trees and make a living without harming the forest.
Testament to his legacy are the many sustainable reserves in the Amazon today. He was brutally gunned down outside his house almost 21 years ago.
Peru’s President Garcia has just announced the discovery of oil in the north of the country. According to Garcia, the discovery was made by Canadian oil company Talisman, working in an area called, in oil-speak, Lot 64.
‘God has heard Peru’s need and Talisman has found light oil that can be mixed with heavy oil in the lots run by Perenco and Repsol between 100 and 200 kilometres away,’ Garcia said.
In other words, this new discovery will make it easier to exploit oil already discovered elsewhere.
But the regions where both Perenco and Repsol-YPF are working include territory inhabited by at least two uncontacted tribes. The companies’ presence there could be fatal for the tribes and violates their rights under international law.
Perenco, recently nominated for a spoof Friends of the Earth award, doesn’t believe the tribes exist. So too Garcia. Other than killing people, can you imagine a more effective way of denying them their rights?
Garcia is determined that Perenco’s work should go ahead – so determined that he is prepared to claim God is backing Perenco too.
Last week we received news of the sad loss of Ururú Akuntsu. She was one of the last remaining members of the Akuntsu tribe who live in a small reserve in Rondônia state, western Brazil. There are now just five of them.
They have suffered as their forest home, friends and families were massacred over many years by ruthless ranchers in pursuit of land. Today they live in a territory recognised by the government and protected by FUNAI (government indigenous affairs department).
Altair Algayer, head of the nearby FUNAI outpost, remembers Ururú.
His brief recollections conjure the image of an astounding woman who had endured the worst that humanity can give, whilst retaining a gentle, warming spirit.
We know little of what Ururú’s life was like. We know that in the last 14 years that we have been with her that she was a happy, spontaneous person, a friend who was always attentive and receptive to our presence. She was a person admired by the whole group.
From what Konibú, Ururú’s brother has told us, she recounts that she had four children who were all shot dead during the massacre. We don’t know who her husband was or how he died. Afterwards when they were spotted in the forest they were persecuted like animals.
Their gardens were constantly destroyed and they had to move place every year. Their gardens were located by the ranchers in their airplanes and afterwards people went there on foot to destroy them. The Akuntsu lived by hiding; even so they resisted and didn’t leave their territory.
Their reaction at first contact with us (FUNAI) was to make signs that we should go away, and very slowly Ururú walked away from us, off into the forest. She didn’t react by running away, probably because of her physical condition. She was already of a certain age and not like a young person. But that was only in the first moment of contact.
Contact in some ways brought various problems for the Akuntsu and they will still face many in the future. But today they have more tranquility and fewer worries. No longer do they have to hide.
They can grow their gardens where they like without worrying about the ‘parabia’ or white man. Whenever they have a health problem they always come to our post for treatment. They show little interest for the material goods of the whiteman beyond our post or their indigenous territory.
