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A Decade of Rhetoric for Indigenous Peoples

Gerald Taiaiake Alfred and Jeff Corntassel
Few people may realize that we are living in the United Nations' International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (1995-2004). As with other UN designated Decades - Women (1976-1985) and the Eradication of Colonialism (1990-2000) - the goal stated at the outset of the Indigenous Decade was ambitious: to strengthen international cooperation for the solution of problems faced by Indigenous peoples in the areas of human rights, culture, the environment, development, education and health.

As the Decade comes to a close this year, it is apparent that the Decade has been remarkable only in the emptiness of the UN's rhetoric and in how so little has been done by states and international organizations to bring practical effect to their lofty rhetorical concern for Indigenous peoples.

The most pressing goal for Indigenous peoples during the Decade has been the revision of the UN draft Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, for eventual ratification by the General Assembly. However, since advancing to the Intercessional Working Group of the Commission of Human Rights in 1995, only two of the draft Declaration's forty-five articles have been approved. Mocking the UN's theme of "Partnership in Action" for the Indigenous Decade, it has been obstructionist behaviour, sometimes open but most often times covert, by state representatives in the Intercessional Working Group (especially the Canadian métis Wayne Lord, Canada's appointee to the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues) that has stalled important processes and blocked ratification of the draft Declaration.

Given that the Decade ends with the failure of efforts to see the draft Declaration ratified, it is a fair question to ask if any gains have been made in the pursuit of Indigenous self-determination through activism in global forums ever, much less over the past ten years.

Clearly, the Decade's objectives and goals have been undermined by the decision of states to withhold financing of its initiatives. Given the lack of financial and human resources provided by states during the Indigenous Decade, it is amazing that substantial programs have in fact been developed.
We must remember that long before the UN designated the rhetorical Indigenous Decade, and before the establishment of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1982, Indigenous peoples have been active and ever vigilant in protecting their ancestral homelands, and using whatever means necessary to ensure their security and survival, including engaging global forums. In April of 1923, Deskaheh, a Six Nations Cayuga, petitioned the UN's precursor organization, the League of Nations, through the good offices of the Government of the Netherlands:
We have exhausted every other recourse for gaining protection of our sovereignty by peaceful means before making this appeal to secure protection through the League of Nations. If this effort on our part shall fail we shall be compelled to resist by defensive action upon our part this British invasion of our Home-land, for we are determined to live the free people that we were born.

Then, as now, Indigenous peoples' efforts to achieve justice were rebuked by the international community. Deskaheh ultimately failed to gain the recognition and support of Haudenosaunee sovereignty from the members of the League of Nations. So if it has been impossible to gain the recognition of Indigenous national sovereignty in the past, and if states today refuse to accept a simple declaration of respect for the fundamental human rights of Indigenous peoples, what is the potential for accomplishing anything in regards to Indigenous people in the UN system?

In 1993, the UN Voluntary Fund for the Indigenous Decade was established to finance Indigenous activities and programs. However, no funding was available for Decade related activities until 1997. Very few states make regular contributions. Seventy percent of the overall contributions to the Voluntary Fund, amounting to a meager US$185,162 in 2003, are donated by only three countries: Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark. Shamefully, the United States has not contributed at all, and Canada's 2003 contribution of US$9,747 (for clarity, that is: nine thousand seven hundred and forty-seven American dollars) is ridiculously small in comparison to its rhetorical support for Indigenous rights.

Clearly, the Decade's objectives and goals have been undermined by the decision of states to withhold financing of its initiatives. Given the lack of financial and human resources provided by states during the Indigenous Decade, it is amazing that substantial programs have in fact been developed.

Indigenous peoples need to head in a different direction and begin the process of rearticulating Indigenous rights within global forums.
In 2000, a Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues was created by the Economic and Social Council. This is one of the most significant developments of the Decade. However, the Forum was compromised from the start. Even in terms of its name, states refused to approve a "Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples" (our emphasis) fearing that use of the word "peoples" would imply a recognition of Indigenous peoples' right of self-determination. As well, appointed Indigenous and government representatives attending the inaugural meeting of the Permanent Forum in New York stressed the view that it should function in support of research and policy-making in relation to Indigenous peoples and not as a site of "complaints" and political debate, and reference the long-running and contentious annual meetings of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva.

Couching as "complaints" the human rights abuses brought to the world's attention by Indigenous people at the Working Group and now the Permanent Forum, including genocide and torture, is an act of cowardice and obfuscation by the appointed representatives. To go further in suggesting that the Forum serve only state policy communities and ignore the opportunity the gatherings provide for promoting awareness of contention and conflicts over Indigenous peoples' rights is reprehensible.

As it stands, delegates attending the Permanent Forum have approximately three minutes to convey the needs of their communities within pre-determined topic headings such as "Health", "Environment," and, "Economic Development." Even as a permanent organ within the UN system, the Permanent Forum provides no formal recourse for Indigenous delegates to remedy human rights violations occurring within their communities. Given its severe limitations in addressing or acting on the blatant injustices and continuing genocide perpetrated against 370 million Indigenous peoples worldwide, structuring the Permanent Forum to function solely as an internal report writing and data-gathering agency for state policy circles is tantamount to an act of criminal negligence on the part of the UN.

Indigenous organizations and individual nations have continued to assert themselves during the Indigenous Decade by refusing to compromise their rights and sovereignty in the face of state pressures to do so, and there has been a proliferation of Indigenous declarations across a wide range of issues also attesting to their defiance and to the shortcomings of the Indigenous Decade in substantially addressing issues of importance. Unfortunately, given the rhetorical style, political context and non-binding legal status of these documents, they are ignored by states. Listed below are a few of the recent Indigenous declarations:

  • Indigenous Peoples Seattle Declaration (1999);
  • Baguio Declaration (1999);
  • Declaration of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change (2000);
  • Indigenous Peoples Millennium Conference statement (2001);
  • Declaration and Platform of Action on the occasion of the First Indigenous Women's Summit of the Americas (2002).


Similar to the efforts of Deskaheh over 80 years ago, the words of today's Indigenous leaders provide insight into their communities' needs for survival and self-determination. For example, one better understands the self-determination needs of some 30 Indigenous representatives from Asia based on their assertions in the Baguio Declaration of 1999:
The implementation of the right of self-determination is fundamental for the survival and achievement of human security for indigenous peoples, including, but not limited to, their cultures, values, languages, religions, economies, political and legal institutions, indigenous knowledge systems, way of life, ancestral territories, lands and resources.

Activities within other global forums do offer some promise. Recent rulings by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ... have given legal protection to Indigenous communities against continuing state and corporate encroachment on their lands.
This declaration - like most of the other Indigenous declarations emanating from activism in global forums - is a clearly stated and consensual statement of Indigenous political identity and objective. But the question is not whether Indigenous peoples are capable of stating their belief and position. The real important question centres on how Indigenous peoples can promote state accountability to high principle and to Indigenous peoples' rights within the UN system. Clearly, the activities undertaken thus far during the Indigenous Decade suggest that getting Indigenous issues on the UN agenda is not enough to ensure the protection of Indigenous peoples' human and political rights.

Activities within other global forums do offer some promise. Recent rulings by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, such as the 2001 case of The Mayagna (Sumo) Indigenous Community of Awas Tingni v. The Republic of Nicaragua, have given legal protection to Indigenous communities against continuing state and corporate encroachment on their lands. However, the enforcement of such decisions is inconsistent at best.

Ten countries have ratified the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 169 "Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries" during the Indigenous Decade. The political effect of these ratifications in promoting Indigenous rights is limited, though, because only 17 states in total have signed onto the Convention. As well, the substance of ILO 169 is a very weak statement on Indigenous rights: the phrase "self-determination" does not appear anywhere in its 44 articles, and Indigenous rights are cast not as international law but as existing within the legal authority the state governments, essentially making Indigenous self-determination a "domestic" issue for states to regulate:
The use of the term "peoples" in this Convention shall not be construed as having any implications as regards the rights which may attach to the term under international law.

Yet even the limited "paper rights" of ILO 169 and other international treaties have yet to be fully recognized and implemented.

This review of recent developments on Indigenous rights within the UN system leads us to conclude that Indigenous peoples need to head in a different direction and begin the process of rearticulating Indigenous rights within global forums. Our experience (and that of the many other people who have worked within the UN system for much longer than us) points to a few possible directions:

  • Shift towards engagement and activism in the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO). This would offer the potential to work outside the state-centric confines of the UN system. Founded in 1991, UNPO membership is comprised of 52 nations (not state governments as with the formal UN system) acting together to promote common goals of self-determination. In fact, the UNPO's steering committee confirms that individuals claiming to represent Indigenous peoples actually speak for, and truly represent, those communities.
  • Emulate the strategies of successful Indigenous nations. For example, the Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE), formed in 1986, represents 80% of the Indigenous population in Ecuador, and has been successful in decolonizing governmental structures in that region. In fact, CONAIE actually secured ownership of two million acres of their land from the Ecuadorian government after a 1992 uprising that exerted political and economic pressure that resulted in the ousting of Ecuador's Presidents in 1998 and 2001.
  • Give declarations real effect by using them as political instruments. Declarations must be made into more than rhetorical statements designed to advance a negotiating position in state-regulated processes. Indigenous declarations would have power if they were reflections of consensus and unity, rearticulated the meaning of Indigenous self-determination, and were starting points for practical assertions of movement to build a new relationship with the state.
  • Build unity among Indigenous peoples by reinvigorating the process of treaty-making among Indigenous among Indigenous nations.


These are just a few ideas that spring from a reflection on the paucity of progress towards our peoples' goals during the UN's Indigenous Decade. There are new challenges facing our peoples every day, including the spectre of state-supported biopiracy and other insidious forms of neo-colonialism manifest as attacks against our very being, our knowledge and even our DNA. As we move through to the end of the Indigenous Decade, the main lesson of the last ten years has been that if we hope to survive as Indigenous peoples we need to get beyond rhetoric of all forms and move toward the real assertion and defence of our land and our connections to the land. Paper rights cannot achieve self-determination nor can they promote state accountability to moral precepts and international law.

Until we resolve to do this, we will continue to voice our resistance to the state-centric system, just as our ancestors have so eloquently promoted Indigenous self-determination in the past, but like them we will continue to see our people abused, our rights denied, and our Indigenous existences slip away from us.

Jeff Corntassel is Graduate Advisor for the Indigenous Governance Program (IGOV) at the University of Victoria (Canada). Gerald Taiaiake Alfred chairs IGOV and is Indigenous Peoples Research Chair in the Faculty of Human and Social Development.