Introduction One Setting the Stage
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Notes Introduction 1. For further reference, see, for example, MacKay 2002. 2. See also Engle 2010 for this discussion. 3. I owe thanks to Naomi Kipuri, herself an indigenous Maasai, for having told me of this experience. 4. In the sense as this process was first described and analyzed by Fredrik Barth (1969). 5. An in-depth and updated overview of the state of affairs is given by other sources, such as the annual IWGIA publication, The Indigenous World. 6. The phrase refers to a 1972 cross-country protest by the Indians. 7. Refers to the Act that extinguished Native land claims in almost all of Alaska in exchange for about one-ninth of the state’s land plus US$962.5 million in compensation. 8. Refers to the court case in which, in 1992, the Australian High Court for the first time recognized Native title. 9. Refers to the Berger Inquiry that followed the proposed building of a pipeline from the Beaufort Sea down the Mackenzie Valley in Canada. 10. Settler countries are those that were colonized by European farmers who took over the land belonging to the aboriginal populations and where the settlers and their descendents became the majority of the population. 11. See for example Béteille 1998 and Kuper 2003. 12. I follow the distinction as clarified by Jenkins when he writes that “a group is a collectivity which is meaningful to its members, of which they are aware, while a category is a collectivity that is defined according to criteria formu- lated by the sociologist or anthropologist” (2008, 56). One Setting the Stage 1. Eleven anthropologists participating in a “Symposium on Inter-Ethnic Conflict in South America” in Barbados in January 1971 analyzed the critical situation of the Indians and urged religious missions, social scientists, and states to take action as formulated in a statement that came to be known as the Declaration of Barbados (World Council of Churches 1971). 2. Later changing its name to the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. 244 / Notes 3. This was the title of a book published by John Bodley in 1982. 4. The Alaska Native Brotherhood was founded in 1912 by Tsimshian, and Tlingits worked for the abandonment of “uncivilized” customs that were an obstacle to achieving citizenship. After some years, the Alaska Native Sisterhood was also established and proliferated in southeastern Alaska (Arnold 1976). 5. In 2006, it changed its name to the Inuit Circumpolar Council. 6. Detailed accounts of this meeting are contained in Kleivan, I. 1992 and Dahl 2009. 7. For a detailed account of this process and George Manuel’s role, see Dahl 2009. 8. For more detailed information about the founding of the WCIP, see Sanders 1977 and Dahl 2009. 9. Personal information from participants. 10. I recall that the existence of this mutual skepticism was mentioned to me by Helge Kleivan back in 1975 after he had returned from the meeting. 11. Personal information from one of the participants in the meeting, Nilo Cayuqeo. See also Akwesasne Notes vol. 9, no. 5, 1977, and Dunbar-Ortiz 1985. 12. According to information given to Helge Kleivan (letter from Helge Kleivan dat. 28. February 1974). Helge Kleivan’s archive in the Danish National Archive. 13. See also Akwesasne Notes vol. 9, no. 5, December 1977. 14. See, for example Dunbar-Ortiz 2006, 69, and the editorial (“How It Is with Us”) in Akwesasne Notes p. 25, vol. 9, no. 5, 1977. 15. Various documents in Helge Kleivan’s archive (Danish National Archive) and Nilo Cariqueo personal communication. 16. These processes are thoroughly dealt with in Dahl 2009. 17. Source: IWGIA Newsletter 25/26, 1981. 18. IWGIA Newsletter 28/29, 1981. 19. “Draft Declarations of Principles for the Defence of the Indigenous Nations and Peoples of the Western Hemisphere.” 20. Coates is of the opinion that it was the change in the international standing on human rights that had changed and that “while it has been common- place to explain the rise of the indigenous rights movements in the context of aboriginal organizations and national politics, that emphasis is misplaced” (2004, 231) but he seems not to distinguish between aboriginal and indig- enous movements. 21. Reprinted in Akwesasne Notes vol. 6, no. 3, 1974. 22. Quotations from the video “Indian Summer in Geneva” by Ziegler and Birraux. Two The United Nations as a Platform 1. Excerpt from statement to the Permanent Forum, 2007. 2. The five regions are: the African Group, the Asian Group, the Eastern European Group, the Latin American and Caribbean Group, and the Group Notes / 245 of Western Europe and Others (the Western countries). This division is still in operation today. 3. Cited in Tauli-Corpuz (1999, 8) from a book by Sarah Pritchard: Indigenous Peoples, United Nations and Human Rights (1998, 62–64), Zed book. 4. The International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) claims on its homepage to be the first indigenous organization to have obtained consultative status but this did not happen until three years later. 5. Information about the dates for NGO accreditation is available in United Nations document E/2009/INF/4. 6. These events are also reported in Gray 1992. 7. See also Hodgson 2002a. 8. Originally named Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous Peoples. 9. Its official name was “Working group to elaborate a draft declaration in accordance with paragraph 5 of General Assembly resolution 49/214 of 23 December 1994”. With this name, governments did not need to take a stance on the concept of “indigenous peoples”. 10. From “Report on the 1985 Session of the U.N: Working Group on Indigenous Populations, July 29–August 2, and on the Indigenous Peoples” Pre-Working Group Meeting, July 22–July 26, 1985, by Indian Law Resource Center and reprinted in Akwesasne Notes vol. 17, no. 5, February 1985. 11. The persons were: Ron Andrade, Howard Berman, Clem Cartier, John Clinebell, Jeanette Hantke, Leroy Little Bear, Sharon O’Brien, Douglas Sanders, David Weissbrodt, Armstrong Wiggins, Curtis Berkey, Joseph Ryan, Steven Tullberg, and Robert T. Coulter. (Memorandum from Indian Law Resource Center, July 13, 1982). According to Coulter it was as early as 1976 that he, together with Six Nations, produced draft principles for a declaration (Coulter 2010). 12. Printed in Daes 2009. 13. Printed in Daes 2009. 14. For these early steps in the Declaration process, see the IWGIA Yearbooks and The Indigenous World. 15. United Nations document E/CN.4/Sub.2/1988/25. 16. The process by which the chair elaborated his own final draft is analyzed by Åhrén 2007 and Deer 2010. 17. Comments on the First Revised Text of the draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as adopted July, 28, 1989 by the Indigenous Peoples’ Preparatory Meeting. Caucus paper. 18. Among the first indigenous organizations to be prepared to consider changes to the text were ICC, the Sámi Council, Indian Law Resource Center, and the Aboriginal organizations from Australia (Prichard 2001; Åhrén 2007). 19. The group was led by the International Indian Treaty Council and some North American Indian organisations. 20. Those who took part in the Indigenous Global Steering Committee were Dalee Sambo and Mattias Åhrén (Arctic), Raja Devashish Roy, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and Joan Carling (Asia), Hector Huertas, Azelene Kaingang, and José Carlos Morales (Latin America and the Caribbean), Andrea Carmen and Chief Ed John (North America), Les Malezer (chair) and Mililani Kay 246 / Notes Trask (Pacific), Mikael Todyshev (Russia and Eastern Europe), and Saodata Aboubacrine and Hassan Idbalkassm Africa). 21. Author’s notes from these meetings. 22. For a thorough report and analysis of the Declaration process, see Åhrén 2007. 23. For a detailed account of these processes, see Dahl 2009. 24. It seems as if the discussion will never disappear. At the Permanent Forum meeting in 2011, the issue was raised again by the then former member of the Permanent Forum, Willie (Wilton) Littlechild, who would have “peoples” inserted instead of “issues” as an act of reconciliation. 25. For more detailed information about the process and the establishment of the Permanent Forum, see Dahl 2009 García-Alix 1999a, 1999b, and 2003. 26. For factual information about the Permanent Forum, see www.un.org/esa/ socdev/unpfii. 27. In support of local indigenous organizations, the issue was raised by the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) and the International Land Coalition (ILC). 28. Excerpt from the transcription of the oral presentation of the statement of the Honourable Iqbal Ahmed, First Secretary, Bangladesh Mission to United Nations. 29. http://www.unog.ch/unog/website/news_media. 30. Tennant (1994) thus talks about the “ILO Period from 1945–1958” due to the dominance of the ILO during these years. 31. The Fund was founded by IWGIA, Anti-Slavery International, Gesellschaft für Bedrohte Völker, KWIA (Belgium), and NCIV (The Netherlands). Gesellschaft withdrew in 2007 but the Spanish NGO, Almáciga is now included. For the role of this Fund, see Dahl 2009 and Cohen 1993. 32. www.ohchr.org. 33. The name was originally “Special Rapporteur on the Situation of the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous People.” 34. The members were John Bernhard Henriksen (Norway), Jannie Lasimbang (Malaysia), José Carlos Morales (Costa Rica), José Molintas (the Philippines), and Caterine Odimba Kome (Congo). The current (December 2011) mem- bers are Vital Bambanze (Burundi), Anastasia Chukhman (Russia), Jannie Lasimbang (Malaysia), Wilton Littlechild (Canada), and José Carlos Morales (Costa Rica). 35. The intricacies of these meetings have also been dealt with in Gray 1992. 36. As Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Commissioner, Michael Dodson was one of the people behind the “Bringing Them Home Report” from 1997, which brought the issue into the public eye.