Justice, law, economics in Latin American Indigenous Communities

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Q&A: Indigenous Rights Appeals Increasingly Reach Inter-American System

SANTIAGO, Oct 8 (IPS) - Standards relating to indigenous peoples' rights, laid down by the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights, are increasingly being incorporated into the laws of countries in the region, according to Víctor Abramovich, First Vice President of the Commission.

In 2006, the prominent Argentine lawyer was elected to a four-year term as First Vice President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which forms part of the Organisation of American States (OAS) and is one of the two bodies in the system for promotion and protection of human rights in the Americas.

He is also Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples for the Washington-based IACHR.

In this capacity, Abramovich was invited to a seminar in Santiago devoted to the implementation of the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, which entered into force in Chile on Sept. 15.

IPS: You have said that the indigenous peoples of the region are increasingly active users of the inter-American system for the protection of human rights. What are the most common problems that lead them to resort to this system?

VICTOR ABRAMOVICH: Recently these problems have basically involved the recognition of communally-owned indigenous property, matters related to investment or development projects that directly or indirectly affect indigenous communities, and the scope of the right to prior consultation.

They also have to do with the right to political participation, electoral participation by indigenous political parties or organisations, and situations of violence that affect the communities, such as cases of forced displacement in the context of armed internal conflicts, and death threats against, or killings of, indigenous leaders.

These matters come under the Commission's competence to issue precautionary measures, or the Court's competence to grant provisional measures, which are protective measures to prevent irreparable harm. MORE

CHILE: Indigenous Protests on Several Fronts

SANTIAGO, Oct 7 (IPS) - The tense relations between the Chilean government of Michelle Bachelet and the country's large indigenous minority are far from easing up.

While the conflict between Mapuche Indians and the police in the south is escalating, members of the Atacama community in the north are protesting a geothermal energy project, and Mapuche leaders have filed an injunction against the president and a government minister.

Mapuche – the main Amerindian group in the country, numbering around one million people in a total population of over 16 million – communities launched a new wave of land occupations in late July aimed at recovering their ancestral territory in the southern region of Araucanía.

The Mapuche Territorial Alliance's protest demonstrations and occupations of privately owned land that the indigenous communities claim as their own have led to new clashes with the Carabineros (militarised police).

While the centre-left Coalition for Democracy, which has governed the country since 1990, says that more than 650,000 hectares of land have been transferred to indigenous communities since 1994 - 35 percent since Bachelet took office in 2006 - the native activists complain about a slow response to their demands.

On Sunday, the Alliance denounced that seven Mapuche youths and two children, who were not involved in the protests, were injured by buckshot fired by the Carabineros. One young passerby, Pablo Catrillanca, was hospitalised after being hit by buckshot and is at risk of losing the sight in one of his eyes. MORE

farming

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BRAZIL: Innovative Small Farmers Set to Redefine Development

RÍO DE JANEIRO, Jun 8 (IPS) - While their protest marches and occupations of government and business offices recall the struggles of landless campesinos, this group of Brazilian farmers are drawing attention to a distinct facet of agrarian reform. These workers have mobilised to hold onto the land they own and build a more just and environmentally sound society.

The Small Farmers Movement (MPA) has incorporated many new organisational ways of fighting economic and social injustice.

The activists stepped up their protests this year, "with very positive results," Aurio Scherer, an MPA coordinator, based in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, told IPS.

Following the most recent protests, held May 23 and 24, the government granted payment deferrals for investment loans and reduced debts taken on to pay for production expenses. Weather problems and falling prices have triggered several bankruptcies, and Minister of Agrarian Development Guilherme Cassel has acknowledged that there is a farm price crisis.

Another "major step forward" was, according to Scherer, the government's promise to make the temporary social security provisions for rural communities a permanent law, consolidating one of Brazil's main income-redistribution policies, by allowing campesinos to retire at the age of 60 for men and 55 for women and draw a pension equivalent to the minimum wage of 155 dollars a month. MORE

ENVIRONMENT: Back to Traditional Farming to Beat Climate Change

PENANG, Malaysia, Oct 9 (IPS/IFEJ) - When organisers of an international conference on climate change and the food crisis first scheduled the event here for late September, little did they realise the event would be sandwiched by two typhoons buffeting the region. Ironically, the first typhoon, ‘Ketsana’, delayed the arrival of conference delegates from the Philippines.

A week after Ketsana struck the Philippines on Sep. 26 and then Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, it was the turn of Typhoon Parma to wreak havoc in the Philippines on Oct. 3. Now downgraded to a tropical storm, ‘Parma’ is still lingering over the region and initially entangled with another Pacific super typhoon, ‘Melor’, which then headed towards Japan.

Ketsana left a devastating trail after it dumped the equivalent of one month's rainfall over Manila within six hours. Although Parma largely spared the country, it flooded large tracts of rice fields in northern Philippines and destroyed crops ready for harvest.

The typhoons in the region brought into sharp relief the issue of climate change as farmers struggle to cope with changing weather patterns. It is not just the sudden storms and heavy rainfalls that are disrupting farming but also the blurring of the seasons. MORE

US to Palestine: Ignore all those icky dead ppl, Palestinians to Abbas: Oh really?

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So earlier this month:
Diplomats pressure Palestinian Authority not to back UN report conclding that War Crimes were committed in Gaza

GENEVA – The Palestinian Authority, under heavy pressure from the United States, has withdrawn its support for a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution on alleged war crimes in Gaza, diplomats said Thursday.

The resolution endorses a U.N. report that claims both Israel and Palestinian militant groups committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during their Dec. 27-Jan. 18 conflict.

Palestinian officials earlier this week welcomed the report when it was presented to the Geneva-based rights council, while Israel and the United States have strongly rejected the findings.

U.N. and European diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with reporters, said the Palestinian delegation's surprise turnaround means any resolution on the report would likely be delayed until next March.

Although the Palestinians aren't voting members of the 47-nation rights council, Arab and Muslim countries who control the body may be reluctant to press ahead with the resolution Friday without Palestinian support.

A senior U.S. official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Palestinian decision came after "intense diplomacy" by Washington to convince the Palestinian leadership that going ahead with the resolution would harm the Middle East peace process.

( Read more... )

This did not play too well back home.
Palestinians U-turn on Gaza report

The Palestinian Authority appears to be attempting an about turn on endorsing the Goldstone report that criticises Israel's conduct in its war on Gaza.
The Palestinian representative to the United Nations in Geneva said he was in talks to convene an emergency session of the world body's human rights council to discuss the report.
Ibrahim Khreisheh's announcement on Thursday comes a day after the UN Security Council rejected Libya's request for an emergency session on the report.
Published at the end of September, the UN-sanctioned report by Richard Goldstone, a former South African judge, identifies war crimes committed during Israel's war on Gaza between last December and January.

The move by Khreisheh comes after Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, was strongly condemned for his perceived role in delaying a vote at the UN Human Rights Council last week on whether to endorse the findings of the report.
Such a vote would have been one of many steps to bring Israel before a war crimes tribunal.
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