Rivers: Border Rights and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
Photo: Shannon Rivers speaks with Angie Ramon at the Border Roundtable/Photo Brenda Norrell.
Watch this presentation: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10935828

TUCSON -- Shannon Rivers, O’odham from the Gila River Indian Community, discussed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, during the Southern Border Indigenous Peoples Roundtable Symposium.

“As of today, the United States has not endorsed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples," said Rivers, who serves as Global Indigenous Peoples Caucus Co-chair on the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Rivers pointed out that the US is now the only country in the world failing to act on the Declaration. The border panel, sponsored by the Indigenous Alliance without Borders on Nov. 18, is now available on the web at Earthcycles and Censored News.

Speaking on Indigenous Peoples border rights, Rivers pointed out that Article 36 of the UN Declaration states: “Indigenous peoples, in particular those divided by international borders, have the right to maintain and develop contacts, relations and cooperation, including activities for spiritual, cultural, political, economic and social purposes, with their own members as well as other peoples across borders.”

In 2007, the United Nations adopted the Declaration. However, four countries did not: the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. New Zealand and Australia later moved to adopt the Declaration. Although Canada endorsed the Declaration in November, it was a provisional endorsement.

Rather than adopt the Declaration, Canada endorsed it. Rivers said Canada maintains that it has jurisdiction over Indigenous Peoples and they are subject to the laws of Canada.

“That brings into question the right of self determination, the rights of economic development, the rights of trade, right of free trade and the right of free and prior consent," Rivers said of Canada's conditional endorsement.

The US is currently reviewing the Declaration. Currently at issue is whether the United States and Canada will continue to dictate to Indigenous Nations, he said.

“The Declaration is a non-legal binding document. What that means is it has no legal teeth,” Rivers said. He said there are many policies, such as the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and others, that American Indians still are struggling to have the United States act upon and enforce.

Although NAGPRA was established, Native people still have funeral and sacred items, items of spiritual and cultural significance, that have not been returned. He said museums around the world took items from Indigenous communities and medicine people, at a time when no laws were in place to prevent this vandalism and theft.

“We need those items returned,” Rivers said.

Native Americans know the return of these items can bring about healing and assist people who are suffering because of the loss of these items. The return of human remains, and proper burial, is high on the priority of Indigenous Peoples.

Because NAGPRA has not been fully enforced, Native people have suffered.

Rivers said what is at stake is self-determination, cultural issues, economic development and border issues. Since 9/11, various laws have been created that waive tribal, state and federal laws, including laws to erect a wall that not only impacts Indigenous Peoples, but the environment.

The border wall impacts traditional ceremonies, because traditional people gather plants in the region for traditional ceremonies.

During the panel presentation, Rivers pointed out that Native people are asked to make cultural gestures, even "bless" fast food restaurants, but are not invited to the table by policy makers. Rivers said Indigenous Peoples are asked to "bless" fast food places such as MacDonalds which engage in practices that violate the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

"Too often Indigenous Peoples are sought out to conduct cultural gestures: Blessings of restaurants and casinos and photo ops at state, county and national events. But when it comes to making real changes and true and frank discussions about serious issues, Indigenous Peoples are rarely invited to the table," he said.

Rivers urged Indian people to halt the cultural gestures, which continue colonization and genocide.

Meanwhile, in Canada, the government released this statement when it endorsed the Declaration, minimizing the impact of the Declaration:
"The Declaration is an aspirational document which speaks to the individual and collective rights of Indigenous peoples, taking into account their specific cultural, social and economic circumstances. Although the Declaration is a non-legally binding document that does not reflect customary international law nor change Canadian laws, our endorsement gives us the opportunity to reiterate our commitment to continue working in partnership with Aboriginal peoples in creating a better Canada."

Rivers pointed out that Border rights are among those stated in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Article 36
1. Indigenous peoples, in particular those divided by international borders, have the right to maintain and develop contacts, relations and cooperation, including activities for spiritual, cultural, political, economic and social purposes, with their own members as well as other peoples across borders.
2. States, in consultation and cooperation with indigenous peoples, shall take effective measures to facilitate the exercise and ensure the implementation of this right.
Read more:
UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/drip.html
Indigenous Border Roundtable Panel reveals racism in Arizona, violations of Native rights
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2010/11/live-now-southern-border-indigenous.html
Also watch: Tohono O'odham Angie Ramon 'My son was killed by the US Border Patrol'
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2010/11/tohono-oodham-angie-ramon-my-son-was.html

Zapatistas: In the Language of Love

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Photo: Maria Garcia cooking for Marcos and the Comandantes in Sonora, near the Arizona border. Photo Brenda Norrell

It is popular now for writers to try and explain the Zapatistas with intellectual rhetoric. But when we rode with the Zapatistas, it was in the language of love, it was in the spirit of resistance, and we were all prepared to die.

When the Zapatistas spoke of autonomous governments and dignity, it came from the depth of their beings, from the wellsprings of their souls, from the earth mother within them. Mayan corn farmers, with only their little plots of corn as a means of survival, were being driven off their lands by corporations and paramilitaries. Fighting for their land meant the survival of their families.

In our journeys from the Tucson barrio to Chiapas, spanning more than a decade, Maria Garcia ignited hearts with the understanding of the true spirit of the Zapatistas movement. It was this love of the Indigenous Peoples, this passion for the struggle for autonomy and justice, that drove us forward.

Not everyone could see, not everyone had two legs and not everyone could understand the languages and dialects, but always there was the unspoken language of love. Far beyond rhetoric, it was this love that has always powered the movement.

On the Zapatista caravan through Mexico, sitting next to me was Miguel, from Nogales. Without the gift of physical sight, he brought a special spirit, a special grace. We described to him the colors of Mexico, the colors of the flowers in the fields where the revolutionary Zapata once lived. It was on the Zapatista caravan, that the Nahuatl warrior from Guerrero came aboard our bus. With one leg, he hopped aboard, and rushed forward, serving as security. At home, he said, there was no food in the villages. He was lean, too lean, and about 20 years old. Others came, too, leaning on their canes, or with walkers. Still others came nursing their newborns, or mourning the loss of their loved ones killed by the paramilitaries.

A few years ago, Jose Garcia, Tohono O'odham, and his wife Maria, and I traveled to the Zapatistas stronghold near the Guatemalan border in Chiapas. With us were Mayo community leaders from the west coast of Mexico in Sinoloa. A huge Zapatista flag waved on a car at the entrance to their village, where most of the Mayo people survived by collecting firewood or herding their goats. Their village vowed to be the first autonomous Zapatista village in the western region of Mexico. After our trip, the two Mayos and their families were beaten by Mexican officers. The Mayo leaders were imprisoned.

In this sadness, in this intense struggle since the early 1990s, there was also humor. Walking through San Cristobal de las Casas with Hopi photographer Larry Gus, there was a stout looking 50-something-year-old US CIA agent type, with a shaved head. As he rushed past, the man snarled at us, "F---ing Navajos."

Another favorite story from that time was when I was lost on a mountain in Zapatista territory, with a Mexican military helicopter hovering overhead. It was at a time when the Zapatistas were being assassinated near Oventic and we were there as human rights observers, as human shields.

Maria remembers that it was her chiles that saved me as I came down the mountain. The bright red chiles had fallen, one by one, from the lunch bag all the way on the mountain trail. I followed the chiles back down, on the foot trails down the mountain. Unfortunately at the top of the mountain, none of the lunch was saved, as a horse ate the lunch bag hanging on a tree.

That was in 1995, when Jose, Maria and Larry were on the Indigenous delegation to Chiapas, along with Dakota, Tohono O'odham and Yaqui. We looked down the barrels of the Mexican military's AK47s, wore handkerchiefs over our faces in solidarity with Mayan corn farmers in the mountains, and stood in solidarity with the women and children who face death each day.

Since that time, Jose Matus, Yaqui ceremonial leader who was a member of the delegation, cofounded the Indigenous Alliance without Borders. Mike Flores, Tohono O'odham, organized the Indigenous Border Summits of the Americas in 2006 and 2007. Their words have been their weapons.

Jose Garcia, Tohono O'odham, and his wife Maria, have kept alive the language of love. They lost ownership of the home where they lived in the barrio in Tucson for 30 years, where they now live as renters. But from that barrio in Arizona, stretching through the heart of Mexico, they carved out a home for all of us, in the language of love.

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