The Formation of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples by Douglas Sanders, April 1980
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DOCUMENT: WCIPINFO.TXT
W O R L D C O U N C I L O F
I N D I G E N O U S P E O P L E S
WCIP-Secretariat
Suite B-844
University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge, Alberta
Canada T1K 3M4
Tel: (403) 327-7255
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON
THE WORLD COUNCIL OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
APRIL 1980
THE FORMATION OF THE WORLD COUNCIL OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
Douglas Sanders,
Professor of Law,
University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada.
Colonialism is an international activity and the
foundations of international law were developed in the
period of western European colonial expansion. Yet, once
European sovereignty had been established over various parts
of the world, each European colonial power regarded the
affairs of the colonized area as "domestic" and "internal".
This mean. that indigenous rights were to be governed solely
by the political and legal system of the particular colonial
power.
Colonialism was international for indigenous peoples in
two ways. Not only did it involve contact with European
nationals, but it grouped various indigenous nations within
new political boundaries Differing indigenous peoples were
put in a common situation vis-a-vis the new governments
established by colonialism. They learned that to act solely
on the basis of tribal groups was ineffective. Their efforts
would be dismissed as disunited. To effect change in this
new situation, alliances of indigenous peoples within the
new national boundaries promised to be more effective.
Western European colonialism claimed for itself a body
of legal and religious principles. Within European colonial
experience there were contradictions between theory and
practice. After exterminating the Indian populations of the
Caribbean islands, Spain commissioned Franciscus de Vittoria
to study the rights of the American Indians. Following his
report, protections to Indian life and property were written
into the Laws of the Indies and the Papal Bull, Sublimus
Deus. But the "black legend" of Spanish colonialism
continued, even after these principled changes.
The contradictions between theory and practice in
western European colonialism suggested to indigenous
populations that they could influence the European powers by
political and legal agitation. It was, at best, an uncertain
alternative to other forms of resistance. This type of
indigenous political activity began within particular
colonial systems. It expanded to the sphere of international
organizations when the League of Nations and the United
Nations were formed. In the last decade it has led to the
formation of an international organization, the World
Council of Indigenous Peoples, which has established a
formal relationship to the United Nations and is seeking to
have concepts of aboriginal rights accepted internationally
as basic economic and political rights of indigenous
peoples.
THE EARLY EXPERIMENTS
No single source has drawn together descriptions of the
various delegations which went to Europe seeking a hearing
in the metropolitan centre. We can note certain examples
within English colonialism.
New Zealand Maori delegations travelled to England to
meet with the Queen or King in 1882, 1884, 1914 and 1924.[1]
The first two delegations were both referred back to the New
Zealand government. The third delegation had an audience
with King George V. In 1924, T.W. Ratana, a Maori political
and religious figure, failed to get an audience with the
King and returned to New Zealand to say he had been treated
as a beggar.
In 1906 three important chiefs from British Columbia
went to England co meet King Edward VII. A second British
Columbia delegation visited the King in 1909 after an
attempt had been made to dispossess some Indians near Prince
Rupert. The Nishga tribe had a law firm in London, England,
draw up a petition, as a basis for a hearing before the
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England (a body
which served as the final court of appeal for the whole
British Empire). The petition was forwarded to the Canadian
government in 1913 and to English authorities in 1918.[2]
These attempts to make contact with the imperial
authorities with the hope of redress of grievances all had
the appearance of failure. Whether the King granted an
audience or not, the result was much the same. At best the
delegations were politely advised to return home and deal
with the local governments.
Yet the imperial authorities might intervene in native
policy questions if hostilities were threatened. The fear of
imperial intervention in New Zealand Maori politics has
been cited as a reason for the establishment of the four
Maori seats in the New Zealand Parliament in 1867 (during
the period of the land wars). In the 19th century English
politicians were pressured by the Anti-Slavery Society and
the Aborigines Protection Society on native policy
questions. The agitation led to a special Committee of the
English House of Commons on aborigines which reported in
1837. The English Colonial Secretary wrote to the officials
in the colony of Vancouver's Island in 1858 stating:
.... feelings of this country would be strongly opposed
to the adoption of any arbitrary or oppressive measures
towards (the native Indians).
Because of the sensitivity of native questions, the English
Imperial government retained formal control over that aspect
of colonial policy after it transferred most other matters
to local control.[3]
While the indigenous delegations to England inevitably
failed to attain their short term goals, they rightly saw
the more distant imperial authorities as potential allies in
their disputes with local settler populations. It was
possible to argue their case internationally (though within
a colonial empire).
With the establishment of the League of Nations it was
logical for indigenous peoples to explore the possibility of
League support for their grievances. Representatives of the
Iroquois Confederacy traveled to Geneva in the 1930's. They
succeeded in having a resolution introduced in the forum of
the League of Nations, but no debate or vote occurred. In
1924, after his unsuccessful attempt to meet King George in
England, T.W. Ratana sought help from the League of Nations
for the Maoris. On his return trip to New Zealand, he
stopped in Japan to witness the life of a coloured
independent nation.
CANADIAN INTERNATIONALISM
The model of New Zealand Maori policy has been raised
in Canada a number of times. Apparently it was first raised
b) Indian leaders as a successful example of special legal
status. Rev. Peter Kelly, a Haida Indian from the west coast
of Canada, referred to the special Maori seats in the New
Zealand and Parliament in his testimony before a special
Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons in Canada
in the late 1940's. In 1970 Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada
visited New Zealand and on his return to Canada praised New
Zealand policy to a national delegation of Canadian Indians
who were assembled to protest his government's policy
proposals. His Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chretien,
visited New Zealand and Australia the next year together
with George Manuel, President of the National Indian
Brotherhood, Len Marchand, an Indian member of the Canadian
Parliament, Bill Mussell, an Indian special assistant to the
Minister and other non-Indians. Early in 1972 a federal
government commissioner, appointed to investigate the
question of Canadian Indian land claims, visited both
Australia and New Zealand.
Canadians were re-examining native policy in a
comparative framework, though the frame of reference was
limited to the United States, Australia and New Zealand.
Canada was not a member of the Organization of American
States and did not participate actively in the Inter-
American Indian Institute. The Department of Indian Affairs
initiated a project on indigenous policies in Latin America,
but ended the work after an initial study on Mexico. The
work of further expanding the frame of reference fell to the
indigenous people themselves.
THE BACKGROUND OF GEORGE MANUEL
George Manuel wrote after his return from New Zealand
of the recognition of common experience with Maoris and
Australian Aborigines. He said:
I hope that the common history and shared values that
we discovered in each other are only the seeds from
which some kind of lasting framework can grow for a
common alliance of Native Peoples.[4]
The idea was already clear in his mind that an international
conference of indigenous peoples should be held.
George Manuel is a member of the Shushwap Tribe from
the interior of British Columbia. He had grown up in an area
with a strong tradition of Indian political activity. His
mentor was a dynamic Indian leader, Andrew Paull, the
founder and head of an organisation called the North
American Indian Brotherhood (NAIB). The NAIB attempted to be
national and even international. It's letterhead listed
leaders from various parts of Canada and a few from the
United States. While the primary political focus of the
organisation was regional, it aspired to a far wider
political role. In the 1950's the NAIB sent three British
Columbia Indians and a non-Indian lawyer to New York to make
representations to the United Nations. Like the other
historic delegations, they were advised to return to Canada
and work with the "domestic" legal and political framework
of "their" country.
George Manuel's political development took him through
the NAIB and into national Indian politics in Canada. He
served three terms as head of the National Indian
Brotherhood of Canada (1970-1976). He traveled to New
Zealand and Australia in 1971. In 1972 he was an adviser
with the Canadian delegation to the United Nations
conference on the environment in Stockholm. A leading
Stockholm newspaper arranged for him to visit the Sami areas
of northern Sweden, opening up new contact between
indigenous peoples. Following the Stockholm conference he
visited the International Labour Organisation and the World
Council of Churches in Geneva, the International Work Group
for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) in Copenhagen and Survival
International and the Anti-Slavery Society in London. In
Copenhagen he announced his plan for a world conference of
indigenous peoples, in a press conference attended by press
from Scandinavia and from some of the leading European
newspapers and press agencies. He attended the 10th
anniversary celebrations of Tanzania as an invited guest of
that nation. He initiated a working relationship with the
National Congress of American Indians in the United States
and began the planning work for an international conference.
He was committed to the principle that indigenous people
must themselves organize and control the conference. No non-
indigenous support group, no matter how well motivated,
would be the hosting or organizing body.
In August, 1972, the General Assembly of the National
Indian Brotherhood endorsed the idea of an international
conference of indigenous peoples and authorized the
'National Indian Brotherhood to apply for Non-Governmental
Organization (NGO) status at the United Nations.
The first preparatory meeting for the world conference
held in Georgetown, Guyana, April 8th to 11th, 1974.
Representatives from Australia, Canada, Columbia, Greenland
(Denmark), Guyana, New Zealand, Norway (representing Norway,
Finland and Sweden) and the United States attended the
conference. Funding came from Church groups, including the
World Council of Churches. The local arrangements were made
by the government of Guyana. The meeting faced the problem
of virtual instant agreement by the delegates to proceed
with the proposal of the National Indian Brotherhood to hold
the international conference. But the full four days of the
conference were spent usefully and enjoyably. A definition
of "indigenous people" was developed for the purpose of
delegate status at the proposed conference:
The term indigenous people refers to people living in
countries which have a population composed of differing
ethnic or racial groups who are descendants of the
earliest populations living in the area and who do not
as a group control the national government of the
countries within which they live.
This was both a social and political definition. It did not
focus on indigenous minorities, but on indigenous
populations who do not control their political destinies.
Many details of organization, selection of delegates,
accreditation of observers were decided upon and the
invitation of the National Indian Brotherhood to host the
initial conference in Canada was accepted. The Canadian
initiative had been so fundamental to the process that, in
reality, there could be no alternative proposal. The feeling
at the preparatory meeting was uniformly positive.
In May, 1974, the National Indian Brotherhood of Canada
was granted status as a Non-Governmental Organization by the
Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. NGO
status was granted on the basis that there was not yet in
existence an international organization of indigenous
peoples. It was understood that the National Indian
Brotherhood would transfer its NGO status to an
international organization if one should come into
existence. At the beginning of the second organizational
meeting for the international conference, held in Copenhagen
June 16th to 18th, 1975, Sam Deloria of the United States
was able to state:
I was privileged to make history by going to New York
to the United Nations' building and depositing my
credentials and receiving credentials from the Economic
and Social Council representing the non-governmental
organization status of the National Indian Brotherhood
which is on behalf of the indigenous people of the
world.
...in general terms what we are moving towards, which
is already in the law but perhaps with our help will be
illuminated somewhat, is the fact that the concept of
national sovereignty is limited and that one limitation
on the concept of national sovereignty is the existence
of indigenous people...we have the right to maintain
our political existence.
The Copenhagen conference dealt with funding and
accreditation of delegates to the international conference.
Contacts had been established with about twenty-four
countries. Asia and Africa were omitted for practical
organizational reasons (although attempts had been made to
contact groups in the U.S.S.R., China and other parts of
Asia). The policy board, as it met in Copenhagen, was
composed of Neil Watene for New Zealand, Charles Trimble for
the United States, Aslak Nils Sara for Norway, Sweden and
Finland, Robert Petersen for Greenland (Denmark), and George
Manuel for Canada. Sam Deloria of the United States and
Angmalortok Olsen of Greenland also participated in the
meeting. Arrangements for the meeting had been assisted by a
local committee consisting of Bent Ostergaard of the United
Nations Association of Denmark, Hans Pavia Rosing of the
Greenlandic Committee of International Cooperation, Robert
Petersen of Copenhagen University and coordinated by Helge
Kelivan of Copenhagen University and IWGIA, who had been
asked to coordinate documentation for the international
conference.
THE CONFERENCE
The international conference was held in Port Alberni,
British Columbia, October 27th to 31st, 1975. Port Alberni
is a small industrial town located at the head of Alberni
Inlet, which opens onto the Pacific Ocean on the west coast
of Vancouver Island. The meeting was hosted by the Sheshaht
Band of Nootka Indians, one of the most prosperous Canadian
Indian Bands. The facilities that were used had originally
been a church-run government Indian school. The buildings
had ceased to be used for school purposes when the federal
government integrated Indian students into the regular
provincial school systems. The buildings, including a
dormitory and a modern gymnasium had been placed under local
Indian control. The Nootka people were the first Canadian
pacific coast tribe contacted by English explorers. Captain
Cook landed in their territory in 1778. Traditionally the
Nootka lived primarily from the sea and in 1975 they
provided a lavish seafood banquet for the Sami, Inuit,
Maori, Australian Aborigine and Indian people who attended
the international conference. One goal had been to hold the
conference in an Indian community, on Indian land. That was
achieved.
The day before the conference began, October 26th,
1975, the policy board met for the third and final time in
Port Alberni to settle last minute arrangements. There was
an air of great excitement as the delegations began arriving
at the conference site. That evening the Sheshaht people
presided at a reception, held in the auditorium of the old
residential school dormitory in which the bulk of the
delegates would stay.
The following countries were represented: Argentina,
Australia, Bolivia, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Finland,
Greenland (Denmark), Guatemala, Mexico, New Zealand,
Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Sweden, the
United States (including Hawaii) and Venezuela. Two hundred
and sixty people participated in the conference, including
fifty-two delegates, one hundred and thirty-five observers,
twenty-five members of the press and fifty-four staff
members. The Sami delegates and observers wore their richly
coloured costumes during the conference. Certain of the
Latin American delegates wore typical ponchos. There was a
rich pride in culture which showed most clearly at the
evening gatherings in the auditorium - with singing, dancing
and ceremonies. The richness and diversity of the gathering
was hard to absorb. There was never any doubt about the
success of the conference.
The conference was opened by George Clutesi, an elder
of the Seshaht people, who sang a traditional prayer.
Speeches of welcome were given by the three Canadian
delegates and by the Honourable Hugh Faulkner, Secretary of
State in the Canadian government. On the first afternoon
there was a presentation by Sam Deloria concerning United
Nations Activity and the study underway by the Sub-
Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of
Indigenous Minorities of the Commission on Human Rights of
the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
On Tuesday the delegates were divided into three
groups. All groups were scheduled to attend five workshops
over the next three days (each workshop being repeated three
times). The workshops dealt with (1) representation at the
United Nations, (2) the Charter of the World Council of
Indigenous People, (3) social, economic and political
justice, (4) retention of cultural identity, and (5)
retention of land and natural resources. Each workshop had a
chairman and a resource person. One of the primary purposes
of the workshops was to enable delegates to get to know each
other better by working in smaller groups. This process
would lead to a sharing of ideas and, hopefully, make a
consensus on organizational decisions much easier in the
final plenary sessions of the conference. After two days of
workshops it was decided to go directly back into plenary
sessions on Thursday. The sense of direction in the
conference was so clear that further preliminary workshops
were unnecessary. All delegates realized they shared common
experiences of oppression, though they varied from "mild"
racial discrimination to ethnocide and genocide.
On the final two days the Charter of the new
organization was debated, amended and approved. George
Manuel of Canada was elected as chairman. Sam Deloria of the
United States was elected as Secretary General, responsible
for the work at the United Nations. A board was elected
consisting of Julio Dixon of Panama, representing Central
America, Clemente Alcon of Bolivia, representing South
America, Aslak Nils Sara of Norway, representing Europe-
Greenland, and Neil Watene of New Zealand, representing the
South Pacific.
A dramatic Solemn Declaration was adopted:
We the Indigenous Peoples of the world, united in this
corner of our Mother the Earth in a great assembly of men of
wisdom, declare to all nations:
We glory in our proud past:
when the earth was our nurturing mother,
when the night sky formed our common roof,
when Sun and Moon were our parents,
when all were brothers and sisters,
when our great civilizations grew under the sun,
when our chiefs and elders were great leaders,
when justice ruled the Law and its execution.
Then other peoples arrived:
thirsting for blood, for gold, for land and all its wealth,
carrying the cross and the sword, one in each hand,
without knowing or waiting to learn the ways of our worlds,
they considered us to be lower than the animals,
they stole our lands from us and took us from our lands,
they made slaves of the Sons of the sun.
However, they have never been able to eliminate us,
nor to erase our memories of what we were,
because we are the culture of the earth and the sky,
we are of ancient descent and we are millions,
and although our whole universe may be ravaged,
our people will live on
for longer than even the kingdom of death.
Now, we come from the four corners of the earth,
we protest before the concert of nations
that, "we are the Indigenous Peoples, we who
have a consciousness of culture and peoplehood
on the edge of each country's borders and
marginal to each country's citizenship."
And rising up after centuries of oppression,
evoking the greatness of our ancestors,
in the memory of our Indigenous martyrs,
and in homage to the counsel of our wise elders:
We vow to control again our own destiny and
recover our complete humanity and
pride in being Indigenous People.
The conference resolved to prepare a study of the
problems of discrimination against Indigenous peoples for
submission to the U.N. study, then underway. It resolved
that the World Council would take over the NGO status
obtained by the National Indian Brotherhood. Resolutions
were approved dealing with economic, cultural, political and
social rights and with the retention of lands and natural
resources. The Government of Brazil was picked out for
specific criticism as a nation carrying out policies of
genocide and ethnocide. Helge Kleivan was honoured for his
extensive support work.
The conference ended with great euphoria. There had
been some tensions, but, on the whole, the problems had been
much less than anticipated. The conference had achieved its
goals and the World Council of Indigenous Peoples had been
formed.
WORK SINCE 1975
In the spring of 1976 George Manuel traveled to
Scandinavia to attend the biennial Sami conference in
Finland. In July and August he traveled to Mexico,
Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Ecuador.
Immediately after that trip he went to Greenland, Denmark
and Norway with a Canadian government delegation headed by
Hugh Faulkner, the Secretary of State. George Manuel retired
as president of the National Indian Brotherhood in September
of 1976. After the General Assembly which selected his
successor, he returned to his home province of British
Columbia. The files of the World Council, formerly located
in Ottawa in the offices of the National Indian Brotherhood,
were transferred to the University of Lethbridge which
agreed to provide an office for the World Council. Marie
Marule, the primary organizer of the Port Alberni conference
and former executive secretary to the National Indian
Brotherhood, is a member of the faculty of the Native
American Studies Department at the University of Lethbridge.
In February, 1977, a regional meeting in Panama led to
the creation of a central American Indigenous organization
to function as a regional constituent organization within
the World Council. On the occasion of the regional meeting,
the World Council held the first executive board meeting
since the Port Alberni conference. They accepted a Sami
invitation to host the next international conference. The
conference is planned for Kiruna in northern Sweden in late
August, 1977. It is being coordinated by Per Mikael Utsi. It
has a proposed theme focusing on the situation of indigenous
peoples and international agreements relating to human
rights and the protection of lands.
The development of the World Council has been gradual
since the Port Alberni meeting. The primary organizers,
George Manuel and Marie Marule, have returned to their home
areas in western Canada. Proposals for a settled
administrative home for the World Council have been
developed, but no permanent arrangements have yet been
confirmed.
OBSERVATIONS
Many have greeted the formation of the World Council as
an idea whose time has come. Perhaps it is appropriate to
end this account with two questions. What is the character
of the leaders and organizations which are behind the
formation of the World Council? Secondly, is such an
international organization a worthwhile exercise in real
political terms?
The leaders and organizations that worked for the
formation of the World Council cannot be classed as radical.
There was approval and support from various governments and
a number of church groups. The initial organizing meeting in
Guyana was hosted by the Guyanese government and Prime
Minister Forbes Burnham attended one of the social
gatherings. The Prime Minister of Denmark gave a welcoming
speech to the second organizing meeting in Copenhagen. The
Canadian Secretary of State, Hugh Faulkner, welcomed
delegates to the Port Alberni conference. Financial support
came from the governments of Canada, Guyana, Norway and
Denmark. Funds came from the World Council of Churches, the
International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA),
Swedish IWGIA, the United Nations Association of Denmark,
the Faculty of Humanities, Copenhagen University, the
Anglican Church of Canada, the Canadian Catholic
Organization for Development and Peace and Oxfam Canada.
When Hugh Faulkner gave the welcoming speech in Port
Alberni he spoke of his department's "core funding" program
for native organizations in Canada:
Over the past 5 years, the program has provided
status Indians, non-status Indians, Metis, and Inuit
with the resources, both technical and financial, to
form their own organizations, to train their own
leaders, and, quite frankly, to develop the kind of
popular and sophisticated political base required to
deal on a more equal basis with the government and the
non-native peoples of this country.
Although the results of the evaluation remain to
be seen, my own 'view, drawn from my personal
experience with this programme, is that it may already
be judged an important success. When the programme was
set up, the situation of indigenous peoples had
deteriorated to an alarming extent. The ignorance of
the larger society, its racist stereotypes, and its
disdain for native culture and heritage had gravely
undermined the pride of the native community and
virtually destroyed any positive self-image in many
native individuals. The programme provided the
resources essential to the re-discovery by the native
peoples of pride in self and pride of heritage. A
crucial part of that re-discovery has been the
development of an informed and articulate native
leadership that could speak to the concerns of its
people. This native leadership has arrived. It is
strong and determined, and it has let the Government
and the Canadian people know on many occasions what the
real problems facing indigenous peoples in Canada are.
The fact that this meeting is taking place today, and
the fact that elected leaders of native organizations
are able to sit down and talk with federal and
provincial cabinets are in themselves important
measures of the success of the program.
No one would claim that the core funding program
will mean an end to the grave problems facing native
peoples today. What the program can do - and is already
doing is to prepare native peoples for the next crucial
chapters in their history.
The core funding program had enabled the National Indian
Brotherhood to function with a sizable staff. In that way it
provided a base from which international organizing activity
could begin - though that was not a development the
government had expected. Clearly certain persons in the
Canadian government thought the Indian international
activity was a waste of time. Since the organizations were
funded as political bodies, the government could not bring
pressure on them to stop the international activity without
compromising their independence. The federal government
decided to acquiesce in this unexpected Indian initiative.
It is clear that the National Indian Brotherhood could not
have obtained NGO status at the United Nations if the
Government of Canada had objected. And, more positively,
some financial assistance for the Port Alberni conference
came from the federal Department of the Secretary of States
Other delegates to the Port Alberni conference also
represented organizations which had similar relationships
with their national governments. The Maori delegates
represented the New Zealand Maori Council, a body
established by legislation which received an annual
operating grant from the New Zealand government. The
Australian Aboriginal representative was the head of the
National Aboriginal Consultative Committee (NACC, also
called the Aboriginal Congress) which had been created by
the federal government. The members of the NACC were
selected by Australian Aborigines in elections administered
by the government. Sami delegates from Finland represented
the Finish Sami Parliament, an advisory body to the Finish
Government.
This pattern of government sponsored, politically
autonomous indigenous organizations is fairly common today
in the western industrialized countries. In the United
States, with its strong tradition of private initiative,
funding tends to come from the semi-public foundations
rather than from direct government grants. These funding
programs constitute a recognition by governments that
indigenous populations are not adequately integrated into
the political life of the nation state. Past policies aimed
at political and social integration have failed. The
countries have come to the conclusion that stable patterns
of political accommodation cannot be achieved without the
existence of indigenous political leaders able and willing
to participate in the political life of the nation. The
funding programs are designed to make that leadership
possible. They represent a recognition that indigenous
populations have survived as distinct political communities
within the nation state and a discarding of the view that
integration and assimilation are the only possible
"solutions" to the "problem".
The cumulative effect of funding programs, in a number
of countries, made the international conference possible.
They were a necessary precondition, but not in themselves
sufficient. Leadership had to come from some quarter. It
came from Canada and George Manuel, a political figure who
developed out of the strong Indian political tradition in
British Columbia. The international conference brought
together delegates from countries with policies which
supported indigenous organizations with public or semi-
public funding and delegates from countries where indigenous
people might be recognized by governments as peasants or
workers, but not as politically distinct groups within the
nation. The divisions in the conference were clearly along
those lines. The Sami, the North American Indians, the
Maoris and the Australian Aborigines could understand each
others situation quite easily. But the relationships between
those groups and their national governments were
paradoxical, perhaps incomprehensible to the delegates from
most of Latin America. Correspondingly, the political
tension within which Indian organizations functioned in
Latin America was difficult for the other delegates to
appreciate. Perhaps it was most graphically conveyed when it
was learned that people who had attended the Port Alberni
meeting had faced imprisonment and, in at least one case,
torture after their return to Latin America. The basic
elements of indigenous culture were mutually understood -
but the political differences between governments in Latin
America and the industrialized west had given the two groups
of delegates radically different experiences with national
governments.
These factors seem to explain why the initiative for
the World Council came from North America and Europe, though
the crisis area for indigenous people is clearly in the
hinterland of Latin America. There have been long struggles
by Indian people in Latin America to gain political power
and protect their peoples. But the resources were not
available to them to internationalize the struggle through
the formation of an international body.
The early delegations to England from British Columbia
and New Zealand were experiments in political action. It can
be argued that the delegations mistook the locus of power.
They relied on colonial myths and symbols, misunderstanding
the realities of the political system with which they had to
deal. Will the work of the World Council, accredited to the
United Nations, simply prove to be another symbolic exercise
that cannot produce results? It may be that forty years ago,
or even ten years ago, an international indigenous peoples
organization could have had no real political role. The
United Nations and its members always refused to discuss any
question which was classified as "domestic" or "internal".
That strict rule is now being modified. The United Nations
sanctions against South Africa and Rhodesia treat certain
"domestic" policies as a proper subject for international
action. Currently, as a result of the Helsinki agreements
and the new Carter Administration in the United States, we
have seen strong statements from both the United States and
England that human rights questions are not the prerogative
of individual nation states. While the United States has
directed these declarations mainly against the U.S.S.R., it
has also picked out examples of the abuse of human rights in
Latin America, particularly in Chile. There has already been
a defensive reaction in Latin America to this shift in U.S.
Policy. Whatever precise developments occur on these
questions, we are in a period of increased international
concern with "internal" human rights questions. This is
creating a more favourable international atmosphere for a
body such as the World Council of Indigenous Peoples.
This trend has affected many countries. In April, 1977,
the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs presented a report
in Parliament on the international protection of human
rights. It referred to
...the increasing concern and attention in the last few
years about the vulnerable situation in which many
indigenous people live. It is a question of minorities
that are not in control of sufficient resources to
protect their interests and maintain their traditional
forms of life.
The report commented favourably on the work of IWGIA and the
World Council.
Most governments are concerned, to some extent, with
their international image. This will be increasingly true if
the U.S. continues to tie foreign aid to human rights
considerations. When Australia wanted a seat on the United
Nations Security Council it was fearful that aboriginal
protests about racism would cost Australia third world votes
at the U.N. The international protests about the closing of
the Marandu project and the arrests of Marilyn Renfelt and
Miguel Chase-Sardi clearly influenced the Government of
Paraguay. Both were later released. More recently, the
release of Constantino Lima from prison in Bolivia and his
exile to Canada occurred after international protests and
representations from governments like Denmark and Norway.
The formation of the World Council will not lead to
automatic victories, but it has developed a sense of
political relatedness among groups scattered across much of
the world. In her report on the Port Alberni conference
Marie Marule stated:
In all, according to a rough estimate made at the
conference, it was calculated that between thirty to
thirty five million indigenous people were represented
at the First International Conference of Indigenous
Peoples, and now represented by the World Council of
Indigenous Peoples.
Abstract goals of strength and solidarity come to seen more
possible. Angmalortok Olsen of Greenland, at the beginning
of the preparatory meeting in Guyana in 1974, said:
...it has dawned upon us that even though we sit in the
far corner of the world, there is a movement through
the whole world of ideas and of peoples and it seems to
us that maybe we could do our little bit to humanise
the present world as it is.
FOOTNOTES
1. Information on the New Zealand delegations is found in G.
W. Rusden, Aureretanga: Groans of the Maoris, London,
William Ridgeway, 1888; J.A. Qilliams, Politics of the
New Zealand Maori, Protest and Cooperation, 1891-1909,
Oxford University Press for the University of Auckland,
1969; J.M. Henderson, Ratana; The Man, the Church, the
Political Movement, A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1972 (2nd edition),
Wellington.
2. Information on the Canadian delegations is found in
LaViolette, The Struggle for Survival, University of
Toronto Press, 1961; Manuel and Posluns, The Fourth
World, An Indian Reality, Collier-Macmillan Canada, 1974.
3. English colonial policy was initially decentralized
except for commercial matters. Frontier problems in North
America in the mid-18th Century led to a centralization
of indigenous policy in the imperial government. Control
over indigenous policy for Upper Canada (Ontario) was
formally retained by the imperial government until 1860,
long after the transfer of most internal governmental
powers to the local legislature. It appears that the
tradition of centralized imperial control may have
naturally led to the decision in 1867 to place Indian
policy with the Canadian federal government, rather than
with the provinces.
4. Report of the National Indian Brotherhood's Tour of New
Zealand and Australia, National Indian Brotherhood,
Ottawa, 1971 at page 26.
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