Opening of the Fifteenth session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. UN Photo/Rick Bajornas.

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, May 10 2016 (IPS)

Militarisation in indigenous territories in Asia is exacerbating conflict and human rights violations, said Secretary-General of the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact Joan Carling at an event during the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) held here Monday.

The annual two-week forum has brought together over 1000 participants from around the world to discuss issues of conflict, peace, and resolution and its implications on indigenous communities.   

On its first day, a group of delegates came together during a side event to focus and raise awareness of the theme in the context of Asia.

Approximately two-thirds of the world’s indigenous population lives in Asia, making it the most culturally diverse region in the world. Among the increasingly major challenges in the region is militarisation and the denial of indigenous self-determination and rights to land.

Home to 11 indigenous groups, Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) continues to be one of the most militarized areas in the world.

According to the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), an estimated one-third of the Bangladesh Army is in the CHT, an area that only accounts for one percent of the country’s total population and nine percent of land mass.

The military bases were initially established due to a two-decade war between the Government of Bangladesh and Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti (PCJSS) over indigenous rights and the region’s autonomy.

Despite a 1997 peace accord which included commitments to withdraw military troops and self-governance, military presence and de facto control persist.

“Almost 18 years have passed and major commitments have not been fulfilled,” said Secretary-General of the Bangladesh Indigenous People’s Forum Sanjeeb Drong during the event.

Drong stressed that indigenous communities are not against the military, but they do not support military rule.

“The military can be there, but civil government will rule the area,” he stated. However, this has not been the case in CHT as indigenous institutions continue to be invalidated, he added.

An appointed Special Rapporteur Lars Anders-Baer also expressed concern in a report over the failure to implement the agreement and the continued deployment of armed forces in the region.

“The lack of substantial progress is leading to an increasing sense of frustration and disillusionment among the indigenous peoples in the region,” the report states.

“Adding fuel to the dwindling faith in the Government’s sincere intent or political ability to fully implement the accord are developments and initiatives that violate or go against the spirit of the accord,” Anders-Baer adds.

Violations include torture and arbitrary arrests committed by military personnel, suppressing dissident voices. Another major issue is land grabbing, Drong notes.

Beyond forced evictions of indigenous residents and illegal land leases to non-local individuals, Drong stated that the military’s involvement in the tourism industry has contributed to the expropriation and destruction of indigenous lands in CHT.

Sena Kalyan Sangstha (SKS), the business wing of the Bangladesh military, is a key player in real estate construction and management. With the help of government subsidies and funds earned from UN peacekeeping missions, the group operates luxury resorts including the Nilgiri resort in CHT. During its construction, the army reportedly tore down a local indigenous group’s orchard as well as shops and a nearby school.

Similarly, indigenous leader Josephine Pagalan spoke of land grabbing in the resource-rich Mindanao island of the Philippines.

The island is particularly known for its mineral resources including copper and gold. As a result, Mindanao host 60 percent of the Philippines’ armed forces excluding paramilitary groups, she noted.

The southern Philippines is also is home to the majority of the country’s indigenous groups, collectively called the Lumads.

The country’s military have forcefully evicted and displaced numerous Lumad residents, which many believe are aimed to protect and allow the expansion of large-scale mining industries.

The military has also been involved in the massacre of indigenous leaders.

Pagalan, who witnessed the event, recalled the incursion by a paramilitary group, stating: “Last September 1^st, at 3:30 in the morning, we were forced awake and forced to leave our houses…all 150 of us.”

In front of her, the group stabbed the Executive Director of a Lumad school Emerico Samarca multiple times along with indigenous leader Dionel Campos and his cousin Aurelio Sinzo.

“After their deaths, [the paramilitary] said that we had to evacuate in two days and if we didn’t, we would all be massacred,” she told attendees.

The event reportedly sparked the evacuation of almost 3,000 Lumads.

Just a month prior to these attacks, Human Rights Watch reported that Philippine government soldiers killed five members of a Lumad family, including children ages 13 and 17, reflecting larger, systematic violations of human rights.

President Benigno Aquino III denied any wrongdoing, stating that “there is no campaign to kill Lumad people, we are serving the people.”

Pagalan urged for government accountability and justice for affected indigenous peoples, including the return of ancestral lands.

Bangladeshi politician and activist Devasish Roy especially highlighted the need for justice in CHT at a press briefing Monday, stating: “We really need to look at peace…with justice as a necessary part of it. You can have the cessation of hostilities…but [it] doesn’t mean that’s real resolution.”

Carling expressed her hope to IPS that the UNPFII will particularly raise awareness among member states to respect and enforce conflict resolution and indigenous rights.

“Unless states take this matter seriously and have the political will to address the issue of militarisation…then we cannot expect much of any improvement in the situation.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a video message during the opening of the forum, announced the launch of a system-wide action plan for coherent and coordinated action on indigenous issues.

“Lasting peace requires that indigenous peoples have access to cultural, social and economic justice…it is essential that we work as one to realize the full rights of indigenous peoples,” he stated.

Indigenous people around the world not only face loss of language and culture but are also often deprived of their basic human rights. Above, two indigenous women in Guatemala. Credit: Danilo Valladares/IPS

By Marzieh Goudarzi
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 17 2013 (IPS)

Indigenous youth from some of the world’s oldest living cultures are stepping forward to steer their communities past the threat of disappearance and into an age of coexistence with an increasingly globalised world.

Approximately 370 million indigenous peoples live in communities around the world – some in urban settings, some on reservations and others straddling both worlds.

They face many of the urgent social problems that exist among other disenfranchised minorities – poverty, lack of education, high unemployment, high rates of crime and a general lack of access to public services and resources.

Other issues are unique to the indigenous experience, including forced separation from homelands, loss of native languages, and histories of injustice, social exclusion and violence that have led to their modern day marginalisation.

In the year 2000, the United Nations (U.N.) created the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), in which a committee of experts, nominated by governments and indigenous civil society, discuss critical issues and recommend actions to the U.N. system.

This year, the UNPFII is highlighting the role of indigenous youth as community leaders. It held a meeting in January where indigenous youth from seven regions of the world gathered to share their insights with members of the Forum and experts from related organisations.

Language, education and awareness

All seven youth representatives expressed grave concerns about the rapid disappearance of indigenous languages vital to cultural unity, and with good reason – UNESCO estimates that every two weeks, one language disappears from the world.

Education systems have historically played a large part in the disappearance of indigenous languages, sometimes even forcing their extinction by severely punishing and shaming children for speaking native tongues or expressing indigenous identity in any way.

In Andrea Landry’s Anishinaabe tribe of Canada, only one fluent speaker of the native language remains. She is about 80 years old and still has not overcome the shame that was instilled in her as a child for speaking her own language, making it difficult for her to pass her knowledge down to younger generations.

Landry, the youth representative for North America, and many of her fellow representatives agreed that ideally, the state would provide bilingual education in schools attended by indigenous youth, though they acknowledged that the sheer number of regional indigenous languages often makes this feat challenging.

Funding community-based language programs through civil society organisations would be a good alternative, they suggested.

The youth were also gravely concerned about society’s lack of awareness and misrepresentation of indigenous peoples’ histories, cultures and current circumstances. They called for education systems to teach history and social diversity more thoroughly and accurately.

Landry told IPS that in studying for her master’s degree in communications and social justice, she was astonished by the absence of material on indigenous issues. She has tried to fill these gaps with supplementary materials but argued, “I shouldn’t be the one teaching these things.”

Steven Brown, youth representative from Australia’s Bundjalung and Yuin Nation tribes, raised concerns about the negative stereotypes that grow instead of a real understanding of indigenous peoples. Brown personally experienced the way indigenous youth internalise stereotypes such as being perpetually poor and undereducated.

That message that success is not inherently non-indigenous was articulated by all of the indigenous youth leaders, and achieving success, Brown said, “does not mean I forget where I’ve come from”.

Rights to access

In some communities where a large portion of the population speaks only the native language, another issue arises: access to important information on topics such as health care, employment opportunities, legal rights and public services.

Representative Niwamanya Rodgers Matuna, of the Batwa hunter and gatherer tribe in Uganda, described one example for IPS: how a lack of information in his tribe’s native language about medications and their proper usage has led his tribe to not trust drugs from outside of their community, which seem to quickly become ineffective.

Improper use and poor quality of antibiotic medications allow bacterial diseases to develop resistance, a phenomenon that has become a major issue in poverty-stricken countries but could be easily curbed by improving drug recipients’ access to information.

Through forums like UNFPII, indigenous youth leaders and the international human rights community are insisting that when language barriers not only prevent citizens from accessing their essential rights but in fact perpetuate their marginalisation, actions must be taken in conjunction with governments to eliminate these barriers.

Asia’s youth representative, Meenakshi Munda of the Munda community in India, added that she does not want her people to become reliant on government or international support. Rather, she sought resources for her community to empower them to become self-sufficient.

Finding a balance

Indigenous peoples, especially youth, understand that learning languages and practises outside their communities is often a necessity for academic and professional collaboration with the wider world, and many have benefitted from knowing multiple languages and engaging with the people outside their communities.

They are confident, however, that this learning process can and should be an exchange between equals and should not require the subjugation of a people or the elimination of its culture or history.

The world has much to learn from indigenous ways of life, which, despite their great diversity, share some common central ideas that are absent in most modern cultures.

Perhaps most significantly, indigenous peoples have tremendous respect for the earth and a deep connection to the land on which they live.

“We’re in a relationship with the land; it’s a living thing,” said Landry. “It’s not a matter of take, take, take. We give to the land and the land gives to us.”

Moreover, indigenous values often maintain great respect for elders and all things that possess the wisdom of time. Some may struggle to understand the importance of protecting indigenous cultures as the ancestors of modern civilisation.

But as Matuna pointed out, quoting an African proverb, “A river which forgets its source, dries soon.”