'Alternative Nobel Prize' meeting, Salzburg, 13 June 2005
Bianca Jagger has backed a new campaign for the world's governments to
sign up to the main international law protecting tribal people. At a
meeting of the Right Livelihood Award (known as the Alternative Nobel
Prize) in Salzburg, Austria, Ms Jagger, said, 'Many of the former
colonial countries had policies which resulted in the decimation of
millions of indigenous people. They continue to marginalise them by
failing to agree to the main law which would protect them. It is now
time to take constructive action. I call upon all countries to ratify
ILO Convention 169 without any further delay.'
For the last 16 years, most governments have ignored the only piece of
international law concerned with protecting the rights of indigenous
and tribal peoples. Worse, there is currently a movement amongst
governments denying that any collective rights exist, that only
individuals have human rights. This is largely unknown by the public
and media. Survival is beginning a campaign to raise public awareness
about this to pressure governments to accept that collective human
rights do exist and, in particular, to ask their own governments to
ratify the International Labour Organisation Convention 169 on tribal
peoples.
Convention 169 recognises that tribal peoples have ownership rights
over their lands. This is crucial for their survival, yet in many areas
tribes are being evicted from their lands which are taken over for
mining, oil exploration, ranching, dams or tourism. For example, in
Botswana the Bushmen of the Central Kalahari have been evicted and
dumped in bleak relocation camps they call 'places of death'. This
could not happen if 169 was applied.
The Convention also supports tribal peoples' right to control the ways
in which they adapt and change their ways of life, educational and
health systems, beliefs and so forth as their circumstances alter in
the future. Crucially, their right is also recognised to be properly
consulted before national laws are passed which affect them and when
development or other projects are being proposed for their territories.
For example, all the inhabitants of Ecuadorian Amazonia are now
suffering from the invasion of oil companies which have been active
there for decades and have now destroyed and polluted much of the
forest.
In Europe, only the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway have ratified the
Convention. When asked why the UK has not agreed to it, the government
there says that it is not relevant because there are no tribal peoples
the country. Yet the UK is funding many projects and many UK companies
are active in tribal areas all over the world. The same is true
throughout the EU. If the only reason not to ratify the Convention is
because the country has no tribal peoples, then it would cost it
nothing to agree to it.
For more information contact Miriam Ross on (+44) (0)20 7687 8734 or email mr@survival-international.org
