Respecting rights of indigenous peoples and communities

Respecting and according of the rights of indigenous peoples in their ancestral homelands and of their descendants in the diaspora.

In a nation-state comprising multi-ethnic and tribal groups including indigenous peoples, peaceful coexistence can best be guaranteed when human rights and fundamental freedoms are assured, and the relationship with and between all peoples is capable of guaranteeing economic, social, cultural and democratic participation on a basis of equality of opportunities and respect for indigenous customs and traditions.

This strategy features in the framework of Agenda 21 as formulated at UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), now coordinated by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and implemented through national and local authorities.

The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) was set up as a non-governmental, non-political, developmental and cultural apex organization of the Ogoni people of Nigeria. It has over 100,000 members. Ogoniland has since 1962 produced US$ 30,000 million worth of oil for Nigeria but the Ogoni people have received minimal economic benefit, are living in increasingly desperate circumstances, now with a heavily polluted and blighted countryside. The Ogoni oil fields are managed through a joint venture in which the government is a majority partner and which produces half of Nigeria's oil output of 2 million barrels a day. The Ogoni Bill of Rights, delivered to the Nigerian government in 1990, claims the right to political autonomy, to use economic resources for self-development, the right to protect the Ogoni environment and ecology from degradation, and the right to adequate and direct representation in all Nigerian national institutions. A set of demands delivered to the oil producer demanded that the company must now clean up the mess, pay reparations of US$ 4,000 million and either operate in an environmentally conscious way or quit the land. Following a peaceful demonstration in favour of their demands, the Nigerian government has reacted to the Ogoni mobilization with brutal repression. It declared Ogoniland a "military zone". Over 1,000 Ogoni have been killed in clashes with the military, eight villages destroyed and its leaders arrested.

The Kari-Oca Declaration confirms the human rights of indigenous nations, particularly around self-determination.

1. Irreparable damage is being done, in circumstances and situations in which indigenous rights are currently endangered or face imminent threat: cultural rights, indigenous economic life, environmental, land rights and property rights, linguistic and religious rights, indigenous right to control and dispose of natural resources such as crude oil, natural gas, diamonds, gold, uranium, coal, water rights, space rights, forest rights, etc.

1. Strengthening implementation of human rights
2. Respecting rights
3. Recognizing indigenous communities
4. Pursuing human rights

1. Strengthening legislation on the rights of indigenous peoples
2. Respecting land rights of a people
3. Recognizing indigenous environmental rights
4. Ratifying international conventions on indigenous peoples
5. Protecting rights of indigenous peoples
6. Promotion of rights of indigenous tribal workers
7. Preserving traditional rights to natural resources
8. Exposing violation of rights of indigenous peoples
9. Ensuring commercial rights of indigenous peoples
10. Campaigning for rights of tribal people
11. Campaigning for indigenous land rights

1. Empowering communities
2. Applying culture-based knowledge systems

1. Reducing eurocentrism
2. Reducing discrimination against indigenous populations
3. Protesting environmental issues
4. Promoting women's access to land and property
5. Elucidating concept of the rights of peoples
6. Demanding acceptance of treaty obligations between indigenous peoples and states

1. Limiting rights to land

1. Denying rights of indigenous people

1. Developing housing policy

1. Violation of sacred sites
2. Violation of food taboos
3. Inadequate education of indigenous peoples
4. Expropriation of land from indigenous populations
5. Discrimination against indigenous populations
6. Denial of social rights to indigenous peoples
7. Denial of rights to development for indigenous peoples
8. Denial of rights of indigenous people to be self-governing
9. Abuse of cultural values

1. Rights