Latin America Specific Recommendations:

As is the case with Native Americans in the United States, for the 40 million indigenous citizens of Mexico and Central and South America the possession of commonly held ancestral land goes beyond mere economic survival-although it also serves tens of millions for that purpose as well. The ability to govern themselves, to establish and maintain group rights and territorial control of lands that form part of their cultural inheritance, to empower themselves through education and to protect their languages and cultures, means that as a people they can also hope to survive in a way that allows them to pass their ethnic identity as well as their traditions to their children. The increased political mobilizations of indigenous peoples in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico in the 1970s can all be traced to increases in outside pressure on native peoples’ lands. Since that time, the number of countries facing similar challenges has grown, from Guatemala south, on both sides of the Andes and down the Cordillera to Punta Arenas, Chile, the southernmost city on Earth.

Although some regional governments view the activism of indigenous peoples in those the so-called “ungoverned” areas as real or potential threats to national sovereignty, just as surely those risks are exacerbated by the failure of those same nation-states to consider solutions that allow Native American communities to survive as nations within those nation-states. Those concerned about human rights, regional security, and environmental protection can find in the subject of indigenous rights common interests and, potentially, common cause throughout the hemisphere. By juxtaposing a map of where most indigenous peoples live in the Americas, with diagrams of the region’s most vulnerable so-called “ungoverned areas” and what is left of the hemisphere’s pristine natural inheritance many cases the last remote forests, savannas, mountains and wetlands of Latin America, are facing a ruthless onslaught by multinational corporations, lawless cattle ranchers, cash-hungry loggers and landless peasants.

In a region in which the failure to protect property rights looms as an Achilles’ heal for democratic governance and economic growth, securing legal protection for Indian lands is the greatest challenge faced by native peoples as they seek to preserve their own ways of life, and the ecosystems that sustain them. A systematic effort is needed to encourage indigenous peoples living in fragile environments to protect their resources, and to help them-by protecting their land and resource base- sustain their time-honored resource management methods that are suddenly seemingly more relevant in a globally warming world.

Because of the United States’ historic and special relationship with the countries and peoples of Latin America, a couple recommendations are offered here to help promote a necessary and largely missing dialogue between the world’s oldest democracy and the descendents of the first peoples of the region.

These include:

Focusing on indigenous women and gender violence

Domestic violence and sexual assault against Indian women by non-Indians remains at near epidemic proportions in many parts of Latin America, a problem exacerbated by flawed justice systems and social and racial prejudices. Historically, high rates of violence against Native women have no roots in the traditional cultures of Indian nations. Indian women often had greater authority than men over the home, in activities associated with trade, and in the holding of property. Greater international attention on gender violence against indigenous women is needed, and attention by the State Department would allow greater possibilities for partnership with UNESCO, the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, and the OAS Inter-American Commission of Women as they seek to establish remedies.

The Department should also seek coordination with the White House policy advisor on Native Americans and other Federal government agencies to ensure the United States leads by example. Citing “the horrible problem of violence against Native women in (U.S.) Indian country, the Indian Law Resource Center offered “staggering” statistics: “one in three Native women will be raped in her lifetime; four in five women will be violently assaulted; and six in ten experience domestic abuse. Sadly, the majority of these women never see their abusers or rapists brought to justice. The complex jurisdictional scheme in Indian country leaves Native women without effective judicial recourse against their perpetrators.” In August 2008, the State Department took an important step in that direction by announcing, in its first-ever participation in a Universal Periodic Report-a unique process that reviews every four years the human rights records of all 192 U.N. member-states-that “Addressing crimes involving violence against women and children on tribal lands is a priority” of the Obama Administration.

Issuing a proactive statement on property rights and rule of law

Leading development theorist Hernan de Soto points out that respect for property is fundamental for the creation and sustenance of a free market system, an attribute that is short supply throughout much of Latin America and particularly so with regards to indigenous peoples’ claim to ownership of ancestral lands held in common tenancy. Danish development expert Søren Hvalkof and others suggest that critical land reform that recognizes communal tenure requires a strong central government “with well functioning and attendant institutions, and certainly not its withdrawal and substitution with the moral indifference of savage market mechanisms.”

The Department should promote in multilateral forums the leveraging of the expertise of those, such as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, who can help to resolve land claims by Latin America’s indigenous peoples, while explicitly acknowledging the challenges posed by indigenous territorial concepts, patrimony, beliefs, and languages. The U.S. declaration should also publicly recognize the importance of indigenous peoples’ customs and values, and how this interrelates with their cultural, historical and spiritual relationship to the land. A report on progress on this important issue should be published on October 12 each year.

Special attention should be paid in the discussion of land issues to the victory of Nicaragua’s Awas Tingni community at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), in August 31, 2001. The finding came after a sustained campaign by indigenous leaders and their local and international NGO allies. The alliance between a historically oppressed people, multilateral institutions and pro bono publico international organizations allowed highly contentious issue to be solved using international law and peaceful means of redress.

Conclusion

Indigenous rights have become a primary battleground in the global struggle for human rights, environmental protection and democracy in the twenty-first century. Strategies for the full inclusion of indigenous peoples in the modern world on their own terms are essential if the stated goals of U.S. foreign policy are to be obtained. The U.S. government appears slowly to be coming to that realization, but time grows short in an uncertain and turbulent world. Focusing on the strengths, and the challenges, of the U.S. model of relations with its Native American citizens, and consulting with them, offers an important point of departure for policymakers interested in engaging indigenous peoples from around the world in a respectful and productive dialogue. In doing so, it is important to remember that the response to the challenges posed by the least represented and most imperiled ten percent of our planet’s population will do much to determine the quality and indeed the viability of tomorrow’s world.

About the Author

Martin Edwin Andersen, vice president of the Midwest Association of Latin American Studies, is the author of Peoples of the Earth; Ethnonationalism, Democracy and the Indigenous Challenge in ‘Latin’ America (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2010) and the staff author of the 1992 Cranston Amendment requiring coverage of the rights of indigenous peoples be included in the annual State Department country reports on human rights. An earlier version of this paper served as the basis for a discussion draft at the State Department for possible structural changes in U.S. approaches to indigenous issues.

Click here to read the complete article