Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Mind Games
As Rudolph Ryser observes in his report on the UN climate protocols conference in Bangkok, the US, UK, and EU continue to play mind games over the human rights of indigenous peoples. Despite the fact that the most significant progress in the UN human rights regime -- since it was instituted as international law in 1948 -- was the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, these colonial and imperial powers are now arguing before the UN Human Rights Council that these are not human rights.
While it is no secret that Canada and the US blocked human rights for indigenous peoples for decades in order to continue plundering their territories for natural resources with impunity, it is not widely known that the EU is an important ally of these rogue states. Even as pariahs like China, Nigeria, and Indonesia routinely murder indigenous activists within their own borders, US and European states and corporations often help fund these atrocities.
With the evolution of the US-controlled NATO into the enforcement arm of the UN, human rights are in danger of becoming what the Pentagon and U.S. State Department say they are--a situation that must be stopped. As Dr. Ryser notes, the only way for indigenous peoples to survive this attack by Western powers is to prohibit unpermitted entry into their territories by corporations and militaries alike.
While it is no secret that Canada and the US blocked human rights for indigenous peoples for decades in order to continue plundering their territories for natural resources with impunity, it is not widely known that the EU is an important ally of these rogue states. Even as pariahs like China, Nigeria, and Indonesia routinely murder indigenous activists within their own borders, US and European states and corporations often help fund these atrocities.
With the evolution of the US-controlled NATO into the enforcement arm of the UN, human rights are in danger of becoming what the Pentagon and U.S. State Department say they are--a situation that must be stopped. As Dr. Ryser notes, the only way for indigenous peoples to survive this attack by Western powers is to prohibit unpermitted entry into their territories by corporations and militaries alike.
