Missing 's' a threat to rights

Page 1

A single letter deleted from the United Nation's draft document on human rights will deprive Canadian Natives of their inherent right to self-determination, a Canadian non-government organization representative said.

The "s" in the term "Indigenous peoples" was removed from the fourth draft of the UN's Vienna Declaration for States at the request of the Canadian government during restricted pre-meetings for the World Conference on Human Rights in Geneva last month, said Grand Council of the Cree of Quebec advisor Bob Epstein.

The "s" was knocked out of the UN document the week after all the non-government organization representatives had left the April 19-May 7 preparatory meeting, he said.

"They went into the meeting in Geneva, the fourth preparatory committee, with the "s" there. That was scheduled to be a two-week meeting that was later stretched to three weeks. The third week, during secret sessions that were closed to NGOs, the "s" went out."

Epstein spoke at the Non-Government Organization Forum, where more than 1,400 delegates met in Vienna June 10-12 to try to put together recommendations for the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights the following week.

The UN's latest version of the unfinished draft document, which was issued June 12, just one day before the conference began, also only referred to Indigenous people.

"It was in the Secretariat document, the document prepared for the world conference," Epstein said. "The document referred, properly, correctly, to Indigenous peoples. The Canadian government has been leading the pack against the recognition of the collective rights. And this in spite of the fact that the Canadian Constitution itself uses the word "peoples."

Department of External Affairs spokesperson Denis Boulet said Canada asked for the change because the meaning of 'peoples' under international law was unclear and could give unqualified sovereignty to Indigenous people.

If Natives are to obtain any additional new rights form Ottawa, it would have to be through standard bilateral negotiation and not an international document, he added.

Ottawa's real problem, however, lies in the fact that international law permits a peoples to control resources, said Epstein. Defined as a peoples, Canadian Natives could access self-determination rights under instruments like the International Bill of Human Rights and the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This is something the federal government is trying to avoid.

By using the world 'people', Ottawa need only recognize the rights of Indigenous peoples as individuals and deny their rights as a collective, Epstein said.

"The federal government does not like the obvious conclusion that the Indigenous peoples are peoples in every legal, scientific and historical sense. And if they are peoples, then they have these very important rights."

Canada has led the campaign to have international bodies refer to Aboriginals as populations rather than distinct peoples or nations to close the door on the Native rights movement, said Konrad Sioui, chief of the Bear Clan of the Huron-Wyandot Nation.

"They've succeeded in convincing other nation-states of the world that if they use the word 'peoples' when they talk about us that it might break up their countries."

And Natives believe recognition of their "enduring nationhood" is essential to regaining control over land and resources.

"But when Canada drafts a resolution on the rights of Indigenous peoples, they refer to it as Indigenous people. Peoples have to have a common language, a history, a culture, a land base. The Indians in Canada are clearly peoples, there's no denying it. In order to avoid the obvious conclusion, the government is saying 'let's not call them that'."