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DAILY BULLETIN – DAY THREE
23 April 2008
Produced for the Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islander Peoples of Australia Compiled by FAIRA on behalf of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Caucus at the UNPFII
CONTENTS
- PFII Member Opens Discussions on the Pacific Region
- Tom Calma Calls for Greater Human Rights Protection in the Pacific
- Pacific Caucus Expresses Concern Over Increasing Violations
- Australian Government Addresses Climate Change
- Aboriginal Caucus Condemns Racial Discrimination
- Education Network Calls for Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Education
- NSWALC Calls for Reparations
- Emergency Legislation Should End
PFII Member Opens Discussions on the Pacific Region
Mr. Dodson, Pacific Indigenous Representative on the Permanent Forum, noted that the Pacific islands were home to a diverse range of indigenous peoples still linked to their communal land and indigenous belief systems, which formed the social, economic and political basis for their existence.
However, in some countries within the region, colonial settlement and immigrants had reduced the population to a minority in their own lands
-- for example, the Kanaks of New Caledonia, who made up a mere 44 per cent of the population; the Kanaka Maoli of Hawaii, 18 per cent; the Maori of New Zealand, 15 per cent; the Chamorro of Guam, 14 per cent; and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia, 2 per cent.
The Rapa Nuia were becoming a minority in their own community, swamped by mainland migrants from Chile.
He said indigenous land and waters were being targeted by industrialized nations for dumping of toxic or radioactive wastes from industrial or military operations, often without informing residents of dangers posed.
Also, ecosystems were being destroyed in the search for natural resources, for example by the phosphate mines of Nauru, Banaba and Makatea Islands, and the copper and gold mines of Ok Tedi, Panguna, Freeport and Vatukoula.
However, the testing of nuclear weapons was the starkest example of environmental colonialism.
He said indigenous peoples lived in zones sensitive to climate change, with the Pacific island countries being particularly susceptible to a rise in sea levels.
The worst-case scenario -- a one metre rise in sea level -- would affect tourism, fresh water availability, aquaculture, agriculture, human settlements and human health.
Although weather and climate patterns had long been documented using western scientific techniques, little had been done to document observations by indigenous peoples themselves.
Migration had grown in the Pacific over the past 30 years, he said, as urban migrants sought new employment opportunities and “fast money”, versus the slow money of cash crop sales.
Better education and medical facilities, and even sports and bright lights, was a lure for some.
Land pressures discouraged rural residence.
He noted that remittances had been something of a safety valve for high population growth rates, and hence urban problems were less severe than they were in Melanesia and Micronesia.
He said the problem posed by environmental refugees from the Pacific was a growing issue.
As the Forum Chairwoman, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, said in April,“ Australia…was still considering whether they will accept these environmental refugees.
“It’s so inhumane that you have these people who are forced to go somewhere, and yet you don’t get countries to welcome them and support them”.
He also noted that five territories still subject to colonization were
in the Pacific region: American Samoa, Guam, New Caledonia, Pitcairn
and Tokelau, and called on United Nations Member States to redouble their efforts to achieve complete decolonization.
Tom Calma Calls for Greater Human Rights Protection in the Pacific
Expert Tom Calma, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Social Justice Commissioner in the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission of Australia, said there had been extremely limited focus on human rights in the Pacific region, particularly in areas that concerned minorities and women.
Institutional mechanisms for monitoring and ensuring human rights were inadequate and for prisons there were none.
The Forum should advise the Economic and Social Council on the urgent need for human rights mechanisms in the islands.
Also, a special rapporteur specifically for the indigenous peoples of the region should be named, with a mandate that included visits.
Also, much more progress must be made in advancing the decolonization process in some islands.
The Forum should ask the Economic and Social Council to ask the General Assembly to provide help, in that regard.
Continuing, he said the islands were vulnerable to one of two alternatives as a result of global climate change, either disappearing or becoming homes to environmental refugees.
The human rights aspects of that situation needed to be considered.
The new Australian Government’s commitment to implementing rights and to close the gap between the population at large and indigenous peoples was genuine.
Benchmarks and targets were being developed, with an emphasis on health.
A national indigenous health council was in the process of being established.
Even so, he said problems remained.
The primary one was an absence of formal mechanisms for ensuring indigenous participation in processes and mechanisms.
While the Government was committed to rectifying that situation, in the meantime it happened that the solution to a rights violation often resulted in inadvertent violations of other rights.
Also, safeguards often failed to work, because the fundamental problem was a lack of legislation to outlaw prejudice.
The legislation must be rewritten to explicitly make prejudice illegal.
The Forum should be the body that brought attention to any violations of rights in any location without prejudice.
Pacific Caucus Expresses Concern Over Increasing Violations
Ms. Malia Nobrega, Pacific Regional Caucus, said violations of the rights of Pacific indigenous peoples by foreign super-Powers, and even their own Governments, were mounting.
For example, although nuclear testing in the Pacific had officially come to an end, problems of trans-shipment, storage and dumping of nuclear wastes was still ongoing.
In many cases, indigenous peoples had been forced to leave their ancestral lands and territories as a result of nuclear testing, to live in foreign lands with where they did not identify.
She issued a plea to those carrying out such human rights violations to allow indigenous peoples to “live as sovereign peoples”.
She noted that indigenous peoples themselves held many of the solutions to the problems brought about by foreign actors, and urged the leaders of indigenous communities to be strong and influential in their campaign against actors, such as mining and extractive industries, for example, that operated with impunity on their territories.
Turning to the effects of climate change on indigenous peoples, she said plants in the Pacific region were becoming vulnerable to heat stress and salt water incursion.
Because of that, food security was fast becoming a concern.
Meanwhile, hazardous wastes imported and used in their communities was proving to be hazardous to health, and had adverse effects on biodiversity, the availability of fresh water, and the sustainability of the marine environment.
Groundwater was becoming polluted by pesticides, industrial chemicals, medical wastes, laboratory chemicals, timber treatment chemicals and oil.
She noted that, over the last two decades, the Pacific Regional Caucus had worked with other indigenous groups in pushing for the creation of a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The lasting value of that Declaration would depend on the ability to translate it into sustainable action.
Besides climate-change-related issues, other issues to be tackled included forced migration, which was already being seen in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.
She said the human rights situation in the remaining Non-Self- Governing Territories served as powerful challenges to the legitimacy of the United Nations.
The Organization’s Special Committee on Decolonization remained, at best, “ineffective” and, at worst, a systemic denial of the right of peoples of Non-Self-Governing Territories to self-determination.
She called on the Forum to take the lead on that issue, and to sponsor a seminar on the situation of those Territories.
She also suggested that the Forum request the Committee to designate a special rapporteur on the subject.
She recommended that all United Nations agencies consider the idea of providing equal services to the Pacific subregion, as separate from Asia [the Asia Pacific is often considered as a single entity].
As a side note, she also said that indigenous peoples, such as those in Taiwan, should not be blocked from attending meetings at the United Nations.
Australian Government Addresses Climate Change
Greg Roche, Assistant Secretary, Australian Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, recalled that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had projected a global average sea level rise of 19 to 58 centimetres by 2100.
Air temperature in the South Pacific was estimated to be at least 2.5 degrees Celsius above 1990 levels.
Since 2006, Australia had channelled a substantial amount of funding through the Global Environment Facility, which had allocated over 30 per cent of its funds to climate change.
Australia’s total contribution to the Facility since 1991 stood at $A 240 million.
He said the Climate Change Panel had highlighted that low-lying islands were especially vulnerable to the deteriorating coastal conditions, increased inundation and increased “water stress”.
Pacific Island Forum members, including Australia, had endorsed the Pacific Islands Framework for Action on Climate Change 2006-2015, which was currently identifying adaptation strategies.
Also, Australia planned to increase its aid to various Pacific island States and East Timor by $A 150 million over the next three years, and would share scientific and technical expertise in monitoring climate change and its impacts.
He said a further $A 50 million would be allocated to build the capacity of national meteorological services in the region, among other things.
That money would also be used to offer practical assistance in increasing water storage capacity, diversifying crops and replanting mangroves.
Some of the funding would be spent through the United Nations Least Developed Countries Fund.
Australia also planned to engage in activities to help mitigate deforestation activities in Papua New Guinea, while researchers from the James Cook University would conduct a study on coastal erosion in Australia’s Torres Strait.
Aboriginal Caucus Condemns Racial Discrimination
Les Malezer, presenting the Australian Aboriginal Joint Statement, noted that only days ago a national summit in Australia convened by the government indicated that there may be national support for a treaty or constitutional reform to promote and protect the rights of the Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
The Caucus statement said the right to be free and equal, as peoples, to all other peoples and to be free from any kind of racial discrimination is being vigourously denied.
The 'Northern Territory Emergency' legislation must be withdrawn because it suspended the Racial Discrimination Act in Australia.
Recent policies, including those of the new Government in Australia, were forcing indigenous peoples to live with violations of their human rights.
Their free and prior informed consent was not obtained and the new laws did not apply equally to indigenous peoples and the general population alike.
These laws, less than one year old yet reminiscent of policies one hundred years ago, target remote Aboriginal communities and recreates the reserves environment by, inter alia, giving police and ‘special task forces’ star chamber powers over Aboriginal people, controlling incomes of families and victimising all the targetted people on grounds of race.
The indigenous delegations from Australia invited the Chairperson of the PFII to visit Australia to participate in a meeting which might be arranged between the Government of Australia and respresentatives chosen by the Indigenous Peoples Organisation.
The Government of Australia was asked to issue open invitations to the UN special mechanisms to visit Australia to examine the situation of the rights and freedoms of the indigenous peoples.
The Caucus also recommended that the Government of Australia increase the capacity of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to promote and protect the rights of indigenous peoples and to address racial discrimination in Australia.
Education Network Calls for Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Education
Gary Thomas, of the Australian National Indigenous Higher Education Network (NIHEN), said indigenous peoples’ access to education, as well as completion rates, was lower than the Australian national average, reflecting the appalling socio-economic status of indigenous peoples across the country.
Training programmes for professionals contained insufficient indigenous content, affecting the delivery of services to those communities.
Australia had yet to acknowledge the two knowledge systems that existed within its borders: indigenous and western.
In areas where indigenous knowledge systems were indeed recognized, it was important to ensure indigenous control over it so that indigenous peoples remained the custodians of that knowledge and were not marginalized in its use.
He said an advisory council was currently undertaking a study on that subject, which sought to promote a rights-based approach to education.
The Forum should lend its assistance to the Higher Education Network in addressing that issue.
NIHEN stated that 'in recognition that Indigenous education is a global concern we request the UNPFII to call on the Human RIghts Council to establish a Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Education'.
NSWALC Calls for Reparations
Norman Laing, on behalf of the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council, said the Land Council system was not the best in the world, but there were substantial challenges to be faced in the area.
The Council’s advocacy on behalf of the indigenous peoples was targeted to relevant assistance agencies, especially for funding.
Other focuses were education and training, in addition to providing security and support.
He said the Northern Territory Intervention entailed discriminatory elements, but the other side of the spectrum was the lack of adequate policy measures, which left the indigenous peoples with having to rely on mainstream Government service providers.
The Government’s lack of an adequate response to the needs and human rights of the indigenous peoples was an unforgivable lapse.
A formal apology was a start, but much more was needed.
The Forum should call on the Government to make reparations.
All Governments should ensure the rights of their indigenous peoples, particularly across the Pacific region.
Also, climate change should be a permanent consideration of the Forum.
Emergency Legislation Should End
Barbara Shaw, of FAIRA Australia, said she was from central Australia and the Northern Territory Emergency Response Legislation that had been instituted in areas inhabited by indigenous peoples had been a land-grab that violated their rights.
The Forum should urge the Government to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Government should rescind the 1975 Emergency Act and should also formally invite the Special Rapporteur on indigenous rights to visit the Northern Territory and assess the situation in person.
ENDS
