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CONIC
Council of Indigenous Organizations
and Nations of the Continent
Consejo de Organizaciones
y Naciones Indígenas del Continente
Mandate of the Indigenous
Peoples : Dec. 14, 1960
"All peoples have the right to self determination." These
are the words of United Nations General Assembly resolution
1514, passed on December 14, 1960, in the wake of the cresting
global movement to declare colonization a crime against
humanity, a violation of the international law of nation
states.
The declaration of colonization as a violation of international
law for the first time in the context of the United Nations
system, placed the government states who were in violation
under the scrutiny of the General Assembly. Procedures were
put in place to identify criteria that would specifically
describe the Non-Self-Governing Territories under colonization
and also establish a reporting system for the violating
government states to move these colonized peoples towards
self determination. As example, the U.S. government reported
to the decolonization commision, established under section
73(e) of the United Nations Charter until 1960, in the case
of the territories of Alaska and Hawaii.
From the same resolution, GA 1514:
For over 3,500 years our relatives have been contending
with colonization under the Aryan philosophy of racial and
cultural superiority in their traditional territories, ever
since even before they were invaded by Alexander the Great.
They also, like we native nations of this continent are
mistakenly called Indians. They call themselves the ADIVASI,
one of the Indigenous Peoples of the Indian subcontinent.
Along with the Adivasi, the Maori of Aotearoa (AKA New Zealand),
the multiple and diverse Indigenous Nations from the former
Soviet Union territories, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference,
the Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, Indigenous Peoples of
the Southeast Asian Peninsula as well as the Mainland, we
joined as the Indigenous Nations of Itzachilatlan (AKA the
Americas), Africa, Europe and Australia to witness and strengthen
the global political position of the Indigenous Peoples
upon the inauguration of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous
Issues, May 13, 2002 in New York.
The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is a 16 member
body of independent experts, eight of whom are nominated
by the government states, and eight nominated by the Indigenous
Peoples themselves in a process that reflects 7 geo-cultural
regions of the world with one rotating seat. Established
as an advisory body to the Economic and Social Council,
the Permanent Forum creates for the first time within the
global system of governance that is the United Nations,
a vehicle by which the Indigenous Peoples and Nations can
represent their interests directly to the UN. The inaugural
session of the Permanent Forum was opened by the Tadodaho
(traditional chief) from Onandaga, guardians of the Grand
Council Fire of the Haudenosaunee Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy,
upon whose traditional territories the UN building itself
stands. Among the Xicanos of Aztlan, there exists an especially
strong tie of culture and kinship with the Haudenosaunee
that goes back to the Wounded Knee conflict of 1973, and
further still to Mad Bear Anderson's continental Unity Caravan
under the White Roots of Peace and the initiative he led
to Cuba, attempting to achieve international recognition
for the Haudenosaunee passport and nationality on a par
with that of the US or any other government state. More
profoundly, among the archives of traditional memory of
the Tezcatlipoca Aztlan, there exists the teaching of relations
between the founder of the Six Nations Confederacy, called
the Peacemaker, and the disciples of the teachings of Quetzalcoatl
Ce Acatl in Mexico.
As the first week of the Permanent Forum drew to a close,
a sense of urgency and acknowledgment united the indigenous
representatives at the UN. The Indigenous Peoples - our
nations, communities, and families are on the front line
of the assault being systematically waged as the global
multinational corporate structure voraciously extracts natural
resources and spews contamination in order to maintain industrial
dominance of the current consumer market model of economic
globalization. At the Permanent Forum, the Indigenous Nations
testified repeatedly that time is running out to rectify
the relationship of the human society globally in order
to achieve sustainability within the natural ecosystems
of the Earth. It will soon be too late for words, too late
to reverse the effects of the petroleum based industrial
model that has pushed the world into the scenario of what
will inevitably be the terrible effects of global warming,
environmental degradation, and deforestation.
Among the Indigenous Caucus convened at the UN in New
York, it has also become mutually acknowledged and reinforced
at each international conference where the Indigenous Peoples
are in attendance, that the Indigenous Peoples worldwide
are the best hope as a strategic political bloc with global
context, history, and coherence that is not controlled by
the fractured allegiances or ideologies of the nation state
paradigm, nor captured by the values of the multinational
corporate regime of global resource expropriation. At the
core of this mutual acknowledgment is an appreciation for
the spirituality of the ancient and diverse Indigenous Peoples
as caretakers of the Earth. This enduring foundation has
provided the precept of a planetary constitution that describes
the Indigenous Nations and Peoples as a global confederation
of families, communities, tribes, organizations, nations,
and Nations of Nations in alliance. In this hemisphere,
this precept is known as the prophecy of the Eagle and the
Condor.
When Pope Alexander the VI, himself a member of the infamous
Borgia family, issued the Papal Bull Inter Cetera on May
3-4, 1493 the precursor estates that have led to the present
colonial nation state formation on this continent were given
their empowerment in terms of the international legal system
of the so called “West.†It was under the jurisprudence
of this international decree, clothed in the religious authority
of the Vatican, that the colonization, terracide and genocide
of this hemisphere acquired its initial justification as
a civilized action, again in terms of the “Westâ€, and
specifically for the representative political powers of
the time: the royal families of Spain and Portugal. Under
this edict, the geographical fact of discovery was tied
to the politico-religious act of dominion implemented with
exclusivity in favor of the European American invaders.
This Papal Bull has never been abrogated or annulled and
remains in effect.
The New World was such for the West not just in the geographical
sense, it was new and revolutionary in the fact that the
Indigenous Peoples social contract that gave context to
the political infrastructure of the culture emanated through
a spirituality appreciative of the elemental forces of nature,
in which there was no concept of things outside of nature
or "supernatural." Nor was the human society given preference
or exclusivity as the being the dominant personality of
society, which included the other life forms of winged,
crawling, swimming, etc., creatures in the natural world
order. It was these egalitarian political precepts that
upon arrival in the Europe of the 1500's, gave germination
to the revolutions of liberation which eventually toppled
the rule by royalty in this hemisphere, and gave birth to
the modern republic-states presently internationally recognized
and in status as members of the UN. In the transition, however,
from colony to republic, not one of the newly formed nation
states of the hemisphere has revoked the initial claim to
jurisdiction established under the Papal Bull of 1493, known
as the Doctrine of Discovery.
In fact, although the UN General Assembly resolution 1514
proclaims colonization as a violation of international law,
and the criteria and protocols for decolonization clearly
are relevant and should be applied to the indigenous nation
territories, a Doctrine of Denial and complicity exists
among the government states of the western hemisphere to
block implementation by the Indigenous Nations and Peoples
of the right to decolonization. In other words, the processes
of decolonization applied after World War II to the African
continent and other colonial territories is not to be repeated
or made inclusive of the Indigenous Peoples. To accomplish
this duplicity, the government states of the United Nation
systems have refused to accede to identifying the Indigenous
Peoples as Peoples, referring to us "indigenous populations"
only or in the singular as "indigenous people" thus precluding
the right to self determination and collective rights within
the global matrix which is the established international
legal system of the so called "civilized world." Specific
to North, Central and South America, the government states
of the continent have colluded to enforce the Doctrine of
Denial under the international legal system and the United
Nations, within which these governments are recognized as
"indigenous to thehemisphere" thus shielding them collectively
as violators of UN General Assembly Resolution 1514.
The call for a permanent forum within the United Nations
system for Indigenous Peoples derives from the historical
resistance movement of the Indigenous Peoples and Nations
worldwide to colonization. In the implementation, the UN
has established within the Economic and Social Council the
Permanent Forumon Indigenous Issues. The concept of a forum
is a description of social space, wherein a dialogue is
possible. Any true dialogue requires a minimum of two perspectives,
a dynamic of duality must be present at all phases of the
process, including design, implementation, and evaluation.
Within the diplomatic language of the international system,
unless the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is to be
simply a disempowering token exercise for the Indigenous
Peoples, there must be recognition from the start that the
Permanent Forum operates under a Dual Mandate.
We have arrived at the moment in history of the world
where a dialogue among civilizations and world views is
necessary at the global level. Only so will the hope for
Peace and Dignity with justice for our human society survive,
established through a sustainable ecological relationship
to the Mother Earth itself as foundation. This is the Mandate
of the Indigenous Peoples; it supersedes that of the United
Nations system; it is an expression of the jurisprudence
of indigenous international law: it is the path of Tradition
and Liberation.
Tupac Enrique Acosta
TONATIERRA
P.O. Box 24009
Phoenix AZ 85076
Email: tonal@tonatierra.org,
www.tonatierra.org
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