Five Important Indigenous People's Issues for the Weeks of June 23 - July 1, 2008
Major General Cunanan's Baptism is a Defilement of Indigenous Culture
The PASAKA Confederation of Lumad Organizations in Southern Mindanao decried the baptism of Eastmincom Commander Major General Armando L. Cunanan led by the Mindanao Indigenous Peoples Conference on Peace and Development (MIPCPD) last June 13 as the MIPCPD paid the newly appointed chief a courtesy call.
Traditionally, lumads would use the rite of baptism to welcome someone into the tribe, an act which many lumad groups consider tantamount to accepting someone as a blood relation or member of the tribe.
But PASAKA calls it a defilement of the lumad culture and warned the military that not all lumads are party to the agreements or negotiations entered into by the MIPCPD. Read the rest of the story here....
Malaysian Indigenous People Face Arrest at Logging Blockade
A month-long blockade of logging roads by indigenous people in the state of Sarawak, Malaysia set to protest illegal logging on their communal lands is about to be broken up by police. More than 100 indigenous Kenyah people gathered at the blockade site on the upper Moh River on the island of Borneo claim that the blockade is their only way of calling on representatives of the Samling Timber Company and government authorities to have a consultation and meet with them to listen to their problems and demands.
Otherwise, they say, the Samling Timber Company will continue to ignore their demands and plights. According to the Borneo Resources Institute in Miri, which issued a statement today on behalf of the Kenyah peoples, ever since Samling started its logging operations in the upper Baram area, the indigenous communities have suffered the environmental impacts of logging.
They say the company simply encroached into their communal land and forest areas to carry out logging activities, without any consultation and consideration for their source of livelihood. Read the rest of the story here....
Jumma Indigenous People Pushed to the Edge of Existence
Members of one of the least-known groups of indigenous people in the world are facing what they see as a struggle for survival in Bangladesh. They claim that their way of life is being increasingly threatened by the Bangladeshi government and military while the world's back is turned.
There are around 600,000 Jumma living in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, in south-east Bangladesh, where they can trace their history back to the 12th century. For many years, they lived a remote existence in the jungle area above Chittagong. A treaty with the British in 1900 appeared to offer them protection "to help preserve the tribal culture" and to leave them to their own devices, in exchange for taxation. They continued this existence, largely untroubled, as part of East Pakistan - after the partition that followed India's independence in 1947 - until the 1970s. Read more about this story here....
Summit Dreams For Siberia Oil Town Despite Indigenous Peoples Concerns
For the next few days, this small town deep in a Siberian forest will bask in the spotlight as European and Russian officials try to move their stalled partnership forward.
Regional leaders hope the Russia-EU summit, which opens Thursday evening, will lead to more foreign investment. Beaming local residents, meanwhile, insist that the choice of their town, some 2,700 kilometers east of Moscow, to host the event is no surprise.
"Khanty-Mansiisk is the center of the universe today," said Yeremei Aipin, deputy speaker of the regional parliament and a writer of Khanty origin.
Such a notion may be in part shaped by a local legend that a great flood covered the whole world, and life returned on Samarovskaya Mountain, a sacred site for the region's two main indigenous groups, the Khanty and the Mansi, Aipin said.
But when Aipin and other officials speak of Khanty-Mansiisk's significance, they also use hard facts.
The region accounts for about 40 percent of the country's oil exports and pumps 7.5 percent of the world's oil, while its taxes account for almost a quarter of federal budget revenues, according to officials' estimates. Read more here....
Greenland Indigenous Peoples Denied on Whale Catch
The first vote at this year's International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting has resulted in defeat for Greenland's request to expand its hunt. Many countries were unconvinced that Greenlanders need the extra meat that catching 10 humpbacks would provide, and believe the hunt is too commercial. A Greenland delegate said the decision would deprive its indigenous Inuit communities of much needed whale meat.
The EU's decision to vote as a bloc on the issue drew harsh criticism.
"I deeply regret that the IWC was not able to fulfil its obligations when all its requirements were met by Greenland," said Amalie Jessen from Greenland's fisheries ministry.
"I feel those opposing our proposal just wanted to find new excuses not to award humpbacks; and I anticipate that when we bring the proposal back in a year's time, they will have prepared other excuses." Read the rest of the story here....
Last weeks Five Key Indigenous People's Issues can be found here.
2 comments:
Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights: A Note on Issues, Some Solutions and Some Suggestions
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1140623
Thank you for sharing this article K.R. Srinivas - I've downloaded a copy and will read it this week. It looks very good. If anyone else is interested, you can download a free copy here.
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