Based on research in the United States this past spring, James Anaya,
the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples,
presented his
final report
to the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva on Tuesday. The
process marks the first time that the United States has allowed an
external body to formally investigate and comment on the situation of
its indigenous communities, a notably sensitive issue.
Speaking before the council, Anaya stated that indigenous communities
in the United States (also referred to as American Indians) continue to
“face significant challenges that are related to widespread historical
wrongs, including broken treaties and acts of oppression, and misguided
government policies, that today manifest themselves in various
indicators of disadvantage and impediments to the exercise of their
individual and collective rights.”
The U.S. mission to the UNHRC has offered a formal response to the
concerns raised, highlighting several new and recent government
initiatives and policy changes.
These include a three-percent increase – to 19.4 billion dollars – in
President Barack Obama’s budget request for 2013 in funding earmarked
for indigenous communities, as well as changes under the country’s
newly expanded health insurance legislation that would include a
29-percent increase to the budget of the Indian Health Service over
2009 figures.
(By deadline, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs did not respond to requests for comment on the report.)
Yet the special rapporteur cautioned that “existing federal programmes
need to be improved upon and their execution made more effective.”
Indeed, the 310 tribal-overseen “reservations” in the United States, on
which about half of the 4.5 million-strong Native American population
lives today, are sites of some of the country’s most grinding poverty.
Some reservations see 66-percent unemployment figures, while rates of
alcoholism are five times that of the rest of the U.S. population.
According to the most recent U.S. census statistics, a quarter of all
Native Americans live in poverty and nearly a third lack health
insurance, suffering from several health problems at far higher rates
than the rest of the country. According to 2003 data, fewer than half
of Native American youths were expected to graduate from high school.
Such marginalisation has led to rights abuses that advocates say have
yet to be addressed by either the U.S. government – or, some suggest,
by Anaya’s report.
“Although the special rapporteur failed to recognise the growing
problem of human and civil rights violations among the indigenous
people of the United States, I am not surprised,” John Gomez, with the
American Indian Rights and Resource Organization, told IPS. “To
acknowledge that the problem exists, and that the United States has
taken no action to protect the rights of the individuals being
persecuted, would expose the hypocrisy of the U.S. government and the
current administration.”
Gomez says that U.S. policies in addressing rights violations abroad
versus within its own borders are contradictory. “The indigenous people
of the United States,” he says, “deserve the same type of action taken
by the United States government to deter or quash cruel and unusual
punishment … on foreign soil.”
Centrality of land
Last week marked the fifth anniversary of the U.N.’s adoption of the
Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which recognises a spectrum of
indigenous peoples’ rights to self-determination and governments’
concurrent responsibilities. When it was passed, in mid-September 2007,
the United States was one of only four countries, out of 143, to refuse
to vote for its adoption.
In 2010, however, President Obama announced that the U.S. would reverse
its position. At the time, the president stated that “few have been
more marginalised and ignored by Washington for as long as Native
Americans … While we cannot erase the scourges or broken promises of
our past, we will move ahead together in writing a new, brighter
chapter in our joint history.”
Anaya’s report underscores the continued relevance of the declaration,
and calls on the United States to use it as “an important impetus and
guide for improving on existing measures”.
Further, the special rapporteur appears to take some issue with
President Obama’s suggestion that little can be done to address the
past. In particular, he calls on the U.S. government to take a new look
at how it deals with the issue of traditional lands.
In May, at the end of his research trip to the United States, Anaya
create a brief public furore by calling for the U.S. government to hand
back traditional lands that now include Mount Rushmore, an iconic
national memorial comprised of the faces of four notable U.S.
presidents carved out of a massive cliff face.
Anaya revisits the issue in his official report, calling the Black
Hills an “emblematic case”. While the federal government has initiated
some projects to restore control by indigenous peoples over their
traditional lands, “My central recommendation … will be for there to be
more of these kind of initiatives,” Anaya said in a short
videoreleased last week.
The land issue has been fingered as one of the main reasons behind the
U.S. government’s initial reluctance to back the Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which recognises indigenous peoples’
rights to traditional lands and resources and urges states to give
indigenous communities “legal recognition and protection to these
lands”.
Public’s responsibility
While much of Anaya’s report focuses on U.S. government actions, there
has also been a significant cultural marginalisation of indigenous
communities within U.S. society as well, a lesser-discussed factor that
nonetheless has broad impact.
“Two of the biggest obstacles to change are the stereotypes and
misconceptions that exist about history and why things are the way they
are today,” Helen Oliff, with National Relief Charities, a group that
focuses on poverty among U.S. indigenous communities, told IPS.
“The people are simply looking for a level playing field – they’re not
looking for an easy life but for equitable opportunity. Importantly,
the report echoes the voice of the American Indian people, and is
representative of what we hear and see through our work in Indian
country.”
Anaya, too, highlights the need for a broader understanding in the U.S.
of the realities, both positive and negative, of its indigenous
communities.
“What really is needed is greater awareness by the broader American
public of the vibrancy and continuity of these peoples within the
American social political fabric, and the contribution that indigenous
peoples make,” he says. “The larger public, from what I’m seeing, is by
and large ignorant about the presence of indigenous peoples … (and
that) they face severe challenges.”
He continues: “With that awareness, people can take actions that are appropriate to their local circumstances.”
