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Some of our Cree delegates were told: You are lucky you live in Canada where it is not that bad. I took no comfort in that. That was before Oka, and I think before Restiguche. I was not going to let Canada off of the hook because it was worse somewhere else. What logic supports that kind of thinking?
I knew also, that if the Government of Canada could be persuaded to support the recognition of strong international standards to protect the rights of indigenous peoples, then not only would our lives would be improved in Canada, but we would have a means to address the terrible situations in other countries.
The 1981 meeting was one of the events that led to the eventual establishment of the working group on indigenous populations in 1983. This and International Labour Office, Convention 107 on Indigenous and Tribal Populations, were the only visible evidence that the United Nations had finally recognized our existence.
That recognition was minimal...
Nevertheless, we viewed the opportunity to bring the concerns of the indigenous peoples to the United Nations very seriously, for it offered the hope of a brand new, and badly needed means of redress for our people. The working group had two essential mandates: to review current developments concerning our peoples, and to draft international standards to protect the rights of indigenous peoples.
The members of the working group were cautioned not to hear complaints from the hundreds of indigenous representatives who attend its five day yearly sessions. That, of course, is difficult. How does one review current developments in communities whose members are being systematically murdered without appearing to make complaints? How does one describe dispossession of lands without appearing to be grieved? How do you describe your rivers being dammed, communities being flooded, burial grounds beneath reservoirs, hunting territories denuded of trees how do you describe these things and not object? How do you tell this story without demanding that the international community act to protect the indigenous peoples?
But the States that were behind these situations were sensitive about complaints being made before the United Nations. The working group was carefully and intentionally mandated so that it could not properly hear complaints. That was the rule. The Chairman, Dr. Erica-Irene Daes, who is here with us today, would be obliged to caution the indigenous representatives who were telling their story, "This is not a chamber of complaints", she would say. She would, nevertheless, hear the grievances, because it was impossible not to hear them in the context of current developments...
Several years were taken to convince the members of the Sub-Commission that the indigenous peoples were not necessarily minorities. Imagine the reaction when diplomats actually learned that in some States the indigenous peoples constituted the majority of the population? Even in those places, the indigenous peoples were dispossessed, their rights were abused, and of course, they did not have a voice in government.
The working group's mandate to review developments served to contribute directly and substantively to the work of standard-setting. It is important that this be understood. We did not work from theory or hypothesis about international law and international rights. There was nothing abstract about our work.
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