Chief Wilton Littlechild presents welcoming statement at the CERD in Geneva, Feb. 3. Courtesy/Maria Petschen
Boarding school survivor-advocate promotes reconciliation
By Talli Nauman
Native Sun News
Health & Environment Editor GENEVA — An Indian boarding school survivor-advocate and champion of efforts to promote intercultural reconciliation, Francisco Cali Tzay received hearty congratulations Feb. 3, when he was elected the first-ever indigenous president of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). “This is an outstanding and very important milestone in the journey of indigenous peoples towards full, direct and equal participation in decision-making on all levels,” Ermineskin Cree Nation International Chief Wilton Littlechild, chair of the U.N. Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, said in a welcoming address. Littlechild, together with Haskell Indian Nations University Prof. Daniel Wildcat and International Indian Treaty Council Executive Director Andrea Carmen of the Yaqui Nation, honored Cali with a gift of a blanket and offered a prayer of thanks. Quoting Chief Dan George of the coastal Salish Tsleil-Waututh Nation, located in British Columbia, Canada, Littlechild remarked: “There is a longing in the heart of my people to reach out and grasp that which is needed for our survival. There is a longing among the young of my nation to secure for themselves and their people the skills that will provide them with a sense of worth and purpose. They will be our new warriors. Their training will be much longer and more demanding than it was in the olden days. The long years of study will demand more determination, separation from home and family will demand endurance. But they will merge with their hand held forward, not to receive welfare, but to grasp the place in society that is rightly ours...” Littlechild noted that “Cali’s skills, dedication and leadership qualities are being acknowledged by a U.N. treaty body that will open future opportunities for others. “My personal wish is that others in the U.N. system will look on this positive step forward and will also be guided by the right of indigenous peoples to full, direct and equal participation,” he added. His statement, during CERD’s 84th Session, Feb. 3-21, referenced disenchantment growing globally over the first U.N. World Conference of Indigenous Peoples, scheduled Sept. 22-23, in New York City. In South Dakota, Oglala Lakota Alex White Plume and Kent Lebsock of the Owe Aku International Justice Project, together with Glenn Morris of the Colorado-based Fourth World Center for the Study of Indigenous Law and Politics, called for cancellation of the September event. They said it is not the high-level plenary meeting it was billed to be, since it is “entirely controlled and directed by member states of the United Nations with no relevant input from any but a select few indigenous organizations and even then, that input has been completely ignored.” In a Feb. 6 statement directed to the North American Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus meeting in Chiang Mai, Thailand, they proposed starting over from scratch to organize “a genuine World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, with the full, equal and complete participation of indigenous peoples, in every phase of the conference.” On Jan. 28, the Continental Network of Indigenous Women of the Americas had requested John Ashe, president of the U.N. General Assembly, to designate an indigenous delegate to share in facilitating the conference process. The conference is grounded in the U.N. 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by a majority of 144 member countries after decades of the negotiations, and welcomed by the Office of the U.N. High Commission on Human Rights. That office, in turn, oversees the CERD’s monitoring and implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, or ICERD. Cali “has lived the dreams of our elders in a way that is consistent with and also implements the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and ICERD,” Littlechild said in a prepared speech. He congratulated Cali on behalf of fellow commissioners Murray Sinclair and Marie Wilson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which has a court-ordered mandate to investigate and document the Indian boarding school legacy. Cali served as an honorary witness to this process at its second national event in Inuvik in 2011. “We have benefited greatly from his independent international expertise and his guidance that has moved us forward towards reconciliation,” Littlechild said. Canada’s legislated policy of assimilation removed thousands of indigenous children from their parents and communities, causing direct and intergenerational trauma. One of the resulting objectives of the commission is to “witness, support, promote and facilitate truth and reconciliation events at both the national and community levels.” The aboriginal principle of witnessing, which has variants among First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples, generally refers to being a keeper of history when an event of historic significance occurs, according to the commission. In addition, Littlechild praised Cali for his dedication to treaty rights. “I congratulate CERD and President Cali Tzay in once again lifting up what the treaty relationship is all about – partnership. “In our collective effort to eliminate racial discrimination, we must respond to the call for us to work together. In this new era, with new energy, let us follow the instruction of a Cree elder who said, ‘Go where there is no path and leave a trail for someone else’. “President Francisco Cali Tzay has lived that teaching, and we will continue to look to his leadership. As a Mayan spiritual Leader said in a prayer of gratitude on Dec. 21 last year on the rising of the new sun, ‘Things will get better’. Things will get better,” he pronounced. Cali is of Guatemalan Mayan Kaqchikel descent. He has been the first and only indigenous member of the CERD since 2004, most recently serving as vice-chair. He has been the president of the Board of Directors of the International Indian Treaty Council since 2000. In Guatemala, he has served with the Foreign Ministry, the Presidential Commission against Racial Discrimination, the National Reparations Commission, and other indigenous rights projects. (Contact Talli Nauman, NSN Health and Environment editor, at talli.nauman@gmail.com)
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