Steven Newcomb: Meeting stacked against indigenous peoples

Today, we can write up an imaginary new episode of our own “Twilight Zone,” entitled: "To Serve Indigenous Peoples." The episode will be based on an ostensible message of peace and altruism during preparations for the United Nations High Level Plenary Meeting (HLPM) of the UN General Assembly, that is not a World Conference on Indigenous Peoples even though it is being called one. The purpose of the General Assembly High Level Meeting, we are told is to highlight “best practices” by states for the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. An outcome document will be created for that purpose, the content of which will be ultimately controlled by the state governments.

Many peoples throughout the world who are called “Indigenous” (i.e., “under dominance”) have been moving forward with the event, because they have been led to think that it is indeed a “World Conference on Indigenous Peoples.” However, those Indigenous nations and peoples who attended the North American Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus gathering March 1-2, in Kamloops, in the Secwépemc Territory in Kamloops (“British Columbia”), decided to call for the cancellation of the UN High Level Plenary Meeting which is not a World Conference on Indigenous Peoples.

Why? Because the HLPM is predictably and unequally structured in a way that places states above peoples termed “Indigenous,” and because the drafting of the final outcome document will be controlled entirely by the state members of the UN. An informal process will take place that will, at most, include 32 indigenous peoples, out of the world’s estimated population of 370 million Indigenous people, and thousands of Indigenous nations and peoples. The NAIPC gathering called for the High Level Plenary of the UN General Assembly to be cancelled because that plenary it is not premised on equality for nations and peoples called “Indigenous.”

So what does any of this have to do with our imaginary Twilight Zone episode? On April 4, the U.S. Department of State sent out an invitation for a consultation on the UN High Level Plenary Meeting (HLPM), which is a follow up to its March 10 “Scoping Session” on the same topic. The March 10 gathering lasted 90 minutes, but during that time not one elected “tribal” government official or representative of organizations such as the National Congress of American Indians ever broached the subject of the “outcome document” that will result from the High Level Plenary Meeting.