The systematic racism, forced assimilation, and apartheid of indigenous peoples in the United States
has been documented in the "Consolidated Indigenous Shadow Report," to be presented by the
International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination in February.
The report is compiled from the testimony of individuals and groups of indigenous peoples and includes
data from a wide range of sources. The report reveals "a system of Apartheid and forced assimilation," where
indigenous peoples are "warehoused in poverty and neglect" in the United States and details
the systematic racism, violation and abrogation of Indian treaty rights, and discrimination toward non-federally
recognized Indian Nations. Statistics are included on unemployment, violence against women, and sexual
abuse in residential schools. The destruction of sacred places, environmental racism, and border injustices
are revealed. Further, the high rate of incarceration and disproportionately long prison sentences for
American Indians are exposed.
Alberto Saldamando, General Council of the IITC, and board member Lenny Foster, Navajo, who contributed to
the report regarding denials for freedom of religion for Indigenous prisoners in the United States, will
present the report to the UN Committee in Geneva. Western Shoshone and other organizations and Nations
will join Saldamando and Foster.
Border Apartheid
The section on racism and apartheid includes a report on indigenous peoples at the borders. "Under
the guise of Homeland Security, the United States has increasingly become paranoid and isolationist,
and is ahead of schedule in building a barrier, a steel wall along 700 miles of the U.S. Mexican border.
This wall and U.S. xenophobia greatly affect Indigenous Peoples whose lands straddle both sides of the
border," the report states.
The end result of U.S. policies is many deaths of undocumented immigrants, many of whom are Indigenous
Peoples, including Mayans from Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Guatemala. Since July, Lipan Apache elders of El
Calaboz, Texas have been the targets of threats and harassments by Border Patrol, Army Corps of Engineers,
and other U.S. officials related to the proposed building of a fence on their levee. The National Security
Administration has demanded that elders give up their lands. They have been told that they will have
to travel three miles to go through checkpoints, to walk, recreate, to farm, and herd goats and cattle
on their own Apache lands.
Eloise Tamez, Lipan Apache in El Calaboz, describes the harassment and threat of the seizure of her
lands by eminent domain. "In mid July 2007, I was informed by telephone that Homeland Security plans
to split my property with a wall/fence. The informant (Border Patrol Agent Rick Cavazos) indicated that
the government, under a National Security Directive, plans to build a fence on my private property with
or without my consent or approval. For the record, land grant title holders currently own properties
which extend to North of the levee but also South of the levee of the Rio Grande. Of this, the only 'choice'
given me is that I can access my land South of the levee via a proposed checkpoint that will be built
three miles east of my property (Garza Road)." She added that, "Many elders in our community will be
denied basic freedoms to access their private property, due to the burden this 'access' will impose on
their daily lives. Significant sectors of our communities will not be economically or socially positioned
to travel three miles and through a security checkpoint to access their land grant private property holdings.
Effectively, this measure would seriously sever an indigenous community from cultural resources, and
cause immeasurable injury to community economic, social, ecological proprietorship, and future development."
O'odham Lt. Gov. Jose Garcia described the impact of the border on his people in Sonora, Mexico. "Our
people live on both sides of the border, and we maintain relations with each other on a regular basis,
crossing the border to attend baptisms, weddings, funerals, and our traditional ceremonies, maintaining
our Spiritual practice in spite of the obvious difficulties the border poses for us. We understand that
the United States is to build a steel wall on the border and we are concerned as to how it will affect
us, that it will further divide our people. It will certainly be an obstacle not only to immigrants but
to the Indigenous Peoples of both the United States and Mexico," says Garcia, "It will block
our customs and traditions and is not any solution to the problem. The problem is one of poverty and
the lack of economic opportunity in Mexico. The migration of people, crossing into the United States,
will continue as people search for a better way of life."
Meanwhile, representatives of 19 Indigenous Nations of the Americas met in Tucson, Arizona, on Nov.
17, 2007, to examine the situation of the Border and Indigenous Peoples. They issued a report, wherein
they expressed their "... collective outrage for the extreme levels of suffering and inhumanity, including
many deaths and massive disruption of way of life, that have been presented to this Summit as well as
what we have witnessed in our visit to the border areas during the Summit as
a result of brutal and racist U.S. policies being enforced on the Tohono O'odham traditional homelands
and elsewhere along the U.S.-Mexico border."
Nations Apart—U.S. Indigenous Reality
The data includes the overwhelming disparities in income, life expectancy, poverty, and unemployment.
The disproportionate number of Indians in prisons is revealed with statistics from Montana. According
to the 2000 U.S. Census, Native Americans—Montana's largest non-white group, comprise just 6.2% of Montana's
population but 20% of those are in correctional institutions. Nineteen percent of the 3,704 Montana men
and boys being held in correctional institutions are Native American. Nearly one-third of the 429 women
in correctional institutions are Native American.
The report also notes that energy development is destroying indigenous sacred sites at an alarming
rate, noting specifically the Lakota Nation and Bear Butte (Mato Paha), Black Hills, in South Dakota.
Miguel Alfonso Martinez, the special rapporteur on treaties, agreements, and other constructive arrangements
between states and Indigenous Peoples' populations reports that the Black Hills were taken from the Lakota,
noting that, "A more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealing will never, in all probability,
be found in our history." Both the Court of Claims, in 1979, and the U.S. Supreme Court decided
that the United States Government had unconstitutionally taken the Black Hills in violation of the United
States Constitution.
The Supreme Court established a $17.5 million award (plus interest) for the Sioux. The indigenous
party refused the payment, demanding its lands back. Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance, Abdelfattah
Amor, drew special attention to the forced relocation of Navajos on Black Mesa and the United States'
refusal to take into consideration the spiritual practices of Navajos.
"On the subject of Black Mesa, the Special Rapporteur also calls for the observance of international
law on freedom of religion and its manifestations. In the case of the Navajo elders, the reconciliation
of their human rights and other legitimate concerns were not taken into account. No consideration was
given their spiritual practices and beliefs by the United States government in ordering their relocation."
Energy Development Threatens Native Lands
As lands are seized or leased for energy developments, human rights violations increase. On the Navajo
Nation, coal mining and uranium mining have resulted in frequent violations of indigenous rights. "Economic
interests, such as the coal mine, have often prevailed over Indigenous human rights. These are principally
private ventures that do not have a true public interest, and their activities rarely consider the fundamental
rights or freedom of others," the SR reports.
There are over 1,000 abandoned uranium mines and mills on the Navajo Nation that have not been reclaimed.
It has been over 50 years since the federal government or the corporations reaped millions of dollars
in the mining and milling processes. These contaminants pose a continuing health hazard to traditional
Navajos who live in close proximity to these sites.
Western Shoshone have been leaders in the fight against racism, nuclear dumping, and the abrogation
of treaties. Western Shoshone continue their fight against the planned Yucca Mountain waste dump in Nevada,
while the Goshute have taken on a proposed low level nuclear Monitored Retrievable Storage Site. The
report observes, "While the past tragedies are exposed, the Bush administration has pressed for more
development on Indian lands already suffering from atrocities.
"As the Bush administration has advocated the use of nuclear power as an answer to global warming
and climate change, indigenous peoples must strongly consider the historical past that has left the legacy
of health impacts from human exposure, land, air, and water contamination, contamination to traditional
food sources, sacred sites, tradition, and culture from past uranium exploration and production."
Some of the recommendations to the Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination include:
- Consultations should take place with Indigenous Peoples, including the right to free, prior, and
informed consent, with the aim of abolishing racist doctrines such as the Trust relationship while protecting
the rights of Indigenous Peoples as reflected by international customary law and the United Nations Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
- That the United States recognize all Indigenous Peoples in the United States as Indigenous Peoples
with Indigenous rights, consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
and with international customary law, including terminated Tribes, unrecognized Tribes, Alaskan Natives,
Native Hawai'ians, and the Taino Peoples of Puerto Rico. It should also comply with its Charter responsibilities
of ensuring the wellbeing of the Native Peoples of Guam and Puerto Rico.
- The "Plenary Powers Doctrine" should be immediately abolished. Indigenous lands taken under
this doctrine should be restored.
- The United States should begin a process of reinstating abrogated and unrecognized Treaties with
Indigenous Peoples, with the aim of respecting and adhering to their terms, and provide, with the free,
prior, and informed consent of the Indigenous Peoples affected, restitution and where appropriate, compensation
for damages as a result of their abrogation or failure of recognition.
- Sacred Lands should be returned to Indigenous Peoples with particular attention paid to the Black
Hills of South Dakota to the Lakota Nation.
- Indigenous Peoples should be allowed to practice their religion without the necessity of permits
or the observation and encumbrances of tourists, bikers, and rock climbers.
- Development that affects the Sanctity of Sacred Lands should immediately cease and should only be
allowed with the free, prior, and informed consent of the Indigenous Peoples affected.
- Prison Inmates, in both Federal and State prisons should immediately be allowed their religious practice
as is allowed all other religions in United States prisons, including but not limited to, last rites
for condemned Indigenous inmates.
- Development with potential harm to Indigenous Peoples' rights, whether on recognized reservations
or not, should not be done without their free, prior, and informed consent. The United States should
take immediate steps to remediate and compensate for the legacies of development harmful to Indigenous
Peoples.
- The United States should be held accountable for its behavior and that of U.S. trans-national corporations
that violate the rights of Indigenous Peoples abroad. It should immediately cease these racist policies
and practices and explore ways of holding transnational companies registered in the United States accountable.
Particularly, the United States should: 1) Outlaw the manufacture of banned pesticides for export; 2)
Stop the spraying of herbicides in Colombia and other countries; 3) Cease their economic and logistical
support of paramilitary death squads under the guise of "economic development."
- The United States must comply with its Treaty Obligations as well as customary international law,
and provide the means by which Indian Reservations can develop and provide for future generations in
keeping with their cultures and traditions.
- Congress should act to reauthorize and update the Indian Health Care Improvement Act to reflect both
current needs of Indian health and the current health care systems enjoyed by most Americans. Equally
importantly, it should receive the necessary funding to be effective.
- In order to better protect tribal female citizens from sexual violence, the United States should
recognize full tribal criminal jurisdictional authority over all crimes occurring within Indian country.
In addition, Congress should provide adequate funding to fully implement Title IX of the Violence against
Women Act.
- The United States should afford Native Americans the full right to participate in government by addressing
the rampant voting discrimination practices throughout the nation, and particularly in South Dakota.
- The United States should provide just and adequate reparation and compensation for any damages suffered
by indigenous victims of abuse by the United States under its historical practice of mandating that Native
children attend federally sponsored boarding schools.
- The United States should promote the development of textbooks and the teaching of culturally appropriate
and historically accurate curriculum for all school age children, particularly Native American children,
of the dignity and worth of Indigenous Peoples and cultures, as well as their human rights.
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Brenda Norrell is a freelance writer and Americas Policy Program border analyst, www.americaspolicy.org. Her blog can be found at http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/.
