Guardian Unlimited: Indigenous Groups Demand World Interest
 
From the Associated Press        


[UP] 

Saturday May 28, 2005 3:46 AM

By NICK WADHAMS 

Associated Press Writer 

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Turban-clad tribesmen and monks in saffron
robes joined indigenous groups from around the world Friday in
demanding that their home countries and the United Nations take
their interests into account in the push to spread education and
eradicate poverty. 

The demands were adopted at the end of a two-week forum in a
colorful scene in a cavernous U.N. chamber: the tribesmen from
the Sahara mingled with the Buddhist monks who sat across from
ethnic Quechua in conical hats draped with puffy pink and blue
tassels. 

The forum focused on two key U.N. development goals for 2015 -
cutting in half the number of people living in extreme poverty
and achieving universal primary education. Reaching the goals
will be high on the agenda at a summit of world leaders called
by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in September. 

Indigenous groups wanted to make sure that governments don't rob
them of their culture and history - or their right to speak
their own language - in efforts to achieve the goals. They also
called for national and international action to address ongoing
human rights violations against native peoples. 

Indigenous groups also must confront challenges that may not
occur to city dwellers - isolation, lack of birth certificates
or other documentation, and the insistence that they keep
indigenous names or dress. 

The conference began with U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Louise
Frechette urging the 1,500 native leaders and activists to draw
up concrete plans that would ``point the way toward measurable
improved standards of living and greater respect for human
rights.'' 

One big issue has been the seemingly mundane problem of
statistics. Indigenous activists worry, however, that numbers on
poverty, literacy and other issues routinely ignore indigenous
people, whose condition sometimes should be judged by different
criteria. 

For example, members of a tribal group may judge their wealth
more by land or resources than money. 

Some delegates, while respectful of the meeting, said they would
wait to see if it led to anything concrete to protect their
rights. 

``This is the first step, maybe the second step,'' said Luis
Delgado Sandra Ramos, a Quechua from Peru. ``We belong to the
Earth, to water, to the natural world, and the reason we came
for this meeting is to stop pollution and nuclear tests, and war
- the brutality against the natural world.''	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005