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09/16/2007: "NPMHR on UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples"


NPMHR on UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples

September 16, 2007

The Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR) with great esteem and appreciation acknowledge the profound contribution made by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) through the positive adoption of the UN Declaration on rights of indigenous peoples during the recent 61st session at the United Nations Headquarter, New York on the 13th September 2007. We also take this opportunity to appreciate the contribution of all state parties, experts and fellow indigenous peoples for working with much endurance in the past 23 years which finally concluded with the first international document consistent with international law.

The ILO conventions107 and 169 which, in the past, enumerated the standards for state in relation with indigenous and tribal peoples proved inadequate and established the inevitability of formally acknowledging the legal entity of indigenous people in the international law as reflected in the recently adopted UN Declaration on Indigenous peoples. We acknowledge roles of the various experts especially Martinez Cobo, Erica Irene Daes, and the contribution of Special Rapportuers in the various studies undertaken to highlight the plight of indigenous peoples.

NPMHR has from the early phase of studies on indigenous rights, monitored and participated in the different processes pushing for the gradual adoption and acknowledgement of our position as ‘peoples’ with equal rights within the larger framework of international law and human rights treaties to ensure the just enjoyment of all human rights for all peoples across the world. The predominant debates on ‘territorial integrity’ and ‘self-determination’ though still continuing, will now be more unpalatable to exercise the iron hand on the parts of the rogue states because of the acknowledgement of the existence of equal rights of indigenous peoples both in terms of the individual and collectives. The state parties which form the formal membership of the United Nations have in the past bulldozed the so called populations within its respective territories under the screen of national security and greed sought to control and exploit the resources within their unit state, ignoring the peoples right and ownership of land, resource and culture leading to ethnocide, environmental degradation and genocide. Thus their opposition to the indigenous peoples claiming their collective rights to self determination.

The Nagas through the commemoration of ‘Naga week’ in 1993 have made a conscious declaration stating our position. NPMHR also promoted the establishment of indigenous people’s network in the past decade especially in Asia and in the Indian subcontinent to empower and assert to gain visibility for the most oppressed section of humanity.

NPMHR believes that the struggle for dignity is a continuous process and the adoption of UN declaration on indigenous peoples will surely provide a cue even to the Naga struggle for self determination and attainment of our space as a nation within the international community.

With the United Nations Second Decade on indigenous peoples under the theme ‘partnership for action and dignity’ being commemorated, Naga people must work persistently and creatively to evolve ways to use this important instrument to gain our rightful position.


Sd/- Sd/-

(Dr. N. Venuh) (Atoho Kiho)
Secretary General Convener, Nagaland
NPMHR NPMHR


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