(UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz)
Jorge Barrera
APTN National News
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples says it’s time for the Justin Trudeau government to regulate Canadian companies overseas that continue to violate the rights of Indigenous peoples.
UN Special Rapporteur Victoria Tauli-Corpuz said the Canadian government has an “obligation” to regulate the activities of mining companies that operate in other parts of the world.
“This government has an obligation to regulate these companies,” said Tauli-Corpuz, in an interview following a speech at the Assembly of First Nations’ annual general assembly in Regina. “Mainly Indigenous people are effected directly by these mining companies.”
However, domestically, Tauli-Corpuz said the Canadian government under the Trudeau administration is “trailblazing” in its efforts to reshape its relationship with Indigenous peoples.
She singled out Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould’s role in the government’s efforts to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and ensure federal laws and policies respect Indigenous rights.
“I think the way that Wilson-Raybould is doing this is very important and it’s going to really make a difference if this will be pushed into action,” said Tauli-Corpuz.
Tauli-Corpuz said Wilson-Raybould delivered a significant speech Tuesday morning to the assembled chiefs describing a vision where First Nations are able to shape their own governance structure. She said the Trudeau government’s approach is a significant improvement over the actions of the previous administration of Stephen Harper.
“From what I read it seems like (Trudeau) is really totally shifting away from the previous ways the Harper government dealt with Indigenous issues,” she said. “Hopefully they will be a government that does the right thing as far as respecting indigenous rights.”
@JorgeBarrera
Exterminating native populations to occupy their territories is a Brazilian tradition. It began in the year 1500, when Portuguese conquerors disembarked from the caravels and found on the coast of Bahia Indians who had inhabited for centuries the lands announced as new discoveries. The indifference to the genocide of the original peoples was justified by the Fair War Doctrine, used in the Colonial Period to trivialize the death of the pagans who resisted the arrival of progress. Pagans or “gentile barbarians” were considered all peoples who did not share with the colonizer religion, language and customs and the arrival of progress meant the occupation of their lands by the European invader. The History of Brazil needs to be revised to reveal more credible interpretations than those presented in the textbooks, omitted in relation to the genocidal treatment of the Brazilian State to the native peoples. Indians sighted at the traffic lights of Brazilian cities, asking for alms to ensure survival, prove that the tradition continues, but with updated version. The arrival of progress means today to expel indigenous peoples from their lands, to overthrow the forest and to implement highly profitable activities that destroy the environment and de-structure indigenous social organization. Who profits from mercury-based mining; With the illegal trade in timber and coal that knocks down trees and sets forests on fire; With the smuggling of exotic species of fish and birds that adorn European aquariums; With the export of valuable seeds; With the extensive plantation of corn and soybeans that abuses agrochemicals and contaminates the waters of rivers and lakes, and with the construction of hydroelectric plants?