At UN, Indigenous Question Obama and UNDP's Clark, Canada's Fowler's Release Unexplained

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1pfii051809.html

UNITED NATIONS, May 18 – Three countries, including the United States, remain formally opposed to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. The other two are Canada, with major mining interests around the world including, notably, Niger, and finally New Zealand.

The new Administrator of the UN Development Program, Helen Clark, was previously the prime minister of New Zealand. The chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, told a press conference Monday that she hopes that this former position will not influence Ms. Clark's work at UNDP. Inner City Press asked, has she met with you and the Forum yet? No, came the answer. Nor has Inner City Press received from UNDP a long-promised answer about its use of funding in Cyprus.

Ms. Tauli-Corpuz said she has spoken with the U.S. State Department's negotiator on reducing emissions to find if the Obama Administration will reverse Bush' opposition to the Declaration, without getting a clear answer. Most invective, however, was reserved for Canada, under Harper opposed to the Declaration, and involved in controversial mining projects all over the world.

Last week, Inner City Press asked Canada's Ambassador to the UN about the abduction in Niger and release of former Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler, who while ostensibly serving as a UN envoy was visiting a Canadian owned mine in Niger at the time of his abduction. On this and the question of Tamils' protests in Toronto, Ambassador McNee said that he had not come to the UN press briefing room prepared to answer on Canada and UN issues. We will pursue answers to these issues.

Sweden's Lars Anders Baer, when Inner City Press asked about the “inclusion” theme of this year's UN Commission on Social Development meeting, scoffed that inclusions means different things in North America and Africa. During the passage of the Declaration, at Western powers' request it was said, some African countries opposed the Declaration, stating that they have no indigenous people, or that everyone there is indigenous. The issue arose during a recent review of Rwanda's human rights record. Click here for that story.

Inner City Press asked about the roll of the UN's Department of Economic and Social Affairs in the functioning of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Previously, there were allegations that DESA canceled a scheduled scening of a documentary about indigenous people in Viet Nam, Laos and Thailand, faced by a governmental request. This question was not answered, but will be pursued while the Forum is in town, through May 29. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1pfii051809.html