By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, May 28 -- Alongside the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the UN for the past week, there's been talk of the World Bank versus IMF as well as of the controversial Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, REDD or REDD Plus, program.
Inner City Press on May 28 put questions about these to a panel including Mexico's outgoing ambassador to the UN in New York, Luis Alfonso de Alba, Grand Chief Edward John and Joan Carling of the Asia Indigenous Peoples' Pact.Video here, from Minute 11:41.
Luis Alfonso de Alba, who is soon to move to Vienna, replied that the outcome document of the 2014 World Conference on Indigenous Peoples will be "very general" but will aim to address the areas on which governments need to do better.
Joan Carling said that REDD Plus is, in fact, popular in Cambodia. Inner City Press cited opposition in Panama. She said it varies from place to place, depending on how it impacts indigenous people. She said it should be up to them, and not to NGOs which claim to work with them, "imposes their ideological views."
Chief Ed John went further, citing Keystone, tar sands, the Exxon Valdes, BP and the Gulf of Mexico. He said his people in Canada still "take their fish" and are impacted by these policies.
There were no other questions in the briefing room. Inner City Press, co-founded of the new Free UN Coalition for Access, thanked the panels generally and asked about the World Bank and IMF. Video here, from Minute 21:20.
Joan Carling said she'd made an intervention during the session on the World Bank, about the needs for a human rights framework beyond "do no harm." (Even that would be a major step forward for the UN, considering for example their introduction of cholera in to Haiti.)
Grand Chief Edward John pointed out that the World Bank speaks of prior "consultation" rather than consent. But what about the International Monetary Fund? What are they? Inner City Press put in the question to the IMF on May 23. Watch this site.
