Introduction

Indigenous Issues

(International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs)

Indigenous peoples - who are they?

Indigenous peoples are the disadvantaged descendants of those peoples that inhabited a territory prior to the formation of a state. The term indigenous may be defined as a characteristic relating the identity of a particular people to a particular area and distinguishing them culturally from other people or peoples. When, for example, immigrants from Europe settled in the Americas and Oceania, or when new states were created after colonialism was abolished in Africa and Asia, certain peoples became marginalised and discriminated against, because their language, their religion, their culture and their whole way of life were different and perceived by the dominant society as being inferior. Insisting on their right to self-determination is indigenous peoples’ way of overcoming these obstacles.

Today many indigenous peoples are still excluded from society and often even deprived of their rights as equal citizens of a state. Nevertheless they are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories and their ethnic identity. Self-identification as an indigenous individual and acceptance as such by the group is an essential component of indigenous peoples’ sense of identity. Their continued existence as peoples is closely connected to their possibility to influence their own fate and to live in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems.

Indigenous peoples face other serious difficulties such as the constant threat of territorial invasion and murder, the plundering of their resources, cultural and legal discrimination, as well as a lack of recognition suffered by indigenous institutions.

At least 350 million people worldwide are considered to be indigenous. Most of them live in remote areas in the world. Indigenous peoples are divided into at least 5000 peoples ranging from the forest peoples of the Amazon to the tribal peoples of India and from the Inuit of the Arctic to the Aborigines in Australia. Very often they inhabit land which is rich in minerals and natural resources.

Indigenous peoples have prior rights to their territories, lands and resources, but often these have been taken from them or are threatened. They have distinct cultures and economies compared to those of the dominant society. The importance of indigenous peoples' self-identification is crucial and a part of their identity.

Indigenous peoples face serious difficulties such as the constant threat of territorial invasion and murder, the plundering of their resources, cultural and legal discrimination, as well as a lack of recognition of their own institutions.


Definitions of Indigenous Peoples

The passage above is an attempt to explain the term indigenous peoples. However, there is no unambiguous definition of the concept of 'indigenous peoples'. The most widespread definitions are those proposed in the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention no.169 and in the Martinéz Cobo Report for the UN Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination of Minorities (1986).

Furthermore a definition suggested by the Chairperson of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations Mme. Erica-Irene Daes is widely used.

The definition outlined by the Chairperson of the United Nations' Working Group on Indigenous Populations, Mme. Erica-Irene Daes designates certain peoples as indigenous,

- because they are descendants of groups which were in the territory of the country at the time when other groups of different cultures or ethnic origins arrived there;

- because of their isolation from other segments of the country's population they have preserved almost intact the customs and traditions of their ancestors which are similar to those characterised as indigenous; and

- because they are, even if only formally, placed under a State structure which incorporates national, social and cultural characteristics alien to theirs.

According to the Martinéz Cobo Report for the UN Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination of Minorities (1986), indigenous peoples may be defined as follows:

- Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems.

This historical continuity may consist of the continuation, for an extended period reaching into the present, of one or more of the following factors:

a) Occupation of ancestral lands, or at least of part of them;

b) Common ancestry with the original occupants of these lands;

c) Culture in general, or in specific manifestations (such as religion, living under a tribal system, membership of an indigenous community, dress, means of livelihood, lifestyle, etc.);

d) Language (whether used as the only language, as mother-tongue, as the habitual means of communication at home or in the family, or as the main, preferred, habitual, general or normal language);

e) Residence in certain parts of the country, or in certain regions of the world;

f) Other relevant factors.

The ILO Convention no. 169 states that a people are considered indigenous either

- because they are the descendants of those who lived in the area before colonization;

- because they have maintained their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions since colonization and the establishment of new states.

Furthermore, the ILO Convention says that self-definition is crucial for indigenous peoples. This criterion has for example been applied in a land-claims agreement between the Canadian government and the Inuit of the Northwest Territories.