Indigenous peoples under threat in the Americas
Sacrificing rights in the name of development
04/08/2011
- Opinión
“[T]here are many unused resources (…), which are not generating investment and employment. And all this for the taboo of old ideologies, for laziness, (…) or for the law of the dog in the manger that says: ‘If I don’t do it, nobody will do it’.”
“There may be nice rhetoric that (…) Indigenous leaders repeat. (…) We cannot hold [those] extremist positions. We cannot be beggars sitting on a bag of gold. Those fundamentalisms, those dogmatisms just immobilise us.”
“I think that when we are speaking of such an important development project, things should probably be discussed with more calm. (…) I don’t think any democratic government has the intention to create problems with their Indigenous peoples. The worst thing [human rights bodies] can do is to exacerbate the issue treating [Indigenous people] as if they were victims, like the victims of dictatorships.”
“Like it or not, we are going to build that road [through the Indigenous territory].”
These are a few examples of how some presidents and regional leaders from the Americas, across the ideological spectrum, refer to Indigenous peoples’ rights and their struggles. The false and dangerous dichotomy of “development vs. Indigenous peoples’ rights” is widespread in the continent. It is based on the flawed argument that extractive or other development projects that serve national interests by increasing national wealth and generating jobs cannot be “obstructed” by Indigenous peoples who are “just” a fraction of society. Thus, when Indigenous communities organize themselves to demand respect for their rights, the state and other actors accuse them of blocking the growth of the entire country.
https://www.alainet.org/en/active/48536?language=en
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