Office of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs

US Department of State
Universal Periodic Review Consultation with Civil Society
August 1, 2014

United Nations Human Rights Council
Universal Periodic Review
Report of the
Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review

United States of America

Statement by

Movimiento Macehualli

Los Comités de Defensa del Barrio

TONATIERRA

Good Greetings,

In addressing this call for consultation by the US State Department regarding hearings that the US government is obligated to conduct in order to uphold the standards of International Human Rights laws, policies and practices, we begin with a general comment:

As Indigenous Peoples who do not subscribe to US status as federally recognized tribes, we stand with the position of the Oglala Lakota Nation submitted to the 13^th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (May 2014):

“The Oglala Lakota Nation further rejects the assertions of the United States government, as stated in its announcement that the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples calls for “a distinct international concept of self-determination specific to indigenous peoples.”  The Oglala Lakota Nation rejects the fabricated claim of the United States that the Declaration is intended “to promote the development of a concept of self-determination for indigenous peoples that is different from the existing right of self-determination in international law.”

Subsequently, while the US government accurately reports in their 2010 report to the UN Human Rights Council that by virtue of their status as sovereigns that pre-date the federal Union, as well as subsequent treaties, statutes, executive orders, and judicial decisions, Indian tribes are recognized as political entities with inherent powers of self government, we clarify now that the designation of “tribes” while consistent with US Federal Indian Law, does not that accurately describe the pre-existing sovereignties of the Nations of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala [the Americas], nor our international and intercontinental Confederations that not only precede European American colonial governments, but still today continue to exercise our inherent Human Rights as Indigenous Peoples, in spite of US government policies and the imposition of international borders of the states.

Universal Periodic Review Recommendations

1. CIVIL RIGHTS, ETHNIC, AND RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

Statement: 

While the US government’s role in the defense of Civil Rights in the state of Arizona has been the focus of litigation in the case of AZ SB1070 specifically, and the subsequent appointment of a US federal marshal in the case of Melendres v. Arpaio, neither instance has identified the violations of Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples as migrant workers with their families as is articulated in Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization, a subsidiary body of the UN system. Designation of categories of “racial profiling” identified for redress in both cases, excludes Indigenous Peoples and only provides relief for categories “Latinos” as litigants, a blatant act of systemic discrimination by the US domestic legal system in denial of the principles and standards of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 

8. THE ENVIRONMENT

Statement: 
Our inherent Human Rights as Nations of Indigenous Peoples are founded in the reality of our nationhood and collective responsibility as children of Mother Earth, and respect for the Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth.  The position of the US government on this issue of climate change, global warming and climate chaos is an unacceptable and flagrant denial of responsibility as a mass consumer society before the natural world and future generations which constitutes complicity in the crime of TERRACIDE.

10. TREATIES AND INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS MECHANISMS

Statement: 

As Indigenous Peoples, equal to all other peoples, our children must also be acknowledged, respected and protected as equals in Human Rights, most importantly the Right of Self Determination.  We call upon the US government to uphold the principles and standards articulated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and in full responsibility for the Human Rights of the Future Generations, we call for recognition of the Human Rights of the refugee children arriving at the US-Mexico border as refugees of the illegal colonization of Abya Yala [the Americas] beginning on October 12, 1492 with the Doctrine of Discovery and with complicity by subsequent US government administrations under the premise of the Monroe Doctrine (1823) by military intervention and trade polices that make the US government a responsible party for the extreme violence driving the mass migration of children, youth, and families from the Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

In the same regard, in defense of the Human Rights of all children, we denounce the complicity of the US government in contracting with the government of the Zionist apartheid state of Israel to supply armaments being used at this moment to massacre the civilian population of Palestinians in Gaza, including an unbearable number of children as victims of state sponsored genocide.

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August 1, 2014

UN Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review - USA 

Movimiento Macehualli

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 STATEMENT