The Amoman Manobo People
by Datu Ampalid
"I don't know if we have a future because without our land we can only be slaves to the settlers...If all you people who own the world will not help us, the tribal people, then we are bound for destruction". -
The European Union (EU) and the World Bank are working on policies relating to tribal and indigenous peoples. Survival is concerned that the draft World Bank policy is weaker on tribal land ownership than it's existing policy, while the European document does not mention tribal people's right to own their land at all.
All over the world, tribal peoples are being killed or are dying in large numbers. Their right to the ownership of the lands and territories they live on and use is crucial if they are to survive. All governments contravene this right: some ignore it, others recognise it only partially, and none recognise it properly.
Tribal peoples have the right to own their land under international law. Governments should recognise this by giving tribes full land titles. These should be in the name of whole peoples, not individuals, and must be 'inalienable' so that they cannot be sold. These requirements are vital. Individual titles and those that can be sold or taken back by governments deny the tribe's right to it's homeland as a people, and where given, are often lost to outsiders who threaten, deceive or bribe tribespeople into selling their plots.
The main international laws about indigenous peoples are convention 107 of the United Nations' International Labour Organisation, and Convention 169 which superseded it in 1989. There are problems with these laws (particularly 107), but they do state that tribal peoples' ownership of the lands they occupy must be recognised.
Thirty-three countries have so far ratified one or other of these conventions (though they do not apply them justly). But all countires have a moral and legal obligation to respect the principle of tribal land ownership contained in them, just as they must respect the fact that genocide is a crime whether or not they have ratified the Genocide Convention.
The principle of land ownership is paramount in countless declarations from tribal peoples themselves. And the UN 'Draft declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples' states that, "Indigenous peoples have the right to own, develop, control and use the lands and territories, including the total environment of the lands, air, waters, coastal seas, sea-ice, flora and fauna and other resources which they have traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or used".
Yet despite all this, tribal land ownership is not mentioned once in the EU's lengthy 'working document' on indigenous peoples. It does talk about 'territorial rights', but nowhere does it explain what these rights are. It could for example be argued that 'territorial rights' means merely the right to live in an area (not to own it): many governments exploit just such vague phrases to deny any meaningful land rights at all.
The World Bank's existing policy (Operational Directive 4.20) states that the Bank should "assist the borrower in establishing legal recognition of.... traditional land tenure systems". The draft new policy (OD 4.10) merely states that the Bank will provide assistance in establishing land tenure on "request from it's borrowers", shifting responsibility for land rights away from the Bank and on to borrower countries - which are usually unwilling to recognise land rights.
Policies made in Europe and by the World Bank are important because :
1) They affect how vast sums of money are spent in tribal areas around the world.
2) They will be used as precedents for other policies.
3) If they are weak, they will be used by governments and companies to defend destructive 'development' projects on tribal land.
Survival is asking it's supporters to bring this to the attention of the EU and the World Bank - it is vital that their policies only allow support for projects which recognise tribal and indigenous peoples' communal and inalienable ownership of the lands and territories they occupy and use. Failure to ensure this would constitute an enormous setback for tribal peoples' rights.
Key points:
1) Tribal peoples have ownership rights over their lands
2) Governments cannot annul this right. They are breaking international law when they fail to apply it.
3) This right has been established in the UN system for over 40 years (nearly as long as the famous 'declaration of human rights').
4) Communal, inalienable ownership rights for tribal peoples over the lands they occupy and use must be enshrined in European and World Bank policies.
5) IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT INDIGENOUS LAND OWNERSHIP RIGHTS ARE RECOGNISED AS A PRECONDITION TO EU & WORLD BANK LOANS IN AREAS WHERE TRIBAL PEOPLES LIVE
Datu Ampalid, is the oldest survivor of the Amoman Manobo people, Philippines
Ref : http://www.survival-international.org/
(the text below is available in the followed languages on this website; Espanol, Francais, Italiano, Indonesian, Nederlands, Deutcsh ...and more).
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