"Because when the indigenous peoples disappear, the world is
doomed to disappear."
Villavicencio Meta,
Colombia, September 8, 2017
The Original Nations and Indigenous Peoples of Colombia and the Great Continent of the Abya Yala, as
guardians of Mother Earth, greet your visit to our territory and we celebrate
that your pilgrimage of hope and peace is a first step that contributes towards
the construction of a stable and lasting peace.
We
are 103 ancestral peoples, caretakers of Mother Earth, guardians of forests,
rivers, mountains, the wind, lagoons, seas, birds, stones and all beings that
conform our reality. For our world is a sacred world, it is woman, it is
mother, we are part of it and it is part of us.
The
sounds and the song of nature constantly remind us of the destruction and
plundering that our Pacha Mama has suffered from the moment of the invasion of October 12, 1492 which has violently
and cruelly interrupted our way of life. For 525 years we have suffered from
conditions of injustice, elimination of our spiritualities and physical and
cultural extermination. The exclusion of the State and the territorial
deprivation are the product of a colonialism
leveraged in an evangelization imposed and based on ignorance, which in our
time is translated into serious violations of our human rights, compromising
the very survival of the different cultures of the Indigenous Peoples of Colombia.
Today
more than 63 ancestral peoples are at risk of physical and cultural extinction,
all this as a consequence of an "economic model of development and
civilization" that does not see the Earth as our Mother and does not treat
our fellow beings as relatives, but only sees the world as a commodity which
can be bought, plundered and sold. This continues to be a source of pain and
desperation for our indigenous peoples and should be of concern to humanity as
a whole, while diversity of thought and ways of knowledge represents an
invaluable heritage of humanity.
Despite
the pain we have felt in all these centuries, our Indigenous Peoples still
resist guided by the principles of harmony, balance, reciprocity and respect
for Mother Earth and life, leading the defense of our Territories, Culture,
Autonomy and Unity as the path that has contributed, since time immemorial, to
peaceful coexistence with different societies.
This is our ancestral legacy for
humanity, offered within the framework of Self Determination and Living
With Wellness. Therefore, we insist that in our Colombia, Peace must be
sustainable, durable and with social justice, in particular it must generate
conditions for the survival of the Original
Nations of Indigenous Peoples and the dignified life of our fellow peoples.
Therefore, the States and their Governments must guarantee an equal
distribution of a dignified and harmonious life within the framework of
democracy and pluralism.
We
extend our voice and will as Original
Nations of Indigenous Peoples in the face of the good intentions manifested
by His Holiness, referring to petition for forgiveness for all those acts that
have defined the colonization of our
Continent, which throughout history and even today, have brought genocide,
ethnocide and ecocide. In this sense, we declare that the will to forgive must
be supported in the spirit of joining forces with all the responsible actors
from the different instances of the States established on our Great Territory
of Abya Yala, as well as those of
other Continents involved in the implementation of an economic development
model that is not equitable, and which has generated conditions of slavery and
served in detriment to the individual and collective rights of human society,
as well as the rights of Pacha Mama.
Without a doubt, there must be effective guarantees of reparation, justice and
the non-repetition of these atrocious acts as the first step on the road to
peace, with a deep commitment and purpose to return to belief in the dignity of
our words, and for hope to flourish.
Therefore,
we urge His Holiness to establish:
1. A
direct dialogue of engagement and comprehension between the spirituality of the
Original Peoples of our Great Continent of Abya Yala and the vision of
Christianity which His Holiness represents.
2. A
respectful dialogue with the Indigenous Peoples of the Abya Yala to redefine
from our own worldviews and ways of life, a concept of human development that
is integral and of our own design.
3. A
dialogue in the framework of the construction of a dignified, just and self
determined society based on models that reflect the ways of knowledge and
experiences proposed in our Life Plans and Living With Wellness in order to
concretize a model of governance, environmental justice and territorial
organization.
4.
For all of the above, we propose to the Supreme Pontiff to receive a Commission of the Confederations and
Nations of Abya Yala in the Vatican with the goal to establish protocols towards a shared agenda of coordination to guarantee
an official visit by His Holiness to our great territory of Abya Yala, an
encounter where we may realize the dialogues here proposed between the
Spirituality of Christianity and the Diverse Spiritualities of the Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples
of our continent.
In
addition, as acts of a true reconciliation and reparation with Mother Earth and
with our Ancestral Peoples, we consider it urgent that:
· In his official pronouncements as Head of the
Vatican State and Maximum Hierarch of the Church, His Holiness must urge and
recommend to the different Heads of State established here in Abya Yala and
other continents, to recognize, guarantee and protect our ancestral territories
and our forms of spirituality as elements essential for our survival as
peoples, equal to all other peoples, Original Nations born and reborn upon each
dawn from the roots and womb of Mother Earth.
·
Likewise, we call for the enactment in the
distinct venues of the Vatican, the recognition of the definition and decision
of the political projects and the Life Plans of the Indigenous Peoples of the
Great Continent of the Abya Yala, which lead to the recognition and full exercise
of our right of self-determination. These enactments to be realized n the
different venues of His Holiness in recognition and guarantee of our own forms
of government, autonomy, jurisdiction, social and political organization, as
well as the powers we have as traditional environmental authorities in our
territories in order to continue to care for Mother Earth, and to guarantee our
right to decide and define our own destiny through the legitimate exercise of
the Right to Free, Prior, and Informed
Consent.
·
On the other hand, it is indispensable that the
Supreme Pontiff promote and recommend to the States established on our
continent of Abya Yala to effectively comply with the various legal instruments
of international order that exist to guarantee the rights of the Indigenous
Peoples, such as ILO Convention 169,
the United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the American
Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, among others.
·
In the case of Colombia, it is essential to
promote and follow up on the integral fulfillment of the Peace Agreement, as well as the effective implementation of the Ethnic Chapter. Likewise, it is
fundamental for peace that the Indigenous
Guard and other forms of territorial control and protection of the
Indigenous Peoples be recognized as Actors
of Peace, as guardians of our territory and of ways of life, as well as the
protection of our Indigenous Peoples at risk of imminent physical and cultural
death, as is the case of the Nukak People.
Together with you, Pope Francisco, the Indigenous Peoples call on
humanity to protect and care for the Mother Earth that we share and not condemn
ourselves to self-destruction.
#PorLaPazyLaMadreTierra
#OrigiNaciones
#OrigiNations
#OrgulloIndigena
*********************************************************
This communiqué is in affirmation and addition to
###
Without the justification of the Doctrine of Discovery sanctified by the Papal
Bulls Inter Caetera 1493 and instituted across the continent since 1492 in
violation of the Territorial Rights of the Nations of Indigenous Peoples, none
of the MINING CONCESSIONS being proffered to the trans-national extractive
industries would be considered legitimate or legal. The Doctrine of Discovery
continues to camouflage the ongoing pogrom of genocide and TERRACIDE to which
this Pope as all others before him would be considered accomplice, in
particular since as Bishop Bergoglio of Buenos Aires in 2012, Pope Francis took
the position that Argentina held dominion over the Falkland Islands/Islas
Malvinas as a successor state to the claim by Spain under the Doctrine of Discovery.
As a direct consequence of the continuous application and
normalization of the Doctrine of Discovery for 522 years, all of the Latin
American republics claim dominion and jurisdiction over the territory and
natural resources of the surviving Nations of Indigenous Peoples across Abya
Yala [the Americas] and only grant minimal recognition as "national ethnic
groups" with only rights of "occupancy" but no sub-surface
proprietary interests to their ancestral lands and territories.
United Nations Preliminary Study on the Impact of the
Doctrine of Discovery
This preliminary study establishes that the Doctrine of Discovery has
been institutionalized in law and policy, on national and international
levels, and lies at the root of the violations of indigenous peoples’
human rights, both individual and collective. This has resulted in
State claims to and the mass appropriation of the lands, territories
and resources of indigenous peoples. Both the Doctrine of Discovery
and a holistic structure that we term the Framework of Dominance
have resulted in centuries of virtually unlimited resource extraction
from the traditional territories of indigenous peoples. This, in
turn, has resulted in the dispossession and impoverishment of
indigenous peoples, and the host of problems that they face today on a
daily basis.
No comments:
Post a Comment