Abya Yala Continental Manifesto of Self Determination: 527 Years of Resistance

Continental Commission Abya Yala

October 12, 2019

527 Years of Indigenous Resistance

Continental Manifesto of Self Determination

Cecemilhuitl Ca Nican Tlaca Ilhuitl

Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples Abya Yala

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The historical trajectory of the Continental Indigenous Movement of Self Determination has arrived at a decisive moment. In the last generation, the organizational initiatives of the Original Nations of the Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala have gained collective recognition within the continental and global geopolitical regimes of the states and their respective national constituencies. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted on September 13, 2007, is one such a point of reference in the struggle against more than five centuries of colonialism and genocide.

However, it was the UN General Assembly itself that in 2014 subverted the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent by adopting an System Wide Action Plan to implement the Declaration as a bureaucratic norm within the UN instead of an International geopolitical platform to normalize the standards of a future binding International Convention on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The right of self-determination of indigenous peoples is being reduced to a domestic process of nationalization under the Westphalian system of state sovereignty of the United Nations in violation of the inherent Human Right of indigenous self-determination as "Peoples, equal to all other peoples."

Marked since the First Indigenous Continental Encounter of 1990 in Quito, Ecuador, the last continental summit of the Indigenous Nations and Peoples of Abya Yala occurred in 2013 at the V Continental Summit Abya Yala, held in the Cauca Territories of the Nasa Nation in Colombia.

It was during the Fifth Continental Summit Abya Yala, that the message of Berta Cáceres of the Lenca Nation was shared by the representatives of COPINH (Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras) requesting that the next Abya Yala summit be organized in Honduras. The plenary assembly of the V Abya Yala Summit with its 6,000 delegates of participants affirmed the proposal in full consensus. That was in November 2013. On May 3, 2016, Berta Cáceres was murdered at her home in La Esperanza, Honduras.

The struggle continues, COPINH continues and in exercising our autonomous and collective right as the Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala we issue this manifesto of responsibilities and rights:

Dismantling of the Doctrine of Discovery

All of the internationally recognized American States in our continent Abya Yala are successor states to the disastrous Doctrine of the Discovery of Christendom (1492), and the Papal Bulls of Pope Alexander VI Inter Caetera (1493). Recognizing that since 2010, this doctrine has been denounced by the United Nations system as a racist and discriminatory relic in violation of the Human Rights and Territorial Rights of our Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala, we proclaim that as long as the American states do not repudiate and dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery as the legaloid foundation of their purported claims to jurisdiction and systems of governance, there will be no justice or peace on the continent. The normalization of colonization and genocide will continue, and the changes of government regimes in the states will be only be a facade while the historical lie of the Doctrine of Discovery continues uninterrupted into the future. No more.

Action: Decolonization of Abya Yala

As an initial and necessary step towards the true decolonization of our continent, we demand the dismantling of the Doctrine of Discovery in a manner consistent with the principles of non-discrimination in all sectors of society, in all the states of the Americas, in the regional policy of the Organization of American States, and in the global geopolitics of the United Nations.

In follow-up and consistency with Resolution 1514 of the United Nations General Assembly (1960), we demand that the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of the United Nations be reinforced:

Accordingly and in compliance with the relevant recommendations made by the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in previous sessions, we request the integration of a formal evaluation and a methodology of the processes of repudiation and dismantling of the racist relic of the Doctrine of Discovery by the states of the Americas by the Special Rapporteur in each and every one of her official visits to countries whose claims of jurisdiction as successor states of the Doctrine are still normalized by the Doctrine of the discovery of Christianity via the Papal Bulls of Pope Alexander VI Inter Caetera (1493) and the concept of "Original Property of the Nation".

Free, Prior and Informed Consent

In 1823, the government of the United States seized the international geopolitical position that the Doctrine had presumed to prescribe to the Vatican, and then with modification it was reissued in priority service to the economic interests of Rancho Grande del Norte, the corporate imperialism of the United States and its partners among Latin American elites. At that time the doctrine changed its nickname and became the "Monroe Doctrine." Today this continental and global system of expropriation and exploitation is known as "neoliberalism."

Action:

In invoking the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, we denounce the mechanisms and processes of international trade agreements among the states that systematically violates our right to Prior and Informed Free Consent on projects that impact our territories and collective rights. In the same regard, we include international financing package agreements that do not respect this right of Consent of our Indigenous Peoples. A prefabricated state manipulated consultation is not the same as the Free, Prior and Informed Consent.

This is also a context for our urgent call to the international community and all human rights defenders to denounce the legaloid systems of oppression standardized by the so-called national "immigration" laws, policies and practices of the successor states to the Doctrine of Discovery in the Americas, and their respective international borders.

We pay special attention to the proposed construction of a "wall" along the border line established by the United States and Mexico by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), in violation of the Right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent as Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of Anahuac.

In the same context, in defense of the right of Free, Prior and Informed Consent of Indigenous Peoples, we denounce the violation of our collective rights as Original Nations of the Indigenous Peoples of Mother Earth in the processes and the proclamation in December 2018 by the United Nations in Morocco of the Global Compact to establish a Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.

We call for each Original Nation of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala to vision, organize and exercise the Right of Self-Determination as Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples acting in the Continental Alliance and Confederation in defense of the Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth. Time is NOW.

Such actions should be carried out and coordinated in accordance with the Mandate of the Indigenous Peoples acting in collective responsibility as the Original Nations of Mother Earth, guided by the knowledge and example of the Teachings and Cultural Instructions of their traditional territories and ancestral watersheds.

We invoke our millennial memory, our collective conscience of commitment, and the will of our Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples to continue fighting for the well-being of the future generations, Living with Wellness with the Natural World of Mother Earth.

Self Determination of the

Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples Abya Yala!

It is not about what we want, it is what WE WILL!