Treaty of Teotihuacan 2000

First Continental Indigenous Summit
Teotihuacan, Mexico
October 28-30, 2000

THE TREATY OF TEOTIHUACAN

2000

It is called HUEHUETLAPALOHTLI among the lineage of tradition of the Xicanos of Aztlan, speaking of the Ancient Red Road that leads to the place in Mexico called TEOTIHUACAN. Yet this place is not just a location but very much more. According to the Tradition, it's a place of perspective where the Universe of the Four Directions is reflected: it is a place where worlds are made. It was here at the foot of the monumental temples of stone at Teotihuacan that the OrigiNations of the Indigenous Peoples of the continent gathered in Summit as Indigenous Nations, Pueblos and Organizations to strengthen each other, to dialogue regarding our common issues, to plan for the future, and to give testimony and spiritual offering to the entire world as survivors of over 508 years of continuous colonization.

To arrive at the Summit of Teotihuacan, many valleys had to be entered and traversed, many bridges had to be built. The event had been convened by the Council of Indigenous Organizations and Nations of the Continent (CONIC), yet it was evident throughout the entire four days at TEOTIHUACAN that the continental movement of the Indigenous Pueblos and Nations was not merely an organization but an unfolding process: the path of Tradition and Liberation.

As contemporary incarnations of the principles that guide this process, the Sacred Staffs of the Peace and Dignity Journeys represent the memory and dreams of the many and diverse Indigenous Nations and Pueblos of an entire continent, the territory of the Pueblos and Nations of the Eagle and the Condor. The Sacred Staffs and the runners who carried them for six months across the entirety of the continent to arrive at Teotihuacan for the CONIC Summit witnessed and recorded in Memory for the future generations the landscape of our territories as they now exist.

Their shared stories are the XINACHTLI (seed) of future legends, but also serve as a realistic, collective, grassroots point of reference: Over five hundred years of colonization of the continent has taken a tremendous toll on our families, communities, Pueblos, Nations and territories. Sadly, we have seen that our people have even learned only too well how the trauma of colonization perpetuates itself: by dehumanizing our relationships to the point of loss of dignity and internal spiritual peace. This dehumanization begins with the colonizer - the colonizer is actually the first victim, for how else could a human being participate in the pogrom of genocide waged against our Peoples and Territories unless part of that individual's humanity had been amputated to fit into the regime of colonial domination that continues to typify the politics of the government states in the hemisphere.

The trauma of colonization requires the effective intervention of the Indigenous Peoples in order to move towards healing and justice. For this intervention to be strategic and powerful, the only option is to act with strength, the strength that comes when we work not in competition but in complement with each other, the strength that comes from our spiritual values and traditional teachings. The first challenge along this path is the battle for Hope.

At TEOTIHUACAN the battle was joined, there were casualties; but in the end a new beginning emerged. Thanks in great part to the strong participation of our indigenous youth who maintained positive attitudes and worked hard to help in whatever way was needed - in spite of it all we survived and participated together in witnessing the glimmer of a new dawn for the Original Nations of the Continent. At TEOTIHUACAN a traditional TREATY OF ALLIANCE between the Lakota Nakota Dakota Alliance of Turtle Island and the Mexica Calpultin of Aztlanahuac was sealed before the Summit of CONIC.

The TREATY OF TEOTIHUACAN is a mutual commitment among the Indigenous Nations, Pueblos and organizations at the continental level, empowered by the Jurisprudence of Indigenous International Law in four aspects:

Spiritual Alliance,
Political Solidarity,
Cultural Complementarity, and
Pochtecayotl - Economic and Commercial Agreements of Exchange

A strategic planning meeting for the Pochtecayotl is scheduled for January 2001 in Izkalotlan, Aztlan. Regional gatherings of the youth participants at Teotihuacan are also being organized.

At the Summit of Teotihuacan, the obsidian stone point of the arrowhead appeared in our hands, the direction of flight for the Arrow of Destiny was given by the Elders, and with the strength of our Youth the Bow of Nations was drawn. The battle for Hope was won, but along the way we came to realize the extent of the challenges ahead, both internal and external to our families, communities, Nations, Pueblos, and indigenous organizations. This is good. We must know where we are at in order to get to where we must be. We must be honest within ourselves and with each other, to better construct a collective strategy for communication and organization that will strengthen the process of REGENERATION of our Indigenous Peoples, and in the process prepare the way for the regeneration of humanity and TONANTZIN, our Sacred Mother Earth, as well.

The Themes of the Five Working Groups of the CONIC Summit at Teotihuacan were as follows:

1) National and International Legislation
A) United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples and UN Working Group
on Indigenous Populations.
B) United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
C) Declaration of the Organization of American States of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
D) Convention on Biological Diversity Article 8(j).
E) Intellectual Property Rights
F) Indigenous Fund of the Americas
G) San Andres Accords - Chiapas, Mexico.

2) Autonomy- Lands and Territories - Sovereignty
A) Sovereignty and Self Determination

3) Unification and Structure of the Indigenous Movement of the Continent
A) Effective Mechanisms of Coordination and Communication
B) Evaluation of CONIC and creation of a continental structure of coordination.

4) Identity, Spirituality, and Indigenous Resistance
A) Our Youth - Guides of the Future
B) Our Elders and our Women - Sources and transmitters of our spirituality.

5) Regional Conflicts
A) Chiapas, Mexico
B) Colombia
C) Bolivia
D) Paraguay
E) Ecuador
F) Black Hills and Big Mountain, North America

The five Working Groups collectively elaborated, after two days of dialogue and discussion, written documents of position which were delivered to the closing plenary session of the CONIC Summit on Saturday October 28, 2000. These documents will be made available as we translate them, and can be accessed at the CONIC page of the TONATIERRA website:

http://www.tonatierra.org/

Many thanks once again- Tlazocamati- to all of you who made the prayer possible, you who accompanied the Journey to TEOTIHUACAN and back.

COMMUNICATIONS NORTH:
NAHUACALLI
C/o TONATIERRA PO BOX 24009 Phoenix AZ 85074
Email: tonal@tonatierra.org

2020 Izcalli Abya Yala 2020
Yohualpapalotl

(Fall Equinox)

DAWN

Tuesday September 22, 2020

2000 Treaty of Teotihuacan - Ceremony of Reaffirmation 2020

Seas of Emergence

Call to

Continental Council of Courage and Consciousness

Dawning of the Age Abya Yala

Continental Indigenous Uprising and Emergence

In exercise of the

Right of Self Determination of Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples

In defense of the

TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY of MOTHER EARTH

Continental Commission Abya Yala

TONATIERRA

www.tonatierra.org

World Water

ONE

WWW.WWW.WWW

The historical trajectory of the Continental Indigenous Movement of Self Determination has arrived a defining moment. Over the past generation, the organizing initiatives of the Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of the Great Turtle Island Abya Yala have collectively gained a measure of recognition within the continental and global geopolitical regimes of the government states and their respective national constituencies. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted on September 13, 2007, is one such point of reference in the struggle against over five centuries of colonialism and genocide.

Yet,it was the UN General Assembly itself that in 2014 subverted the right of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent by adopting a System Wide Action Plan in order to implement the Declaration as a UN bureaucratic norm instead of an international geopolitical platform to normalize the standards of a binding International Convention on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The right of Self Determination of Indigenous Peoples is being reduced to a process of nationalization under the UN Westphalian system of state sovereignty in violation of the International Human Right of Indigenous Self Determination as “Peoples, Equal to all other peoples…”

Marked from the First Continental Indigenous Encounter of 1990 in Quito, Ecuador the most recent continental convening of Indigenous Nations and Pueblos occurred in 2013 at the Fifth Continental Summit Abya Yala the Cauca Territories of the Nasa Nation in Colombia.

In 2020, in the Spirit of Self Determination and in Defense of the Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth, the Continental Commission Abya Yala calls for not yet another summit, not yet another event. We call for the unfolding and realization of a continental EVENTUALITY, synchronized upon the Uprising and Emergence of the Butterfly Suns of the Spring-Fall Equinoxes of March and September 2020.

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

Such actions to be realized and coordinated in accord 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 Traditional Teachings and Cultural Instructions of their traditional Territories and the Watersheds of their homelands.

Continental Commission Abya Yala

Secretariat: TONATIERRA

tonal@tonatierra.org

www.tonatierra.org

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