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Indigenous
Peoples' Caucus Statement in Solidarity with the Korean Farmers
THE INTERNATIONAL CANCUN DECLARATION
OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
5th WTO Ministerial Conference - Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico, 12 September
2003
We, the international representatives of Indigenous Peoples gathered
here during the 5th WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico from
10-14 September 2003 wish to extend our thanks to the Indigenous Peoples
of Mexico, particularly the Mayan Indigenous Peoples of Quintana Roo,
for welcoming us. We share the concerns of our Indigenous brothers and
sisters of Mexico, as expressed in the Congreso Nacional Indigena (CNI)
Declaration of Cancun. We join our voices in this International Declaration
with the CNI Declaration and its conclusions and recommendations.
We wish to especially recognize and honor the sacrifice of our Korean
brother, Mr. Lee-Kyung-Hae, made here in Cancun. His act of self-immolation
was a dignified cultural expression profoundly reflecting the daily reality
of the effects of Globalization and liberalized trade on peasants and
Indigenous Peoples throughout the world.
We have come to Cancun to address critical issues and negative impacts
of the WTO Trade Negotiations on our families, communities and nations.
With the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and with the
continuing imposition of the structural adjustment policies of the World
Bank and International Monetary Fund, our situation, as Indigenous Peoples,
has turned from bad to worse. Corporations are given more rights and privileges
at the expense of our rights. Our right to self-determination, which is
to freely determine our political status and pursue our own economic,
social and cultural development, and our rights to our territories and
resources, to our indigenous knowledge, cultures and identities are grossly
violated. Some of the prime examples of the adverse impacts of the WTO
Agreements on us are the following:
- Loss of livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of indigenous peasants
in Mexico who are producing corn because of the dumping of artificially
cheap, highly subsidized corn from the USA and tens of thousands of
indigenous vegetable producers in the Cordillera region of the Philippines
because of dumping of vegetables. The contamination of traditional indigenous
corn in Mexico by genetically-modified-corn is a very serious problem
for Indigenous Peoples. All these are due to the liberalization of trade
in agriculture and the deregulation of laws which protect domestic producers
and crops required by the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AOA). The structural
adjustment policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund are the foundations for liberalization, privatization and deregulation.
High export subsidies and domestic support provided to rich agribusiness
corporations and rich farmers in the United States the European Union
have also made this possible.
- The increasing impoverishment of indigenous and hilltribe farmers
engaged in coffee production in Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia, Vietnam,
etc. because of the drop in commodity prices of coffee.
- The increasing conflicts between transnational mining, gas and oil
corporations and Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines, Indonesia, Papua
New Guinea, India, Ecuador, Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Nigeria, Chad-Cameroon,
USA, Russia, Venezuela, among others, and the militarization and environmental
devastation in these communities due to the operations of these extractive
industries. The facilitation of the entry of such corporations are made
possible because of liberalization of investment laws pushed by the
TRIMS (Trade-Related Investment Measures) Agreement and WB-IMF conditionalities,
regional trade agreements like NAFTA and bilateral investment agreements.
- The militarization of Indigenous Peoples' lands and territories,
and the many cases of assassination and arbitrary arrests and detention
of indigenous activists and leaders and people who are supporting them,
as well as the criminalization of Indigenous Peoples' resistance, all
significantly increased.
- The upsurge in infrastructure development, particularly of mega hydroelectric
dams, oil and gas pipelines, roads in Indigenous Peoples territories
to provide support to operations of extractive industries, logging corporations,
and export processing zones. The infrastructure development, for instance,
under Plan Puebla Panama has destroyed ceremonial and sacred sites of
Indigenous Peoples in the six States of Southern Mexico and in Guatemala.
- The patenting of medicinal plants and seeds nurtured and used by
Indigenous Peoples, like the quinoa, ayahuasca, Mexican yellow bean,
maca, sangre de drago, hoodia, yew plant, etc. Such biopiracy and patenting
of life-forms is facilitated by the TRIPS Agreement.
- Soaring prices of pharmaceutical products and inaccessibility of
cheaper drugs for diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS which are
diseases in Indigenous Peoples communities and decreasing public health
services in these communities.
- Privatization of basic public services such as water and energy in
several countries which has spurred massive general strikes and protests
such as those led by Indigenous Peoples in Bolivia. The General Agreement
on Services (GATS) whose coverage is being expanded to include environmental
services (sanitation, nature and landscape protection), financial services,
tourism, among others, allowed for this.
- The undermining of international instruments, constitutional provisions,
and national laws and policies which protect our rights.
All these developments are alarming. This global situation has undermined
self-sufficient economies of Indigenous Peoples leading to food insecurity,
worsening poverty and loss of land, culture and identity. We, Indigenous
Peoples' representatives, present in Cancun during the event of the Fifth
Ministerial Meeting of the WTO, are asking the governments to do the following:
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Recognize and protect our territorial and resource rights and
our right to self-determination. The human-rights framework should
underpin trade, investment, development and anti-poverty policies
and programmes. Investment liberalization rules like the TRIMS
Agreement, conditionalities by the WB and IMF which push countries
to liberalize their investment laws, regional trade agreements and
bilateral investment agreements which give more protection and rights
to corporations than to Indigenous Peoples should be changed. Many
of these facilitate the displacement of Indigenous Peoples and the
appropriation of our lands, waters, resources and knowledge. Indigenous
peoples who have been displaced from their lands because of militarization,
infrastructure projects, extractive industries, export processing
zones and other development schemes should be repatriated back to
their lands or should be justly compensated. International human rights
and environmental standards should be upheld by governments and should
guide the way trade agreements are formulated and implemented. The
free and prior informed consent of Indigenous Peoples should be obtained
before any project is brought into their communities. Article 8j and
10c of the Convention of Biological Diversity that protect traditional
knowledge and indigenous systems and practices of land use and land
tenure should be the framework for WTO Agreements. Governments should
support the immediate adoption of the UN Draft Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples that will help ensure the recognition
and protection of our rights.
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Stop patenting of life forms and other intellectual property rights
over biological resources and indigenous knowledge. Ensure that we,
Indigenous Peoples, retain our rights to have control over our seeds,
medicinal plants and indigenous knowledge. We call for an explicit
statement for the banning of patents on life-forms in the TRIPS Agreement.
We also demand that the patent rights, patent applications and claims
of corporations, individuals or governments over indigenous medicinal
plants, seeds, and knowledge and even over Indigenous Peoples' human
genetic materials should be withdrawn. Biopiracy should be stopped
and the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples should
be obtained before access to their resources is granted. The issue
of protection of indigenous knowledge should not be dealt with by
the WTO TRIPs Agreement because its basic assumptions contradict the
concepts, values and ethics underpinning indigenous knowledge systems.
This can be best protected under the United Nations and we, therefore,
urge the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to convene a technical
meeting to explore how the UN can address the issue of protection
of indigenous knowledge.
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Ensure Indigenous Peoples' basic right to health. The right of
countries to take measures to protect public health and promote access
to medicines should take precedence over their obligations to protect
intellectual property right of corporations. The patent protection
asked by pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporations should be limited
in order to protect public health and safety and ensure production
and easy access to cheap essential medicines. Health is a basic
human right and Indigenous Peoples should enjoy this right. Governments
should be allowed to use the flexibilities allowed in the TRIPS Agreement
which are reflected in the Doha TRIPS and Public Health Declaration.
An amendment to TRIPS should be done to simplify and clarify the procedures
for compulsory licensing and parallel importation and to remove the
unnecessary obstacles to the import and export of medicines needed
to provide affordable medicines to the poor.
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No new issues should be negotiated in this 5th Ministerial Conference.
We support the position of some developing countries to stop the launching
of a new round or to expand the WTO by negotiating on new issues such
as investments, competition, transparency in government procurement
and trade facilitation. The WTO should not pursue any negotiation
on investment and should change its existing investment rules which
provide excessive rights to corporations and allow for their unregulated
behavior. Those rules which prevent governments from pursuing rights-based
development and environmentally-sustainable policies should be abandoned.
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Prevent the expansion of the GATS Agreement and amend the existing
agreement to stop the privatization and liberalization of health,
education, water, energy, and environmental services. The liberalization
and privatization of services in environmental services (e.g. parks
and landscape services), the commercialization of indigenous cultures
and the increasing monopoly control of the tourism industry in the
hands of international and national travel and tour agencies should
be stopped. We must be allowed to be the managers of protected areas,
parks, forests and waters found in our territories. We should be able
to continue practicing our own indigenous natural management practices
in forests, water, biodiversity and ecosystem management.
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Stop the negotiations on agriculture which will push for further
import liberalization of agricultural products. Drastically end the
export and domestic subsidies of the US and the EU for their agribusiness
corporations and rich farmers. States must take decisive measures
to promote and protect food sovereignty and food security, and stop
the dumping and smuggling of artificially cheap and highly subsidized
agricultural products from the US, EU, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Ensure the right of indigenous farmers to sustain their indigenous
agricultural systems and to plant and reproduce their traditional
seeds. States must not include indigenous agriculture systems in the
scope of international trade rules. The rights of Indigenous Peoples
to their traditional livelihoods and to food should be recognized
and protected, thus trade and investment rules which undermine these
rights should be repealed or appropriately amended.
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End the militarization of Indigenous Peoples' communities and
stop the criminalization of protest and resistance actions of Indigenous
Peoples against destructive industries, projects and programs. There
should be meaningful and effective investigation of the many cases
of assassinations, arbitrary arrests and detentions, rapes committed
against Indigenous Peoples and their supporters. Justice should be
accorded to the victims and their families, and the perpetrators punished
for their crimes.
- Support and strengthen the sustainable trading systems which have
existed for centuries between the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.
Trade routes between the various Indigenous Peoples within the Americas
(USA, Canada, Mexico) have been existing for centuries and trading between
them is still practiced, Militarization of borders and other destructive
practices have greatly limited their scale and utility for Indigenous
Peoples. Trade between Indigenous Peoples should be sustained and promoted.
The ministers at this Fifth Ministerial meeting of the WTO have the responsibility
to represent not only commercial interests but all of the people of their
States, including Indigenous Peoples. Existing human rights, environmental,
social and cultural conventions and covenants developed within the United
Nations system continue to be the States' legal if not moral obligation.
All international law including human rights law binds them.
Indigenous peoples are the subjects of many of these covenants and conventions
and their jurisprudence. Our rights cannot be ignored, nor can their observance
be diminished or compromised by trade agreements and regimes. We as Indigenous
Peoples have the right to participate as peoples and actors in our own
development, consistent with our own vision and tradition. Our free and
informed consent, free of fraud or manipulation, must be secured through
our own traditional means of decision-making. State sponsored development
cannot just be imposed upon us. Our rights as peoples to our lands and
territories and natural resources must be recognized, respected and observed.
Our survival as peoples depends upon it.
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