AN ACCOUNT AND ANALYSIS OF HOW THE SENTENCE ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES GOT INTO THE JOHANNESBURG POLITICAL DECLARATION Victoria Tauli Corpuz Executive Director, TEBTEBBA Foundation The representatives of indigenous peoples met at Kimberly, South Africa for the “Indigenous Peoples’ International Summit on Sustainable Development” from 19-23 August 2002. One of the objectives of this Summit was to come up with a strategy on how to influence the outcome of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. The Indigenous Peoples’ International Coordinating Committee for WSSD met every evening in Kimberly to assess the progress of the event and to plan. Anne Nuorgam, the President of the Saami Council, proposed that we formulate one sentence which will be sent to Johannesburg in time for the negotiations on the Political Declaration. We agreed on the sentence “We reaffirm the vital role of indigenous peoples in sustainable development”. We thought if we limit ourselves to one sentence the chances of being adopted might be bigger. The use of the term “indigenous peoples” was seen as crucial in this sentence because in Agenda 21 what was used was “indigenous peoples and their communities”. “Indigenous peoples” was used in the Durban Political Declaration of the World Conference on Racism (WCAR, 2001) but this was qualified in paragraph 24. The United States delegation ensured that this qualification was enscribed. The proposed sentence was presented to the indigenous summit plenary on 23 August 2002 and it was adopted by consensus. A message was immediately dispatched to Johannesburg, particularly to the Finnish, Norwegian and Danish delegations.There were earlier arrangements with them that we will send whatever was agreed upon and they will assist us in getting this in. When we left for Johannesburg on the 24th, we already planned that we will hold a roundtable discussion the next day where we will present the results of the Indigenous Peoples’ Summit. This was held at the IUCN Centre on Sunday, August 25. This was graced by a few government delegates, representatives of intergovermental bodies like IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development), Arctic Council, IUCN,among others and NGO representatives. . We read our own Kimberly Political Declaration and presented the sentence. Copies of the sentence were distributed widely and we urged everybody to lobby the governments to adopt this. Press Conference, Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus and Side Events On Tuesday, 26 August, we had a press conference in the morning. Those of us who spoke (Pauline Tangiora, Sebastiao Manchinery, Tom Goldtooth, Cecil le Fleur, Vicky Tauli Corpuz) presented again our sentence. Each of us reiterated this demand in the subsequent individual interviews. On the evening of the same day, Tebtebba Foundation (Indigenous Peoples’ International Centre for Policy Research and Education) held a side event in the official venue, Sandton Conference Center, from 6:30-8:00 pm. The room was packed with government delegates from many countries, representatives of UN bodies and NGOs. We had indigenous representatives from the various regions as speakers. This event was used again to present the results of the Kimberly Summit. Many government representatives spoke out afterwards committing their support to our demands. The rest of the week was spent in various side events where various indigenous representatives spoke, lobbying, and witnessing the progress of the negotiations. Each day we got reports from the indigenous peoples present on what the score is, as far governments are concerned. A daily indigenous peoples’ caucus was held at Sandton Convention Centre from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm. Reports were made on the progress of the lobbying work. The International Coordinating Committee met every night to plan for the coming days. During the first week, however, negotiations were just around the Implementation Plan of Action. Nobody knew when the Political Declaration will be presented or discussed. Nobody saw even a draft of this. The earlier Draft which was prepared by Prof. Emil Salim, the Chairperson of the Bali PrepCom, was totally disregarded and we heard that the South African government is preparing a new draft. The Salim draft did not even have the words “indigenous peoples’ in it so we did not think it was a loss. South African Draft of the Johannesburg Political Declaration Finally, on September 1 we got a copy of the first version of the draft made by the South African government. Paragraphs 26 and 27 were on indigenous peoples. Paragraph 26: “We respect cultural diversity and different value systems, as well as the promotion of the interests of indigenous peoples.” Paragraph 27: “We reaffirm that indigenous peoples and local communities are important for the sustenance of biological diversity and the preservation of indigenous knowledge systems, and must participate in and benefit from the implementation of the Johannesburg Commitment.” This did not reflect our one sentence but we decided we can live with these two paragraphs, as long as the phrase “indigenous peoples” will be retained in para 26. Nevertheless, the Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus met and presented some amendments which will strengthen these paragraphs and these are as follows: Paragraph 26: We respect cultural diversity and different value systems and are committed to the rights of indigenous peoples. Paragraph 27: We reaffirm that indigenous peoples and local communities are important for the sustenance of biological diversity and the preservation of indigenous knowledge systems and natural resources, and must participate in and benefit from the implementation of the Johannesburg Commitment. We persisted in our lobby work. Our fear was that the US will notice the “s” in peoples in paragraph 26 and will move to have this qualified again. We were very watchful but there was still no clear indication whether there is a body negotiating this. As late as Sept. 3 there was not any news of any negotiations going on. What we heard was that since there were many disagreements over the draft, the political declaration might just be called the “South African Political Declaration”, meaning it is a South African government document, not something which was agreed upon by all the attending States. However, we could not also believe that the South Africans will settle for this. They will do their best to have this adopted as the Johannesburg Political Declaration. “Indigenous Peoples” Dropped in Second Version Come September 4, the last day, we prepared our final statement for the Closing Plenary. I was assigned to do this. At around 3:00 pm, all the major groups had to present their 5-7 minute closing statements. We were instructed to make our messages hopeful so I tried to do this. Thabo Mbeki, the President of South Africa, chaired this session. After the 9 major groups finished delivering their statements, Mbeki opened the floor for the adoption of the Implementation Plan of Action. This was adopted by the body but several governments spoke up to express their support or reservations. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela (Chair of G77) said this Plan did not meet their expectations but they still accepted it. He said that Heads of States go from Summit to Summit while the majority of peoples fall from abyss to abyss. The United States delegation raised their reservations on the Draft Implementation Plan and put in their own interpretation of what corporate accountability means. While the interventions were going on, Vanda Altarelli of IFAD came and showed us the second version of the Johannesburg Political Declaration. The former paragraphs 26 and 27 were dropped and there was no reference whatsoever to indigenous peoples. There were totally new paragraphs 26 and 27. We were stunned. For a brief moment we did not know what to do. This happened at around 5:00 p.m. and the Plenary was suppose to conclude at 6:00 p.m. The only ones left in the main gallery was myself and Joji Carino of Tebtebba, Carl Christian Olsen (Puyo) of Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), and Lazaro Pary of Tupac Amaru. There were a few in the balcony. Indigenous Peoples in Action Joji Carino left the room to ask the indigenous peoples outside of the room to come in. Puyo went to talk to the Danish delegation and the Norwegians. Cresencio Hernandez of the Rethinking Tourism Project came in with Cassandra Smithies (interpreter) and we went to talk to President Hugo Chavez. Chavez said he will try to do something but he is not optimistic that the Political Declaration will be reopened for negotiations. I went to the Philippine delegation. They could not find the person in charge of negotiating the Political Declaration. The Secretary of Environment, Heherson Alvarez, was hesitant to say something. I urged them to raise our concerns as the Philippines already has an Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act. Ambassador Albert, the Philippine Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs looked for the Thai delegate who was there during the negotiations. The Thai delegation said they left it to the G77 (Venezuela) to conclude the negotiations, thus they also could not say what happened. According to Carl Christian Olsen, the Danish delegation (Chair of the European Union), also said they cannot assure him that they can speak out. At this eleventh hour it is hard to reopen another discussion. At this point we decided to talk to any government delegate in the room. All of us spread ourselves in the room and talked with anybody willing to listen. The UN security guards were getting tense and tried to limit our crossing over to the government side. Since, I had a Philippine government badge I was not restricted. At around 5:45 p.m. the discussions on the Implementation Plan of Action ended. Then President Thabo Mbeki announced that there will be a 15 minute recess before the Political Declaration will be discussed. He alluded that there are a few remaining issues that needed to be ironed out. This was a big sign of hope for us. We felt in our bones that one issue will be on indigenous peoples. So we took the chance to lobby harder. Joji had copies of the paper which contained our proposed amendments to para 26 and 27 and the reiteration of our sentence “We reaffirm the vital role of indigenous peoples in sustainable development”. In the meantime, more indigenous peoples entered the room. Rigoberta Menchu Tum came in and we gave her copies of the paper which she used to lobby the Latin American governments. Matthias Arens and Aile Javo of the Saami Council came in and started lobbying further the Scandinavian governments. Puyo called up the representatives of the Greenland Homerule who were already at the airport to call up the Danish delegation. Robby Romero, the UNEP Youth Ambassador and an Apache from the USA went to talk to the US delegation. The Canadian delegate passed by and we asked her to support our sentence. She said she wants to talk to the Canadian indigenous representatives. A cellphone was used to call Kenneth Deer who spoke with her. Kenneth already prepared a press release denouncing the dropping of references to indigenous peoples. We had an agreement that if the Political Declaration is adopted and our sentence did not make it we will walk out. We talked with the other major groups, particularly the women, youth and NGOs that they will walk out with us. The 15 minute recess extended up to almost one and a half hours. At around 8:00 p.m. there were already more than 10 indigenous persons in the room. Then President Thabo Mbeki called for the resumption of the Plenary. A paper called “Corrigendum to the draft political declaration submitted by the President of the Summit” (A/Conf.199/L.6/Rev.2/Corr.1), was distributed to the government delegates. This contained three paragraphs to be added [16.(bis); 17.(bis) and 22.(bis)]. There were suggested amendments to paragraph 17. Paragraph 22(bis) says: “We reaffirm the vital role of indigenous peoples in sustainable development”. This was our original sentence and it was stated exactly as we wanted it. President Mbeki asked whether there were any governments who want to say something. We were holding our breaths, expecting that the US delegation will take the floor. Fortunately, they did not and the others did not raise their flags either. He then banged the gavel to signal the adoption of the Political Declaration with the Corrigendum. The indigenous peoples’ delegation rose up and applauded long and hard. Finally, we have a phrase “indigenous peoples” without any qualifier. Analysis Many factors contributed to this achievement. Some of these are the following: At the very outset the indigenous peoples were convinced that this sentence should enter the Johannesburg Political Declaration. Even if there were slight differences between us, in the end we agreed to unite and pursue this as a common goal. Lobbying plans were focused on getting this in and many of the indigenous peoples who were at Kimberly and those who joined us,later, in Johannesburg did their lobbying on the governments and NGOs. Our press conferences and side events came out with a common message which is to get the governments to commit to bring in our sentence. The individuals and NGOs who supported us also did their own monitoring of the state of affairs and alerted us on developments they knew. They also lobbied some delegates. The active participation of several indigenous individuals in side events and parallel events where the audiences were urged to help us lobby governments to adopt the sentence. Our presence in the hall when the revised draft of the political declaration was released. If none of us were there, the issue would not be raised at all. The intense lobbying work at the last two hours of the plenary made the difference. This brought across the message that we would not leave the room without our sentence being brought in. The government delegates and security guards were watchful for any mass action that we may do in case our demand will not be met. The South African government cannot afford another mass action or heckling like what happened when Colin Powell spoke in the morning. The timing of the adoption of the Political Declaration worked in our favor.At that point most of the delegates would like the Plenary Session to be finished and the extension of the recess to almost two hours was too much. Most of them are aching to leave the hall. If a point is raised the discussions could go on for more hours and in the UN experience, a similar process would lead to three to fours hours. The unrelenting persistence demonstrated by the indigenous peoples. In spite of us being told by governments that it was impossible to have the Political Declaration reopened, we persisted until we got the exact sentence. We also believe that President Thabo Mbeki is very much aware of the indigenous peoples issues and he would not like the WSSD to end with a sour note and a possible mass action by indigenous peoples. It would not look good on his leadership and for the whole country if a Summit will fail in South Africa. Those of us who were left behind did our best to lobby hard and these efforts paid off in the end. There were many lessons learned in this whole experience and it behooves us to learn from this. First, preparatory work in communities directly affected by the issues being discussed should be done well. Second, It was important to bring everybody to speed, so that discussions will not get bogged down on very basic issues. It was easier to unite because a good background on the WSSD was provided at the Kimberly Summit. Great challenges still lie before us. We have to make sure that the sentence will not get diluted again. Be watchful on the US delegation who might attempt another surprise move to put qualifiers on the phrase “indigenous peoples”. They could not possibly do this now, because the Johannesburg Political Declaration and Implementation Plan of Action was adopted by more than 100 heads of States. Now, we can use this as a basis to say that the phrase indigenous peoples should be used in all other UN documents.