Indigenous Peoples Day

First Declaration of Indigenous Peoples Day
at the 1977 Geneva UN Conference

“One of the most important things to come out of the Geneva Conference did not get much attention at the time, even though it was the first item of the program of action in the final resolutions. It reads: ... “to observe October 12, the day of so-called ‘discovery’ of America, as an international day of solidarity with the indigenous peoples of the Americas.” Why is that so important? ... It means that we have made a very large part of the world recognize who we are and even to stand with us in solidarity in our long fight. From now on, children all over the world will learn the true story of American Indians on Columbus Day instead of a pack of lies about three European ships.” Jimmie Durham, 1977 [1]

One day in 1992, Millie Ketcheshawno, one of the founders of Berkeley Indigenous Peoples Day, who also had been had been one of the first activists on the Alcatraz occupation back in 1969, the first woman director of Intertribal Friendship House, and a future filmmaker, brought a book into an Indigenous Peoples Day Committee meeting, Basic Call to Consciousness. She said that we all needed to read it, and her copy circulated around the committee. [1]

The book was mostly about the 1977 Geneva conference (about which I knew almost nothing), which first proclaimed Indigenous Peoples Day. It also contained the message of the Haudenosaqunee (Iroquois) nation to the world, as drafted by John Mohawk and approved by their Grand Council of Chiefs, and a first hand account of the conference by José Barreiro. The Haudenosaunee had come to Geneva to speak for the natural world, for the future generations, and for life on this planet, which were all were at great risk, and we each needed to contribute to the solution.

Millie and Basic Call to Consciousness greatly deepened my understanding (which had previously been deepened by Ed Burnstick at the 1990 Quito Encuentro) about the profound issues at hand.

The International NGO Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas, held at United Nations’ offices in Geneva on September 20-23, 1977, was a watershed event, the very first UN conference with Indigenous delegates, the first direct entry of Native peoples into international affairs, the first time that Native peoples were able to speak for themselves at the UN. Some governments felt so threatened that they prevented delegates from participating and persecuted them upon return.

Following a Lakota pipe ceremony and opening presentations, Russell Means made the keynote speech, followed by more than a hundred Native representatives detailing systematic abuses of their human rights and the expropriation and destruction of their lands and natural resources by governments and corporations. In the end, the conference produced the first draft of what eventually became the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (thirty years later in 2007), and resolved “to observe October 12, the day of so-called ‘discovery’ of America, as an International Day of Solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.”

The event was the product of many hands and minds. One key person who brought it about, but did not actually attend, was Jimmie Durham, Cherokee artist-poet, first director of the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC). According to Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, who was an IITC delegate at the conference, Durham played a pivotal role. [2]

Durham lived in Geneva, Switzerland in the late 1960s and early 1970s, where he became involved with the progressive international community, and came up with the concept of the conference. He convinced several important non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to sponsor the idea.

According to Dunbar-Ortiz's account, from his home in Switzerland, Durham followed the rebirth of Native activism in the United States, starting with the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz, the 1972 American Indian Movement (AIM) seizure of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington DC, and the over two month siege at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Sioux reservation. Durham returned to the United States, met with AIM leaders, and proposed the project that was realized in the June 1974 founding of the International Indian Treaty Council, (IITC) which Durham headed for the following six years. In 1977, the IITC gained non-governmental organization status in the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the primary body in which NGOs interfaced on the UN international stage.

The IITC initiated the Geneva conference and invited most of the Indigenous organizations and delegates. The event was logistically organized through a grouping of international organizations called the Special NGO Committee on Human Rights.

Over 250 people participated in the Geneva conference. Delegates represented over sixty indigenous peoples and Native nations, from fifteen American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, the United States, and Venezuela. Over fifty international NGOs, UN agencies, and 27 UN member states also sent representatives and observers.

Indigenous delegates from Latin America included Jose Mendoza Acosta (Panama), Reinir Artist (Surinam, KANO), Antonio Millape (Mapuche, Chile), Rene Fuerst (Amazonia), Manuel Tzoc Mejia (Guatemala), Natalio Hernandez Hernandez (Mexico), Juan Condori Uriche (Bolivia), and Nilo Cayuqueo (Mapuche, Argentina).

The Native nations from the USA sent a delegation of thirteen members plus staff and observers. In addition, the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Federation sent a separate delegation of twelve, plus several observers. Five of the US delegates were affiliated with IITC: Russell Means (Lakota), David Monongye (Hopi, Hotevilla), Phillip Deere (Muscogee), Larry Red Shirt (Lakota), and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (Southern Cheyenne). AIM delegates were Pat Bellanger (Ojibwa) and Clyde Bellecourt (Anishinabe-Ojibwe). An additional fifteen Native people from the USA came as staff and observers, seven of whom were affiliated with the IITC, including Peggy Phelps Means (Lakota), Bill Means (Lakota), and Winona Leduke (Ojibwa). Others included Marie-Helene Laraque (Taino), Joe Lafferty (Sioux), Marie Sanchez (Northern Cheyenne), and David Spotted Horse (Hunkpapa). The Iroquois delegation included Leon Shenadoah, Oren Lyons, and Audrey Shenandoah (Onondaga). Four of the seven Canadian delegates were affiliated with AIM Canada, including Ed Burnstick (Cree) and Art Solomon (Ojibwe). [3]

The world press attended, including José Barreiro (Ismaelillo), coeditor of Akwesakne Notes, who wrote a firsthand account of the proceedings in Basic Call to Consciousness. [4]

While most of the delegates were aligned with IITC and AIM, the organizing committee also invited other Indigenous groups affiliated with the World Council of Indigenous Peoples (WCIP). The IITC and the WCIP had deep disagreements in perspectives and alliances. AIM and the IITC had a somewhat adversarial relationship with governments, while WCIP and some of its affiliates received organizational funding from the Canadian and US governments. Those organizational frictions were present during the organizing and progress of the conference, but did not undercut the work in the end.

The Final Resolution of the 1977 conference stated:

“The representatives of the indigenous peoples gave evidence to the international community of the ways in which discrimination, genocide and ethnocide operated. While the situation may vary from country to country, the roots are common to all: they include the brutal colonization to open the way for the plunder of their land and resources by commercial interests seeking maximum profits; the massacres of millions of native peoples for centuries and the continuous grabbing of their land which deprives them of the possibility of developing their own resources and means of livelihood; the denial of self-determination of indigenous nations and peoples destroying their traditional value system and their social and cultural fabric. The evidence pointed to the combination of this oppression resulting in the further destruction of the indigenous nations.”

The conference had far-reaching repercussions, including the establishment several years later of the permanent UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations (WGIP), with the mandate “to review developments pertaining to the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples; to give attention to the evolution of international standards concerning indigenous rights.”

Four years later, in 1981 the Indigenous NGOs met in Geneva again and reaffirmed the declaration of Indigenous Peoples Day.

But many other pressing priorities pushed Indigenous Peoples Day temporarily off the top of the agenda for most Native activist groups, and the project was set aside while other struggles rose to the forefront.

Indigenous Peoples Day would rise again as a priority a decade later, at the approach of the 500 year anniversary of 1492 in the year 1992.

IITC Report Back

The International Indian Treaty Council reported from the conference in its publication Treaty Council News.

Here is a pdf file of the original issue of the International Indian Treaty Council's report back in Treaty Council News, Vol. 1, No.7, October, 1977, where you can read speeches by many of the delegates and the texts of the Conference resolutions. The conference photos are also from this document (photographer unknown). [5]

The following is the full text of the historic 1977 Geneva conference Final Resolution:

The Final Resolution

The International Non-Governmental Organizations Conference on Discrimination against Indigenous Populations 1977 in the Americas brought together more than 250 delegates, observers and guests at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, from 20-23 September, including representatives of more than 50 international nongovernmental organizations.

For the first time, the widest and most united representation of indigenous nations and peoples, from the Northern to the most Southern tip and from the far West to the East of the Americas took part in the Conference.

They included representatives of more than 60 Nations and peoples, from fifteen countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama Paraguay, Peru, Surinam, United States of America, Venezuela).

It is regretted that some delegates were prevented by their governments from attending.

The Director of the United Nations Division on Human Rights addressed the participants on behalf of the United Nations Secretaw-General. Representatives of the United Nations, the International Labour Organization and UNESCO addressed and participated in the conference. The representative of the Consel d’Etat of the Canton of Geneva welcomed the participants. Observers from 38 UN Member States followed the proceedings. The Conference was the fourth such event organized by the Geneva NGO Sub-Committee on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Apartheid and Decolonization of the Special NGO Committee on Human Rights.

Previous conferences, all organized within the framework of the United Nations Decade for Action to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination were, in 1974, against apartheid and colonialism in Africa; in 1975, on discrimination against migrant workers in Europe; in 1976, on the situation of political prisoners in southern Africa.

The representatives of the indigenous peoples gave evidence to the international community of the ways in which discrimination, genocide and ethnocide operated. While the situation may vary from country to country, the roots are common to all; they include the brutal colonization to open the way for plunder of their land and resources by commercial interests seeking maximum profits; the massacres of millions of native peoples for centuries and the continuous grabbing of their land which deprives them of the possibility of developing their own resources and means of livelihood; the denial of self-determination of indigenous nations and peoples destroying their traditional value system and their social and cultural fabric. The evidence pointed to the continuation of this oppression resulting in the further destruction of the indigenous nations.

Many participants expressed support for and solidarity with the indigenous nations and peoples.

Three commissions dealt specifically with the legal, economic, and social and cultural aspects of discrimination and formulated recommendations for actions in support of indigenous peoples. Based on these reports, the Conference established a program of actions to be carried out by non-governmental organizations in accordance with their mandates and possibilities:

PROGRAMME OF ACTIONS

The Conference recommends:

• to observe October 12, the day of so-called “discovery” of America, as an International Day of Solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas;

• to present the conference documentation to the United Nations Secretary-General and to submit the conclusions and recommendations of the Conference to the appropriate organs of the United Nations;

• to study and foster the discussion of the attached Draft Declaration of Principles for the Defense of the Indigenous National and Peoples of the Western Hemisphere, elaborated by indigenous peoples’ representatives;

• to take all possible measures to support and defend any participant in the conference who may face harassment and persecution on their return;

• to express to ICEM (Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration) the concerns of the Inference about the continued settlement of immigrants on the land of indigenous peoples in the Americas and urge strongly that the resources of ICEM should not be used in support of such immigrants, particularly when coming from the racist regimes of Southern Africa.

In the legal field:

• that international instruments, particularly IL0 Convention 107, be revised to remove the emphasis on integration as the main approach to indigenous problems and to reinforce the provisions in the Convention for special measures in favour of indigenous peoples;

• that the traditional law and customs of indigenous peoples should be respected, including the jurisdiction of their own forums and procedures for applying their law and customs;

• that the special relationship of indigenous peoples to their land should be understood and recognized as basic to all their beliefs, customs, traditions and culture;

• that the right should be recognized of all indigenous nations or peoples to the return and control, as a minimum, of sufficient and suitable land to enable them to live an economically viable existence in accordance with their own customs and traditions, and to make possible their full development at their own pace. In some cases larger areas may be completely valid and possible of achievement;

• that the ownership of land by indigenous peoples should be unrestricted, and should include the ownership and control of all natural resources. The lands, land rights and natural resources of indigenous peoples should not be taken, and their land rights should not be terminated or extinguished without their full and informed consent;

• that the right of indigenous peoples to own their land communally and to manage it in accordance with their own traditions and culture should be recognized internationally and nationally, and fully protected by law;

• that in appropriate cases aid should be provided to assist indigenous peoples in acquiring the land which they require;

• that legal services should be made available to indigenous peoples to assist them in establishing and maintaining their land rights;

• that all governments should grant recognition to the organizations of indigenous peoples and should enter into meaningful negotiations with them to resolve their land problems;

• that an appeal should be made to all governments of the Western Hemisphere to ratify and apply the following Conventions:

(i) Genocide Convention
(ii) Anti-Slavery Conventions
(iii) Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination
(iv) International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(v) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(vi) American Convention on Human Rights

In the economic field:

• that the non-governmental organizations widely publicize the results of this conference in order to mobilize support and aid for the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere in their homelands;

• that conferences, seminars and colloquia be organized by NCOs, by intergovernmental bodies on all levels - regional, national, global - with the full participation of indigenous people to keep alive the issues that have come to world-wide attention at this conference, and to hear new testimony that will be presented in the future;

• to promote the establishment of a working group under the Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights;

• to request that the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization hold hearings on all issues affecting indigenous populations;

• that the United Nations Committee on Trans-National Corporations conduct an investigation into the role of multinational corporations in the plunder and exploitation of native lands, resources, and peoples in the Americas.

In the social and cultural field:

• to promote respect for the cultural and social integrity of indigenous populations of the Americas. Such respect should be especially promoted among local and national governments and appropriate intergovernmental organizations, and be based on the conclusions enunciated in the commission report;

• to give all possible financial and moral support to efforts initiated by American Indians in defense of their culture and society, and in particular to the various education programmes launched by Indian movements. Solidarity is also requested for political prisoners and other victims of persecution on account of their participation in such indigenous movements.

Many other proposals and recommendations were made by the conference commissions. It is suggested that they be studied by NGOs for the formulation of possible action programs by them.

The Conference requests the officers of the Sub-Committee on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Apartheid and Decolonization to promote the decisions of the Conference and to receive and circulate information from NGOs about the implementation of these decisions.

The following is the original 1977 Geneva conference draft declaration that 30 years later, became the basis of the historic UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, passed by the UN General Assembly in 2007 with 144 yes votes and four no votes by the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Draft Declarations of Principles

for the Defense of the Indigenous Nations
and Peoples of the Western Hemisphere

(1) Recognition of Indigenous nations: Indigenous people shall be accorded recognition as nations, and proper subjects of international law, provided the people concerned desire to be recognized as a nation and meet the fundament requirement of nationhood, namely: (a) having a permanent population; (b) having a defined territory; (c) having a government; (d) having the ability to enter into relations with other states.

(2) Subjects of International Law: Indigenous groups not meeting the requirements of nationhood are hereby declared to be subjects of international law and are entitled to the protection of this Declaration, provided they are identifiable groups having bonds of language, heritage, tradition, or other common identity.

(3) Guarantee of Rights: No indigenous nation or group shall be deemed to have fewer rights or lesser status for the sole reason that the nation or group has not entered into recorded treaties or agreements with any state.

(4) Accordance of Independence: Indigenous nations or groups shall be accorded such degree of independence as they may desire in accordance with international law.

(5) Treaties and Agreements: Treaties and other agreements entered into by indigenous nations or groups with other states, whether denominated as treaties or otherwise, shall be recognized and applied in the same manner and according to the same international laws and principles as the treaties and agreements entered into by their states.

(6) Abrogation of Treaties and other Rights: Treaties and agreements made with indigenous nations or groups shall not be subject to unilateral abrogation. In no event may the municipal laws of any state serve as a defense to the failure to adhere to and perform the terms of treaties and agreements made with indigenous nations or groups. Nor shall any state refuse to recognize and adhere to treaties or other agreements due to changed circumstances where the change in circumstances has been substantially caused by the state asserting that such change has occurred.

(7) Jurisdiction: No state shall assert or claim to exercise any right of jurisdiction over any indigenous nation or group unless pursuant to a valid treaty or other agreement freely made with the lawful representatives of indigenous nation or group concerned. All actions on the part of any state which derogate from the indigenous nations’ or groups’ right to exercise self-determination shall be the proper concern of existing international bodies.

(8) Claims to Territory: No state shall claim or retain, by right of discovery or otherwise, the territories of an indigenous nation or group, except such lands as may have been lawfully acquired by valid treaty or other cessation freely made.

(9) Settlement of Disputes: All states in the Western hemisphere shall establish through negotiations or other appropriate means a procedure for the binding settlement of disputes, claims, or other matters relating to indigenous nations or groups. Such procedures shall be mutually acceptable to the parties, fundamentally fair, and consistent with international law. All procedures presently in existence which do not have the endorsement of the indigenous nations or groups concerned, shall be ended, and new procedures shall be instituted consistent with this Declaration.

(10) National and Cultural Integrity: It shall be unlawful for any state to take or permit any action or course of conduct with respect to an indigenous nation or group which will directly or indirectly result in the destruction or disintegration of such indigenous nation or group or otherwise threaten the national or cultural integrity of such nation or group, including, but not limited to, the imposition and support of illegitimate governments and the introduction of non-indigenous religions to indigenous peoples by non-indigenous missionaries.

(11) Environmental Protection: It shall be unlawful for any state to make or permit any action or course of conduct with respect to the territories of an indigenous nation or group which will directly or indirectly result in the destruction or deterioration of an indigenous nation or group through the effects of pollution of earth, air, water, or which in any way depletes, displaces or destroys any natural resources or other resources under the dominion of, or vital livelihood of an indigenous nation or group.

(12) Indigenous Membership: No state, through legislation, regulation, or other means, shall take actions that interfere with the sovereign power of an indigenous nation or group to determine its own membership.

(13) Conclusion: All of the rights and obligations declared herein shall be in addition to all rights and obligations existing under international law.