Translated by Monika Ayu
Latin American governments are implementing policies for indigenous people that are dominated by a vision oblivious to their unique characteristics. Likewise, they are making decisions without consulting the communities, sectors which they perceive
"as vulnerable, as groups to be provided with antipoverty programs. However, the strategy that is going to achieve our empowerment is the focus on human rights," said Mirna Cunningham Kain, Chair of the United Nations (UN) Permanent Forum of Indigenous Issues.At a press conference at the termination of the fifth training course to Strengthen Indigenous Women's Leadership--organized by the Multicultural Mexico Nation University Program of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the UN entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, the the Alliance of Indigenous Women of Central America and Mexico, and the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous People--Cunningham lamented,
"There continues to prevail an indigenous policy within the majority of our governments in which the policies are defined from a single culture, since there aren't intercultural public policies that are responsive to our vision."She said that the struggle of communities and in particular of indigenous women's leadership is to
"contribute to the transformation of states to become truly multicultural, multinational and multiethnic."She stressed that the importance of the training course lies in its contribution
"to focus on the role of women in the development of their communities. We believe it is important to struggle from below and from above. We cannot only believe that change will come from above."Cunningham Kain, a member of the Miskito ethnic group and a former governor on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, said,
"States are not guaranteeing mechanisms for the systematic participation of indigenous people. They are not applying the right to free, prior and informed consent before approving concessions on our territories. They are not consulting us before approving laws that have to do with us and they are not taking into account either our vision before implementing development projects, or our culture before approving measures to extend health coverage or education.
"This is still an indigenist model [one aimed at converting indigenous peoples to the dominant "western" culture], and it is found everywhere in the Americas. There is no Latin American state that manages to save itself from this model. Even in those places where there are very advanced constitutions, there continue to prevail problems of full and effective participation of indigenous people. For this reason we have to keep fighting," she concluded.Spanish original