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From its inception the Human Rights Advocacy Center
has been committed to help native peoples protect their land, resources
and cultural identity. This commitment stems from a recognition
that "those who were there first have had their rights violated
the longest," and accordingly deserve high priority by human
rights advocates. The ill-conceived "law of discovery and
conquest" gave rise to the flawed and now discredited notion
that "use and occupancy" by indigenous peoples was of
no legal significance, and posed no obstacle to encroachment and
usurpation by "civilized" force. Further, not only has
the imposition of that law resulted in massive decimation of indigenous
communities, but it has also led, in the name of progress, to the
degradation and destruction of ecologically important resources,
which natives have long depended on, prized and protected.
Through collaboration with other groups advocating for indigenous
rights (e.g., Amazon Alliance, Cultural Survival, Survival International,
Minority Rights Group International and the International Rivers
Council), the Center tries to facilitate capacity-building initiatives
that enable indigenous communities to advocate their rights. Initiatives
that have been pursued recently include:
- Working with a Peruvian women’s rights NGO seeking restitution
for indigenous women involuntarily sterilized by the former Fujimori
regime;
- Collaborating with a British NGO in work on behalf of the San
(Bushmen) tribe in Botswana;
- Providing assistance to an East Indian group in Trinidad and
Tobago, contesting the government’s discriminatory treatment
of its Indian minority;
- Supporting the American Indian Boarding School Healing Project
in its quest for reparations for Indian people taken from their
homes and culture pursuant to past U.S. government “assimilation” policy
and practice;
- Working with an indigenous Nicaraguan university’s legal-aid
clinic seeking to expand its resource base and outreach capacity;
- Conducting research and advocacy on educational rights of Guatemala’s
Mayan people.
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