President Obama has reversed the Bush Administration's position on the UN resolution stating "Indigenous Peoples Have the Right to the Lands They Have Traditionally Owned, Occupied or Otherwise Used or Acquired."
Section 26 of that resolution says, "Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired," and it says nations "shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories and resources." President Bush thought that section made the resolution impossible to follow since it doesn't recognize current legal rights to the land.
I don't quite see how Congress will ever agree to passing this thing... On the other hand, there's a case to be made that the only people Indigenous to the Americas (The Clovis culture) died out when a comet hit the north American ice shield 12,900 years ago. Since then, everyone's an immigrant. What does indigenous mean, anyway, except that you claim your culture originated on the land where you live. I so claim.
December 21, 2010
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