LATIN AMERICA: Native Leaders Half-Heartedly Embrace ‘Historic’ Declaration

While governments and the representatives of international agencies celebrated the approval of the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples after more than two decades of negotiations, some native leaders and experts in Latin America were less enthusiastic.

In their criticism of the document, indigenous leaders Manuel Castro of Ecuador and Luis Andrade of Colombia, as well as the former director of the Inter-American Indigenous Institute, José del Val, pointed out to IPS that it is non-binding, and that parts of it were negotiated with little participation by the representatives of its presumptive beneficiaries.

A slightly different stance was taken by the spokesman for the Rigoberto Menchú Foundation, Elmer Erazo, who said the Declaration could be considered a stride forward "to the extent that indigenous people make use of it."

But, he told IPS, "it's nothing to jump up and down about."