Last Updated on May 20, 2019
Dispelling any notion of the UN as an honest broker, the UN Security Council authorized invasion by France of its former colony of Mali exposes the anti-democratic nature of the international institution. Even as the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues prepares for the 2014 World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, indigenous nations like Mali’s Tuareg navigate a hazardous path, confronted by UN-authorized mercenaries sent to secure Amazigh territory for European mining concessions under Mali’s US-sponsored military dictatorship. The United Nations state-centric framework, that caters to US and EU corporate interests, makes a mockery of the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. If the World Conference in 2014 is to be anything more than a sideshow to UN-justified neoliberal colonialism, it will have to challenge the assumed domination of modern states over indigenous nations like Mali’s Tuareg, struggling to create an independent homeland in Azawad.
Across the world right now, Indigenous peoples are facing a renewed assault on their lands, rights, and ways of life.
From extractive industries pushing deeper into ancestral territories, to governments rolling back hard-won protections,
the threat is global—and it is growing.
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