At the White House Tribal Nations Conference December 15, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the United States would "lend its support" to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. "The aspirations it affirms," he said, "including the respect for the institutions and rich cultures of Native peoples, are one we must always seek to fulfill. . . I want to be clear: what matters far more than words, what matters far more than any resolution or declaration, are actions to match those words. And that’s what this conference is about.
Today, President Obama met with tribal leaders at the White House Tribal Nations Conference. The text below is his address to the audience and includes a statement of support for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The president promised a full statement to follow.
On December 8, President Obama signed into law the Claims Resolution Act of 2010, which will award $4.6 billion to Native American landowners and African-American farmers who were wronged by the U.S. Government. This act includes the the $3.4 billion Cobell settlement. The Cobell v. Salazar Indian trust fund lawsuit was first filed in 1996. The plaintiffs wanted justice for mismanagement of Indian land royalties held in trust funds by the Department of the Interior dating back to the 1800s.
DATE
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20006
Dear President Obama,
I write to urge you to immediately endorse the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The declaration is a set of principles that would provide Native Americans and Native Alaskans with greater security regarding their basic human rights, including their rights to equality and non-discrimination.
When the United Nations General Assembly voted to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, only four nations voted against it: New Zealand, Canada, Australia, and the United States. Since then, both Australia and New Zealand have reversed their positions and endorsed the declaration, and Canada also has recently indicated an interest in reversing its position in a qualified way. And now the United States has joined the trend toward enlightenment.
Cultural Survival and the Sauk Language Department, based at the Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma, sent our master-apprentice team on a week-long language immersion field trip to their sister language community, the Meskwaki Nation, based in Tama, Iowa. Team members return from Iowa today, and have spent over 8 hours each day during the past week communicating exclusively in the Sauk/Meskwaki language. They also participated in a language conference designed for local Meskwaki community members to set priorities for long-term language revitalization efforts.
Cultural Survival and the National Alliance to Save Native Languages partnered last week with the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) to pass an NCAI Resolution declaring Native languages in the U.S. in a state of emergency, and to express support for a proposed presidential executive order on Native language revitalization.
President Barack Obama again named November as National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month, asking Americans to celebrate the day after Thanksgiving, November 26, as National Native American Heritage Day.
"The Obama Administration has once again exhibited that every day the federal government is paying more attention to the role of American Indian and Alaska Native nations as members of the American family of governments," said Jefferson Keel, president of the National Congress of American Indians.
On November 5 the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, examined the United States’ compliance with its international human rights obligations. The council comprises 53 member states and conducts human rights reviews of all 192 UN member states in a four-year cycle. In reviewing the United States, members of the council questioned a delegation of over 30 U.S. officials.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.