GUATEMALA- On March 23, 2011, The United Nations Office for Human Rights in Guatemala gave a presentation to a packed audience on the state of human rights in Guatemala throughout the year 2010. Alberto Brunori, the High Commissioner, explained the continued state of social exclusion and disadvantage that faces Indigenous peoples in Guatemala. In his speech, Brunori highlighted the necessity of equal access to media for Indigenous communities in Guatemala, and specifically to community radio frequencies.
On January 27, 2011, Botswana’s Court of Appeal reversed a ruling that denied the Kalahari Bushmen access to water on their ancestral lands. The Bushmen appealed a 2010 High Court judgment that prevented them from accessing a borehole. The new ruling not only gave the Bushmen rights to use the borehole, but also gave them the right to drill new ones and ordered the government to pay the Bushmen’s court costs.
Guatemala's Coordinadora Nacional Indigena y Campesina reports that on January 10, 2011 police in the department of Alta Verapaz have attacked the Q’eqchi’ Mayan village of Se’ Job’ Che’, destroying their crops and animals and firing on the people. The police in this area, which borders Mexico, have been given broad powers to fight Mexican drug dealers who have crossed the border into Guatemala, but the village in question has no connection to the drug trade. A state of siege has been declared in the area.
On November 16, 2010 the Third Committee of the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution on indigenous issues which included a decision to organize a world Indigenous Peoples Conference in 2014.
At its sixty-fourth session, the United Nation's General Assembly discussed the findings of the Secretary General’s midterm report tracking the progress made in the Second International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People so far. UN organizations, NGOs, and states contributed to the findings in the report.
On January 10th, Australia´s first Indigenous political party was officially registered and will participate in the next federal election and Northern Territory (NT) state elections. Indigenous people are estimated to make up about 2.7 percent of the Australian population and 32 percent of Northern Territory residents are Indigenous.
The Republic of Congo will become the first country in Africa to pass legislation that will protect its Indigenous Peoples' rights. Ten percent of Congo’s population is Indigenous, many of whom are marginalized and even used as slaves.
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.