Page 153 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

972 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Selection from: Convention concerning Indigenous and
Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries (ILO No. 169)

doms without hindrance or discrimination.The pro-
Article 2 visions of the Convention shall be applied without
discrimination to male and female members of these
1. Governments shall have the responsibility for
peoples.
developing, with the participation of the peoples
concerned, co-ordinated and systematic action to 2. No form of force or coercion shall be used in vio-
protect the rights of these peoples and to guarantee lation of the human rights and fundamental free-
respect for their integrity. doms of the peoples concerned, including the rights
contained in this Convention.
2. Such action shall include measures for:
(a) Ensuring that members of these peoples ben-
efit on an equal footing from the rights and oppor- Article 4
tunities which national laws and regulations grant
1. Special measures shall be adopted as appropriate
to other members of the population;
for safeguarding the persons, institutions, property,
(b) Promoting the full realisation of the social,
labour, cultures and environment of the peoples
economic and cultural rights of these peoples with
concerned.
respect for their social and cultural identity, their
customs and traditions and their institutions; 2. Such special measures shall not be contrary to the
(c) Assisting the members of the peoples con- freely-expressed wishes of the peoples concerned.
cerned to eliminate socio-economic gaps that may
3. Enjoyment of the general rights of citizenship,
exist between indigenous and other members of the
without discrimination, shall not be prejudiced in
national community, in a manner compatible with
any way by such special measures.
their aspirations and ways of life.
Source: 72 ILO Official Bull. 59.
Article 3
1. Indigenous and tribal peoples shall enjoy the full
measure of human rights and fundamental free-

—received little attention. The various revolutions that “Affirmative Action State.” However, even there ethnicity
exploded during the twentieth century in Mexico, Alge- was subsumed to class and revolution, although with the
ria, China, and elsewhere at best paid lip service to eth- breakup of the Soviet Union many of these ethnic
nicity and, in many cases, tried to combine all lower-class regions such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Estonia, and the
peoples into one homogeneous mass. In official dis- Ukraine became independent states.
course indigenous peoples became peasants, and some During the 1970s people began to recognize the im-
governments, such as that of the Chinese Communists, portance of ethnic differences and began to form effective
actively suppressed ethnic expressions as subversive to ethnic organizations. These developments occurred in
the greater goals of the nation. Only in the Soviet Union Bolivia, for example, where the old peasant unions
and in the revolutionary states such as Communist China, formed after the 1952 social revolution had become
Cuba,Vietnam, Eastern Europe, and Iran was there a state completely co-opted, even by the military dictatorships.
recognition of ethnicity as an important organizing prin- Instead, members of the linguistic group Aymara came
ciple, resulting in what one historian has called the together to form ethnically based Katarista parties,