Page 154 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

indigenous peoples movements 973

inspired by the rebel leaders of the 1780s.They were able tury, but this republic was quickly crushed by the gov-
to mount an effective resistance to the military dictator- ernment. During the 1990s the Uyghurs again launched
ship of General Hugo Banzer during the 1970s by mobi- a movement for autonomy.The Chinese Communist gov-
lizing the indigenous communities around the cities and ernment responded by building roads and infrastructure
cutting off roads that supplied them. to promote economic growth.The government also re-
Since the last few decades of the twentieth century pressed the autonomy movement and severely restricted
important indigenous peoples movements have flour- the practice of Islam and other Uyghur cultural practices.
ished throughout the world, from Latin America to Asia, Lastly, the government flooded the region with Han
Africa to Europe. All are diverse and have different aims, Chinese to build a non-Uyghur majority that could con-
although many movements were inspired by the passage trol the resistant natives. This tactic appears to have
in 1989 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) been effective, and the Chinese have used similar tactics
Convention 169, which provided indigenous peoples the in Tibet as well. Although the Chinese case represents
right to maintain their culture, their language, and their the repressive extreme, other indigenous populations
way of life as a part of international law. This passage (even ethnic minorities in the former Asian Soviet
was made possible by the rise of nongovernmental republics) are generally repressed and have been unable
organizations (NGOs) that have helped to organize and to develop effective movements for greater autonomy.
finance these movements.
The Americas
Failures in Asia The case of the Americas is more positive for indigenous
In Asia indigenous peoples movements have not had peoples, although great variation exists there as well. For
much success.True, much of the southern portion of the example, indigenous peoples movements such as the
Soviet Union in Asia has become independent, and native American Indian Movement (AIM) in the United States
peoples have gained control over the government. How- attempted during the 1970s to force the U.S. govern-
ever, independence had little to do with indigenous move- ment to honor the treaties it signed with Native Ameri-
ments, and, in fact, the new countries of Uzbekistan, Kaza- can tribes during the nineteenth century, but this attempt
khstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan are led to repression by the Federal Bureau of Investigation
controlled by former members of Soviet political organi- (FBI) and an infamous standoff between the government
zations. At best, in Asia indigenous peoples have been and AIM activists at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in
recognized, and governments at times have been willing to 1973. Since then the movement has been unable to make
accede to indigenous peoples’ demands. These develop- much headway. After a 1991 law made gambling legal
ments occurred in Japan, where the native Ainu popula- on reservations, many tribes have tried to develop their
tion of the northern island of Hokkaido in the 1980s and reservation economies by operating casinos rather than
1990s received recognition of their rights to existence and unifying in a single movement.
some economic aid. In China at worst the government Other indigenous movements have been more suc-
continues to repress the native populations of the western cessful. Perhaps the most successful has been the move-
territories, suppressing any indigenous movement as sub- ment to establish autonomous zones for the Inuit (com-
versive and labeling its members as “terrorists” to gain the monly called “Eskimo”) in Canada. Since 1975 the
acceptance of government policies by other countries. Canadian government has signed a series of laws creat-
The Chinese case merits special attention.The Uyghurs ing large autonomous territories in the far northern por-
of Xianjiang in northwestern China had briefly estab- tion of the country. Largest is the territory of Nunavut,
lished the Republic of East Turkistan in the twentieth cen- where the Inuit have substantial control over legislation