IWGIA: a history

207 Pages·2009·20.716 MB·English

by  Jens Dahl

IWGIA:
a history
Jens Dahl
Copenhagen 2009 – Document No. 125
IWGIA: a history
Author: Jens Dahl
Proofreading: Elaine Bolton and Business Language Services BLS
Cover and typesetting: Jorge Monrás
Print: Eks-skolens Trykkeri, Copenhagen, Denmark
ISBN: 978-87-91563-52-2
ISSN: 0105-4503
Copyright: The author and IWGIA – 2009 – All Rights Reserved
This book has been prepared with financial support from
the Danish and Norwegian Ministries of Foreign Affairs.

Distribution in North America:
Transaction Publishers
390 Campus Drive / Somerset,
New Jersey 08873
www.transactionpub.com
Title: IWGIA: a history HURIDOCS CIP DATA
Author: Dahl, Jens
Corporate Author: IWGIA
Place of Publication: Copenhagen, Denmark
Publisher: IWGIA
Distributors: Transaction Publisher; Central Books
Date of Publication: October 2009
Pages: 208
Reference to series: IWGIA
Document no. 125
ISSN: 0105-4503
ISBN: 9788791563522
Language: English
Index terms: Indigenous peoples, NGOs
Geographical area: World
INTERNATIONAL WORK GROUP
FOR INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS
Classensgade 11 E, DK 2100 - Copenhagen, Denmark
Tel: [phone] - Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected] - Web: www.iwgia.org
In memory of Andrew Gray
CONTENTS
FOREWORD – IWGIA 40 YEARS .........................................................................10
INTRODUCTION – IWGIA: A HISTORY ..........................................................14
PART I
IWGIA AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIGENOUS MOVEMENT
Introduction ...........................................................................................................20

Chapter 1: The early years .......................................................................................24
Raising awareness ................................................................................................26
Advocacy: the first experience ...........................................................................27
Growing up ...........................................................................................................29
IWGIA and the anthropologists .........................................................................30
Support to human rights defenders ..................................................................31
IWGIA and the UN ..............................................................................................32
Chapter 2: The emergence of indigenous organisations ...................................34
The situation in the early 1970s .........................................................................34
The Arctic Peoples’ Conference in 1973 ............................................................37
The founding of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples .........................39
Geneva 1977 ..........................................................................................................40
Government policies – Geneva 1978 .................................................................42
South and Central America ................................................................................44
The emerging international indigenous movement .......................................46
The role of IWGIA ................................................................................................49
Chapter 3: Diversification and globalisation .......................................................52

The organisation’s development ........................................................................52
Campaigning and lobbying ................................................................................55
Yanomami ......................................................................................................56
Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) ......................................................................56
Animal rights ................................................................................................58
“Going global” ......................................................................................................60
Asia ...............................................................................................................62
Russia ............................................................................................................62
Africa .............................................................................................................65
New opportunities in the Arctic ...................................................................68
Chapter 4: Human rights and development projects .........................................70
The UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations ....................................71
Other international developments .....................................................................72
The Human Rights Fund for Indigenous Peoples ..........................................73
Projects .................................................................................................................76
Government funding ...........................................................................................80
The International Year, the Decade and the Danish policy ...........................82

Chapter 5: The pro-active period ............................................................................84
The Permanent Forum process ..........................................................................87
Confronting new dilemmas ................................................................................91
The establishment of the Permanent Forum ....................................................92
IWGIA and the Draft Declaration process .......................................................93
IWGIA and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights .......95
PART II
THE PILLARS OF IWGIA
Introduction ...............................................................................................................104
Chapter 6: The holistic approach..........................................................................106
The South-South programme ...........................................................................106
Chapter 7: From documentation to publication to communication ..............110
Chapter 8: Human Rights.......................................................................................114
The Human Rights Fund for Indigenous Peoples ........................................116
International, regional and national initiatives:
the Special Rapporteur and Human Rights Observatories .........................118
Chapter 9: Projects and partnerships ...................................................................120
Partnership policy and strategy .......................................................................120
Project strategy ....................................................................................................124
Case studies .........................................................................................................129
Titling of land in Peru and the Philippines ...............................................130
First People of the Kalahari (FPK) .............................................................133
Asian indigenous organisations .................................................................139
Traditional institutions ...............................................................................141
Russia ..........................................................................................................142
Summing up ........................................................................................................145
PART III
MAJOR ISSUES
Chapter 10: The concept of indigenous peoples ...............................................148
The relational approach .....................................................................................149
A global concept .................................................................................................152
The African debate .............................................................................................153
Class versus ethnicity ........................................................................................155
Chapter 11: Advocacy, representation or self-determination .........................158
The principle of non-interference ....................................................................161
Chapter 12: Cooperation with non-indigenous NGOs ....................................164
Chapter 13: IWGIA and governments .................................................................170
Government responsibility ...............................................................................170
Collaborating with governments .....................................................................171
Indigenous peoples’ participation in national institutions..........................172
PART IV:
IWGIA: HISTORY AND FUTURE
Chapter 14: An organisation of professionals ...................................................176
The growth of an organisation .........................................................................176
Professionalisation ..............................................................................................178
A membership organisation .............................................................................182
Development of a corporate spirit ...................................................................183
Chapter 15: Future Challenges
From opposition to policy making ..................................................................188
IWGIA’s impact ..................................................................................................189
Networks and regional focus ...........................................................................190
NOTES .......................................................................................................................192
ACRONYMS .............................................................................................................198
BOARD MEMBERS OF IWGIA ...........................................................................201
CHAIRPERSONS (PRESIDENTS) OF IWGIA’ BOARD ................................203
IWGIA’S DIRECTORS ...........................................................................................203
REFERENCES ...........................................................................................................204
FOREWORD – IWGIA 40 yEARS
As a former Director and Board Member of IWGIA, Jens Dahl has had a priv-
ileged vantage point from which to scrutinize 40 years of IWGIA’s history.
IWGIA was-of indigenous peoples. The idea of forming such an organisation
came during the 38th International Congress of Americanists, which took place in
Stuttgart, Germany in 1968, and where a number of anthropologists presented
alarming reports on atrocities committed against indigenous peoples in Venezue-
la, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay and Brazil.
In a post-conference meeting on August 22, 1968, at the home of the Norwe-
gian social anthropologist Helge Kleivan, outside Copenhagen, Kleivan, Milton
R. Freeman, Lars Persson and Georg Henriksen decided to form the International
Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, commonly known under the difficult acro-
nym of IWGIA. Soon thereafter, the newly-formed group embarked on what is
still a core part of IWGIA’s work: documenting cases and situations relating to
indigenous peoples and communicating information to the larger world regard-
ing the gross violations of the human rights of indigenous peoples – information
that hardly anyone had thus far felt it necessary to communicate.
Out of these beginnings grew a professional organisation which, while still
being involved in documentation, publications and information dissemination,
now also undertakes international human rights activities and empowerment
projects.
During IWGIA’s first years, Jens Dahl came to know Helge Kleivan, first as a
teacher while Jens was a student of social anthropology at the University of Co-
penhagen, Denmark, and, a few years later, as a colleague when Jens joined Helge
at the Department of Eskimology, University of Copenhagen.
Jens Dahl is someone who has invested his life and career in working for and
with indigenous peoples as they have begun to make themselves felt and present
in the modern world.
Jens has thus closely followed the path-breaking 40 years, not only of IWGIA
as an organisation but, more importantly, of the indigenous movement itself, ex-
periencing how indigenous peoples rose from desperate situations to found or-
ganisations, from local communities and via national and regional associations to
establish alliances on the international scene. Everything had to be created more
or less from scratch; experiences collected and further reflected steps taken or
daring attempts launched – and the counter-forces were many and much more
powerful. IWGIA was itself a part of, and a partner in, this extremely complicated
and difficult process.
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After Jens retired from his job as IWGIA’s Director in 2006, and as IWGIA’s
40th anniversary was approaching, IWGIA’s Board invited him to write a history
of the organisation. We soon agreed that we were not looking for a classical
chronological outline of what has happened in IWGIA over the last 40 years. We
wanted to incorporate the turbulence, strain and difficulties that have also been
an ingredient of these years.
By structuring the book into four parts (IWGIA from an historical perspective,
the pillars of IWGIA, a close look at some of the issues dominating the 40 years,
challenges and trends for the future), Jens has provided what IWGIA wanted: an
original and inspiring perspective on IWGIA’s 40 intense years of interaction and
partnerships with indigenous individuals and organisations, academia, govern-
ments and the international human rights scene. The result is a book that not
only reflects the complexity of organisational and political developments but also
provides a privileged insider’s view, with reflections that Jens has developed
during his committed and professional career both as an academic and an IWGIA
employee, based on an inspiring partnership with the global indigenous world.
The book depicts how, for the past 40 years, IWGIA has taken an analytical as
well as an action-oriented approach to working with indigenous issues – always
in close partnership with indigenous organisations. This partnership approach
has been a fundamental part of all IWGIA’s activities, favouring mutual under-
standing and increasingly enabling a more pro-active approach from IWGIA’s
side. As Jens makes clear, one effect of this has been an increased emphasis on
indigenous peoples’ own participation in the decision-making processes at na-
tional, regional and international level, along with the development of dialogue
with governments. Quite some distance from the time when IWGIA worked
mostly on behalf of indigenous communities and individuals.
“IWGIA: a history” is a comprehensive and incisive view that includes Jens’
own reflections. He has at the same time been able to incorporate IWGIA’s own
analysis of the first 40 years of the organisation. It is a book that neither Jens nor
IWGIA intended to be a “complete” summing-up of developments in IWGIA and
the indigenous world but rather a work that could incite further discussion and
reflection. By integrating history with critical reflections on the future, the book
may also serve as an inspiration to those facing the new challenges brought about
by a world that is constantly changing, and which mean, for example, that work-
ing with indigenous issues now also involves focusing on climate change, forms
of self-government, indigenous youth and indigenous peoples in urban settings.
This book is an invitation to the readers to attempt to come to grips with how a
commitment-driven human rights organisation has challenged and responded to
advances and transformations in the wider world of indigenous peoples.
Espen Wæhle
October 2009
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