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Subject: [savelakecowal] Uncle Chappy speaks out at the UN
From: "WGAR News" <wgar.news@...>
Date: Sun, June 1, 2008 12:03 am
To: "ACT indigenous network" <actindnetwork@yahoogroups.com>
"Black & Green" <blackgreensolidarity@...>
"Racism" <Racism_Against_Indigenous_Peoples@egroups.com>
"Save Lake Cowal" <savelakecowal@yahoogroups.com>
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Uncle Neville 'Chappy' Williams speaks out at the UN


Source:
http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/friends-earth-joint-submission-un-permanent\
-forum-indigenous-issues


7th United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues,
United Nations, NY

Agenda Item 4.2: Pacific/Sustainable Development


Joint submission by Friends of the Earth International

on behalf of

Mooka and Kalara United Families within the Wiradjuri Nation,

Murray Darling Basin, Central New South Wales, Australia

in a joint intervention with

New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council

Akali Tange Association Inc. Pogera Enga Province,
Papua New Guinea

Agence Kanak de Developpement

Western Shoshone Defence Project, Nevada, USA

Laura Calm Wind, Kitchenuhmay Koosib Inninuwug, Canada

Comision Juridica para el Autodesarrollo de los Pueblos
Originarios Andinos (CAPAJ), Andes

Indigenous Peoples Links

Centre for Organization Research and Education (CORE)

First Indigenous Nations Civic Association of South Africa
(FINCASA)

Indigenous Environment Network (IEN)


Brothers and Sisters, I am Neville Chappy Williams, a
Custodian and Traditional Owner of Lake Cowal within the
Wiradjuri Nation in the centre of the Murray Darling Basin,
Australia.

Aboriginal and Indigenous Peoples hold many of the solutions
to heal our Mother, the Earth, from her rape by colonialism,
which is now causing climate change. But many rogue mining
companies and other extractive industries operate with
impunity and impact our Nations and Peoples at the very
core of our cultural being, at the very essence of our
existence, through the desecration of our sacred sites and
sacred waters.

Our people become weakened through the assault on our
spirituality, leading to depression, division, oppression
and even death. Yet at this time of climate change
Indigenous Peoples need to be strong and influential in
caring for our Earth and each other. Our Peoples have
already lived through global warming and global cooling,
which caused the Ice Ages. Our collective traditional
knowledge and wisdoms hold the keys to survival and, right
now, it is our Mother, the Earth, who is crying out for a
rest from mining, other extractive industries and
unsustainable practices.

Brothers and sisters, in 2002 at the UN World Summit on
Sustainable Development the mining and extractive
industries' PR machinery managed to include in the final
conference text the idea that mining is sustainable. But
from our perspective as custodians, this is a crazy claim.
To us sustainable development is taking from the Earth only
what we need for our spiritual wellbeing and our health.
Mining is fuelled by greed for profit, resulting in bogus
people being put up to sign deals, desecrated sacred sites,
degraded lands, polluted waters, divided communities and a
legacy of mining waste, contaminated soil and poisoned
drinking water and polluted fishing grounds. How can this
be called 'sustainable'?

In the Northern Territory, the Angela and Pamela uranium
mine near Titchikala, 25 kilometres south of Alice Springs,
is in the middle of the artesian basin, which is the main
water supply of Alice Springs and surrounding communities.

In Western Australia, the Burrup Peninsula holds some of
the oldest artwork in the world – rock carvings and
paintings. It is a World Heritage site, but the interests
of the Woodside Petroleum gas industry overrode the
sacredness of this site. Now the carved rocks, which carry
the story of our humanity, are stockpiled behind a locked
fence.

In our case, Lake Cowal in the middle of the Murray Darling
Basin, Australia, we are opposed to the gold mine, but we
have no right of veto, and have been trying for years to
stop the Canadian company, Barrick Gold, from desecrating
our ancient sacred lake and destroying our marked trees and
cultural objects. One gram of cyanide can kill a human and
we fear their practice of bringing in 6000 tonnes of
cyanide a year into the floodplain of the lake and the
Kalara (Lachlan) river, which forms an inland sea during a
major flood. But, when we try to access the area, we are
told we are trespassing and security call the armed police.

We took Barrick Gold to court many times. We formed
alliances with environmental groups around the world, but
now Barrick Gold has gone ahead and are digging a large
mine pit into the lakebed itself and have built vast
tailings dams, where once thousands of our people have
camped, back from the sacredness. When I flew over Lake
Cowal in March this year in a small plane, I saw that the
wall in the mine pit had collapsed after heavy rains, at
the end of a long drought. Barrick Gold had not told the
public, even though the mining was on public land. But when
we asked questions in parliament, the NSW Minister for
Mineral resources admitted the landslide has buried blast
holes full of explosives. What is sustainable about this?

We are well aware that the four countries that opposed the
Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the
General Assembly - Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the
US - are the source of many of these rogue transnational
companies.


We have five Recommendations for this 7th Permanent Forum.
Although the World Bank has stated in this forum that their
policies are consistent with the Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples, there is a big difference between
the World Bank's "free, prior and informed consultation"
and the "free prior and informed consent" in the Declaration.
Nevertheless, we recommend that the Permanent Forum:

1. Calls for activation of the 2005 Extractive Industries
Review and for activation of the previous interventions to
address the impact and legacy of extractive industries on
Indigenous Lands, territories and natural resources;

2. Urgently calls for funding through ECOSOC for a World
Summit to seek solutions for Indigenous Nations and Peoples
affected by extractive industries in order to complete
Recommendations by 2009 for the 2010 Commission on
Sustainable Development;

3. Calls on the Human Rights Council to request the new UN
Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to
investigate how to set up an Indigenous arbitration system,
a regulatory regime, to control the practices of the
trans-national mining companies, other extractive
industries, forestry and fisheries;

4. Calls on ECOSOC to request a Joint Report, before the
8th Permanent Forum, from the Special Representative of the
UN Secretary-General on business and human rights and the
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and
fundamental freedoms of Indigenous Peoples, identifying
transnationals and their types of behaviour, which breach
the inherent rights detailed the Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples. The report is to include:

* Requests to UN agencies to build on the research done by
NGOs to document the whole impact of mining on Indigenous
communities, including environmental justice, the legacy of
mining waste, desecrated sacred sites, degraded lands and
poisoned waters; and make the findings available to
concerned communities;

* An evaluation of the amount Indigenous communities
involuntarily subsidise the mining industry and other
extractive industries through their natural resources,
which are seized with minimal compensation, if any, by
forms of colonialism perpetrated by trans-national
companies;

* All expert investigations into mining impacts on
Indigenous Nations and Peoples, such as the CERD's
observations that both Canada and the US must regulate their
transnational corporations impacting Indigenous communities
outside their borders;

5. Create an Indigenous Network on Mining Activities (INMA).
We call on everyone at this forum to begin this network.

Thank you.

Neville Williams, savelakecowal@...

24/4/08

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