Assam: UN Charter on Rights of Indigenous Peoples completes 16 years

DOOMDOOMA: The Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha (ASM) filed a petition in the Supreme Court in 2012, urging the court to give direction to the government for implementation of the UN Charter on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of Assam. The petition was attached to the main case of the Mahasangha. The UN Charter recognises the indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and the right of indigenous peoples to form their own governments of their choice. It also said that the rights to land and resources would remain in the hands of the indigenous people.

Today, the Ahom, Moran, Matak, Chutia, Kachari, Rava, Tiwa, Karbi, Koch, and others who were once indigenous ruling ethnic groups of Assam are deprived of political rights and power to rule. Therefore, the Mahasangha wants the indigenous peoples to be protected on the basis of this charter. The Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha’s executive president, Matiur Rahman, Sonwal Kachari Jatiya Parishad adviser, Santanu Das Barhajowal, and others addressed a press meet at the Doomdooma Press Club on Wednesday.

The Government of Assam has very cleverly opened an ‘Indigenous and Tribal Faith and Culture Department’. It is nothing but giving like a grain of manure to a duck. Such a small department cannot protect the indigenous people. Instead, the government is allocating land to non-indigenous foreigners in the name of the Basundhara scheme while the indigenous people’s protection case is pending in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court admitted an affidavit against the UN Charter on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the case filed by Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha. Therefore, the BJP-AGP-led government is definitely an anti-indigenous government, they said. The Government of India, along with 143 countries around the world, voted in favour of this Charter on September 13, 2007 at the United Nations Headquarters in Geneva. While other countries in the world are working to protect the rights of indigenous peoples on the basis of this Charter, the opposite is being done in Assam.

On the 16th anniversary of the declaration of the Charter, the Federation expressed its anger over the non-implementation of the Charter and called for its implementation to protect the indigenous peoples. After 2007, the government cannot do anything on indigenous issues without the prior permission or consent of the indigenous people, while the opposite is happening in Assam, Executive President Matiur Rahman said.

The press meet was attended by Santanu Das Barhajowal, former president of Sonowal-Kachari Jatiya Parishad, and one of the petitioners, Jagannath Sonowal, former vice president of Sonowal-Kachari Jatiya Parishad; Ajit Moran, former vice president of Assam Moran Sabha; and Beda Bora, former president of Chutiya Jati Sanmilan, Tinsukia district committee.

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