UNPO Monitor July 1999
TUNUNAK TRADITIONAL ELDERS COUNCIL
Indigenous Peoples and Nations Coalition
Tununak Traditional Elders Council
Indigenous Peoples and Nations Coalition
Alaska
17th Session of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations
Item Number
Warm Greetings and Camai to all distinguished participants:
the Governments, the Indigenous Peoples and to all observers of the 17th session
of this Working Group.
I would like to start with congratulations on your re-election
as Chair and give a special expression of gratitude for the vital support and
inspiration you, Madame Daes and the Government of Greece continue to provide
to Indigenous Peoples through your important work at the United Nations. The
Indigenous Caucus is grateful to you, for sponsoring the press conference at
the end of the recent Intercessional of the Draft Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples this last December of 1998. Your intervention at that
forum in our support, which was also the 50th year celebration of the passing
of the Declaration of Human Rights continues to be vastly appreciated. Thank
you for the refreshing reminder that 1998 was also the 50th year anniversary
of the passing of the Convention on the Prevention and the Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide and the important protections it should provide to Indigenous
Peoples. Quyana Caknak, which is "thank you very much" in my Yupiaq
language.
Sovereignty and Self-determination for the Indigenous Peoples
of Alaska The Indigenous Peoples of Alaska continue our struggle to exercise
to our right of self-determination. In the 1960`s we had the Federal Field Commission
hearings which were preliminary to the enactment of the 1971 Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act. The recent U.S. Supreme Court Venetie ruling declared that the
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was an act of self-determination, yet this
was an act of the U.S. Congress without the fully informed vote of the Indigenous
Peoples of Alaska. The 1980`s gave us the Berger Commission Report as a study
of self-determination and our special relationship to the land. In the early
1990`s we were given the Native Review Commission to study the problems facing
the Indigenous Peoples of Alaska in relation to our pursuit to self-determination.
Most recently the Governor of the State of Alaska conducted new hearings with
the Rural Governance Commission with more new restricted findings telling the
Indigenous Peoples of Alaska what is good for us. The point I would like to
make, and the constructive message I bring to the working group is that: As
long as an alien government and peoples come to our traditional Indigenous Homelands
to continue to study and provide solutions for us, it is not an exercise of
self-determination. Self-determination cannot be settled by the settler government,
but only by the peoples concerned. As many commissions and studies that have
been conducted upon us, the best answer to the problems facing us today, and
in the future is best resolved by the Indigenous Peoples seeking for themselves,
without any limitations or restrictions, our right of self-determination.
Subsistence
As a result of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the United States government
enacted the Alaska National Interest Conservation Act of 1980. The provisions
of this act are supposed to provide for the continued protection of our right
to take from the land for our health, well-being and survival. I would like
to thank my Indigenous Sister from the Ahtna territory of Alaska for the intervention
which illustrated the importance of the vegetation and wildlife as an important
part of our diet. Yet today, we continue to seek answers which would provide
us the recognition and protection of our right to feed our peoples our traditional
food from the land we have survived off of for thousands of years. This is one
aspect of our right of self-determination which is not secured. Again, self-determination
is best expressed and resolved by the Indigenous Peoples concerned.
Taxation of the Indigenous Peoples of Alaska The Tununak Traditional
Council has also requested research regarding taxation of Indigenous Peoples
in Alaska. Again the Venetie decision of 1998 ruled against the Tribal taxation
in Alaska. We are continuing to research the issue and we would like to bring
our findings to the Working Group in the future. Quyana Caknak , "thank
you very much"
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TUNUNAK TRADITIONAL ELDERS COUNCIL
Indigenous Peoples and Nations Coalition
Tununak Traditional Elders Council
17th Session 26-30 July 1999
30 July Item 8 Land Rights
Warm Greetings and Camai to all distinguished participants:
I would like to thank Miguel Alfonso Martinez for reference
18 to paragraph 49, which includes the 1867 Treaty of Cession relating to the
purchase of Alaska. It is correct that the Indigenous Peoples of Alaska were
third parties and not part of the negotiation to the treaty in any way.
This is very significant. I have discovered more documents
prior to the 1867 Treaty of Cession which clearly refute Russian title and dominion
to Alaska. The United States Congress went into executive session on 15 December
1824 to discuss a set of Diplomatic communication which gives the historical
and legal reasons why Russia had not aquired absolute title to Alaska. (Documents
included) Further, in these memoranda the United States fully recognize the
Indigenous Peoples of Alaska as "Independent Tribes inhabiting an independent
territory." In this memoranda, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams cites
Vattel and his treatise Law of Nations.
Madame Chair, this series of confidential diplomatic memoranda
from the United States to Russia is less than 50 years prior to the so called
1867 Treaty of Cession. The revelation of this information is very significant
that, the Indigneous Peoples of Alaska were only a third party to the treaty.
Therefore, the Indigenous Peoples of Alaska are not legally bound to admit to
the treaty. Russia had no right to "sell" Alaska, since the absolute
title was recognized to be in the dominion of the Indigenous Peoples of Alaska.
In United States v the State of Alaska, the 1975 United States
Supreme Court found that " The cession of all the territory and domain
possessed by Russia on the Continent of America and in the adjacent islands,
under an 1867 treaty between Russia and the United States (15 Stat 539), was
effectively a quitclaim, and the United States thereby acquired whatever dominion
Russia had possessed immediately prior to cession.
I remind also, that the United States Supreme Court Johnson
v McIntosh decision which derived the reduced aboriginal title, was concluded
in 1823. This places us outside the scope and obligation of this discriminating
decision.
Alaska was recognized under article 73 of the United Nations
Charter. Article 2, paragraph 7 of the United Nations Charter also places those
recognized on the list of non-self-governing-territories as not properly being
within the metropolitan of the administering state, and outside of domestic
jurisdiction.
Since Resolution 1469, 12 December 1959, removing Alaska and
Hawaii from the list of non-self-governing territories was proscribed as an
opinion, we have the right to bring forth this information to correct the facts
relating to the removal from the list.
This information is vitally important, as it is evidence that
the Indigenous Peoples of Alaska are, and continue to be, recognized as a State
of Peoples in modern international law.
Madame Chair, and Proffessor Martinez, I hope this newly discovered
information will be reflected in both of your studies.
Quyana Caknak, thank you very much.
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PAIMIUT TRADITIONAL COUNCIL
WGIP presentation
Voices of the Bering Sea, Paimiut Traditional Council, Native Council of Port
Hedien
17TH Session - WGIP Agenda item 5
Good afternoon Madame Daes, governments and delegates,
Thank you for this opportunity to speak to the Working Group
on Indigenous Populations our relationship to the land. As a grassroots Indigenous
organization formed to promote the protection of the Bering Sea, we thank you
for providing the opportunity to discuss our relationship to the land and sea.
Our worldviews share a common basis, in simple terms, everything
has soul - inua. It is from the worldview that the desire arose to protect the
land - nuna. Harold Napoleon, a Yupik scholar from Paimiut, notes in his work
the close relationship between inua and nuna in our worldviews. We identify
ourselves by the villages we are from.
Alaska Natives were forced outside of their worldview to assert
ownership of the land under the doctrine of Aboriginal Title. Alaska Natives
asserted a right to their homelands to stop the State of Alaska from taking
the land. To clear title to the oil fields in Prudoe Bay, the State of Alaska,
the oil, and prominent Alaskans lobbied Congress to settle Alaska Native land
claims. Congress created corporations and put the land in corporate control
as the corporations main asset further separting our worldview from the land.
Our land became an asset under corporate control. The trees,
animals, minerals, etc. became resources. So in less than a decade we went from
belonging to the place of our birth to asserting western concepts of ownership
and rights, to an imposed corporate structure in which the land is an asset
on a balance sheet. All the aspects of that land became a resource. Please consider
the consequences to ones psychological well-being and the sociological impacts
to our societies.
As a suggestion for solutions, we suggest that in and on our
own lands traditional laws and relationships be followed.
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