José Gregorio Díaz Mirabal, general coordinator of the Coordinator of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA)
Lizardo Cauper, President of the Inter-Ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (Aidesep)
The territorial scope of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) scales regional, national, and local levels. Among the main actors of influence are the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin. In the progress of economic development, financed by the bank, based on the extraction and use of natural resources, we’ve seen our rights diminished not only with the bank but mainly with its borrowers: companies and public institutions, which has led us to relations of tension and mistrust.
In this globalized journey to extract from nature as much profit as possible, of which the IDB is a part of, other ways of understanding development and ways of life, such as ours, have been ignored. The result have been disagreements and impositions, where our rights have been violated or weakened.
In light of this, it is critical to rethink the behaviour of those who execute such loans, and how the IDB responds when they engage in bad practices, as infrastructure gaps are narrowed, but it is also limited in the exercise of rights, creating an even more complex scenario.
The process of consultations for a new IDB Environmental and Social Policy Framework (MPAS) generated expectations regarding its changes, and what recommendations the bank would collect from our indigenous peoples representative organizations (COICA and AIDESEP). One of our main demands was the inclusion of prior consultation protocols, claiming the rights to consultation and prior and informed free consent, autonomy, among others.
All this was recorded in the Minutes of the IDB public consultation which took place in Lima, where we participated, which was signed by the nine bases of AIDESEP and supported by COICA, as well as in the pronouncement we published to the public. The publication of the final document has included some of our requests, such as the recognition of indigenous consultation protocols, which we demand at different times of the meeting.
However, we’ve also observed content that violates indigenous rights, including the indigenous identity criterion, which is subject to the discretion of borrowers. This would mean a latent risk to our peoples.
In the following lines we’ll try to explain why some changes to the final document may represent a breakthrough; and other points, a risk to indigenous rights, on which it is necessary to propose re-drafts, in search of intercultural and rights development.
Indigenous consultation protocols: small step between the IDB and Indigenous Peoples
The right to prior consultation is held on the postulate to protect and guarantee indigenous rights against actions, activities, legislative or administrative measures that may affect them, so states have an obligation to include in their documents, as well as to respect the normative framework of ILO-Convention 169, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DNPI), as an international treaty.
In recent years, during the largest boom in acceleration of investment projects in indigenous territories, this right, more than a binding decision-making process, has been developed as an administrative process. In other cases it has not been recognized or the agreed arrangements have not been complied with. All this on the basis of arguments put forward by private parties, which are evaluated and approved amid the discretion and low capacity of States, lacking veracity, and therefore legitimacy and approval by Indigenous Peoples.
In the face of this, the right to consultation “indigenous peoples in various regions of the world have been examining and sharing the need to promote and adopt regional consultation protocols based on the rights of autonomy and self-determination that have already been applied to prior consultation’s own deliberative processes claiming their binding nature“ In this way, we seek to claim respect and improve our disadvantage and vulnerability in the face of the advancement of large infrastructure projects and extractive industries.
In this sense, it is necessary to make visible and recognize the incorporation into the new MPAS of the IDB an important step forward in strengthening the right to prior consultation, as outlined in Policy No. 7 on Indigenous Peoples that the “borrower will carry out a process of interaction with the communities of indigenous peoples affected by the project, as required by Environmental and Social Performance Standards 1 and 10. This process should include indigenous consultation protocols where they exist,as well as other important measures.”. This makes way for dialogue on the implementation of these instruments. While true, the IDB refers to a “protocol of inquiry indicated to”, and not “pre-consultation protocol”, this is a step to strengthen that tool“.
In this regard, it is important to note that indigenous peoples of Brazil, Honduras, Argentina, and Nicaragua count these instruments, which were developed on their own initiative, and are taken as “mechanisms for indigenous peoples, based on their specific characteristics and worldview, to manifest their rules and procedures for consultation on measures affecting them“.
| Country | INDIGENOUS PEOPLE PROTOCOL |
| Brazil | Munduruku Village[1] Juruna Village (Yudjá) Peoples of the Indigenous Territory of Xingú (TIX) Communities Ribereñas and Quilombolas[2] Wajapi Village Krenak People |
| Argentina | National Meeting of Territorial Organizations of Original Peoples Salinas Grandes Basin and Guayatayoc Lagoon (“Kachi Yupi” – Salt Footprints – 2015) |
| Honduras | Miskitu Village |
| Nicaragua | Mayangna Village[3] Miskitus Keys |
In turn, COICA has been fine-tuning its consultation protocol, an alternative that strengthens this right, but also aims to revitalize and propose alternative paths to return to the essence of the right to prior, free and informed consultation. This protocol proposes a general scheme that can conform to both scenarios where there is or does not exist a normative development of this right.
In this sense, the consultation protocols involve processes of recognition, vindication and respect for our rights, providing a legitimate and proper support of the indigenous peoples themselves on the right of consultation, “since they express the way in which indigenous peoples, according to their worldviews, cultural and territorial particularities, they want to be consulted by States or any external actor who will carry out some activity or measure that may affect them[4]“, being such a necessary tool in these times when standards are weakened without regard to international frameworks, and when clarity is needed in the implementation of standards and policies.
Therefore, this step being made by the IDB must be further developed and in collaboration with indigenous organizations with experience and knowledge. In addition, the efficient and timely use of the tools requires that the IDB and borrowers know them, so that relevant loans are generated and directed according to the needs of all.
Indigenous identity cannot be conditioned on IDB percptions
On the other hand, the IDB’s new MPAS reiterates misrepresentation about the absence of a definition of indigenous peoples, thereby giving way for States or institutions to establish their own definitions. In turn, the IDB provides for its perception on indigenous peoples, detailing a number of requirements contrary to international standards, as in ILO-Convention 169.
This creates a number of risks in the recognition of rights and the inclusion of indigenous peoples for the identification of socio-environmental impacts. Let us remember that on this logic the non-existence of indigenous peoples was determined in certain areas of the PTRT3 project in Peru, because they were peoples with seasonal migration patterns, which was not identified by the companies responsible for making the diagnostic.
So our recognition as indigenous peoples is not conditioned or what the IDB, or the institutions consider, since there is a regulatory framework that already vindicates our existence and therefore our rights. This is a contradiction of the same MPAS, which on the one hand recognizes our rights and vulnerability, noting that the economic, social and legal situation limits our ability to defend our rights and interests over lands and natural and cultural resources, and may limit our ability to participate in a development that is in line with our worldview, andon the other hand limits rights based on its interpretations.
Finally, the new IDB MPAS has been published amid a process full of observations by indigenous organizations, who have presented recommendations to improve their relationship and recognize that the social and environmental aspects included in their loans need to be rethinked because they are violating human rights.
In this way, there is a challenge of the IDB in properly integrating the regulatory framework for indigenous rights, progress being the incorporation of indigenous consultation protocols, which must be known from indigenous spaces, so that the background of their implementation is understood, the most important being the effectiveness of the right to prior consultation, so that a regulatory framework that is truly effective is revitalized, especially “for the protection of human rights from extractive, exploitation and development activities“.
Finally, the document should take into account its position on indigenous rights, where it should be based on the international regulatory framework, and not on its own considerations, which ends up creating contradictions in the same document, and pose risks to indigenous peoples, who they are committed to respecting.
[1] Some examples of Munduruku people’s protocols.
[2] Protocols of Quilombolas Communities.
[3] Bio-protocol of Free, Prior and Informed Consultation and Consent (CLPI) of the Mayangna Sauni Arungka people, Matumbak territory.
[4] Idem