Abuse of justice, litigations against the rights of indigenous peoples
An indigenous President, Evo Morales! An expected United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Finally, indigenous peoples rights are moving!
Unfortunately, it ends there itself. Across the world, indigenous peoples rights are being abrogated through abuse of justice.
India, with constitutional guarantees for "land for land" rehabilitation, has been responsible for displacement of millions of tribals without any rehabilitation and re-settlement. Since 1999, the Supreme Court of India has sanctioned successive increases in the height of the controversial Sardar Sarovar projects against its own injunction in B.D.Sharma Vs. Union of India that rehabilitation and re-settlement of the project affected persons must be completed six months in advance of any likely submergence. Presently, the dam reportedly towers at 119 metres while rehabilitation and re-settlement remain incomplete at 85 metres. The latest order to increase the height came, as we go to the print, following Prime Minister's submission not to suspend construction of the dam - virtually justifying continued displacement without rehabilitation and resettlement of the victims - for "larger public interest".
Malaysia still holds the obnoxious position that its aborigines, the Orang Aslis are only mere tenants of the land they occupy as per the Aborigal People's Act of 1954. Federal Court of Malaysia is expected to give its judgement in the Sagong Tasi case under which Selangor state government, United Engineers Malaysia, Malaysian Highway Authority and Malaysian government are essentially urging to deny the protection of common law such as the Land Acquisition Act of 1960 and Constitution of Malaysia to the aborigines, otherwise enjoyed by other citizens.
Equally disingenuous has been the Botswana government's proposal to repeal section 14(3) of its constitution - which recognises the rights of the Bushmen - to pre-judge the outcome of the petition filed by the Bushmen against their forcible eviction from their ancestral home, the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). Having forcibly evicted the Bushmen in the first place, the government now justifies that since there are no Bushman in the CKGR, there is no need for Section 14(3)!
Kalahari is the barometer of measuring extreme poverty in the world. About 50% of the Orang Aslis are officially designated as the 'rakyat miskin', the poorest-of-the-poor. The conditions of the Adivasi children in India have recently been found below sub-Saharan standards.
These most impoverished people on the wretched of the earth have been forced to fight the mighty power and resources of the State in the court of law. The petition of the Bushmen has already become the most expensive litigation in the history of Botswana. Often, cases are filed at the lower courts. By the time they reach the Supreme Courts, many original complainants die, while justice continues to elude the descendents of the original complainants. For indigenous peoples, accessing justice has often turned out to be abuse of justice at their expense.
