Permanent Forum: Unprofessional and gets personal
"When we criticize the Permanent Forum, we criticize it as an institution. We do not target any individual member or staff." - AITPN in its reply to Ms Victoria Tauli Corpuz, Chairperson of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on 22 August 2007.
AITPN's interim evaluation report,
Permanent Forum: Manufacturing recommendations published in IRQ issue of April
to June 2007, as expected, evoked strong reactions. While many indigenous organisations welcomed the evaluation, the Secretariat of
the Permanent Forum and Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity
rather attacked the persons who might be involved in the evaluation. Experts of
the Forum described it as “too much”.
It is unlikely that indigenous peoples' organisations or their representatives in future will dare
to respond to the evaluation. The message from the Secretariat and the
Permanent Forum members was clear and unambiguous: Make no mistake, the empire
shall strike back and you join evaluation of the Forum at your own perils!
None of the responses from the members and the
Secretariat of the Forum addressed the problems that AITPN had raised: (i) style of the report which fails to adequately reflect
the interventions of the experts, States, indigenous peoples etc or summary
records of the debates; (ii) problems with closed door meetings and time
management; and (iii) the need to avoid repetetive recommendations in order to include indigenous peoples’ interventions.
In fact, present and former staff of the
Secretariat of the Permanent Forum gave the impression that the Forum has
reached the optimum level of efficiency. This leaves no desire or scope for
improvement in the future.
I. No
ownership
Ms Sonia Smallacombe of
the Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues tersely replied:
"The secretariat of the UNPFII does not write the report. The UN has a
vast Conference Services and that is their job".
Nothing could be more unfortunate that the
Secretariat of the Forum washing off its hands with regard to the annual sessional reports. What does the Secretariat do is the
reaction AITPN heard from indigenous peoples with regard to the response of the
Secretariat of the Forum that it does not write the report.
II. No to
“judge and jury”
“I think a decent evaluation needs to interview not
only members of the Secretariat but also the members of the Forum. This
evaluation, clearly, at the outset is out to prove that the Permanent Forum is
a failure, which is rather unfortunate. The Forum has limitations especially
because it is a new body which is still evolving and finding its way in the
thick of the maze of the UN system. While the Forum welcomes a review of its
performance, such a "review" will not merit serious attention because
of the lack of neutrality and objectivity”- John Scott, Programme Officer for Traditional Knowledge, Innovations and Practices of the Secretariat
of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.
This view was also supported by Ms Corpuz. In its reply
to Ms Corpuz, AITPN asserted: "To what extent
the views of the members of the Forum, the staff of the Secretariat or the
members of the Inter-Agency Task Force - who are indeed the subjects of the
evaluation - can be given the leverage to be judge and jury on themselves is a
decision that AITPN shall take after considering the yardsticks of the
principles of independence and impartiality. They can all provide information but they cannot simply be the judge and
jury on themselves”.
III. No
response
Most indigenous peoples want their situations reflected
in the Forum’s Annual Reports to the ECOSOC. Therefore, it is of paramount
importance that their oral interventions are also included in the reports of
the UNPFII to the ECOSOC. AITPN recommended that this could be done by
collating recommendations made on a thematic issue in the last six years as
"Standing Recommendations" and revise them as and when necessary like
the UN Treaty Bodies' General Comments and reduce the number of recommendations
in the Annual Reports.
The Seceretariat of the
Forum, staff belonging to the Inter-Agency Task Force and
members of the Forum have not yet responded as to whether they also
agree with the above recommendation. Privately, members of the Forum justified
the present format of reporting on the ground that the Permanent Forum is a
recommendatory body! All the bodies of the UN with the exception of the
Security Council are only recommendatory. The WGIP was not more powerful when
it reflected the situation of indigenous peoples in its annual report. This is
a strange explanation from the experts!
So long indigenous peoples' statements are not
included in the Annual Reports to the ECOSOC, indigenous peoples will increasingly fail to relate to the Forum. The Forum
will eventually lose its relevance to the activists. The proposed new mechanism
of the Human Rights Council may indeed hasten the process of the Permanent
Forum's ultimate irrelevance.
AITPN is not being prophetic, but simply sharing
the experience of the participation of women's rights activists in the Commission
on Human Rights (now HRC) vis-a-vis the Commission on
the Status of Women. AITPN fails to understand why, if those who are at the
helms and claim to be truly committed to the Forum regard AITPN evaluation as a
threat rather than an opportunity to improve its functioning.
Read history!