BC Indian Chiefs launch Olympic rights campaign targeting foreign media
 
(CP) – 6 hours ago
 
VANCOUVER, B.C. — A group of B.C. First Nations leaders says it will carry
out a campaign during the Winter Games to pressure Canada to sign a UN
declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples.
 
Like the Lubicon Cree did during the Calgary Games in 1988, members of the
Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, the First Nations Summit and the B.C.
Association of First Nations say they will target the national and
international media in town for the Olympics.
 
"We support the spirit of the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games,"
said Chief Wayne Christian, chairman of the union's working group and
spokesman for the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council.
 
Christian applauded Olympic organizers for including the Four Host First
Nations, the bands upon whose territories the Games will take place.
 
Over the next few days the torch relay will pass through several aboriginal
communities and feature prominently First Nations culture as it nears the
Feb. 12 start date of the Games.
 
"Yet, while this is a great starting point, there is much work which still
needs to be done after the Games to address aboriginal human rights,
poverty, missing and murdered women, and rights and title," Christian said
in a statement. He was not immediately available to comment.
 
The UN general assembly passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples in September 2007 by a 143-4 margin.
 
Canada, along with the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, did not endorse it.
Australia has since done so and New Zealand has indicated it is reviewing
its position.
 
The UN declaration affirms the equality of the world's more than 370 million
indigenous peoples and their right to maintain their own institutions,
cultures and spiritual traditions. It also establishes standards to combat
discrimination and marginalization and eliminate human rights violations
against them.
 
Cliff Atleo, president of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council on Vancouver
Island, said Canada's reputation as an international leader on human rights
is at stake.
 
During the 1988 Games in Calgary the Lubicon Cree held high-profile protests
to try and force the government to settle their land claim.
 
The campaign was highly successful, drawing worldwide attention to their
fight - for a time. Despite the headlines around the globe, the Lubicon
continue that fight today.
 
Unlike the Lubicon effort, Beverley Clifton Percival, a treaty negotiator
for the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs, said the 2010 campaign will not focus on
public events but in spreading the word to the international media.
 
"We have a treaty process in British Columbia that is not working, we have
murdered and missing women in our communities that have not been dealt with,
we face high levels of poverty and social challenges...," she said.
 
There are issues of rights and title, and recognition, she said.
 
"We are hoping to raise awareness."
 
The declaration is not binding on member nations, and support is largely
symbolic but Canadian government officials have said the wording of it is
too broad and in conflict with Canadian law and practice, especially
regarding land claims and natural resources.
 
A UN report last summer on Canada's human rights record urged the government
to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but the
government said it still had concerns with the wording of the document.