UN Human Rights Council corroborates rights of indigenous people and regards "forced disappearance" as a crime against humanity

The decision of the UN Human Rights Council to regard systematic forced disappearance as a crime against humanity and to pass the "Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People" was viewed by the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) as a "break-through for the protection of human rights throughout the world".

"As a human rights organisation, which is faced almost every day with forced disappearance and which must try to mobilise governments, international institutions and aid agencies to follow up the fate of the victims, we warmly welcome this first international convention on the protection of everyone against forced disappearance", said the President of the GfbV International, Tilman Zülch, in Göttingen on Friday. "It is also good to learn that a first step has now been taken to secure the rights of indigenous people throughout the world." In many parts of the world the right of indigenous people to their native land is ignored. Without any consideration and without giving those affected the right to join in the deliberations, whole communities are being driven out or their environment destroyed in order to plunder natural resources, to cut down forests, build dams and flood whole areas.

In the "International Convention on the Protection of all Persons against Forced Disappearance" relatives are granted the right to be informed as to the fate of those who have been taken away. Every signatory state is bound to include disappearance as a crime in its civil code. Systematic disappearance of persons is defined as a crime against humanity and is to be prosecuted as such.

The text of the "UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples" was written in 1994.It anchors besides the rights of the individual above all the collective rights of indigenous peoples and was therefore constantly being blocked. Indigenous people and individuals are not allowed to be discriminated for their ethnic background, they have the right of self-determination, can decide freely on their political status, their economic, social and cultural development and set up and maintain their own institutions in these areas. Over and above this their land rights and their right to the resources in their territories are here recognized.