|
Amersfoort, 20 June 2003.
Dear Ian,
Thank you
for meeting with us during the Permanent Forum in New York. We appreciate
the commitment you have demonstrated to the dialogue with indigenous
people concerning the Indigenous Peoples Policy revision and the
need to establish a permanent mechanism for Bank communications
with indigenous peoples. We also welcome your staff’s announcement
of a new grant facility for indigenous peoples. These are all interesting efforts that we
hope to explore with you in more detail in the future. At present, however, our deepest concern continues
to be the status and content of the Indigenous Peoples’ Policy revision.
We hope to build a trusting relationship between indigenous
people and the World Bank with an eye to transparency in our communications.
For this reason, we write to you today to clarify a few important
matters.
As a result
of the broad nature of the Permanent Forum, a number of questions
regarding the policy revision remain unclear. These are:
- When will we see the new draft policy? We were last told that
we could expect to receive it in April. When will it be sent to
CODE? As you know, we are very interested in reviewing and analyzing
the changes that were made as a result of the Bank’s consultations
with indigenous peoples. As you recall, during your meeting with
indigenous representatives last February, you agreed to make it
available at least 90 days before sending it to the Board of Directors.
- When will we see the “issues paper” that will accompany the
final revised policy when it is sent to the Board for adoption
and explain the specific policy revisions? This important document
was also promised to us.
- What is the status of the Bank’s plans to hold the legal roundtable
that was proposed during the Bank’s consultations with indigenous
peoples and recently discussed during the Permanent Forum?
We applaud
the WB for its commitment to support the Permanent Forum and for
its effort to involve the Forum in the establishment of the WB IP
grants facility. These positive developments, however, magnify the
need for the WB to develop a separate and financially independent
institutional mechanism for addressing indigenous peoples’ concerns.
As we have suggested, the external consultative group for gender
might serve as a model for such an institutional body.
In any case, discussion of these institutional issues should
be held independently of the policy process.
Based on Bank
presentations at the Permanent Forum, we would also like to express
our grave concern regarding the suggestion that the revised policy
will be forwarded to the Board without fully addressing the key
areas of concern (i.e. the collective rights of indigenous peoples
to their lands and territories, the right to be free from involuntary
settlement, the right to prior, free, and informed consent; the
right to self-identification, and the right to measures to mitigate
adverse impacts). At this
time we would like to reaffirm that such an action will not have
the broad support of indigenous peoples.
We look forward
to hearing from you soon.
Viktor Kaisepo
Co-chair,
indigenous World Bank roundtable
cc:
Carole Brookins, Executive Director (US)
Yuzo Harada, Executive Director (Japan)
Eckhard
Detuscher, Executive Director (Germany)
Pierre
Duquesne, Executive Director (France)
Thomas Scholar, Executive Director (UK)
Navin Rai, Senior Social Development Specialist, Indigenous
Peoples
|
