Every August 9, the Indigenous Peoples of the world commemorate their international day recognized by the United Nations Organization.
Although the statistical data are not precise and tend to be underreported, around 500 million people live in the world who belong to some of the five thousand indigenous peoples that exist on the planet.
In Latin America and the Caribbean there are 826 indigenous peoples, among which more than 100 are transborder, since they live in at least two countries and a larger number of peoples in voluntary isolation, almost all in the Amazon.
Nearly 60 million indigenous people inhabit the region and speak some 550 languages, most of them at risk of extinction for various reasons.
On this date it is good to remember that since 1989, when International Labor Convention 169 was adopted, followed later by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007, and the American Declaration on the same matter , in 2016, the original communities have made notable progress in the recognition of their quality as subjects of individual and collective rights.
At the regional level, the creation of the Development Fund for the Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, which this year 2022 celebrates its first 30 years of life, is undoubtedly a notable advance, among other reasons, due to the parity nature , with equitable participation of native and government delegations in all its decision-making spaces.
In addition, it cannot be ignored that these positive changes at the international level have been accompanied within several countries by constitutional, legal and institutional reforms that have involved a qualitative leap in relation to the situation that existed a few decades ago.
In historical terms, it has been possible to move from the logic of extermination, submission, contempt and denial, to the recognition that societies are multicultural and that the various cultures must be fully respected, moving towards the construction of intercultural societies with equitable relations among its members.
However, these recognitions, all of them the product of struggles throughout the planet, have not managed to change the concrete reality of indigenous people and communities.
In general terms, they are far from being considered a priority by the vast majority of States, they live in conditions of poverty and they do not achieve the rates of social and political participation provided for by the international standards mentioned.
It is also necessary to deepen a global cultural change that values in its fair terms the enormous wealth and potential of indigenous peoples who, for centuries, have formed a wealth of knowledge sustained in specific practices that are of enormous use to society as a whole.
Indigenous communities are still a long way from being considered a priority by the vast majority of States
In today's world, where we are facing overlapping crises as a result of exclusionary social and productive development, generating inequalities and aggressing nature, the traditional knowledge of ancestral communities must be seen as an essential part of the responses to the great challenges of the present
And especially the knowledge of women, because they are jealous guardians and transmitters of the same.
We need peacebuilding and peacekeeping to be at the center of the global political agenda.
We must not resign ourselves to contemplating death and destruction without trying to avoid it, knowing, moreover, that the consequences of war end up hitting the most vulnerable sooner or later, no matter where they are.
It is about reaching agreements that allow each culture that coexists on earth to contribute the best it has to twist the current course.
Hence, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues proposed, in its sessions in 2021, a new social contract.
It is about launching a broad intercultural dialogue, an equitable and horizontal interaction between the cultures that coexist on the continent, their expressions and ways of seeing the world, including synergies between scientific innovations and the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples such as necessary tools to understand reality and act on it.
Freddy Mamani Machaca
is president of the Board of Directors of the Fund for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (FILAC).
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