Charting indigenous rights.

• Author: Conaway, Janelle
• Position: OAS

PARTICIPANTS IN A week-long special session on indigenous issues said they had made substantial progress toward making an American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples a reality.

The adoption of such an instrument would show the OAS member countries' commitment to fully recognize, promote, and respect the rights of indigenous people throughout the hemisphere, Peruvian First Lady Eliane Karp de Toledo said at the opening ceremony. "Forty million citizens hope and yearn for urgent change," she said. "Let us not disappoint them, please."

Mrs. Karp de Toledo, an anthropologist who heads her country's National Commission on Andean, Amazonian, and Afro-Peruvian Affairs, said a respect for the native heritage of the Americas was "related intrinsically to democracy, human rights, and the sustainable development of [indigenous] peoples."

During the meeting, held at OAS headquarters last February, more than 250 people, including members of civil society and representatives of member states, exchanged ideas on such matters as social, economic, and property rights and the concept of self-determination. Participants included 120 indigenous representatives from fifteen countries.

Ambassador Eduardo Ferrero Costa of Peru, who chairs the working group on this issue, said at the end of the week that the "frank, transparent...