Human Rights Commission Holds First in Series of Indigenous Hearings

Indigenous leaders from around Latin America warned of economic development practices that sabotage their communities and the environment at a hearing held in Washington, D.C., last week. The hearing was the first in a series to be held by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in Congress.

Ellen Lutz, executive director of Cultural Survival, which worked with the commission to set up the hearings, stated after the session: "The hearings provided Latin American indigenous peoples with their first opportunity to tell the U.S. Congress what happens when governments determine that the resources on indigenous lands actually belong to the state. Invariably the state claims that the lands are not indigenous or that what is underneath them belongs to the public and thus can be exploited by state or corporate interests."

Indigenous representatives from Peru, Panama and Colombia all testified to other consistent patterns of dispossession that have plagued first peoples and placed their environments at risk for decades.