CPA attends the 12th UN Business and Human Rights Forum, Elected as Co-Chair of the Global Indigenous Peoples Caucus
Cordillera Peoples Alliance Secretary General, Bestang Sarah Dekdeken, delivers a statement at the conclusion of the 12th UN Forum on Business and Human Rights (BHR) held from 27-29 November in Geneva, Switzerland. Dekdeken was elected as Co-Chair of the Global Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus.
Among the issues and recommendations emphasized by Dekdeken in her statement is “For states and businesses to ensure the protection of Indigenous Peoples and Defenders from the criminalization of Indigenous Peoples’ resistance against corporate projects including tagging Indigenous Peoples’ struggles as acts of terrorism as in the case of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance in the Philippines, extrajudicial killings and various forms of human rights violations, and State reprisals, with impunity.”
According to Dekdeken, “We participated in the Forum to bring attention to the urgent issues faced by the Cordillera Peoples Alliance and its leaders, especially the arbitrary designation of 4 CPA leaders as “terrorists” by the Anti-Terrorism Council. We are here to seek the support of governments and civil society to put a stop to the attacks against Cordillera indigenous peoples and the CPA.”
“We also came to raise concerns on the continued FPIC violations in the proposed dam projects in the Cordillera, such as the case in the proposed Gened dams and the other Apayao dams, and the widely opposed Saltan dam projects in Kalinga,” added Dekdeken.
CPA Public Information Staff, Astrid Bolinget, has likewise raised concerns on the continuing attacks against the human rights of indigenous youth. In her statement, Astrid stated that “Human rights attacks on indigenous youth such as red-tagging, terrorist tagging, trumped-up charges, abduction, intimidation, and harassment must stop to enable meaningful participation of indigenous youth in decision-making, empowerment of Indigenous Peoples in asserting our collective rights to land, territories, resources, and our rights as indigenous youth in particular.”
The annual UN BHR Forum is the world’s largest annual gathering on business and human rights, this year with 3,993 participants from government, business, community groups, and civil society including Indigenous Peoples, law firms, investor organizations, UN bodies, national human rights institutions, and other groups. The agenda of the forum is to discuss the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework), as well as current business-related human rights issues. *** (PR)
