UN to investigate Canada's treatment of Native peoples

[blake 3:17]

Canada's treatment of aboriginal people faces global scrutiny
UN and human-rights groups to visit Canada within the next year
By Ryan Hicks, CBC News Posted: May 10, 2013 6:16 AM CT Last Updated: May 10, 2013 4:44 PM CT

Canada's record on how it treats aboriginal people will be under global scrutiny within the next year.

The federal government is allowing three human rights groups — including two from the United Nations — to make visits where they will look at living conditions in aboriginal communities, including access to clean water, housing and education.

The groups will also probe whether government and law enforcement are doing enough to resolve the cases of an estimated 600 murdered and missing aboriginal women.

Full story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2013/05/09/mb-united-nations-aboriginal-canada.html

[blake 3:17]

Mohawk Workers Invited to U.N. to Raise Apartheid & Genocide Allegations at Historic Meeting in New York with James Anaya, UN Special Rapportur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

April 29, Letter to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
James Anaya, Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Greetings,

We wish to pre-register the Mohawk Workers of the Ouse / Grand River for possible participation and consultations with James Anaya at this event in New York next month. We also hope you are able to visit our Grand River Territory in order to meet with Ohrerekó:wa, Principle Chief – Ka-nyen-geh-ha-ka (Mohawk) Wolf Clan, and others from our community when you are in Canada in order to better understand our situation.
Our mission is to seek redress for years of oppression including apartheid and genocide and the restoration of a Ka-nyen-geh-ha-kah homeland within our Haldimand Territory.

We expect to engage all relevant parties in the hopes of commencing resolution discussions in advance of the Special Rapporteur’s visit to Canada which we understand is finally set to occur within the coming months. At this time we expect to further raise concerns of gross violations of the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, apartheid and genocide, and follow up on our preliminary submission made in 2012.

The crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”

On 30 November 1973, the United Nations General Assembly opened for signature and ratification the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. It defined the crime of apartheid as “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”

http://mohawkworkers.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/mohawk-workers-invited-to-u-n-to-raise-apartheid-genocide-allegations-at-historic-meeting-in-new-york-with-james-anaya-un-special-rapportur-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples/

[cynicles]

Canada's treatment of aboriginal people faces global scrutiny
UN and human-rights groups to visit Canada within the next year
By Ryan Hicks, CBC News Posted: May 10, 2013 6:16 AM CT Last Updated: May 10, 2013 4:44 PM CT

Canada's record on how it treats aboriginal people will be under global scrutiny within the next year.

The federal government is allowing three human rights groups — including two from the United Nations — to make visits where they will look at living conditions in aboriginal communities, including access to clean water, housing and education.

The groups will also probe whether government and law enforcement are doing enough to resolve the cases of an estimated 600 murdered and missing aboriginal women.

Full story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2013/05/09/mb-united-nations-aboriginal-canada.html

Doing enough? They're part of the problem, these UN investigators should ask the Winnipeg police force to take them on one of Manitoba's much vaunted "starlight tours". Then they can get a taste of what it means to be anishanabeeg in Canada.