– 1 –November 5, 2018

  1. What are the key challenges and issues of racial discrimination in your country/region today and how do you work to address them?

The UN helps the USA and its media both exclude Indigenous Peoples fromUSA immigrant government and define Indigenous Peoples to the world. We are denied right of self-identification, self-determination, and self-defense in the face of organized violence, including militia or private security tacitly supported and funded by USA. The USA uses apartheid law to limit original nations’ prosecution of immigrants and then applies a higher standard to Indigenous Peoples’ citizens than it does to the immigrants in the USA European immigrant courts. USA institutionalizes impunity for assault (including sexual), kidnapping, trafficking, torture, slavery, and murder of indigenous citizens, whether they be citizens assertively protected by an original nation or not. USA continues to exterminate entire Indigenous Peoples and assassinate individual indigenous citizens wherever they can. The USA has been most effective in the Americas at exterminating indigenous citizens so when they murder the few remaining indigenous citizens, each murder is an assassinationas we all have to fulfill so many roles of leaders lost. The USA carries out these assassinations for the purpose of extinguishing our original title to the land thatUSA claims. Thus our CERD issues are complex and would be elucidated by an HRC report focused on development-related conflict affecting Indigenous Peoples.

Yamasi People have worked to raise awareness about the need for an end to USA-sponsored hate speech, especially related to sports mascots, through education and human rights reporting to USA and international community[i]. We have also worked internationally to promote the concept of multilateral treaty enforcement and economic sanctions.

We face the installment of a USA extremist endorsed by racist militia groups.USA President-elect Trump increases instability and dysfunctionality of USA, unwilling and unable to effectively control its own citizens’ actions accelerating climate change. HRC continues to employ racist standards and does not respond to Indigenous Peoples’ call for accountability for Europe’s transfer of original nations’ blessings(resources) to the USA enterprise and then to ‘private’ corporations and individuals. Yamasi People face such oppression through environmental poisoning from Southern Company, an energy scheme working with USA Department of Defense nuclear weapons manufacture at Savannah River Site to force its ratepayers to subsidize unneeded nuclear power disrespectful of water. USA is rendered dysfunctional by the ochlocratic refusal of USA legislature to appoint judges to courts, including the USA Supreme Court, thus revealing USA’swide-ranging lack of constitutional implementation. The USAochlocracy has now made it a matter of legislated law that court appointments are political and should reflect the political views of the appointers[ii]. As there is no remedy through prejudiced courts, violence increases. Marginalized Peoples, including Indigenous Peoples, are disempowered as we face the implosion of the USA and release of more than a billion hand-held weapons, unknown amounts of nuclear material, and billions of tons of military vehicles.

President-elect Trump stated in 1993 ‘“I think I might have more Indian blood than a lot of the so-called Indians that are trying to open up the reservations[iii].” Trump has since repeatedly stated he had no ancestry indigenous to the Americas and is the child of European immigrants, indicating he thinks Europeans are indigenous to North America.

USA’s President Trump denies original nations’ political identity[iv] and rationalizes indigenous nationality in European patriarchal terms. Trump has espoused the views that Indigenous Peoples are a threat to USA economic survival while he promotes the idea that Europeans are the onlyNorth American Natives[v]. This cultural extermination of Indigenous Peoples promotes the ‘nation of immigrant’ myth that disenfranchises Indigenous Peoples. Trump has denigrated Indigenous Peoples with citizens of African descent while creating business models profiting from developing enclaves for those of European descent[vi]. Trump promotes the notion that admixture of African ancestry, like the ‘one-drop rule[vii]’ for slave-owners, negates the identity of Europeans or Indigenous persons of the Americas. His comments further evince Trump’s promotion of the concept that those of African descent have no collective right of self-government, which destabilizes original nations’ governments.

Instead of protecting Indigenous Peoples from violent forced development, Trump and his elite powerbrokers have worked to disempower Indigenous Peoples so we cannot defend ourselves from violent forced development[viii]. Trump paid for ads depicting Indigenous Peoples as criminals to economically redline Indigenous Peoples out of European enclaves in 1990s. Trump has mocked indigenous women. By appropriating indigenous culture to degrade all women, Trump further promotes the use of the racial slur ‘Redskin[ix]’ by colonial developers appropriating indigenous culture without consent. Trump has promoted the notion that Indigenous Peoples are ‘losers’ and undeserving of equal rights to governance[x]. In the current ochlocraticera where indigenous citizens are incarcerated at a higher rate than non-indigenous citizens[xi], Trump’s criminalization of entire Indigenous Peoples and our age-old governments promotes hostility to Indigenous Peoples’ human right to life.

Further, Trump has successfully encouraged sexual assault[xii] and shown stereotypical European patriarchal tendency to relegate women to the role of sexualized slaves with white men as the slave-owners. The presence of such a violent extremist in power and the more than one hundred million of USA European immigrant ochlocrats who support Trump, are a clear danger to survival of Yamasi People, Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, and other marginalized Peoples living where USA occupies. Yamasi People work to overcome this threat to USA stability and global security by calling on the UN to support economic sanctions for treaty and human rights violators.

Yamasi People continue to work to overcome the criminalization of indigeneity by reporting arbitrary incarceration to HRC, as there is no pressure yet on the USA to negotiate with Indigenous Peoples to arrive at enforceable agreements to end this arbitrary incarceration.

  1. What has been your experience, as civil society, of engaging with CERD to date?

Yamasi, an Autochthonous People represented by our original nation, reported current trafficking, arbitrary detention, police brutality, slavery, and hatespeech. However, CERD does not address its recommendations to the USA regarding Indigenous Peoples on these issues. We are invisible to CERD. It is especially bizarre that CERD did not mention the illustrated hatespeech of USA-funded mascots in educational settings impacting children as young as 5 years old through college. Testimony was given at Geneva about the USA-funded hate speech amplified by colonial media;Indigenous Peoples sent pictures and cited studies disregarded by CERD. This silence encouraged more violence[xiii] Indigenous Peoples, who are actively being exterminated by USA government because the international community endorses USA position that Indigenous Peoples are inferior. This hatespeech amplified by colonial media especially hurts indigenous women resulting in more sexual violence[xiv]. CERD remains silent. Yamasi leaders and future leaders are being systematically raped, incarcerated, and tortured because of our ancestry and CERD is silent. Of course this situation got worse. Yamasi and many Indigenous Peoples were not notified that the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention was visiting, despite reporting to HRC arbitrary detentions with names, dates, and case numbers. Incarcerated Yamasi and other incarcerated Indigenous Peoples need the opportunity to report on USA abuses too.

The legacy and current problem of Indigenous Peoples’ slavery also merits EMRIP study that could inform CERD’s work. The current, present, and future slavery of Indigenous Peoples and individual indigenous humans wherever USA occupies also illustrates the colonization of indigenousblessings. The USA takes even our human blessings from Indigenous Peoples relying on eurocentric UN prejudices that legitimize the overthrow of original nation governments and capture of our future leaders.

Slavery complicates current jurisdictional issues as the Europe-financed USA argues that if the Europe-financed[xv]USA enslaved any portion of any non-European People, the government of the enslaved non-european People should not be respected by the UN. This Eurocentric prejudice must be explored by CERD if it is to hear and decide on issues impartially. This is a good opportunity to learn how Europe’s child, USA, actually trafficked and enslaved Indigenous Peoples of the Americas and then African Peoples. Europe financially supported, empowered, lent financial and political credit to the USAfrom its emergence to present day. Europe invented[xvi] the USA. Europe unduly influences the UN and continues to support the myth of European superiority when it financially, politically, and socially supports USA. Europe’s financial and political survival remains tied to the USA European immigrant ochlocracy. This situational eurocentrism may influence the CERD committee to ignore USA crimes against Indigenous Peoples.

Yamasi People continue to work through alliances of Indigenous Peoples to educate colonial NGOs, UN Members, and CERD Committee through reports.

  1. How can the CERD improve and enhance its engagement with civil society, and its work on racial discrimination for greater impact on the ground?

UN eurocentrism, including USA capitalization of original nations’ resources, stopped the post WWII decolonization process at the lines drawn by Europe to delineate USA, Canada and other nation-states Europe invented within autochthonous nations. CERD could address the presumption of European superiority that the UN uses to justify USA claim to own the lands of original nations. The USA has not accurately or honestly represented to the UN the lands to which it has legal title. This complicates matters for CERD. If CERD recognizes Indigenous Peoples as humans with rights equal to Europeans then the UN must recognize our governments have equal rights to European governments. If UN recognizes that original nations’ governments are equal then the USAimmigrant government must decolonize. So CERD ignores indigenous issues, whileaddressing other importantUSA discrimination issues, to avoid conflict within UN. CERD seems to be waiting for the USA to complete its extermination of Indigenous Peoples so the UN doesn’t have to recognize reality and decolonize where USA and Canada occupies[xvii].

However, decolonization is needed for stability and security where USA occupies. CERD addresses racialized violence of police brutality, arbitrary incarceration, torture, environmental violence, violence against women, but excludes Indigenous Peoples from its recommendations to the detriment of all Peoples living where USA occupies. CERDcould address systematic discrimination against original nations’ governments to mitigate climate change and the disproportionate suffering it has already caused to marginalized Peoples globally.

Europeans, including those involved with the UN, irrationally act as if they fear Indigenous Peoples. Original nations have demonstrated less violent and more sustainable governments than have Europeans. We did not eject our citizenry en masse because we could not live within our means, as did European nation-states, which UN Members revere as the political ideal. CERD can simultaneously arrest the extermination of Indigenous Peoples and benefit the USA European immigrant society illegally claiming to own Indigenous Peoples by urging the USA to decriminalize original nations’ good governance, including climate change mitigation policies. Equality before the law, regardless of ancestry, empowers all Peoples and can end USA European immigrant ochlocracy.

We urge CERD to protect the lands held in trust by original nations since time immemorial from USA European immigrant ochlocracy by empowering Indigenous Peoples to protect our lands for the benefit of all Peoples globally. Original nations of Autochthonous Peoples in the Americas have long supported civil society. We need the violence to stop so original nations can do our jobs, promoting meritocracy and sustainably enabling lands and Peoples to thrive.

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Toward that end we recommend:

Support for regional instruments, including economic pressure to allow original nations to lead the USA to develop National Human Rights Institutions respectful of modern international standards. Respect for human rights of many waves of immigrants and prisoners now living with original nations can be achieved through original nations’ and USA immigrant nation’s strong NHRIs.

HRC-supported study on slavery’s past, current, and future impact on Indigenous Peoples, with best practices for ending, recovering from, and preventing slavery of Indigenous Peoples.

Inclusion of case-by-case examination of title and jurisdictional issues of original nations by the UN Special Committee on Decolonization to address development-related conflict arising from Eurocentric laws undermining original nations’ government. Embrace the human rights of Peoples represented by governments not of European ancestry.

Support multilateral negotiations and treaty enforcement with UN Members and original nations. HRC-supported study on best practices for economic sanctions against human rights violators, including those violating the rights of Indigenous Peoples, especially when the human rights violations are also treaty violations.

YAMASI PEOPLE

PO Box 60033 • Savannah MGeorgia • 31420 • 912.376.9786 • Yamasi.org

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[xvi]United States., & Bayley, R. A. (1882). The national loans of the United States, from July 4, 1776, to June 30, 1880. Washington: G.P.O. ,

Rik, F., William, N. G., & K, G. R. (July 28, 2014). Dutch Securities for American Land Speculation in the Late Eighteenth Century.

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