wfn.org | Rights of Indigenous Peoples

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      PRESS RELEASE     FOR IMMEDIATE USE     24 MAY 1996		

       WCC URGES UN TO SPEED PROCESS FOR DECLARATION ON
                 RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

A UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is urgently
needed says Dr Konrad Raiser, General Secretary of the World
Council of Churches (WCC).

Raiser made his comment in a letter to His Excellency Jos?
Urrutia of the Permanent Mission of Peru in Geneva.  Urrutia
chairs the UN Inter-sessional Working Group which has before it a
draft text of such a declaration.

Raiser told Urrutia the WCC understands the text represents the
minimum standards required for the survival of Indigenous
Peoples.

He added that the WCC had supported the participation of
Indigenous Peoples in the development of this draft text and was
pleased when, after twelve years of negotiation, it was finally
received by the Commission on Human Rights.

Now, the WCC chief executive has urged the working group to
complete its work speedily so that the declaration can be adopted
without unnecessary delay.

The full text of Raiser's letter follows:

"The World Council of Churches (WCC) has been closely following
the drafting process of the United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The WCC has supported the
participation of Indigenous Peoples in the development of the
draft text and was pleased when, after twelve years of
negotiation, the text was finally received by the Commission on
Human Rights.

The draft of the Declaration is now in the hands of the
inter-sessional working group of the Commission, established in
accordance with the Commission on Human Rights resolution 1995/32
of 3rd March 1995, which had its first meeting in November 1995. 
The WCC will continue to cooperate in its work in every
appropriate way.

It is the WCC's understanding that this text represents the
minimum standards for the survival of Indigenous Peoples.  The
accelerated deterioration of living conditions (health, education
and housing), the threat to land rights and particularly sacred
sites, and controversies surrounding the self-determination of
Indigenous Peoples in different parts of the globe, underlines
the urgent need for this instrument.

The WCC therefore urges the governments involved in the
inter-sessional working group to complete speedily its work so
that the declaration may be submitted to the Commission, to
ECOSOC and the General Assembly for adoption by member states
without unnecessary delay.

It is our hope and conviction that this instrument will be a
strong and effective complement to the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights and the Declaration on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination.  It holds out for Indigenous Peoples the promise
for long-delayed justice and peace."

Contact:	Rev. Eugenio Poma Anaguaya, WCC Consultant on
Indigenous Peoples' Issues (+41.22) 791.62.04

                                                                

The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now
330, in more than 100 countries in all continents from virtually
all Christian traditions.  The Roman Catholic Church is not a
member church but works cooperatively with the WCC.  The highest
governing body is the Assembly, which meets approximately every
seven years.  The WCC was formally inaugurated in 1948 in
Amsterdam, Netherlands.  Its staff is headed by general secretary
Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church in Germany.