Autonomous Territorial Governments of Indigenous Peoples: Proposal to stop the climate crisis

In a context of permanent crisis of national democracy and the exponential advance of mafias and illegal activities in the Peruvian Amazone linked to the disasters generated by the global climate catastrophe, the consolidation and strengthening of Autonomous Territorial Governments (GTA) of indigenous peoples to protect our integral territories and 73% of the national territory that is the Amazon, is presented as a need and strategy of survival and resistance, born from our self-determination and the 10,000-year heritage of our ancestors.

Hence the importance of public opinion understanding self-determination, which implies deciding our development priorities and having the State respect them. By virtue of that right, we freely determine our political status and freely pursue our economic, social and cultural development; what we call “Full life”. We also have the right to autonomy or self-government in internal and local affairs, as well as to have the means to finance these autonomous functions.

Self-determination for indigenous peoples in these times does not imply wanting to “disintegrate” from the State or promote “separatist” demands. We do not want territories separated from the State; On the contrary, indigenous peoples demand respect for our human and socio-environmental rights, and effective and intercultural coordination with the State. All this, in accordance with the international instruments to which the Peruvian State is committed and has given its consent. This would help us guarantee the development and protection of our future generations, the Amazon and humanity.

Indigenous peoples have the right to organize, not only as communities but also as peoples or nations based on the right to self-determination and autonomy or self-government, which are recognized in the international instruments in force in Peru, such as ILO Convention 169. the UNDRIP, the American/OAS Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (art. 25), the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of Peru (N°1126-2011, item 22,23; and N°0906-2010) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Saramaka, Awas Tigni, Garífuna, Yakye Axa cases).

State officials have the obligation to interpret the Political Constitution of Peru in light of these international instruments, as has already been pointed out by the Constitutional Court (TC) in several rulings and by the Inter-American Court. Therefore, the State must guarantee and make effective the rights to legal personality of communities and collectively, as peoples or nations; Likewise, guarantee the integral territory and titling of ancestral territorial property without “transfer in use”, as well as its respective legal registration. We reject the dictatorship upon us, of expropriation, “nationalization” and then privatization. What remains outside of communal titles, which are our ancestral territories, should not be expropriated as supposed “areas of free availability” derived from land trafficking, colonization, illegal economies, with the indolence or complicity of state officials.

Thus, thanks to the joint effort of leaders and youth of the 09 regions of the Inter-Ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (Aidesep), GTA of 13 towns, and the support of the Coordinator of the Indigenous Organizations of the Basin Amazónica (COICA), in October the 2nd. National meeting to articulate strategies for the Consolidation of Comprehensive Territoriality and Indigenous Autonomous Governments in which the agreement of the “minga (joint and supportive work) of Territoriality, Ownership and Self-Government by Indigenous Peoples” to strengthen the consolidation processes of indigenous GTAs.

The purpose is to continue exercising the right to self-determination, recover and update our own forms of self-government as peoples with an integral territory. This will help to address the defenselessness and incipient capacity of the State to protect indigenous defenders, who daily risk their lives in the defense of our integral territories. It is important to note that in the last 10 years (2013-2023) 26 environmental defenders have been murdered (Source: Law, Environment and Natural Resources – DAR).

From Aidesepa representative organization of indigenous peoples, we call for solidarity and support from public opinion, social movements and organizations and international cooperation in human, environmental and climate rights, considering that territoriality, ownership and collective self-government as indigenous peoples They form an alternative already validated in AbyaYala (America) and other continents in the face of the global civilization crisis, to avoid the point of no return of the Amazon destruction and move towards clean energies without the impact of fossil energies and, in this way, stop the catastrophe of global warming and climate crisis.

[PUBLIRREPORTAJE]