At UN,
Of Indigenous
Fight-Back,
from Australia
to World Bank
to North
Dakota
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, April
20 -- When the
Permanent
Forum on
Indigenous
Issues meeting
started up on
April 20,
Inner City
Press asked
about the
World Bank's
“Climate
Fund,” and
Australian
Prime Minister
Tony Abbott's
closing down
aboriginal
communities
and what he
called the
“lifestyle
choice” they
represent.
The new chair
of the
Permanent
Forum,
Professor
Megan Davis,
said that
Abbott's
comments had
not gone down
well in
Australia, and
not only about
aboriginal
people. She
asked if
farming,
heavily
subsidized, is
not lifestyle
choice. Some
surmise it's
hydrocarbons
under the land
that explains
the closing of
the
communities.
And now Abbott
is going to
New Zealand -
where he faces
further
protests of
his remarks
and actions.
Joan Carling,
also on the UN
panel on April
20, told Inner
City Press
that the
Climate Fund,
REDD and
similar
project
involve
reducing the
forests to the
carbon issue
and to
payments.
On extractive
industries,
set for
delivery on
April 21 is a
presentation
on self-harm
and suicide
caused by
“governments,
extractive
industries and
multinational
corporations
raping and
destroying
Mother Earth.”
The
recommendations
include that
“the UNFCCC
and the
forthcoming
Paris accord
include
legally
binding
commitments of
the Parties to
reduce
greenhouse gas
emissions at
source by 60
to 80%,
without false
solutions to
climate change
including
carbon
trading,
carbon
offsets, the
Clean
Development
Mechanisms,
REDD+, Carbon
Capture and
Storage or
agrofuels.”
The speech is
to be
delivered from
a person on
the front
lines -- from
North Dakota.,
Kandi Mossett
of the
Indigenous
Environment
Network. Watch
this site.
Footnote:
While the
above press
conference was
in the UN
Press Briefing
Room, and we
hope to have
UN video soon,
there was no
UN transcript
or even
summary made.
Worse, the UN
collaborated
with its UN
Censorship
Alliance (some
of whose board
members have
tried to get
the
investigative
Press thrown
out of the UN)
in shifting
the Chagos
Refugees
Group's
Olivier
Bancoult into
an almost
empty session
in UNCA's
private club,
not on UNTV,
not reported.
(Inner
City Press previously
asked about
the
Chagossians,
here to
outgoing UK
Ambassador
Mark Lyall
Grant, who
seemingly
against
character
turned
censor-inward
in farewell.)
Inner City
Press based on
similar
collusion by
UNCA quit the
group and
co-founded the
Free
UN Coalition
for Access which
is covering
the Forum and
how the UN
treats it. Watch
this site.
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