Banach-Tarski Paradox
*Banned*
Human Rights Cases Concerning Maroons
It is not surprising that international human rights law and bodies have dealt with indigenous peoples' rights to a greater extent than Maroon rights, given the strength and proactive nature of the international indigenous movement. Throughout the past 30 years, indigenous peoples have actively engaged their states, the UN, the OAS, the World Bank, and others to account for their rights and have sought enforcement of their rights through international mechanisms such as the HRC and IACHR. By comparison, and with few exceptions, Maroons have only recently begun to assert their rights at the domestic level and have not sought redress at the international level. While the IACHR has addressed Maroon rights in its country reports on Colombia (1999), Ecuador (1997), and Suriname (1983, 1985), it is only Suriname Maroons who have sought enforcement of their rights in the IACHR. Even then, only one case, filed in October 2000, deals directly with rights to ancestral lands and resources, treaty rights, rights to cultural integrity, and rights to participate in decisions affecting Maroon communities.
The best known case is Aloeboetoe et. al, decided by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 1993, in which Suriname was held responsible for the extra-judicial killing of seven Saramaka Maroons during the civil war of 1986-1992. (Padilla, 1995; Price, 1995) In determining reparations, the Court explicitly took account of Maroon customs and laws (e.g., polygyny) to set the amount of compensation due the victims' dependants. It refused, however, to require compensation for violations of Maroon territorial and treaty rights, effectively declaring that the Saramaka treaty of 1762 was null and void. A second case dealt with the massacre of more than 50 Ndyuka women, children, and elderly persons by the Surinamese army at the village of Moiwana in 1986. This case was declared admissible by the IACHR in March 2000; a decision is presently pending on the merits and possible adjudication pursuant to the binding jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court.(11)
A third, most recent, case was filed by 12 Saramaka leaders (captains) on behalf of their respective matrilineal clans and the Association of Saramaka Authorities, a body representing the majority of Upper Suriname River Saramaka captains.(12) The petition alleges that Suriname has been violating the rights of Saramakas -- matrilineal clans, individuals, and the Saramaka people as a whole -- to property, to participate in decisions affecting them, to cultural integrity, to judicial protection, and to other rights guaranteed under international instruments ratified by Suriname such as the right to self-determination. The case was filed with the IACHR directly due to the absence of effective remedies in Surinamese law pertaining to Maroon land and other rights; it is based on Suriname's failure to recognize Saramaka territorial and treaty rights and its active violation of those rights by grants of logging and mining concessions in Saramaka territory. The petitioners seek IACHR support to establish procedures in domestic law that will recognize Maroon territorial rights and provide for the demarcation of their communal lands, for an immediate suspension of all logging and mining activities in their territory, and for reparations for past violations. As with the Moiwana case, Suriname has thus far failed to respond in any way to the IACHR's requests for information about the allegations made in the petition.
The basis for asserting and protecting Maroon rights is firmly entrenched in international human rights law. But as with indigenous peoples, much work is required to ensure that states implement and respect those rights at the domestic level. While Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil have made significant progress (on paper, at least), Suriname, French Guiana, and Jamaica trail behind. And the situation on the ground in Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil demonstrates that legal guarantees are not enough to ensure cultural integrity and survival. Guarantees must be backed up with effective and proactive enforcement measures. In this respect, it is crucially important that Maroons themselves assert and defend their rights and interests.
In Suriname, where legal guarantees are entirely absent, the situation is most dire. There, Maroons are experiencing an onslaught of mining and logging operations that is substantially undermining their ability to sustain themselves and causing massive environmental degradation and severe social and health problems. Matawai Maroons, for instance, have recently been forced to import water due to river pollution caused by mining. Conservation activities, however laudable in principle, are also cause for concern, as they have expropriated Maroon lands and curtailed Maroon subsistence rights. Whether the latest case filed by the Saramaka with the IACHR will change this situation remains to be seen. Needless to say, other Maroon peoples are looking on with great interest.
References & further reading
Bilby, K. (1997). Swearing by the Past, Swearing to the Future: Sacred Oaths, Alliances, and Treaties among the Guianese and Jamaican Maroons. Ethnohistory 44, pp 655-689.
Kambel, E.-R. & MacKay, F. (1999). The Rights of Indigenous People and Maroons in Suriname. Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs; Moreton-in-Marsh, England: The Forest Peoples Programme.
Padilla, D.J. (1995). Reparations in Aloeboetoe v. Suriname. Human Rights Quarterly 17, pp 541-555.
Price, R. (1995). Executing Ethnicity: The Killings in Suriname. Cultural Anthropology 10, pp 437-471.
(1). See for instance, Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which restates the general principle of pact sunt servanda, Articles 1 and 2 of the American Convention on Human Rights, and Article 2(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
(2). See Article 1 of International Labor Organization Convention No. 169 Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries (1989) and Article 1 of the Draft American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. According to World Bank Operational Directive 4.20 (and the new draft OP.410 [see also page 68, this issue]) on Indigenous Peoples, Maroons would be classified as indigenous for the purposes of applying World Bank safeguard standards.
(3). Concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee: Australia. 28/07/2000. CCPR/CO/69/AUS. (Concluding Observations/Comments), at paras. 10 and 11.
(4). See, among others, Report on the Situation of Human Rights of a Segment of the Nicaraguan Population of Miskito Origin, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.62, doc.26. (1984), at 76-78, 81; Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Ecuador, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.96 doc.10, rev.1 (1997), at 103-4; Case 7615 (Brazil), OEA/Ser.L/V/II.66, doc 10 rev 1 (1985), at 24, 31; and Third Report on the Situation of Human Rights in The Republic of Guatemala, OEA/Ser.1/V/II. 67, doc. 9 (1986), at 114.
(5). Third Report on the Situation of Human Rights in The Republic of Guatemala, ibid.
(6). Case 11.577 (Awas Tingni Indigenous Community -- Nicaragua), Annual report of the IACHR. OEA/Ser.L/V/II.102, Doc.6 rev., (Vol. II), April 16, 1999, p. 1067, at para. 108. This case was recently adjudicated by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which has binding jurisdiction.
(7). Ibid. See also Art. XVIII, Proposed American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, approved by the IACHR in 1997.
(8). Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Ecuador, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.96 doc. 10, rev. 1 (1997), at 115.
(9). Second Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Peru, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.106, Doc 59 rev., June 2, 2000, at Ch. X, para. 16.
(10). In Colombia, for instance, see Transitional Article 55, Colombia Const. 1991; Law No. 70 of 1993; and Decree 1745 of 1995.
(11). Case 11.281 (Village of Moiwana), Suriname. Report 26/00 on Admissibility.
(12). Case 12.338 (Twelve Saramaka Communties), Suriname.
Article copyright Cultural Survival, Inc.
www.culturalsurvival.org
It is not surprising that international human rights law and bodies have dealt with indigenous peoples' rights to a greater extent than Maroon rights, given the strength and proactive nature of the international indigenous movement. Throughout the past 30 years, indigenous peoples have actively engaged their states, the UN, the OAS, the World Bank, and others to account for their rights and have sought enforcement of their rights through international mechanisms such as the HRC and IACHR. By comparison, and with few exceptions, Maroons have only recently begun to assert their rights at the domestic level and have not sought redress at the international level. While the IACHR has addressed Maroon rights in its country reports on Colombia (1999), Ecuador (1997), and Suriname (1983, 1985), it is only Suriname Maroons who have sought enforcement of their rights in the IACHR. Even then, only one case, filed in October 2000, deals directly with rights to ancestral lands and resources, treaty rights, rights to cultural integrity, and rights to participate in decisions affecting Maroon communities.
The best known case is Aloeboetoe et. al, decided by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 1993, in which Suriname was held responsible for the extra-judicial killing of seven Saramaka Maroons during the civil war of 1986-1992. (Padilla, 1995; Price, 1995) In determining reparations, the Court explicitly took account of Maroon customs and laws (e.g., polygyny) to set the amount of compensation due the victims' dependants. It refused, however, to require compensation for violations of Maroon territorial and treaty rights, effectively declaring that the Saramaka treaty of 1762 was null and void. A second case dealt with the massacre of more than 50 Ndyuka women, children, and elderly persons by the Surinamese army at the village of Moiwana in 1986. This case was declared admissible by the IACHR in March 2000; a decision is presently pending on the merits and possible adjudication pursuant to the binding jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court.(11)
A third, most recent, case was filed by 12 Saramaka leaders (captains) on behalf of their respective matrilineal clans and the Association of Saramaka Authorities, a body representing the majority of Upper Suriname River Saramaka captains.(12) The petition alleges that Suriname has been violating the rights of Saramakas -- matrilineal clans, individuals, and the Saramaka people as a whole -- to property, to participate in decisions affecting them, to cultural integrity, to judicial protection, and to other rights guaranteed under international instruments ratified by Suriname such as the right to self-determination. The case was filed with the IACHR directly due to the absence of effective remedies in Surinamese law pertaining to Maroon land and other rights; it is based on Suriname's failure to recognize Saramaka territorial and treaty rights and its active violation of those rights by grants of logging and mining concessions in Saramaka territory. The petitioners seek IACHR support to establish procedures in domestic law that will recognize Maroon territorial rights and provide for the demarcation of their communal lands, for an immediate suspension of all logging and mining activities in their territory, and for reparations for past violations. As with the Moiwana case, Suriname has thus far failed to respond in any way to the IACHR's requests for information about the allegations made in the petition.
The basis for asserting and protecting Maroon rights is firmly entrenched in international human rights law. But as with indigenous peoples, much work is required to ensure that states implement and respect those rights at the domestic level. While Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil have made significant progress (on paper, at least), Suriname, French Guiana, and Jamaica trail behind. And the situation on the ground in Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil demonstrates that legal guarantees are not enough to ensure cultural integrity and survival. Guarantees must be backed up with effective and proactive enforcement measures. In this respect, it is crucially important that Maroons themselves assert and defend their rights and interests.
In Suriname, where legal guarantees are entirely absent, the situation is most dire. There, Maroons are experiencing an onslaught of mining and logging operations that is substantially undermining their ability to sustain themselves and causing massive environmental degradation and severe social and health problems. Matawai Maroons, for instance, have recently been forced to import water due to river pollution caused by mining. Conservation activities, however laudable in principle, are also cause for concern, as they have expropriated Maroon lands and curtailed Maroon subsistence rights. Whether the latest case filed by the Saramaka with the IACHR will change this situation remains to be seen. Needless to say, other Maroon peoples are looking on with great interest.
References & further reading
Bilby, K. (1997). Swearing by the Past, Swearing to the Future: Sacred Oaths, Alliances, and Treaties among the Guianese and Jamaican Maroons. Ethnohistory 44, pp 655-689.
Kambel, E.-R. & MacKay, F. (1999). The Rights of Indigenous People and Maroons in Suriname. Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs; Moreton-in-Marsh, England: The Forest Peoples Programme.
Padilla, D.J. (1995). Reparations in Aloeboetoe v. Suriname. Human Rights Quarterly 17, pp 541-555.
Price, R. (1995). Executing Ethnicity: The Killings in Suriname. Cultural Anthropology 10, pp 437-471.
(1). See for instance, Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which restates the general principle of pact sunt servanda, Articles 1 and 2 of the American Convention on Human Rights, and Article 2(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
(2). See Article 1 of International Labor Organization Convention No. 169 Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries (1989) and Article 1 of the Draft American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. According to World Bank Operational Directive 4.20 (and the new draft OP.410 [see also page 68, this issue]) on Indigenous Peoples, Maroons would be classified as indigenous for the purposes of applying World Bank safeguard standards.
(3). Concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee: Australia. 28/07/2000. CCPR/CO/69/AUS. (Concluding Observations/Comments), at paras. 10 and 11.
(4). See, among others, Report on the Situation of Human Rights of a Segment of the Nicaraguan Population of Miskito Origin, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.62, doc.26. (1984), at 76-78, 81; Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Ecuador, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.96 doc.10, rev.1 (1997), at 103-4; Case 7615 (Brazil), OEA/Ser.L/V/II.66, doc 10 rev 1 (1985), at 24, 31; and Third Report on the Situation of Human Rights in The Republic of Guatemala, OEA/Ser.1/V/II. 67, doc. 9 (1986), at 114.
(5). Third Report on the Situation of Human Rights in The Republic of Guatemala, ibid.
(6). Case 11.577 (Awas Tingni Indigenous Community -- Nicaragua), Annual report of the IACHR. OEA/Ser.L/V/II.102, Doc.6 rev., (Vol. II), April 16, 1999, p. 1067, at para. 108. This case was recently adjudicated by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which has binding jurisdiction.
(7). Ibid. See also Art. XVIII, Proposed American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, approved by the IACHR in 1997.
(8). Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Ecuador, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.96 doc. 10, rev. 1 (1997), at 115.
(9). Second Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Peru, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.106, Doc 59 rev., June 2, 2000, at Ch. X, para. 16.
(10). In Colombia, for instance, see Transitional Article 55, Colombia Const. 1991; Law No. 70 of 1993; and Decree 1745 of 1995.
(11). Case 11.281 (Village of Moiwana), Suriname. Report 26/00 on Admissibility.
(12). Case 12.338 (Twelve Saramaka Communties), Suriname.
Article copyright Cultural Survival, Inc.
The Rights of Maroons In International Human Rights Law
The vast majority of American states have ratified international human rights treaties that obligate them to respect the rights of individuals and certain groups. Some have also ratified International Labor Organization Convention No. 169 (ILO 169), which deals exclusively with the rights of...
(but again, I await your definition)
