High Commissioner demands self-determination for peoples

Victor Ballinas

Newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, August 10, 2022, p. 3

On the International Day of Indigenous Peoples, the deputy representative in Mexico of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jesús Peña, stressed in the Senate that given the historical exclusion and discrimination that these communities have experienced, it is key that states recognize and guarantee self-determination, as fundamental premise for the exercise of other rights.

Participating in the forum Constitutional reform and indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples, organized by the Commission on Indigenous Affairs, Peña stressed that the states are obliged to adopt legislative and other measures that are necessary to make effective the human rights of indigenous people.

He recognized the important effort of the Mexican State to dialogue and harmonize international standards on indigenous rights with internal norms, above all with the constitutional right to self-determinationestablished since 2001. However, the United Nations official specified, on several occasions this recognition has not been translated into practices that guarantee it, for which reason the indigenous peoples have challenged the violation of this right through legal mechanisms, highlighting the need for a much broader recognition.

Josefina Bravo Rangel, commissioner for the Dialogue with the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico of the Ministry of the Interior, highlighted in the forum that the reform in process includes modifications to 16 constitutional articles to establish a new relationship between the Mexican State and the indigenous and Afro-Mexican peoples.

It is intended to reincorporate the recognition of indigenous peoples and communities as subjects of public law, their self-determination and autonomy at different levels and areas. It also provides for issues related to the rights of indigenous women; indigenous childhood, adolescence and youth; lands, territories, natural resources and environment and recognition of indigenous regulatory systems, in coordination with the national legal system, among others.

For his part, the director of Indigenous Rights of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples, José Hernández, explained that in September 2021 the governors who are members of the Yaqui tribe delivered to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador the proposal for a constitutional reform on the rights of peoples indigenous and Afro-Mexicans, which was the result of the participation of peoples and communities from all over the country.