CONSEJO INTERNACIONAL DE TRATADOS INDIOS

The Border Summit of the Americas

San Xavier District, Tohono O’odham Nation

September 29-October 1, 2006

Declaration of San Xavier

We, representatives of Indigenous Nations and organizations of the Americas, declare our solidarity with Indigenous Nations who live along Mexican and Canadian international borders whose human rights are being violated by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (ISC).

Aware that immigration policy proposals and homeland security have combined to create a volatile situation along U.S. international borders where at present at least eight tribes/nations on the U.S. and Mexican border between California and Texas are directly affected by migrations across their reservation lands; the Kumeyaay, Cocopah, Tohono O’odham, Yaqui, Gila River Pima, Yavapai, Ysleta del Sur (Tigua) and Kickapoo Nations.

We recognize the human rights violations of Indigenous Peoples who presented testimonies at this summit along the U.S. Mexican border. Their testimonies make it clear that Indigenous Peoples are victims of murder, assaults, harassment, intimidation, inhumane treatment both physically and psychologically, and of jurisdictional violations on Indigenous lands by the military industrial complex of the United States government. We further call for the elimination of the Minutemen and other militia groups who take laws into their own hands and violate the human rights of Indigenous Peoples

We further recognize that Indigenous Peoples following traditional routes of migration since time immemorial in search of a better quality of life and economic security, and now crossing international borders for religious ceremonies, to receive a better education, health care and social services are being denied legal protections guaranteed under international law and the U.S. Constitution.

We further demand that Indigenous Peoples countries of origin be pressured to create better economic and working conditions so there can be a stop to relocation, appropriation of lands and water away from Indigenous Peoples. These nation states must support economic self determination, traditional subsistence and recognition and demarcation of traditional land rights so that Indigenous Peoples can stay on their traditional lands and territories. As well as providing economic support and compensation to victims and family members of these injustices.

We demand the elimination of corporate control over Indigenous Peoples that have decimated traditional economies, culture, political and social control through the establishment of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Central American Free Trade Agreement, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and other international trade agreements and their negative impacts upon Indigenous Peoples.

We demand that nation states must adhere to their obligations as a signatory to protecting Indigenous Peoples through international law on biodiversity, human rights, and sustainable development and fully implement their obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination on Racial Discrimination, the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, International Convention on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, the International Labor Organization 169, the Food and Agricultural Organization, including the Convention on Biological Diversity and most importantly the Universal Declaration on the Rights of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.

We, recognize with consternation that on September 29, 2006 the United States Senate voted 80-19 to build 700 miles of fencing along the U.S. Mexico border. Proposed legislation would also call for $1.2 billion for construction, in addition to money allocated for construction a Homeland Security Bill, also pending before Congress which includes $38 billion to hire 1,500 more border patrol agents and money to build detention facilities to detain 6,700 immigrants until they can be deported. As we have heard testimonies of human rights violations presented at this summit, a greater population of border patrol agents and the presence of a 700 mile fence can only result in increased human rights violations committed against Indigenous Peoples.

We are in solidarity with Indigenous Nations and Indigenous Peoples that have declared that they will not allow the fence to be built on their traditional lands and territories in violation of U.S. laws protecting American Indians. These laws include the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, National Environmental Policy Act of 1971, and the National Historical Preservation Act of 1968. We further demand the right to free, prior and informed consent as is established under international law and that consultation is not negotiation.  

We, demand that all law enforcement agencies investigate to the highest levels the numerous murders and other violent crimes committed against Indigenous Peoples who are victimized in their own traditional homelands and reservations by law enforcement and officials of the United States, Canada and Mexico including their military armed forces. We support the establishment of a legal foundation for Bennett Patricio Jr., who was run over and killed by a border patrol agent in 2002, whose case is now on federal appeal in the Ninth Circuit Federal District Court in San Francisco, California.   

We demand that individual Indigenous Peoples who voluntarily choose to treat immigrants crossing the border as human beings by providing them food and water should not be intimidated, harassed or terrorized by law enforcement and ISC officers or by military personnel.

Accordingly the general assembly of this Border Summit calls for a full U.S. Senate investigation and hearing on over 3,000 deaths that have occurred in a heinous and deliberate manner, in the last decade along the U.S. and Mexico border.

We declare our solidarity with all Indigenous Peoples and Nations who live along international borders in protecting their sacred places and burials and the remains of our ancestors on our traditional lands and territories from being desecrated by law enforcement and ISC officers. 

As Indigenous Peoples we assert our rights in all national and international laws, the right to self determination and sovereignty and the recognition of our territories. We demand recognition for our own laws, customs and oral traditions that have been in existence since time immemorial and have been subverted by extra constitutional means.

The organizers of this border summit respectfully request the Legislative Council of the Tohono O’odham Nation to establish policies that put an end to the deaths of all Indigenous Peoples and immigrant populations crossing their lands and establish a timetable for removal of all law enforcement officials and military personnel on Tohono O’ odham land and other Indigenous occupied territories and a governance plan to provide border patrol enforcement training 

to Indigenous sovereign nations along international borders in the name of self determination.

The International Indian Treaty Council is in solidarity with other human rights and social justice organizations to host another border summit in April of 2007, on the traditional lands of the Tohono O’ odham Nation on the Mexican side of the border