The report of the twenty-second session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, held in April 2023, and whose activities we highlighted, has been published on the UN web resources.
The document in paragraph 53 underscored the serious impact on the human rights of Indigenous Peoples by Russian aggression against Ukraine, including through illegal “conscription”, which leads to forced displacement and the disruption and traumatization of Indigenous families and their communities
As a member of the Permanent Forum, Crimean Tatar Suleyman Mamutov wrote on the occasion on June 8, for the first time since the outbreak of the war and the illegal occupation of Crimea in 2014, the Permanent Forum openly spoke about the serious violations of the rights of indigenous peoples, caused by the Russian invasion.
The expert points out that “the Russian delegation has traditionally used the Permanent Forum as one of the important platforms” for illegal “criticizing the “double standards and neo-imperialism of the collective West”. And all this in front of a large audience, which has a rather limited attention of the world community.”
It is therefore not surprising, Mamutov adds, that such fake rhetoric has paid dividends for Russians in the form of sympathy from representatives of indigenous peoples in regions that have difficult relations with Western countries.
But “this year, speeches by representatives of independent organizations of indigenous peoples from our region, in particular the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, and the mention of the catastrophic consequences of the war on indigenous peoples in the report of the UN Permanent Forum, became a real cold shower for the Russian delegation”, the expert states.
In addition, the UN report also provides a new analysis of threats to indigenous peoples in the field of adaptation to climate change, and also states in paragraph 57 that indigenous peoples suffer the consequences of forced evictions and resettlements caused by the establishment of military bases and facilities by colonial powers on their traditional lands and territories.
