Written Statement - Human Rights Council. Item 3 and 5: Indigenous Peoples
Written Statement by the Syriac Universal Alliance on the theme of: Unrecognized Indigenous Peoples: The Case of the Aramean (Syriac) People of Turkey
The Republic of Turkey continues to withhold legal status and its concomitant basic rights to the Aramean people which are given them by the Lausanne Treaty signed by Turkey in 1923. By contrast, this republic validates its own existence by reference to this very same treaty. Turkey also fails to grant the Arameans recognition as an indigenous people, even if it has endorsed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007 and unequivocal sources prove their continuous presence in Southeast-Turkey from about 1112 BC onward. The widely praised recent package reforms in this country did not change the 87-year-old violations of their fundamental human rights by successive governments either.
The deterioration of this discriminatory situation has led to a mass exodus of the Arameans from their traditional homeland in Turkey. Today they are facing the extinction of their 3,000-year-old language and identity. Furthermore, the Arameans are also involved in law cases about their land. Although Resolution 1704 adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in January 2010 has sharply condemned this fact, the Turkish state continues to expropriate their land with impunity.
The Arameans have been bereft from international treaties and rights which secure their basic rights. Above all by the rights guaranteed by the Lausanne Treaty and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In the following, we will briefly focus on three interrelated United Nations (UN) reports to prove our point.
1. Report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (A/HRC/15/34)
In her report, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights pays great attention to several problems which indigenous peoples face in regard to land issues. Referring to the concerns of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, she mentioned for example the lack of a specific legislative framework in certain countries to guarantee the realization of the collective rights of indigenous peoples which turns out to be a huge problem.
Although Turkey has an imperfect legal framework for minorities, the state nonetheless refuses to apply it to the Arameans. Traditionally and legally owned places of worship by the native populations have been subjected to illegal confiscation, expropriation and abusive state control. The Turkish state provides no perspectives, let alone support, for the preservation, development and promotion of the ancient Aramaic cultural heritage in Turkey. In fact, ancient Aramaic place names and personal names have already systematically been Turkified.
Regarding the Committee’s general comment No. 11 on the Rights of Indigenous Children, it should be stressed that, formally, Aramean children are not allowed to study their mother tongue at school. In fact, officially, the establishment of Aramaic schools and religious seminaries are still prohibited by the Turkish government. The basic rights are denied to Aramean children who are consequently cut off from their own cultural resources.
2. EMRIP Progress report on the study of Indigenous Peoples (A/HRC/15/35)
The EMRIP Progress report on the study of indigenous peoples stresses the importance of indigenous participation in decision-making processes, both internal and external. The participation in all matters that affect the lives, beliefs, institutions, spiritual well-being and the land of indigenous peoples constitutes the indispensable basis for the enjoyment of all human rights by the respective community: "Without this foundational right, the human rights of indigenous peoples, both collective and individual, cannot be fully enjoyed" (p. 3).
Since the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the Aramean people have been excluded from decision-making processes. Aramean efforts to develop and maintain their own decision-making institutions and authority in accordance with Article 4 of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is barred by the state at the elementary level. In regard to the right to participate in
external decision-making processes (Article 5) it can be said that the Arameans have never been allowed to participate in the social, cultural, economic or political life of the state or to participate in any decisions affecting them or their rights (Articles 18 and 19). For example, the Arameans are obliged to serve in the military, but they are not permitted to pursue a military or political career.
Clearly this policy is discriminatory and oppressive. It violates the rights granted by essential conventions like the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (especially Article 21), which affirm that everyone has the right to take part in the government of his or her country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. As the EMRIP report states, it is of crucial importance as well as the duty of states to "support the development of indigenous peoples’ own institutions and initiatives and, when appropriate, provide these with the necessary resources" (p.7).
3. Report of Special Rapporteur on the Situation of the Rights and Freedoms of Indigenous peoples (A/HRC/15/37)
In his report, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of the rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples pays great attention to the problem of corporate responsibility with respect to indigenous peoples. Companies are obliged to exercise due diligence in relation to indigenous rights and are requested to consider a generally accepted principle of international human rights law holding that "the existence of distinct ethnic, linguistic or religious groups, including indigenous peoples, can be established by objective criteria and cannot depend on a unilateral decision by a state" (p.12).
Companies and states are allowed recourse to the definition provided in International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 169 as well as the criteria defined by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) policies for the identification of indigenous peoples. The Special Rapporteur further stated that, according to international standard and practice, native peoples have a sui generis right to communal ownership of the land, territories and natural resources which they have traditionally used or occupied (Articles 24–29; see also the ILO Convention No. 169 Articles 13–17). This includes the cultural and spiritual use of the territory, as well as the use in regard of economic and social development as peoples: "According to the international normative consensus, the right of indigenous peoples to lands, territories and natural resources originates in their own customary law, values, habits and customs and, therefore, is prior to and independent of State recognition in the form of an official property title" (p. 13).
4. Final Remarks
A state’s democracy level arguably is reflected by its treatment of minorities and indigenous peoples living within its confines. Many native peoples are still not recognized by the governments who rule their traditional homeland. They are also denied the principles ensured by international human rights laws and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The process of implementing the articles of the Declaration can only start with the recognition of the respective native population(s) and it is the moral obligation of all parties concerned, UN bodies and mechanisms as well as the member states, to consider this fact. One way to guarantee the recognition of unrecognized indigenous peoples could exist in the establishment of a UN committee which could make an inventory of native peoples based on objective criteria and which can grant them formal UN recognition of their indigenous status. This way, states and companies can refer to an objective UN List of Indigenous Peoples when they deal with indigenous issues and sensitive questions can thereby be prevented to a large extent.
Another way to assist indigenous peoples could be to grant them active participation in the Universal Periodic Review of the country that is surveyed. Representatives of native peoples could be given the right to address their concerns, questions and recommendations directly to the state under review in the presence of the international community. The current and indirect way of submitting recommendations via other states has proven not to be efficient. States usually follow their own interests or do not sufficiently appreciate indigenous issues as a priority. For that reason, indigenous peoples should be given the opportunity, even the basic right, to set up a direct dialogue at the UN level with the state they live in, but which does not recognize them as indigenous people or does not grant them their rights. This form of active involvement at the UN level could help to promote and advance the rights of indigenous peoples, as guaranteed in the Declaration, in a far more effective way.
Eventually, the persistent denial by the state of the legal status of its indigenous people(s) will inevitably lead to the extinction of the tangible and especially intangible cultural heritage on its native soil. Through social pressure, assimilation, discrimination, oppression and even persecutions. The near-extinction of the Aramaic cultural heritage and the Arameans, who by all objective criteria and international definitions are indigenous to Southeast-Turkey, prove that such a forewarning should be taken serious by the international community.
