[NYTr] Acknowledging this hemisphere's forgotten holocaust

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The NY Daily News - Sep 26, 2007
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/col/gonzalez/index.html

Acknowledging this hemisphere's forgotten holocaust

by Juan Gonzalez

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad leaves New York today, he
will head to Bolivia to meet with Evo Morales, the left-wing populist
president of Bolivia.

Then it's on to Venezuela for a summit with Hugo Chavez, the Bush
administration's chief nemesis in South America.

Chavez skipped the UN extravaganza this year, but Morales, Bolivia's
first Indian president, came seeking justice for victims of this
hemisphere's forgotten holocaust and for ways to save the Earth from
climate change.

Not surprisingly, the media frenzy over Ahmadinejad's Columbia
University speech obscured those big issues. The only thing reporters
want to know is: How dare Morales break bread and make nice with that
guy from Iran?

In an hour-long interview with the Daily News, Morales defended
Bolivia's recent decision to establish diplomatic relations with Iran -
even as the Bush administration tries to isolate the Tehran regime.

"Our people are from the culture of dialogue," Morales said. "We have
diplomatic relations with the U.S. and Cuba. We don't establish
relations to hurt others or for aggression."

Then, in a pointed reference to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he added:
"As far as I know ... [Iran] is not a country that is sending troops to
kill people in other countries."

Morales expects to sign a new cooperation agreement with Iran to
develop Bolivia's huge natural gas deposits, but he was more interested
in talking about the big issues at this year's General Assembly meeting
- global warming and indigenous rights.

There is, for example, the issue of the holocaust.

Not the Holocaust in Europe in WWII, but that other unimaginable crime
against humanity - the deaths of some 100 million indigenous people
during the first century of the European conquest, what French
philosopher Tzvetan Todorov labeled "the greatest genocide in human
history."

Two weeks ago, the General Assembly took a huge step toward
acknowledging the horrors of the European colonization. After 20 years
of political battles and negotiations, the assembly adopted a new
"Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples," which establishes
safeguards to protect the surviving 370 million native people of the
planet.

Approved by a vote of 144 to 4, the declaration calls on all member
states to respect the rights of native peoples to their language and
culture and to control over their land and mineral resources.

Amazingly, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were
the only countries that were opposed. All happen to be prosperous
nations where European settlers decimated the original native
populations.

For Morales, the only Native American head of state in our hemisphere
and the leader of a country that's more than 60% Indian, the UN vote
culminates a long battle for dignity and respect.

"It's over 500 years later that indigenous peoples' rights are being
[finally] recognized," Morales said. "Happily, there were only a few
countries that didn't support this declaration."

In his eyes, it is inexplicable that the American media keep demanding
that Ahmadinejad explain his stance on the Holocaust in Europe, yet no
one asks Bush why he opposes a human rights declaration for the
descendants of our hemisphere's holocaust.

"I am convinced that the indigenous people are the moral reserve of
humanity," Morales said.

Then there is the other big issue at the UN this year - global warming.

"The time for doubt has passed," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told
representatives of more than 150 nations. "The scientists have very
clearly outlined the severity of the problem."

The Bush administration is the last government on Earth to question
global warming; even Britain has deserted President Bush.

And here was Morales, the Indian, warning against the use of biofuels,
one of Bush's pet projects, to reduce carbon emissions.

"From the time that biofuels were first talked about, we've seen a
spiraling process of speculation in land," he said. "There is a
wholesale speculation in grains ..." Agricultural products "should not
be dedicated to automobiles," Morales said. "People come first before
cars."