14.08.2009: Resolution
of the scientific-practical conference «The anniversary of the international
instruments on the Rights of Indigenous People»
8 August 2009, Svalyava, Transcarpathia, Ukraine
The participants of the conference considered the following facts:
1. Declaration of the UN «The Rights of Indigenous Populations» from 1994.
According to the UN document E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.4/1994/2., "The
indigenous peoples are indigenous communities, peoples and nations
... wishing to maintain , develop and transmit to future generations
the territories of their ancestors, and their ethnic identity
as the basis for their continued existence as a people in accordance
with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal
systems ...".
2. Declaration of the UN «The Rights of Indigenous
Peoples» (UNDRIP), adopted at the United Nations General Assembly
at its 62 th session at the UN headquarters in New York on 13
September 2007.
3. The decree № 61/295, which reflects the principles of the
Universal Declaration of UNESCO on Cultural Diversity (2001),
the Convention for the Protection of World Cultural and Natural
Heritage of 1972, the Convention on the Safeguarding of the
Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003, the Convention on the
Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions
in 2005, the UN Global Consultation on the «Right to development»
of 1990.
4. The International Labour Organization Convention
№169 on the «Right of the people associated with the natural
resources within their territory, requiring special protection.
These include, inter alia, the right of people to participate
in the use, management and protection of natural resources »
(Article 15.1).
5. Documents of the organization CAN (Climate Action Network
International), that welcome the invitation of the subsidiary
body for advice on scientific and technological aspects (SBSTA),
contained in document FCCC/SBSTA/2008/L.23, paragraph 11, and
expresses an opinion on the problems of indigenous peoples
and local communities regarding the development and application
of methodologies.
6. The fact that the Ukrainian authorities for already 18 years
had defiantly ignored the law, which was the will of the Subcarpathian
Ruthenian people on the autonomy, expressed in the referendum
of 1 December 1991.
7. Critically high level of unemployment among
the local Ruthenian population and ongoing «quiet» deportation
of the indigenous Subcarpathian Ruthenians, forced to leave the
region (around 5000 people annually).
8. Until today there is a secret government
anti-Ruthenian «Plan of actions ...», which rudely ban Ruthenians
from saving their ethnic roots, and holding local referendums
on important issues of recognition of Ruthenian nationality,
self-governing and self-determination.
9. Rights and interests of indigenous Ruthenian people should
be at the heart of any successful and well-balanced policy
of the state.
10. Indigenous people should play a major role in the management
of natural resources and their control.
11. Indigenous people should be involved in the restoration
of their territorial borders and their status, as the common
violation of their rights is the direct result of wrong strategies,
not adhering to their fundamental right to self-determination.
Delegates agreed:
1. To recommend the Supreme Council of Ukraine to ratify the
UN Declaration «About the Rights of Indigenous Peoples» from
1994, and adopted by General Assembly resolution 61/295 of
13 September 2007.
2. To bring to the attention of the UN Committee
on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination an information of
the gravest violations of human rights and freedoms of indigenous
Subcarpathian Ruthenians by the Ukrainian authorities, in complete
disregard for the recommendations of the UN Committee of 2007;
3. To condemn the Ukrainian criminal «State
Plan of Actions ...» of 1996 on ethnical liquidation of the Ruthenian
nationality, which is a documented proof of actions of the Ukrainian
authorities on forced assimilation and discrimination of the
Ruthenian nation.
4. To assume cancelled by the authorities
of Ukraine line «nationality» in birth certificates as a proof
of ethnocide and violation of the rights of the indigenous people
to retain their nationality «Ruthenians».
5. To recommend to the [SOYM] of the Subcarpathian
Ruthenians take on this document a separate decision. In addition,
the adopted Declaration of December 15, 2007, «The economic doctrine
of Subcarpathian Ruthenians» of 2008 and other resolutions of
the Ruthenian organizations to be supplemented in accordance
with the UN Declaration of «The Rights of Indigenous Peoples»
of 2007, namely the following:
Article 3. Indigenous peoples have a right to freely determine
their political status and freely pursue their economic, social
and cultural development.
Article 4. Indigenous peoples, in exercising their right to self-determination
have the right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating
to their internal affairs, as well as ways and means for financing
their autonomous functions.
Article 5. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and
strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social
and cultural institutions, while retaining their right to participate
fully, if they so wish, in the political, economic, social and
cultural life of the State.
Article 7. 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to life, physical
and mental integrity, liberty and security.
2. Indigenous peoples have the collective right to live in freedom,
peace and security as distinct peoples and shall not be a subject
of any act of genocide or any other act of violence, including
forcible transfer of children from one group to another group.
Article 8. 1. Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right
not to be subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of
their culture.
2. States shall provide effective mechanisms to prevent and reimburse:
(a) Any action that has the purpose or effect of dispossessing
indigenous peoples of their integrity as distinct peoples, or
of their cultural values or ethnic identities,
(b) Any action that has the purpose or effect of dispossessing
them of their lands, territories or resources,
(c) Any form of forced population transfer that has the purpose
or effect of violating or undermining any of their rights,
(d) Any form of forced assimilation or integration,
(e) Any form of propaganda designed to promote or incite racial or ethnic discrimination
directed against them.
Article 13. 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop
and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions,
philosophies, writing systems and literatures, as well as to designate and
retain their own names for communities, places and persons.
Article 14. 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their
educational systems and institutions providing education in their native languages
in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning.
2. Indigenous individuals, particularly children, have the right to all levels
and forms of the State education without discrimination.
Article 16. 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to establish their own media
in their own languages and to have access to all forms of non-indigenous media
without discrimination.
Article 18. 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decisions
on matters, which may affect their rights, through representatives chosen by
themselves in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to maintain
and develop their own decision-making institutions.
Article 20. 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and develop their
political, economic and social systems or institutions, secure in the enjoyment
of their own means of subsistence and development…
Article 28. 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to reimbursement, by means
that can include restitution or, when this is not possible, fair and equitable
compensation for the lands, territories and resources, traditionally owned
or otherwise occupied or used, and that have been confiscated, taken, occupied,
used or damaged without their free, prior and
informed consent.
Article 33. 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to determine their own identity
in accordance with their customs and traditions. This does not prejudice the
right of indigenous individuals to obtain citizenship of the States in which
they live.
Article 36. 1. Indigenous peoples, in particular divided by international borders,
have the right to maintain and develop contacts, relations and cooperation,
including activities in the spiritual, cultural, political, economic and social
purposes with its own members, as well as other peoples across borders.
6. To request the United Nations and European legal institutions help the Subcarpathian
Ruthenians to hold a plebiscite (referendum by secret ballot) on self-determination
in the restoration of Ruthenian nationality, and the right of indigenous people
to freely determine their future status within the country.
7. To contact the Fund UNICEF, formed by the
General Assembly in 1946 (and remaining one of the organs of
the United Nations assisting in education), to assist in organizing
the Ruthenian schools.
8. To support (through the representatives of the Subcarpathian
Ruthenians in different countries) world Ruthenian Diaspora,
informing them about the plans of Subcarpathian Ruthenians
to restore their rights as a political nation, lost in the
Stalin period after 1945, and grossly neglected by Ukraine
since 1991.
9. To contact again the Transcarpathian Regional
Council with a request to support the rights and freedoms of
indigenous Subcarpathian Ruthenians according to the UN Declaration
«About the Rights of Indigenous Peoples» from 2007. To write
a letter (attached) on the prohibition to sell land and buildings
without the consent of the indigenous people.
10. To contact again the Department of Education,
and Transcarpathian Regional State Administration to organize
in schools from October 1st 2009, studying of the Ruthenian language
and culture, history and geography, (as an option for facultative
courses).
11. To recommend to the [SOYM] of the Subcarpathian
Ruthenia, that would take place in September 2009, a scientific
conference and a commemorative meeting to mark the
90 th anniversary of the Saint-Germaine peace treaty, according
to which the Republic of Subcarpathian Ruthenia seceded from
Hungary with the status of the Autonomous Republic and joined
the newly established Czechoslovakia with the right of the broadest
autonomy, enshrined in the Constitution of Czechoslovakia of
1920.
12. This document is translated into Ruthenian,
Ukrainian, Russian and English languages, each of which has the
same effect.
Conference Chairman: Archpriest Dimitry Sydor
President of the Ruthenian Centre: Prof. I.
Krivsky
The Secretary of the conference:
member of the International Carpathian Institute, B. Y. Lakatosh
Association « [SOYM] of Subcarpathian Ruthenians»
International Carpathian Institute
