Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

January 28, 2011

Wikileaks Egypt: Nuba seek rights under UN Indigenous Declaration

Wikileaks begins Egypt cable releases:
Nuba utilizing UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Photo: Britannica(Jan. 28, 20110 Wikileaks released a cable from the US Embassy in Egypt, describing the Nuba peoples struggle for human rights, utilizing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Nuba said the model is to obtain similar rights to the Aborigines in Australia.
US Ambassador Margaret Scobey describes the launch of the Nuba Mountains People's Forum.
"Leaders of the Nuba community informed Embassy Cairo that they have created the International Permanent Forum for the Nuba Mountains Indigenous People (Nuba Forum) to protect and advocate for the rights of the Nuba people, which they believe are in danger under the NCP regime. Cairo-based Nuba leaders are taking a cautious approach to registering local members of the Forum alleging evidence of surveillance."
The US Ambassador states concern that the events could become a "flashpoint," in the Sudan. Further, Nuba state how an incomplete census will decrease their voice in Egypt's Parliament.
Nuba representatives in Sudan, Australia, Egypt, France, Kenya, Libya, Norway, Saudi Arabia and the United States created the Forum to protect and advocate for the rights of the Nuba people. The Forum's agenda is based on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Nuba Forum has officially opened offices in Norway, France and Sweden.
Cable:
http://www.wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/02/10CAIRO169.html
The UN Refugee Agency states how the Nubians were displaced from their homeland by the building of a dam:Nubians live in the Upper Nile region. When the Condominium Agreement of 1899 fixed the boundary between Egypt and Sudan, Lower Nubians found themselves under direct Egyptian rule and politically separated from their kin to the south. This arbitrary frontier divides the Nobiin-speaking group more or less equally between Egypt and Sudan. Close ties of culture, language and family continue to unite the people north and south of the border, and until the evacuation of 1964 that accompanied the building of the Aswan High Dam there was continual visiting back and forth between them. Egyptian Nubia is part of the Governorate of Aswan which also includes a populous area whose inhabitants are not Nubian. As a result, Nubians have found themselves a minority within their native province.

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