UN Commission on Human Rights 57th Session, 27th March 2001, Item 7: Right to Development

27 March 2001

Last year, the Commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution which correctly recognised that many countries were marginalised from the development process. Minority Rights Group International would encourage the Commission to also recognise that within those countries there are marginalized communities – often ethnic, religious or linguistic minorieies – who are 'the poorest of the poor' - effectively doubly excluded from development.

In July of last year, Minority Rights Group International published a short study on the Afro-descendent community of Cambacuá in Paraguay. In the 1950s, the Paraguayan state forcibly dispossessed this community of over 90 percent of the land it was living on. Although not recognised as holding legal title, the community could claim more than 130 years of continuous residence on the lands, which had been given to it by the state on their arrival as male and female soldiers who accompanied Uruguayan leader José Artigas into exile in 1820. No compensation for the loss of the land has ever been paid to members of the community.

As a result of this loss, most of the members of the community have been obliged to give up their traditional occupations as farmers and seek poorly-paid work in the capital, Asunción. Some have left the community altogether.

In this way the members of the community are forced into low-wage, fragile, unsustainable employment, making little meaningful contribution to the national economy, other than by providing a source of cheap labour to a tiny sector of the population. Furthermore they are not able to exercise freely their choice of livelihood – a disempowerment which leads to an accumulation of personal and social problems whose costs must eventually be borne by society at large. Without land, the community is deprived of the freedom to determine its own path towards development.

It is important that all actors in the development process, from governments and donors to the communities themselves – majority and minority – recognise that when communities are excluded from development, not only are their rights violated, but the country as a whole misses out on the economic potential of those communities.

In order for minorities to reap the benefits of development, and at the same time contribute meaningfully to a healthy national economy, minority communities must be able to participate in all levels of development programmes: from planning and design to realisation and evaluation. This implies a genuine decision-making role - not merely a superficial consultation.

Experts have recognized that discrimination and racism are both a cause and an effect of poverty and vulnerability . Afro-descendants, indigenous peoples and migrants are among the communities most affected by a complex of issues arising at the intersection of poverty and discrimination. The importance of the World Conference Against Racism process in proposing practical means of addressing these issues cannot be overstated.

Minority Rights Group International recommends that:

The Paraguayan state return the lands occupied by the Cambacuá community prior to 1957 – if this is unfeasible, the community should receive adequate compensation for the loss of the land;

Decision-makers – governments and donors – should ensure that all minority communities are able to take up their due role in participating in all decisions concerning development projects;

Governments and donors should not only support development activities which benefit specific minority communities, but also those which encourage the inclusion of all communities in the development process.