Paraguay Indigenous Community Wins Landmark Case

 United Nations recognized the wrong doing to the indigenous groups living in Paraguay

Commercial farming has been polluting the traditional farming lands of indigenous people’s traditional lands grossly violating their rights and their sense of “home”, the UN Human Rights Committee said in a landmark ruling recently.

The United Nations has now admitted that it is important to understand that for indigenous people, “home” should be understood in the context of their special relationship with their territories, including their livestock, crops and way of life. This also means that, “for indigenous peoples, their lands represent their home, culture and community. Serious environmental damages have severe impacts on indigenous people’s family life, tradition, identity and even lead to the disappearance of their community. It dramatically harms the existence of the culture of the group as a whole,” said Committee member Hélène Tigroudja. 

The committee comprises 18 independent experts from across the world that have the special mandate to monitor countries in conformity with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 

The landmark decision has come after a long wait. Filed two decades ago, it was a complaint made on  behalf of some two hundred Ava Guarani people of the Campo Agua’e indigenous community. They stay in Curuguaty district in eastern Paraguay. Apparently, they live in an area where large commercial farms were making use of fumigators in producing genetically modified soybeans. 

This process involves the use of banned pesticides. Over 10 years of usage of the pesticides has had severe irreversible damage. It landed up killing livestock, contaminating waterways and harming people’s health too. It is sad how it has affected the lives and traditions of the indigenous communities that have always known how to live in tandem with their environment. 

The disappearance of natural resources needed for hunting, fishing and foraging resulted in the loss of traditional knowledge. For example, ceremonial baptisms no longer take place as necessary materials no longer exist.

The indigenous community brought the case to the Human Rights Committee after a lengthy and unsatisfactory administrative and judicial process in Paraguay’s courts.