Uruguay does not ratify the Convention on the rights of indigenous peoples

The Labor Legislation Commission of the Chamber of Deputies did not reach a consensus on Thursday on the ratification of Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), which guarantees, among other elements, the right to land of indigenous peoples.

The deputy of Frente Amplio Gabriel Otero pointed out that there is no consensus, so it is expected to receive more delegations to define a position regarding the agreement that dates from 1989.

Read also: Check out our coverage on Uruguay

In this sense, Otero expressed regarding the claim of the indigenous communities that “the State should take charge. Everything that comes after does not force him to do anything either, but he is left with a terrible image if he does not comply.”

Similarly, the National Human Rights Institution warned the parliament that if approved, the original peoples could claim the right to live in the territories they traditionally occupied.

For her part, the member of the Council of the Charrúa Nation (Conacha), Mónica Michelena, specified that the State must ratify the agreement because “it is a way to restore human rights to a sector of the population that, due to historical reasons, has suffered the I dispossess them.”

On the other hand, the Government considered that the fact of expropriating territories to hand them over to the communities that argue their right to them is “inapplicable” while assuring that this constitutes the greatest obstacle to ratification.

However, the Frente Amplio legislator emphasized that “nothing indicates that by ratifying a land claim is going to come, much less,” to which the Conacha representation aligned itself.

With information from teleSUR