Secrets always surface. Especially government secrets. And when it comes to the Rights of Indigenous People recently released Australian government documents from 2003 reveal it was Canada itself that led the parade to weaken any draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The two countries, home to large Indigenous populations, had worked together in secret to weaken the draft United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Australian cabinet records from the early 2000’s show it was Canada under the Chrétien Liberal government that took the lead, with the support of Australia, to water-down UNDRIP and use the weakened version as a pressure tactic against Indigenous leaders, including the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council, (HCCC). Indigenous leaders who wouldn’t budge on their original 1993 draft, the records showed….
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