NEW YORK�In a move that is being hailed as a victory for Aboriginal peoples, UN officials agreed recently to establish a permanent forum for the world�s 300 million Indigenous peoples.

The forum was proposed in 1993 during the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights. But, the earliest effort to gain entrance to the UN was actually made by the Mohawks before World War II, when the UN was called The League of Nations. Their efforts were ignored at the world body.

That has all changed now as the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted by consensus the resolution to establish a Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues. "This forum promises to give Indigenous people a unique voice within the United Nations system, commensurate with the unique problems they still face," said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, in a press release.

For long time activists like Chief Oren Lyons of the Haud-enosaunee Confederacy, located in upstate New York, establishing the forum means that the hard work had finally paid off. "Thirty years ago we knocked on the doors of the United Nations and they took no recognition of us. Today when we look back, we can see how far we have come," he said.

During that 30-year period there were people like former U. S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark who spoke out about the condition of the Indigenous. Speaking before the Native American Journalist�s Association in 1997, the activist attorney noted: "Everywhere that Indigenous people live, they are an endangered human species. Yet, the survival of humanity depends upon their salvation."

The UN Permanent Forum will provide a world-view on Indigenous issues as a whole struggle, not as some problem occurring in a remote spot on the map, offered Jack Jackson, Jr., director of the National Congress of American Indians.

Speaking to The Final Call by phone from his Washington, D.C., office, he said that, "we are energized by this latest effort in the United Nations to make our voice a little more cohesive."

Activist Alberto Salamando, of the International Indian Treaty Council, explained to The Final Call, from his San Francisco office, that the new body will finally provide an avenue for Aboriginal people to bring their grievances to a forum in which they share membership, "but, right now our greatest concern is the selection of the sixteen members who will serve as the Forum."

"We must get the United Nations to understand that discrimination and racism are at the heart of Indigenous issues," he said. That is why it is important that Indigenous organizations recommend the people who will serve on the Permanent Forum, he said. Vernon Bellecourt, the national representative for the American Indian Movement, stopped short of saying the forum is a bad move, but he warned that the new body must be more than a symbolic gesture. He said that one pressing concern is the issue of "ethnic cleansing" in Guatemala. At least, 150,000 Mayan Indians have been killed during a 36-year civil war in the Latin American nation.

"We are calling on the World Court to bring to trial the military and political leaders of the death squad governments of Guatemala," he said. This is why having a voice at the United Nations will be critical in the 21st century, but it must be our voice, he said.

Delegates who helped to shape the resolution represented the regions of North America, Pacific Islands, European Union, Latin America, Africa and Asia. The caucus group approved the language of the resolution on July 27.

�Saeed Shabazz