by Binalakshmi Nepram
About 476 million Indigenous peoples are living in 90 countries and territories in the world today. They represent 5,000 different cultures and speak the overwhelming majority of the estimated 7,000 human languages. Indigenous peoples also manage more than 50 percent of the world’s land, many areas of which are highly biodiverse. Unfortunately, more than 100 armed conflicts are ongoing across our planet today, many of which are in the areas where Indigenous peoples live, displacing 117 million people and devastating their lifeways as well as the land they and wildlife depend upon for survival.
Photo by Nuvea Lopez Torres
I grew up in Manipur, a beautiful border state in Northeast India that is home to 3.3 million Indigenous peoples. It has been under the shadow of internal conflicts for more than 70 years. I was determined to find peace for our communities, and so as a Manipuri scholar, I founded the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network in Imphal in 2007 and the Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples, Gender Justice and Peace in New York in 2019. My colleagues and I have asked ourselves, “What wrong have we as humans done that instead of progressing, we are regressing as a global community?” We have thought hard and long about what are the root causes of such violence and what could be the solutions.
Indigenous peoples have lived for centuries with violence in their lives, yet the resilience that they have shown in the face of conflicts gives us the hope that we may find paths to peacebuilding. To heal people and the planet, we need to investigate what is happening in Indigenous territories and look to traditional methods of conflict mitigation in order to work toward a world in which peace is the norm rather than an aberration.
Indigenous peoples have unique ways of peacebuilding that they have employed for centuries. For example, the Haudenosaunee who live in what is now the border region of the northeastern United States and Canada have “The Great Law of Peace,” a guide to living among themselves and other nations that preferences reason over force. They and other Indigenous peoples of this region wrote their laws and treaties not on paper but on different materials, such as wampum belts. These agreements—which are recorded in the belt’s designs that are made with shell beads sewn together—have been passed down for generations.
Other Indigenous forms of governance and constitutions evolved during the 12th century in North America, Asia and many other countries. Indigenous manuscripts from the India state of Manipur called “Puyas” were written on tengna (a local grass), palm leaves, agar wood, bamboo pulp or jute and even inscribed on copper plates. These documents were written collaboratively and have been passed down for generations as a shared, living knowledge. One of these manuscripts is the “Umanglon” (“Dialectics of the Forest”), which outlines how humans can coexist with nature.
Indigenous women across cultures and nations also have developed peaceful mechanisms to confront decades of militarization, weaponization and structural violence that have marked their lives for decades. For example, in 1904 and 1939, Indigenous women in Manipur waged two nonviolent demonstrations known as “Nupi Lan” (Women’s War) against repressive British colonial policies. Their negotiations sowed the seeds of Manipur achieving freedom from British colonial rule in 1947.
In spite of such successes, peacemaking efforts for the past century have been usually negotiated at high political levels where Indigenous peoples are rarely represented. For example, Indigenous peoples have been trying to engage with the League of Nations since the 1920s and with the United Nations (UN) since the 1970s to resolve, mitigate and prevent violent conflicts. The 1982 Manila Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes drew attention to the need of peaceful resolution of international conflicts yet did not include a discussion of the needs of Indigenous populations. The first time that the United Nations involved Indigenous peoples in peacemaking was in 1996, when the UN moderated peace talks between the Guatemala government and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity. The resulting “Agreement on a Firm and Lasting Peace” ended decades of conflict in Guatemala during which 200,000 people were killed, 83 percent of whom were Indigenous Maya residents.
In 2000, Indigenous peoples called for the creation of new systems and institutions of peacemaking that are sourced in Indigenous values and that coexist with the policies of existing bodies such as the International Court of Justice. Seven years later, the UN adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which contains several articles that are very relevant to preventing conflict, such as the rights of Indigenous communities to self-determination; to their lands, territories and resources; to prevention of genocide of their people; and to prevention of forced transfers of their populations. It also ensured that independent Indigenous peoples’ own tribunals and commissions of inquiry are recognized as legitimate in any process of conflict resolution.
The UN pledged in 2015 to strengthen universal peace in part by reducing poverty by 2030. Yet conflict in Indigenous lands and territories have not decreased but rather increased. Today, Indigenous communities are in areas with contested borders and are on the frontlines of violent conflict, insurgency and organized crime with devastating humanitarian impacts and loss of life.
The challenges of obtaining peace in conflict zones were excluded from the original mandate of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues of 2007, and the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) took 46 years to designate conflict, peace and resolution as the special theme for its 15th session in May 2016. In 2021, the UN’s Human Rights Council resolved to prepare a report on the militarization of Indigenous land to address the issue, but this has yet to be completed and released to the public.
On April 11 and 12, 2024, 120 Indigenous peoples from 30 countries and territories gathered in Washington, D.C., to attend the first Global Summit on Indigenous Peacebuilding. They came to share the wisdom of their ancestors so that attendees and future generations can help heal people and the planet. The event led to the adoption and signing of the First International Declaration on Indigenous Peacebuilding, which says decisionmakers must acknowledge and include Indigenous peacemaking practices and calls for a zero tolerance for violence on Indigenous lands. This was the first time that Indigenous peoples from around the world were able to gather to write such a document themselves rather than having doctorine written for them.
In addition, attendees formed a Global Network on Indigenous Peacebuilders, Mediators and Negotiators. This will help connect Indigenous leaders in peacemaking efforts, from elders to youth.
This historic summit also led to the inclusion of Indigenous peacebuilding in the outcome document of the 23rd UN Permanent Session of Indigenous Issues held in April 2024 as well as a resolution the UN passed on 17 November 2024 at its General Assembly that calls upon UN member states to emphasize “the importance of meaningfully engaging Indigenous Peoples in peace agreement negotiations, transitional justice processes, conflict resolution, mediation and constructive arrangements.”
We have seen that Indigenous peoples have a variety of traditions, cultures and religious practices to resolve violence and build peace. While often highly successful, these methods are underappreciated by the peacebuilding community or ignored entirely in formal peace processes. Yet the protection of peace, people and planet cannot be complete if Indigenous peoples are left behind.
Any efforts to end global conflicts must include Indigenous peoples at every level of decision-making. Indigenous knowledge, science, economies, governance, constitutions and diplomacy are all pathways toward healing conflict zones around the world.
Author: Binalakshmi Nepram
Binalakshmi Nepram (Manipuri) is the founder of the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network and the Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples, Gender Justice and Peace.