An Alternative Path

Denmark continues to play a significant role in the world indigenous peoples’ movement. Over the last decade, the peaceful transition of the Danish territory of Greenland to indigenous self-rule, and the Danish involvement in helping build indigenous capacity for autonomy in Bolivia, have served as role models for European and North American states still stuck in the national security mindset of perpetual war and globalized dominance. Working in cooperation with the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, a report on the program to obtain full exercise of indigenous rights in Bolivia is now available.

In the report The Rights of Indigenous Peoples: The Cooperation Between Denmark and Bolivia, changes in land ownership and territorial resource management — now incorporated into the new Political Constitution of Bolivia — are examined with an eye to how these changes came about. Mainstreamed through the new Plurinational Assembly, the radical reform of what was until recently a feudal European society, despite a majority population of indigenous peoples, illustrates how conscious development of mechanisms for self-rule can affect meaningful change.

Thanks to IWGIA and the Danish embassy, the world now has an alternative path to conflict resolution delivered in an accessible format. As NATO and the UN continue attempting to use military and economic force to subdue the movement for indigenous liberation, this alternative path is a welcome change.