Cultural Survival Quarterly reports updates on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Draft Declaration has endured attacks by the governments of the United States, Canada and New Zealand (CanNZUS) and others - attacks that were designed to undermine the collective rights of indigenous peoples (given these nation-states abhorrent and genocidal policies). But the Declaration survived in a form that was approved by the nascent U.N. Human Rights Council (replacing the former U.N. Human Rights Commission) and is waiting for a vote by the full U.N. General Assembly later this year.

[source: Cultural Survival Quarterly; Fall 2006, Volume 30, Issue 3]

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160 Pygmy families stuck in Mugunga - Democratic Republic of Congo: Stephanie McCrummen of the Washington Post reports that Chief Byeragi Ngenderezi a worker with a Catholic relief organization - Ma Jacqui - had encouraged the familes to leave the forest and migrate to Mugunga. The Pygmy peoples have had to suffer human rights violations and attacks by militias in the east. After starting to teach skills like farming and fishing Ma Jacqui disappeared. Owners of the land where their camps are have sold the land and an aid group has cut off their supplies to pressure them to return to the forest. At the time of the writing, 15 members of the community have died from hunger or exposure. [source: Boston Sunday Globe, December 3, 2006]