U.S. Institute of Peace experts discuss the latest foreign policy issues from around the world in On Peace, a brief weekly collaboration with SiriusXM's POTUS Channel 124.

Transcript

Laura Coates: Joining us now is Bina Nepram who is the USIP Senior Advisor for religion and inclusive societies. United States Institute for Peace hosted the first global summit on Indigenous peace building just last week. And for the two-day event USIP and its partners the McCain Institute, Peace Direct, Humanity United and Global Institute Partners brought together 50 Indigenous leaders from around the world to foster a broader understanding of the unique capacities and approaches that allow Indigenous leaders to resist violence and build peace. It was a historic event, and they came from New Zealand, Bolivia, Canada, Guatemala, Peru, Mexico, Russia, Ukraine, India, Finland, Bangladesh, just to name a few. Bina Nepram joins us now, about this global summit. Welcome, and good morning. How are you?

Binalakshmi Nepram: Good morning, Laura, thank you so much for inviting me to your show.

Laura Coates: Thank you, I am glad that you are here. First of all, tell us about these Indigenous pathways to peace, this peacebuilding global summit that happened. For those who might not be as familiar with the need and the decision to have the summit, tell us why.

Binalakshmi Nepram: Yes, we are currently having 107 wars and conflicts around the world. And 117 million people are displaced due to these conflicts. And hence, at the United States Institute of Peace, we conducted research into how do we mitigate this? And how do we find the pathways. And this is exactly where we stumbled upon this study that 80 percent of the world's conflicts are happening in biodiversity hotspots where Indigenous people live. That is why and we thought that it would be the right time in a time of rising crisis in the world, that we engage with Indigenous leaders, their wisdom, their tradition, their religious belief, the ethos and pathways to life, because they have lived close to nature for a long, long time. There are 476 million Indigenous people Laura, living in 90 countries and territories worldwide. So, imagine the power of this convening that we thought that it was such a powerful moment in our history, not only the history of D.C. as well as around the world that it is the first ever global convening on Indigenous peacebuilding. And we were overwhelmed that hundreds of Indigenous leaders responded to our call. And we were able to have this historic meeting last week at the United States Institute of Peace, we had Secretary Deborah Hollen give the keynote speech and our president Liz Grande, as well as State Department officials who joined in.

Laura Coates: What a fascinating and historic event that you describe. What came from the summit, if anything, in terms of the deliverables would be something that would be not necessarily considered here, but were their directives or were their decisions made that will go a long way to resolving some of these conflicts?

Binalakshmi Nepram: Absolutely. First, we were delighted to share through your, you know, audience here that we have launched a global network of Indigenous peace builders, negotiators and mediators to mitigate and prevent violent conflicts around the world. Number two, I'm speaking right now here from the United Nations grounds, because currently the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous issues met yesterday. And we are giving the recommendations of our International Declaration on Indigenous Peacebuilding, which was adopted and signed on 12th of April as a part of the summit to the United Nations Under Secretary General on peacebuilding. And so, these are some of the developments that has very concrete steps Laura, which will ensure that Indigenous leaders with its wisdoms, with its traditions, which can take care for protecting people peace and planet. This was the missing piece that the world of peacebuilding was missing Laura for a long, long time. In fact, the word peacemakers, peacebuilding, all of these, in fact, the Indigenous people had this amazing thing called the Great Law of Peace in the 12th century, which came from the Haudenosaunee people, or the [unintelligible] of Asia, which also tells us the way and pathways towards peace and building a more resilient, more secure world, which will ensure greater democracies toward authoritarian regimes and ensure that we have stable societies, stable democracies and stable development.

Laura Coates: It's fascinating to think that Indigenous leadership has been excluded from the conversations that are so impactful on the broader communities from which they obviously are a part. I wonder if you can speak to the feelings of so many of the leadership to not be a part of the decisions that are so impactful in their communities?

Binalakshmi Nepram: Yes, absolutely. We had leaders from Canada, as I mentioned, from New Zealand, we had Māori’s, we had Maasai people from Tanzania, and these were incredible leaders in their own right. And they all came last week to Washington, D.C., in tremendous peace at the time of tremendous rising conflicts around the world. And each one of them, many of them coming to D.C. for the first time, spoke that they have never been called to a meeting like this, that many of them have not been included in decision making in their nations, in the territories. And third, that they have never been able, even though conflicts were happening in their homelands, they were not included in many of the decision-making processes. With this summit, for example, we had Indigenous leaders, Laura, coming from Ukraine, flying it from Kyiv to be with our Summit. So, it was a very beautiful moment to see Indigenous people from Russia meeting Indigenous people from Ukraine in friendship. This for us is the beginning of a new peacebuilding which Indigenous people and indigenous people that as well as Indigenous processes of peacebuilding will be woven into the larger fabric which the United States and the world truly need at this hour.

Laura Coates: Bina Nepram, thank you so much for joining us today and giving us all this information about this global summit. If people want to learn more information about what took place, how do they find it?

Binalakshmi Nepram: So right now, in terms of United States Institute of Peace, we will be producing a report based on this. Already the first inaugural is online on the USIP website and various more than 68 Indigenous peacebuilding organizations who came they are also getting this information online. So, such as online and you will find it #IndigenousPeacebuilding. And our work has started, and we are on our way to building peace for people and for the planet.

Laura Coates: Bina Nepram, thank you so much for joining us today. USIP senior advisor for religion and inclusive societies, we appreciate your time.

Binalakshmi Nepram: Thank you so much, Laura, for bringing us into your show.

Laura Coates: Thank you.