PLENARY OF ACTIVISTS FOR TRUTH, JUSTICE, AND REPARATION DURING THE PEOPLE’S SUMMIT / COP-30. [Plenária de Ativistas por Verdade, Justiça e Reparação durante a Cúpula dos Povos/COP-30]
Institute of Applied Social Sciences of the Federal University of Pará [ under the coordination of Professor Gilberto de Souza Marques]
Belém do Pará, Brazil, 14 November 2025
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Message to the PLENARY OF ACTIVISTS FOR TRUTH, JUSTICE, AND REPARATION DURING THE PEOPLE’S SUMMIT / COP-30
by Elsa Stamatopoulou
Former Chief of the Secretariat, United Nations Permanent Forum on Ιndigenous Issues and Former Director, Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Program, Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights
Dear Participants at this PLENARY OF ACTIVISTS FOR TRUTH, JUSTICE, AND REPARATION DURING THE PEOPLE’S SUMMIT / COP-30.
Warm greetings, solidarity and respect to you all in Belém do Pará!
First of all, I would like to recognize the Indigenous Peoples of the land I am speaking from today in New York, the Lenape People, who are the traditional owners of this territory. And I would like to recognize the Indigenous Peoples who are the traditional owners of the land where you are gathering today in Belem.
It is a great honor for me to be addressing this extraordinary assembly that is organized by a broad coalition of social actors in Brazil, representing survivors, Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon, peasants, traditional communities, Afro-Brazilian quilombola communities, workers and researchers.
I would like to thank our host, the Institute of Applied Social Sciences of the Federal University of Pará, under the coordination of Professor Gilberto de Souza Marques, and all the cosponsoring organizations.
I would also like to recognize and pay my respects to Davi Kopenawa Yanomami. I had the honor to meet Davi for the first time in 1991 on Yanomami land-I was part of the first United Nations human rights mission accepted by Brazil regarding Indigenous Peoples-it was about the acute crisis faced by the Yanomami due to the influx of garimpeiros on their land. After that, Davi visited United Nations Headquarters in NY in 1992 and was the first Indigenous leader to meet with a UN Secretary-General.
Dear Participants,
You are gathering here to seek justice for those who have not yet attained it and whose human rights continue to be violated, especially in the remote regions of Brazil, in rural and forested areas, affecting Indigenous Peoples, rural workers, and traditional and Afro-Brazilian quilombola communities.
We know that our struggle for justice today takes place in the challenging times we live in: we have weakening democracy and shrinking civic spaces in many countries; we notice that anti-discrimination and pro-equality measures are often put aside; large sectors of society experience empoverishment; peace is undermined and war industries rise; climate change and injustice is combined with weak state policies that push our world to a downward path.
At the same time, we see signs of hope: strong voices of Indigenous Peoples, quilombola traditional communities, workers and other parts of civil society counter the challenges in a positive way and with strength. How is this expressed? Through five main ways: critical thinking, resistance, resilience, solidarity-both national and international-, systematic advocacy and action. These elements create a sustained movement for justice. Many justice and human rights advocates say that the more grave a situation is, the more decisive our commitment to fighting for justice is. We don’t give up.
Now we come to an important point of this human rights assembly: History. Each society has to deal with its history, to unveil the truth of things that happened; to identify and make public the results of injustices that still continue; and to take measures to correct these injustices.
Today, through your efforts, we link the past the present and the future; they are in dialogue.
The dictatorship gravely affected Indigenous Peoples, Afrodescendants – the quilombola traditional communities– workers… Your part of the world, Latin America, has translated a lot of the pain from human rights violations over decades into solid tools and has shared those tools with the world. One of the tools is the concept of continuing violations of human rights. Today this concept is part of international human rights law. What does it mean? It means that if the state has violated human rights in the past and has not taken any measures to correct the impacts of these violations, to address the problems of survivors and to take other corrective actions, then these human rights violations are seen as continuing in the present. The state is accountable to the people of course, but also to the international community.
This is why the UN Human Rights Council established the Special Rapporteur on Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence. The Special Rapporteur, now Professor Bernard Duhaime, visited Brazil in April of this year. His report was published last summer and submitted to the recent session of the UN Human Rights Council. The Special Rapporteur recommended that the competent Brazilian authorities (…) establish 1) a national truth commission on Indigenous people, [as advised by the National Truth Commission], and 2) a Truth Commission on people of African descent and on peasants; 3) he also recommended that the Brazilian State establish “a federal follow-up mechanism to continue the National Truth Commission’s work and to monitor the implementation of its recommendations; the mechanism should investigate comprehensively the serious human rights violations committed during the dictatorship against all sectors of society, including Indigenous Peoples, peasants and people of African descent”.
Dear Participants to this Plenary Meeting,
It is clear that your voices matter. The voices of Brazilian civil society matter. The actions or omissions of state and other actors become visible. You are heard at many levels, including at the international level. Our moral conscience stands by you in solidarity, with respect for your struggles.
I would like to mention a historic Indigenous leader from North America, the Mohawk Elder, Kenneth Deer. He keeps reminding us at every opportunity: “Always keep the moral high ground”.
I repeat this message. “Always keep the moral high ground”. I wish you every success in your Plenary today and continuing strength in your efforts for justice.
Dear friends,
The word “seguimos”, “we continue”, is often a phrase we say instead of “goodbye” after Indigenous Peoples’ meetings – awareness, resilience, action, hope, we continue.
