Satoru Nakamura, Senior Researcher of iRICH, had a NGO speech on 55th UN Human Rights Coucils in Geneva. He had speech about Recommendations of Okinawan Indigenous People.
Thank you. Mr. Vice-President. This Council and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination have recommended six times that the Japanese government must recognize the Okinawans as indigenous people and protect their rights. However, most Okinawans are unaware that they are considered indigenous by the UN and have been repeatedly recommended to do so. Even Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki, who addressed at the last Council meeting, has repeatedly stated that they have never been declared indigenous or even discussed by the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly or Okinawan society. The fact that such recommendations are being issued when the Okinawans have neither discussed nor demanded them is clearly an effort by a specific government to divide the Japanese people and weaken them by making them fight each other. The UN should not issue recommendations based on a purposely manipulated and separatist report by those specific groups. We call on this Council to dispatch the Special Rapporteur to Okinawa to meet with Okinawans to learn about the real situation in Okinawa without prejudice. We then ask the Council to revisit these recommendations. Thank you very much.