04 March 2014

Millennium Development Goals - Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

Save Rapanui

Millennium Development Goals 


Statement





MDG-8United Nations Millennium Development Goals
Eighth session of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals
Agenda Item
Rule of Law and Governance
Feb 7, 2014, 9:45 a.m.


Intervention delivered by Santi Hitorangi
Moana Nui/Rapa Nui


I am advocating for Moana Nui, a network of Pacific-wide rights-holders focusing on justice issues concerning resources, trade, militarization and indigenous rights.

In my capacity as a member of the Hitorangi clan from Rapa Nui, I am here to put forward ourmana’u over the eight Millennium Development Goals addressing poverty and hunger, universal education, gender equality, child mortality reduction, maternal health, access to medicines, environmental sustainability and the global partnership. These are all sectors of development that Rapa Nui has been denied, or has not adequately been provided for by Chile.

Otherwise known as Easter Island, Rapa Nui is 3,700 kilometers from the coast of Chile, and claimed as a territory in 1888 under fraudulent circumstances.[i] We are a nation struggling for self-determination, and seek to be recognized by the UN to be placed on the list of non-self-governing territories for decolonization.[ii] We represent an indigenous struggle, a human rights struggle, and a struggle to protect our traditional resources and ecological biodiversity throughout our Pacific island communities.

Chile is one of the original signatories of the Trans Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership, or the TPP, and they are negotiating in the largest free-trade agreement in the world with 12 other countries.[iii] Together these 12 countries represent nearly 28 trillion dollars, about 40% of global GDP.[iv]

Read full report here.