INTER - AMERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
COMISION INTERAMERICANA DE DERECHOS HUMANOS
COMISSÃO INTERAMERICANA DE DIREITOS HUMANOS
COMMISSION INTERAMÉRICAINE DES DROITS DE L'HOMME
ORGANIZACIÓN DE LOS ESTADOS AMERICANOS
WASHINGTON, D.C. 2 0 0 0 6 EEUU
February 26, 2013
Ref.:
Case No. 12.354
Kuna de Madungandí and Emberá de Bayano Indigenous Peoples and Their Members
Panama
Mr. Secretary:
On behalf of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, I am pleased to address you
in order to submit to the jurisdiction of the honorable Inter-American Court of Human Rights, case
no. 12.354 against the Republic of Panama (hereinafter, “the State,” “the Panamanian state,” or
“Panama”), related to the ongoing violation of the right to collective property of the Kuna de
Madungandí and Emberá de Bayano indigenous peoples and their members as a result of the State
of Panama’s failure, to date, to pay the financial compensation stemming from the dispossession
and flooding of the victims’ ancestral territories.
The case also has to do with the failure to recognize, award title for, and demarcate the
lands granted to the Kuna de Madungandí indigenous people over the course of a lengthy period of
time that falls within the Court’s ratione temporis jurisdiction, as well as the failure, up through the
present time, to recognize, demarcate, and award title for the lands granted to the Emberá de
Bayano indigenous people. The failure on the part of the State to meet these obligations regarding
the collective property of the indigenous peoples was accompanied, simultaneously, by the State’s
decision to systematically ignore the multiple legal commitments it had assumed even up through
2010.
In addition to the foregoing, and as a corollary to its obligation to effectively protect the
territory and natural resources of the Kuna de Madungandí and Emberá de Bayano indigenous
peoples and their members, the Panamanian state failed in its obligation to prevent the intrusion of
colonists and illegal logging. This situation worsened beginning in the 1990s.
The Commission also concluded that the State of Panama failed to fulfill its obligation to
provide the Kuna de Madungandí and Emberá de Bayano indigenous peoples and their members
with an appropriate and effective mechanism for accessing territorial property and for obtaining a
response with regard to the multiple complaints of intrusion by third parties into their territories
and natural resources. Lastly, the case was analyzed by the Commission from the vantage point of
the right to equality and non-discrimination and in light of the series of violations committed as a
manifestation of discrimination against the two indigenous peoples. Such discrimination is likewise
echoed in the existence of provisions that reflect an “assimilationist-type” policy that helps promote
violations of indigenous peoples’ rights to their ancestral territory and natural resources.