Peace is inseparable from self-determination
At the United Nations this week, Indigenous leaders and legal scholars from the Pacific and beyond challenged a foundational assumption of international diplomacy: that peace begins when armed conflict ends. Drawing on experiences from Guatemala to New Caledonia to West Papua, they argued that for Indigenous peoples, conflict has never been merely a matter of guns and treaties — it is woven into the ongoing structures of colonisation, land dispossession, and political exclusion that persist long after ceasefires are signed. The call was not simply for recognition of suffering, but for a reckoning with what peace actually requires: self-determination, decolonisation, and the legitimacy of Indigenous legal traditions alongside state frameworks.
- Nearly thirty years after Guatemala's civil war ended, Maya communities still live under what their leaders call structural conflict — land theft, corruption, and the suppression of Indigenous governance replacing the bullets that once did the same work.
- A landmark EMRIP study, drawing on over 80 submissions worldwide, has formally broadened the definition of conflict to include colonisation, forced displacement, and militarisation — dismantling the fiction that 'post-conflict' means safety for Indigenous peoples.
- In New Caledonia, proposed French electoral changes sparked unrest in 2024 that killed 14 people and caused €2.2 billion in damage, exposing how unresolved colonial political structures can ignite violence with devastating speed.
- Indigenous women mediators and legal scholars are offering culturally grounded frameworks — tikanga Māori, dialogue, healing practices — as concrete tools for peacebuilding, not merely as testimony but as legitimate governance alternatives.
- Across the Pacific, from West Papua to Guam to Tokelau, Indigenous leaders are insisting that no regional peace is possible while decolonisation remains unfinished — a message growing more urgent as military partnerships like AUKUS deepen geopolitical competition on Indigenous lands and waters.
When Guatemala's 36-year civil war ended in 1996, the guns fell silent — but for the Maya people who had borne the worst of it, around 200,000 killed and over 100,000 women raped, the violence never truly stopped. It simply changed shape. At the United Nations this week, Mayan leader Mario Simón Chávez described what peace looks like when it isn't peace: nearly three decades after the accords, his communities still face corruption, land theft, and attacks on their right to self-governance. For him and others, true peace requires something the guns-and-treaties framework has never delivered.
The EMRIP study at the centre of this week's discussions, informed by more than 80 submissions from Indigenous peoples, governments and academics, redefines conflict not as a discrete event bounded by a peace treaty, but as something far more pervasive — including militarisation, forced displacement, and the structural violence embedded in colonisation itself. The study acknowledges that 'post-conflict' is often a fiction, with Indigenous rights remaining at risk through reconstruction and transitional justice for decades.
Waikato University law lecturer Maryann Stancich, of Te Parawhau, Ngāti Manu and Ngāpuhi descent, put it plainly: peace is not simply the absence of war. Indigenous legal traditions like tikanga Māori, she argued, offer frameworks for resolving disputes and restoring relationships that could operate alongside state systems — but lasting peace also demands the meaningful implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The stakes became concrete in New Caledonia in 2024, when proposed French electoral changes that Kanak groups feared would dilute their political voice sparked unrest that killed 14 people and caused €2.2 billion in damage. Roselyne Makalu, from Lifou Island, described how women used culture and dialogue to de-escalate violence, while naming what international discussions often miss: the deeper trauma of colonisation itself. 'Children have anger in their bodies, and they don't know why,' she said, 'but they feel excluded here in their own country.'
Viro Xulue of the Customary Council of Drehu in Kanaky made the connection explicit: peace cannot be separated from decolonisation. New Caledonia remains on the UN's list of Non-Self-Governing Territories, and the same unresolved questions echo across the Pacific — in Māohi Nui, Guam, Tokelau, American Samoa — even as military partnerships like AUKUS signal deepening geopolitical competition across the region. In West Papua, Xulue noted, militarisation and resource extraction continue to devastate Indigenous communities. His message was uncompromising: 'Peace is inseparable from self-determination.' What emerged from the week was a recognition that the old definition of conflict had always been too narrow — and that Indigenous peoples have long understood what lasting peace actually requires.
At the United Nations this week, Indigenous leaders from across the Pacific and beyond gathered to make a case that the world has been thinking about conflict all wrong. When Guatemala's 36-year civil war ended in 1996, the guns fell silent. But for the Maya people who had borne the worst of it—around 200,000 killed, hundreds of villages razed, over 100,000 women raped—the violence never truly stopped. It simply changed shape.
Mario Simón Chávez, a Mayan Indigenous leader, stood before the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and described what peace looks like when it isn't peace. "The Internal Armed Conflict has left indelible scars on our people," he said. Nearly three decades after the accords, his communities still face what he called structural forms of conflict: corruption, the theft of Indigenous lands, attacks on their right to govern themselves. For Chávez and others like him, true peace requires something the guns-and-treaties framework has never delivered—full respect for collective rights, self-determination, and the ancestral relationship between Indigenous peoples and their territories.
This reframing matters because it changes what the world is actually looking at. The EMRIP study, informed by more than 80 submissions from Indigenous peoples, governments, human rights bodies and academics, defines conflict not as a discrete event bounded by a peace treaty, but as something far more pervasive. It includes militarisation, occupation, forced displacement, and the structural violence woven into colonisation itself—the resource extraction, the political repression, the laws and policies that continue to constrain Indigenous self-determination long after the last soldier has gone home. The study recognises that "post-conflict" is often a fiction; Indigenous rights remain at risk during reconstruction, peacebuilding and transitional justice, sometimes for decades.
Maryann Stancich, a law lecturer at Waikato University and member of Te Parawhau, Ngāti Manu, Te Popoto and Ngāpuhi, put it plainly: "Peace is not simply defined by the absence of war." In Aotearoa and elsewhere, settler colonialism persists through laws, policies and governance arrangements that have never been dismantled. Yet Indigenous legal traditions—tikanga Māori and others—offer frameworks for resolving disputes, repairing harm and restoring relationships that could operate alongside state systems, strengthening communities in culturally grounded ways. Lasting peace, Stancich argued, requires justice and the meaningful implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The stakes became concrete in New Caledonia in 2024. When France proposed electoral changes that Indigenous Kanak groups feared would dilute their political voice, unrest erupted. Fourteen people died, most of them Kanak. The damage reached €2.2 billion. Roselyne Makalu, from Lifou Island and part of the Pacific Women Mediators Network, described how women used culture, dialogue and healing to de-escalate the violence. But she also named what international discussions often miss: the deeper trauma of colonisation itself. "Children have anger in their bodies, and they don't know why or where it comes from, but they feel excluded here in their own country," she said.
Viro Xulue, Human Rights and Indigenous Advisor to the Customary Council of Drehu in Kanaky, made the connection explicit: peace cannot be separated from decolonisation. New Caledonia remains on the UN's list of Non-Self-Governing Territories, with fundamental questions about political status, self-determination, Indigenous representation and land rights still unresolved. The same is true across the Pacific—Māohi Nui, Guam, Tokelau, American Samoa—all territories where Indigenous peoples are still fighting for the right to determine their own futures. "The Pacific Blue, peace of the Pacific, cannot happen when it isn't totally decolonised," Xulue said, even as military partnerships like AUKUS and large-scale exercises signal growing geopolitical competition in the region.
Xulue also spoke to areas where violence remains active and visible. In West Papua, Indigenous communities have long raised alarms about militarisation, resource extraction and the world's largest deforestation project consuming their lands. He called on EMRIP to remind states of their obligations to uphold Indigenous rights. The message was simple and uncompromising: "Peace is inseparable from self-determination." What emerged from the week was not a new definition of conflict, but a recognition that the old one had always been too narrow—that Indigenous peoples have known for centuries what it takes to build lasting peace, and the world is only now beginning to listen.
Notable Quotes
The Internal Armed Conflict has left indelible scars on our people. For our peoples, peace is only possible when our collective rights, our right to self-determination, and our ancestral relationship with our territories are fully respected.— Mario Simón Chávez, Mayan Indigenous leader
Children have anger in their bodies, and they don't know why or where it comes from, but they feel excluded here in their own country.— Roselyne Makalu, Pacific Women Mediators Network
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
When you say conflict extends beyond war, what does that actually feel like to live through?
It's the daily weight of it. In Guatemala, the guns stopped firing in 1996, but the land that was stolen is still stolen. The laws that exclude you from decisions about your own territory are still there. Your children grow up knowing their grandparents were killed, and nothing has been repaired.
So it's not just memory—it's ongoing dispossession?
Exactly. It's active. It's happening now through corruption, through policies, through systems that were built during the conflict and never dismantled. That's structural violence.
And you're saying Indigenous legal systems could actually help resolve this?
Yes. Tikanga Māori, customary law in the Pacific—these aren't relics. They're living frameworks for resolving harm and restoring relationships. They work alongside state systems, not instead of them. They make peace culturally meaningful.
But doesn't that require the state to actually recognise them as legitimate?
It does. And that's the hard part. That's where self-determination comes in. You can't have real peace if the people most affected have no authority over their own affairs.
So New Caledonia's unrest in 2024—that was about more than just electoral changes?
It was the breaking point. Electoral changes threatened Kanak political voice, but underneath was decades of unfinished decolonisation. The trauma of colonisation itself. Women had to step in and use healing practices to prevent it from exploding further. But the root cause—the lack of self-determination—that's still there.