Shame on you, Frau Merkel!

Ms. Merkel doesn't want to protect the lives of these children... money comes first!

I'm sorry, kids! Our ruling parties in the German federal government are putting money before human rights... even affecting the lives of indigenous people in your place, Rio Xingu.

Another reason to feel ashamed of my country's federal government: last week, the currently ruling conservative and liberal-democratic party denied the ratification of the international ILO convention no. 169, which has been formulated to strengthen the rights of indigenous people world-wide.

It is a legally binding international instrument, formulated as early as 1989, coming into effect in 1991. So far, just 20 countries (most of them in South America) have ratified this convention.
The ILO 169 convention can be read here:
http://www.ilo.org/indigenous/Conventions/no169/lang--en/index.htm

A spokeswoman of the German conservative party (which is bold enough to call itself "christian-democratic union", although they very often decree quite unchristian as well as undemocratic things...) justified the denial of ratification as follows: ratifying this convention would put the burden of liabilities onto German corporations, which could be detrimental to investments in developing countries. Well, yes, it would be - but shouldn't human rights come first?

One large German company which would be in danger of losing money is Siemens, part of the Voith Hydro conglomerate, currently the main investor of the Belo Monte Dam project.