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BRAZIL: Indigenous People Fight for Their Rights
By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 3, 2006 (IPS) - Land conflicts involving indigenous people
have multiplied in Brazil over the last few months, generating greater
tension and showing once again that the country's roughly 400,000 indigenous
people still have a long way to go to win respect for their rights.
Hundreds of Tupinambá and Pataxó Indians occupied eight plots of land last
week in Itajú de Colonia, in the southern part of the northeastern Brazilian
state of Bahía, in an attempt to recover property that they claim as their
own, but which was rewarded to landowners in judicial decisions.
The indigenous people, who complained that they had been the victims of
attacks, threatened to destroy power lines in their bid to reclaim their
land.
Slightly farther to the south, in the state of Espíritu Santo, around a
dozen Indians were injured two weeks ago in a police operation that
destroyed two villages on land that is the focus of a legal dispute with the
Aracruz cellulose company.
Similar incidents have been seen in states ranging from the northernmost
stretches of Brazil's Amazon jungle region to the southern state of Santa
Catarina, where eight members of the Kaingang indigenous community were
thrown into jail in December, accused of property invasion and aggression on
a rural estate.
Compounding the problems over land disputes are reports of negligent medical
care on the part of the governmental National Health Foundation, which
according to the Catholic Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) has already
led to the deaths of 10 children this year in the central state of
Tocantins.
The vice-president of CIMI, Saulo Feitosa, told IPS that 39 indigenous
people were murdered last year in Brazil by the police or landowners' hired
gunmen, or in fights among indigenous people arising from their "being
confined in small territories."
According to the group, a total of 241 members of indigenous communities
have been murdered in the past 10 years.
CIMI also documented 136 deaths due to lack of medical attention, 44 due to
child malnutrition, and 29 suicides in 2005.
The proliferation throughout the country of land conflicts involving
indigenous people is a result of the government's slow place in demarcating
indigenous reserves and ensuring their protection, said Feitosa.
He pointed to cases like the Raposa Serra del Sol reserve in the northern
state of Roraima, where the demarcation process has been completed, but
non-indigenous illegal occupants have not yet been removed from the
territory, which has led to the persistence of legal disputes and physical
attacks.
Efforts by the government of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to
demarcate the pending areas are moving very slowly, at a rate of only six
reserves a year, Feitosa complained.
At this pace, he said, it will take 45 years to demarcate all of the
indigenous reserves, even though the president had promised to complete the
entire process by the end of his term, in December 2006.
Reflecting the deterioration of relations between indigenous people and the
government, five anthropologists resigned from their jobs in the National
Foundation for Indigenous People (FUNAI), the government agency in charge of
indigenous policies, on Tuesday. They formed part of a 14-member council of
advisers.
In their letter of resignation, the anthropologists criticised the "outdated
concepts" that orient FUNAI's actions, such as classifying indigenous groups
as "uncultured" or "in the process of integration," or seeing their
"absolutely legitimate grievances" as impertinent.
Indigenous people in this country of 185 million have organised in the last
three decades, and have increasingly become a "political force," said Rubem
de Almeida, one of the five anthropologists.
They have developed "specific strategies of struggle against incredibly
strong forces," like landowners, many of whom are members of state or
national parliaments, or large companies and corporations, he told IPS.
With the weakening of the state, it has become more and more difficult to
resolve land issues, as observed in the rise in deforestation in the Amazon
jungle and the growth of the movement of landless rural workers, he added.
That weakening was felt to an even greater degree in FUNAI, which in the
past had policing powers, its own health services, and backing from the
military, said the anthropologist.
But while there are difficulties on the agrarian reform front, efforts at
"ethnodevelopment", encompassing assistance in education, agriculture and
health tailored to indigenous groups in clearly demarcated reserves, can
produce good results, said de Almeida.
He pointed to his experience with Guaraní Indians in Dourados, in the
southwestern state of Mato Grosso do Sul, where indigenous children died of
malnutrition last year.
In that case, a committee made up of representatives of eight government
ministries has been successful in bringing about improvements, and in
extending the benefits to neighbouring areas as well.
The government programmes involving the Guaraní, in which de Almeida has
acted as an adviser, have shown that "it is possible to transform the
reality of indigenous communities with few resources," he said.
But the anthropologist stressed that indigenous people cannot simply wait
for mainstream society to become aware of their rights. Solutions, he said,
will only come from their own initiative to change their relations with the
rest of society.
The five anthropologists resigned in the midst of an outcry by indigenous
organisations and indigenous rights groups over statements by FUNAI
president Mercio Pereira Gomes, who said the judicial system should set
limits to the territorial demands of indigenous groups, who in his view
already have too much land.
Major indigenous demonstrations are scheduled for April, to coincide with
FUNAI's National Conference for Indigenous Peoples.
(END)
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