RIGHTS-BRAZIL: Indians Reject Celebration of Portuguese Arrival

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 17 2000 (IPS) - The 500 year anniversary of the arrival of the Portuguese to Brazil will have a totally different meaning for indigenous communities than for mainstream society.

“We have nothing to commemorate, much less the ‘discovery’ which led to the massacre and elimination of some 700 peoples and reduced a population of five or six million in 1500 to slightly more than 300,000 today,” in a country of over 161 million, said indigenous leader Marcos Terena.

Moreover, the actual date, Apr 22, means nothing to Brazil’s native peoples, “whose measurement of time is totally different,” said Terena, Coordinator of Indigenous Rights in the National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI), a government agency.

The ancestors of most of the 200 surviving tribes did not come into contact with whites until sometime in the past 200 years, which makes the symbolism of the anniversary even more meaningless for Indians in Brazil, said Terena, whose surname is the name of the group of which he is a leader.

To further accentuate the discrepancy, the 62 events listed on the government’s official anniversary programme focus on the “discovery” rather than on the concept of “a meeting of two worlds” as adopted by Spanish Americans in 1992 to mark the 500 year anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival to the Americas.

Although it is part of the government, FUNAI will not take part in the official ceremonies, announced Carlos Frederico Marés, president of the agency since November.

Marés, a legal expert who has written a book on the conflict between “civilised” law and indigenous cultures based on collective ownership of property, said Apr 22 should serve as a moment of reflection on the near extermination of indigenous peoples in the past 500 years rather than a celebration.

But the date will not go by without any expression of resistance by indigenous groups. A conference expected to draw 2,000 representatives from throughout the country has been scheduled for Apr 18-22 in Santa Cruz de Cabralia, near the spot where the Portuguese first landed in 1500.

Organised by the Council of Articulation of Indigenous Peoples and Organisations of Brazil (CAPOIB), the conference will discuss plans for asserting the rights of native peoples, as well as of Blacks and the poor, said one of the group’s leaders, José Adalberto Silva.

CAPOIB is working for the approval of the Statute on Indigenous Peoples and Convention 169 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) guaranteeing the individual and collective rights of native peoples. The group is also fighting to get indigenous territory clearly demarcated, especially that of the Pataxo Indians living around Cabralia.

The indigenous movement is working to get these demands recognised by parliament and the government of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso by Apr 22, in order to take advantage of the occasion, said Silva, a Macuxi leader from the northern state of Roraima. To that end, a mass protest is being planned for Apr 13 in the capital, Brasilia.

At the conference in Cabralia, “we plan to approve concrete proposals to present to the government, such as the strengthening of FUNAI, financing for agriculture and the direct channeling of funds for health and education to indigenous communities,” said Silva, who is a member of the conference preparatory committee.

To the demonstration scheduled at the close of the meeting, on Apr 22, organisers hope to draw a crowd of at least 100,000 indigenous people, trade unionists, members of the Landless Movement (MST), social activists and representatives of the Black community, which is especially large in the state of Bahia.

Not far away, presidents Cardoso of Brazil and Jorge Sampaio of Portugal will be presiding over official ceremonies commemorating the Portuguese “discovery” of this part of the Americas.

The tension has been rising as the Pataxos have stepped up their struggle to recover land occupied by large landowners. In the past few months, two police officers have been killed in violent clashes with the Indians, and an indigenous leader was imprisoned.

On a Cabralia beach, 500 Catholic priests from Portuguese- speaking countries will hold a service to commemorate, that same day, the first mass celebrated in Brazil on Apr 26, 1500. On that occasion, the Catholic Church intends to apologise to indigenous communities for the harm it caused.

But “we will not accept,” Silva told IPS. “We want concrete support for our development projects,” such as financing, training, and assistance from agricultural experts and lawyers, he said.

CAPOIB waited “until late last year” for an invitation from the government to form part of the commission organising the commemoration of the 500 year anniversary, Silva pointed out.

But after it became clear that CAPOIB was to be excluded, the group decided to organise the conference in Cabralia and demonstrations around the country, under the slogan “Another 500 Years”.

Historians like José Murilo de Carvalho back the indigenous point of view, saying there has been little to commemorate and much to lament in the past 500 years, especially the implantation of the deeprooted social inequities with which Brazil is identified in the world.