POLITICS/RIGHTS-BRAZIL: Indians Opt for Electoral Route

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 29 2000 (IPS) - Some 350 indigenous people are running in Sunday’s municipal elections in Brazil, more than four times the number of candidates representing native communities in 1996.

The explosive rise in the number of indigenous people opting for the local electoral route surprised the Catholic Church’s Indigenist Missionary Council (CMI), which supports the struggle for the rights of the original inhabitants of South America’s largest nation. The CMI carried out the count. Four years ago, it identified just 82 Indian candidates for town councils and mayor’s offices.

The figures are not precise, because most of the candidates live in communities in the extensive, sparsely populated Amazonia region, where it is difficult to obtain reliable information, said CMI executive secretary Egon Reck.

The new interest in taking part in local politics, which is not coordinated at a national level, is a reflection of the growing mobilisation of indigenous peoples seeking to “overcome and revert the historic situation of repression,” said Reck.

The commemoration this year of the 500th anniversary of the arrival of the Portuguese to Brazil contributed to that process. Indigenous communities were not only excluded from the official ceremonies, but were brutally attacked when they attempted to protest events held on Apr 22 in Puerto Seguro, on the shores of the northeastern state of Bahia, where the first colonisers landed.

The growing interest in becoming active in “the decision- making spaces of non-indigenous society,” after so many frustrated efforts, was unexpected, said Reck.

The election of several town councillors and a deputy to the national parliament in the past few decades contributed little to the broader struggle of indigenous peoples, according to their leaders.

The few who have been elected have acted on their own, and often in their own interests, or have been unable to overcome hurdles standing in the way of their efforts to defend the interests of their communities.

The most well-known case was that of Mario Juruna, a former leader of a group from central Brazil, who became famous in the country in the late 1970s for his habit of using a tape recorder whenever he met with government officials. He said he recorded the conversations “to prove that the promises of white leaders are lies.”

Juruna was Brazil’s first indigenous parliamentarian, elected in 1982 with broad support from voters in Rio de Janeiro. But his performance in Congress frustrated both his white supporters, who did not re-elect him, and the city’s ethnic minorities. So far he has had no successors.

The isolated experience of Juruna demonstrated how complex it is for indigenous representatives to be active in national and state-level positions, where “the pressures of economic power” are strong, requiring greater maturity and coherence on the part of the ethnic movement, said the executive secretary of the CMI.

Perhaps for that reason, indigenous groups are now focusing on local politics. Most of the Indian candidates — nearly 200 — are running for town councils in the northern state of Roraima, on the border with Venezuela.

Indigenous people comprise a majority of the population in a number of towns and villages in Roraima, where some municipalities were created in Indian territories to impede the demarcation of native reservations.

For that reason there is no consensus in the indigenous movement regarding participation in elections, which could legitimate the establishment of municipalities that violate rights recognised by the Brazilian constitution, said Reck.

Although the 350 indigenous candidates are dispersed throughout the 15 parties taking part in Sunday’s elections, a majority are involved in the leftist Workers’ Party (PT), which has well- defined policies for supporting the dispossessed and ethnic minorities.

Today, there are two indigenous mayors, in small municipalities in northeastern and northern Brazil, and some 20 town councillors spread throughout the country. As well as the re-election of the two mayors, indigenous groups are vying for three other mayorships.

An increase to 30 indigenous town councillors could give rise to “a new instrument of struggle,” if they forge links to create a new dimension for the indigenous movement, which would also prevent them from taking an isolated and individual approach in their posts, subject to party interests, said Reck.

Political participation by indigenous people is not new in several states, due to a higher level of integration into mainstream society, although the boom in the number of candidates is a novel development.

That is the case of the northeastern state of Pernambuco, where the first female indigenous town councillor was elected in 1996, along with two men. Maria Luciene, of the Cambiva ethnic group, is now seeking re-election as a member of the town council of Ibimirim, to continue fighting for education and health care for her people.

One candidate for every 1,000 indigenous people is running in the elections, based on an estimate of roughly 350,000 Indians in Brazil. That proportion is still below the nationwide ratio, which is one candidate for every 450 people.

According to Superior Electoral Court figures, a total of 367,879 candidates are participating in the local elections, of a total population of 168 million in Brazil.