RIGHTS-BRAZIL: Trial a Boost for Indians, Not for Other Victims

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 13 2001 (IPS) - Four men were found guilty this weekend of assassinating an indigenous activist at a Brasilia bus stop in 1997, a ruling that could strengthen the native population’s demands for land rights, though human rights activists doubt it will help protect the homeless who face similar attacks in the streets of Brazil.

Galdino Jesús dos Santos, of the Pataxó indigenous community in the northeastern state of Bahía, was murdered in Brasilia during a trip there with native leaders to file a petition to recover their lands, which have suffered invasions by ranchers for decades.

In the early hours of Apr 20, 1997, Dos Santos had fallen asleep at a bus stop, unable to return to the house where he was staying during his visit to Brasilia. Five youths doused him with two litres of alcohol and set him on fire, causing burns over 95 percent of his body.

The case made an impact in the national and international media, and the perpetrators were quickly arrested and imprisoned.

Nevertheless, it is just one case of the violence frequently committed by middle-class youths in big Brazilian cities against homeless people living in the streets. The authorities often ignore such acts, and society in general has proven indifferent.

The impact of this case “has helped raise awareness about the Pataxó Hae-hae-hae, whose territory has been invaded by ranchers since 1926,” said Roberto Liebgott, assistant secretary of the Indigenist Missionary Council, an organisation of the Catholic Church.

The Bahía government encouraged the land takeovers in the 1940s and on through the 1960s because it was interested in expanding the state’s cocoa production, Liebgott told IPS.

The battle of the Pataxó to recuperate their lands intensified in the mid-1980s, and most recently in the wake of the Dos Santos murder.

The Indians have recovered several rural estates, occupying them “in the name of Galdino,” thus turning him into a symbol of the struggle, said Liebgott.

But the 14-year sentences handed the four youths, after the five-day trial that ended Saturday, are “too light”, say human rights activists.

One notable aspect of the court ruling was that it described the crime as “repulsive” for its premeditated and motiveless cruelty against a defenceless victim.

The panel of judges found the accused guilty by a vote of five to two, rejecting the defence’s argument that the assailants did not intend to kill Dos Santos, but only to scare hum, and that the charges should be for “physical harm” followed by death, and not for murder.

The witnesses’ testimonies and the police investigations indicate that the four defendants in the case were fully aware of the consequences of their actions and that they had poured alcohol directly over the native man’s body.

Judge Sandra de Santis had proposed a 15-year sentence for each of the accused, but it was reduced to 14 years because all were younger than 21 when they committed the crime. The fifth member of the group was not brought to trial because he was still a minor (17) at time.

In Brazil, people younger than 18 are not held responsible for their criminal acts, but must go through a rehabilitation process. If the case involves a serious crime, the youths may be held temporarily in specialised institutions.

An indication of the predominant social attitudes towards the homeless population is that the assassins said in their defence that “they thought he was a street person,” and that they were unaware that their victim was an indigenous man.

The murder is a symptom of the “culture of violence” that predominates in Brazil, a phenomenon in which “the marginalised can be burned alive,” Romeu Olmar, leader of the National Human Rights Movement, told IPS.

The five men who murdered Dos Santos would most likely have gone unpunished if the victim had been an indigent, as happens in the many similar cases that continue to occur in Brazil, said Olmar, pointing out that most of the assailants are never even brought to trial.

Society itself “legitimises violence against street people, who are considered bothersome and ‘disposable’,” he said.

The activist compared the impunity of those who attack the homeless to that of the members of the police force who he says continue to torture arrestees and suspects in police stations throughout Brazil, despite a specific law that criminalizes the practice.

An important impact of the ruling in the case of the four assailants is that it will discourage others from committing the “joke” of intentionally setting alight homeless people who sleep in the streets, but the effect will only last for a short time, says Olmar.

He adds that he hopes the “Galdino case” will not be an exception, and that others who commit such a heinous crime will be brought to justice.

The national human rights leader fears that the court’s ruling only represents the “bad luck” of young men who did not realise they were setting on fire an indigenous man who was known for defending the rights of his people.

Respect for native peoples in Brazil is itself a relatively new phenomenon, “constructed through much effort over the last few decades,” he said.

Respect for the rights of the homeless will depend on an effective reduction in violence, which would require profound reforms in public safety policies, and cultural changes at all levels of society, Olmar said.