RIGHTS-BRAZIL: Violence Stains National Day of Indigenous Peoples

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 19 2004 (IPS) - As indigenous communities in Brazil demanded recognition of their right to their ancestral territories on National Day of Indigenous peoples, commemorated Monday, the problem of land disputes was highlighted by the mass killing of at least 29 illegal diamond miners in an Indian reserve.

As indigenous communities in Brazil demanded recognition of their right to their ancestral territories on National Day of Indigenous peoples, commemorated Monday, the problem of land disputes was highlighted by the mass killing of at least 29 illegal diamond miners in an Indian reserve.

The massacre, the result of two weeks of clashes between the ”Cinta Larga” (Wide Belt) Indians and ”garimpeiros” or artisanal miners who invaded their territory, shook the entire country, and will likely hurt demands that some 200 representatives of 27 indigenous groups presented to the government of Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva Monday in Brasilia, the capital.

While the indigenous delegates from around the country pressed forth their demands in Brasilia, police attempted Monday to remove, by helicopter, the bodies of 26 illegal prospectors found in the jungles of the Roosevelt Reserve in the northwestern Amazon jungle state of Rondonia. But the operation was hampered by rainfall.

Three other bodies were removed a week ago, and the local garimpeiros’ union estimates that as many as 41 miners may have been killed, since 12 are still missing.

In Brasilia, the indigenous leaders demanded the formal creation of the Raposa Sierra del Sol reserve in the northern state of Roraima – a measure that since 1998 has been merely awaiting the Brazilian president’s rubber-stamp, since the land in question has been demarcated and the reserve has been approved by the relevant government bodies and the courts.

But like his predecessor Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2003), leftist President Lula has hesitated to sign, in the face of pressure from local authorities in Roraima and white settlers, including rice farmers and the people of the town of Uiramután, who have occupied part of the reserve.

Breaking up the reserve to exclude the occupied areas is not an acceptable alternative, according to indigenous leaders, non-governmental organisations that defend the ethnic groups, and the National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI), the government agency in charge of Indian affairs.

”A legal question cannot be given political treatment,” argued Brazil’s first female indigenous lawyer, Joenia Batista de Carvalho, who told IPS that there is no constitutional backing for the negotiations promoted by Lula with a view to reconciling the various interests involved.

The Indian groups who live in that part of the state of Roraima have a clearly defined constitutional right to their land, the limits of which were drawn up after lengthy debate and court battles.

”Everything has been concluded,” and the end of three decades of struggle only depends on the president’s signature, said the lawyer, who is also known as Joenia Wapichana, the name of her ethnic community, one of the five that live in the disputed territory.

The attorney was among the nearly 200 indigenous delegates who took part in the ceremony to celebrate National Day of Indigenous peoples in parliament Monday and then decided to ”camp out” in a hall in the Chamber of Deputies until Lula agrees to meet with them.

It is possible that the massacre in Rondonia will have negative repercussions on the Raposa Sierra del Sol cause.

But the long suffering of the Cintas Largas cannot be ignored, said Carvalho. The group, whose members numbered 5,000 prior to the invasions of their remote jungle territory by garimpeiros, which began 30 years ago, has shrunk to just 1,300, she noted.

Besides the direct violence against the local Indians, who have been the target of abuse and killings, the illegal miners brought in ”white man” diseases to which Indians have little resistance, said Carvalho. With the mercury used to pan for gold, they have also severely contaminated the rivers, the indigenous communities’ source of water and fish.

In the history of violent conflicts between Indians and garimpeiros, it has always been the former who are killed, and this is one of the few times that it was the other way around, said the president of FUNAI, Mercio Pereira, who lamented the massacre but argued that the Cinta Largas were acting ”in defence of their land.”

Although the tension in Cinta Larga territory was no secret, there is little FUNAI can do because the agency’s officials ”do not have police powers” to intervene in such conflicts, said Pereira.

Furthermore, the agency lacks the human and financial resources to protect indigenous lands, which make up 12 percent of the territory of Brazil, the fifth largest country on earth.

The delay in formally creating the Raposa Sierra del Sol reserve is another source of tension and outbreaks of violence, said Carvalho.

In January, for example, rice farmers backed by a small group of local Indians mounted roadblocks, pillaged schools and took three Catholic priests hostage in Roraima to oppose the announced creation of the reserve as it has been demarcated.

The protests were aimed at convincing the government to break up the indigenous territory, leaving out the areas settled by white farmers and the municipality of Uiramután, created by former garimpeiros, who are also active in that area.

FUNAI, several government ministers, and indigenous rights groups are opposed to breaking up the reserve, and defend the rights of the 15,000 Ingarikó, Macuxi, Patamona, Taurepang and Wapichana to their full 1.67 million hectare territory, which has already been legally recognised and marked.

The illegal mining of gold, other precious metals, and diamonds has given rise to constant invasions of remote indigenous territories in Brazil’s Amazon jungle region. FUNAI estimates that between 600 and 800 million dollars a year in diamonds are illegally mined in indigenous reserves.