[Fresh Ink] BRAZIL: Setting An Important Precedent For Indigenous Lands

[Richard Menec]

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43631

Inter Press Service                 August 21, 2008

BRAZIL: Setting An Important Precedent For Indigenous Lands

By Marta Caravantes

BOA VISTA, Roraima, Brazil, Aug 21 (IPS) - An imminent decision by Brazil's 
Supreme Court on the demarcation of the Raposa Serra do Sol indigenous 
reservation in the Amazon jungle region has the country's native communities 
on edge, because of the precedent it will set.

Raposa Serra do Sol is in the Amazon jungle state of Roraima at the 
northwestern tip of Brazil, a land of water and abundance.

The 1.7 million hectare reserve was officially demarcated by the government 
of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2005, after judicial appeals and 
debates that dragged on for nearly two decades. The decision was based on 
the principles laid down in the 1988 constitution.

The Supreme Court is set to decide next week whether or not to uphold the 
demarcation of the reservation as a single, unbroken territory.

The reservation is home to more than 19,000 members of the Macuxí, 
Wapixana, Taurepang, Patamona and Ingarikó indigenous communities.

But since 1992, invasions of indigenous land by large- scale rice producers 
have become frequent, and in just 13 years, rice plantations in the area 
covered by the reservation grew sevenfold, to 14,000 hectares.

In March, the Lula administration sent in the federal police to evict a 
group of rice farmers who have refused to leave the land they are farming. 
The landowners responded with violence, and 10 indigenous people were 
injured.

"They began to shoot at us, they threw bombs and we started to leave. I was 
hurt on one of my legs, my back and my head," says a young Macuxi Indian.

Santinha Da Silva was also there that day, with her three children. "I'm not 
going to say I'm not afraid," she says. "I am scared, but I'm going to 
confront them. If they want to kill me, then they can do that, as long as 
they leave the land to my children."

Two weeks after the start of the police operation, the Supreme Court not 
only called it off, but also accepted a legal challenge which, in the case 
of a favourable decision, would allow the rice farmers to continue occupying 
portions of the indigenous territory, setting a dangerous precedent.

"Not only Raposa Serra do Sol would be at risk, but all indigenous 
reservations in the country," says Rosane Lacerda, a law professor at the 
University of Brasilia.

No rice farmer has paid the fines owed for environmental damages, and none 
are in jail for the attacks on the local indigenous residents.

"Several of them went to prison, but they were only in for a short time, 
since they have money and political influence, with which they are able to 
turn these cases into interminable legal disputes," says Paulo Santille, 
head of the identification and delimitation of indigenous lands department 
in the National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI), the federal agency in charge 
of indigenous affairs.

James Anaya, the recently appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur on the 
rights of indigenous people, is currently visiting Raposa Serra do Sol to 
assess the situation there.

Lacerda says it is not far-fetched to talk about "a declared war on 
indigenous people by groups that have economic interests on their lands."

For five centuries, the indigenous people of Raposa Serra do Sol have 
suffered invasion after invasion of their land, first by the Portuguese 
colonialists and later by ranchers, "garimpeiros" (gold panners) and large 
landholders.

All of these groups employed the local Indians as labourers. Ranchers 
sometimes even branded their indigenous workers, like cattle.

Orlando Pérez Da Silva, "tuxaua" (chief) of the village of Uiramutá, 
exemplifies that tragic history with his own life. "The non-Indians arrived 
and invaded our land. They started to hire us on their haciendas. But when 
an Indian would ask for his wages, he would get a beating and would be 
thrown out," he recalls.

Da Silva spent six years as a slave: "We were enslaved. To buy a hammock we 
had to work for an entire month."

One of the organisations helping to coordinate the struggles of indigenous 
people, the Commission of Indigenous Organisations of the Brazilian Amazon, 
is presided over by a member of the Sateré-Maué community, Gecinaldo 
Barbosa, who says the problem goes beyond Brazil's borders.

"Amazonia is in Brazil, but the problem is a global one, of concern to 
anyone who defends life," he argues.

The pressure of agribusiness and large-scale agriculture on indigenous lands 
has intensified as a result of the "biofuels revolution" and the need to 
produce feed for the world's livestock, says Barbosa.

Beto Ricardo, coordinator of the non-governmental Socioenvironmental 
Institute of Brazil (ISA), says the Lula administration is an economic 
development-oriented government immersed in a "certain climate of economic 
euphoria."

"The pressure on indigenous people is multifold," says Ricardo. "It doesn't 
only come from agribusiness, but also from public works like roads, 
hydroelectric plants or dikes."

For Nilva Barauna, superintendent of the Brazilian Institute of the 
Environment (IBAMA) in Roraima, Raposa Serra do Sol is "the last 
agricultural frontier, on which agribusiness has its sights."

"We will see a major modification of the landscape here, of water resources 
and the fauna and flora as a result of the rice plantations. The agrotoxics 
used by the landowners are polluting the rivers and hurting the aquatic 
fauna," says Barauna.

Gercimar Moraes Malheiro, a Macuxi Indian and the coordinator in Boa 
Vista -- the capital of Roraima -- of the Project for the Protection of 
Indigenous Populations and Land in Amazonia, also complained about the 
environmental damages: "All the poison, all the residues from the processing 
of rice, are dumped into the rivers."

Despite the violence of landowners against local indigenous people and 
IBAMA's reports on the environmental impact of rice farming, the immense 
majority of non-indigenous residents of Roraima want the rice farmers to 
stay, arguing that they bring jobs and money.

Many people interviewed in Boa Vista expressed fears that the price of rice 
would shoot up or that an economic crisis would be triggered if the rice 
farmers were expelled.

But the superintendent of IBAMA says the rice farms actually offer little to 
the local residents, because "most of the work is mechanised," the 
plantations don't create jobs and don't pay taxes, and the benefits are 
concentrated in just a few hands.

According to Ricardo, the head of ISA, "indigenous lands will not survive 
unless there is an ecological and economic realignment of the country and of 
Amazonia."

As a metaphor for what is happening, he says "Brazil is the only country 
named after an (almost) extinct tree" -- the Brazilwood (Caesalpinia 
echinata) tree, whose wood provided a highly prized red dye. The species is 
now on the verge of extinction.

There are 604 indigenous reservations in Brazil, which are home to 215 
distinct native groups totalling around 600,000 people.

In the indigenous world view, there are no borders, or bureaucracy or a 
concept of private, individual ownership of land. Indigenous people in 
Brazil are fighting to defend their own model of development at a time when 
nature "is rebelling against the world," as native leaders said.

The original inhabitants of Raposa Serra do Sol have developed a 
self-sufficient economy. They grow rice, beans, plantains and cassava, raise 
35,000 head of cattle, and combine "white man's medicine" with their 
traditional remedies, based on local plants with curative properties.

"As indigenous people, we are going to defend nature because that is our 
conception of life, that cosmogonic view of the world, for the future of 
humanity," says Barbosa.

Pueblos Hermanos, a non-governmental organisation from Spain, and the 
Madrid-based audiovisual company Compañía de Información y Proyectos 
Originales (CIPO) have launched an awareness-raising campaign on the 
vulnerability of indigenous people in Raposa Serra do Sol.

The initiative has included messages of support sent to the local indigenous 
communities and letters to the Brazilian Supreme Court urging the expulsion 
of the rice farmers, sent from the web site of Pueblos Hermanos, 
http://www.puebloshermanos.org.es. And in September, the two groups will 
present a documentary filmed in Raposa Serra do Sol.

*The author is head of content and communications at CIPO. (END/2008)

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