Newsletter n. 626
MISSION VISITS MARÃIWATSEDÉ INDIGENOUS LAND
After a decision made by the Supreme Court last Tuesday (the 10th) allowing the Xavante people from the Marãiwatsedé land in the state of Mato Grosso to return to their original territory, the indigenous community will be visited, on the 17th, by the national rapporteur for Human Rights to the Environment, Jean-Pierre Leroy, who was appointed to this post by the Brazilian Platform for Economic, Social and Cultural Human Rights (DhESC Brazil Platform).
Leroy’s visit is supported by the volunteer program of the United Nations Organization (UNO). Through observations, interviews and meetings, the rapporteur will gather reports and investigate cases of human rights violations in that region.
Leroy will find the Xavante in a difficult situation, since over the last two weeks, after waiting for nine months for the judicial decision which ensured them the right to return to their land, three of their children died of pneumonia and malnutrition and 14 other children were hospitalized with health problems.
The rapporteur will be accompanied by representatives of social organizations and movements of the region in his visit to the Marãiwatsedé land. In addition to the Xavante community, they will visit, on the 15th, the Mata Cavalo community of descendants of runaway slaves located in the Nossa Senhora do Livramento municipality, where land conflicts and death threats have been reported, and on the 22nd they will visit groups affected by the construction of dams in the municipality of Chapada dos Guimarães.
The visit will end on the 24th in Cuiabá with a public hearing where victims of violence and representatives of social movements and nongovernmental organizations will be heard, as well as parliamentarians, representatives of the Public Prosecution Service, and public authorities.
After gathering as much information as possible during the mission, the rapporteur will draw up a report for the purpose of pressuring the authorities to take measures to correct the situations reported in it and of providing inputs for reports on human rights to be prepared by the Human Rights committees of the UN and the Organization of American States (OAS).
PATAXÓ LEADER IS ABDUCTED AND TORTURED
A group of armed men abducted and tortured the Pataxó indigenous leader Adenilson Pereira da Conceição, who is the spokesperson of the Pataxó Resistance and Struggle Front and lives in the Alegria Nova village, located in the south tip of the state of the Bahia.
The crime took place in the afternoon of the 6th of this month, when Adenilson was taking his children to school. In his statements to the Federal Police, the victim said that a police officer known as sergeant Valcinho approached him in a road holding a gun and accompanied by a group of over ten men. Without any explanation, Adenilson was handcuffed, beaten and threatened for three hours. After that, Adenilson said that he was put in a vehicle of the Military Police and taken to a police station in the Prado municipality, where he was held incommunicado in a prison cell for 24 hours.
The Pataxó are outraged with the crime and fear new acts of aggression, since the same armed men are still in the road blocking the passage of members of the indigenous community.
This is not the first time that gunmen and military police officers are accused of beating members of the Pataxó people. In 2001, thirty-five families from the Pequi village were violently expelled from the “Santa Rita” farm, on which occasion elderly people, youths and children were beaten, raped and tortured. The action, which was denounced by the Pataxó, is known as the “massacre of the Pequi village”.
The community pressed charges with the Federal Police office in Porto Seguro and sent a report to the competent authorities describing the fact.
CORPSE OF A MEMBER OF THE TERENA INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY IS FOUND
Last Tuesday (the 10th), the corpse of Jorge Antonio, a member of a Terena community from the Capão Babaçu village, located in the Cachoeirinha indigenous land, was found in the Santa Vitória farm in the Miranda municipality, state of Mato Grosso do Sul, in an advanced state of decay. Even before the conclusion of the corpus delicti examination, evidence was detected that Jorge was killed.
The farm in question, which belongs to a man called João Proença, is located in the Terena land and borders on the Capão Babaçu village. The Terena had been accusing Proença of threatening them through the staff of his farm. The Public Prosecution Service and the Federal Police have been informed about the case already.
Brasília, 12 August 2004
