– Ministry of Justice disregards laws and returns Morro dos Cavalos land to Funai

– Indigenous Peoples from the states of Acre, Amazonas and Rondônia request that demarcation procedures be resumed

– Fifteen indigenous people are arrested in the state of Espírito Santo

 

MINISTRY OF JUSTICE DISREGARDS LAWS AND RETURNS MORRO DOS CAVALOS LAND TO FUNAI

 

The Itaty indigenous land, which is more known as the Morro dos Cavalos land, located in the municipality of Palhoça, state of Santa Catarina, suffered another hard blow. After two years of official reports in favor of its demarcation, but without any administrative ruling defining its bounds issued by the ministry of Justice (MJ), the substitute legal advisor to the ministry, Cristiane Schineider Calderon, returned the documents related to the procedure to Funai and determined that a new anthropological report should be prepared.

 

In making this decision, the legal advisory department of the ministry ended up meeting the interests of certain groups of Santa Catarina – among which groups linked to the government of the state – which are against the demarcation of indigenous lands.

 

Funai, which had approved a report identifying and delimiting the land in 2002, sent an expert to the area to prepare the new report in July 2006.

 

The attitude of the legal advisory department of the Ministry of Justice and Funai clearly defies the rights of indigenous peoples. The decision defies the Brazilian law. According to decree 1775/96, which regulates administrative procedures for demarcating indigenous lands, these procedures can only be contested from the moment the land identification activities begin up to 90 days after the official recognition of an indigenous land by Funai, when a summary of the respective report is published in the Federal Official Gazette and Official Gazette of the state in question. In the case of the Morro dos Cavalos land, the deadline for such action was April 2003.

 

In Cimi’s opinion, the decision to return the demarcation documents to Funai for it to review the studies after the legal deadline reveals full disregard for legal rules and for the rights of indigenous peoples.

 

Campaign

With the aim of showing to the National Foundation for Indigenous People that these acts cannot be tolerated, Cimi launched a campaign for e-mails against them to be sent to the minister of Justice, Márcio Thomaz Bastos, to the Legal Consultanrt of the ministry, Dr. Lúcia de Toledo Piza Peluso, and to the president of Funai, Mércio Pereira Gomes. The campaign asks Funai to respect the law and to return the document to the ministry of Justice, because in this phase of the demarcation of the land there is no justification to review all the study which identifies it as an indigenous land. (See here a model of the campaign letter)

 

 

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES FROM THE STATES OF ACRE, AMAZONAS AND RONDÔNIA REQUEST THAT DEMARCATION PROCEDURES BE RESUMED

 

On September 5, 2005, leaders of the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Acre, South Region of Amazonas and Northwest Region of Rondônia (OPIN) issued a manifesto against the stalling of procedures for demarcating indigenous lands in the state of Acre and in south region of the state of Amazonas. Almost one year later, the indigenous people published a new text in which they say that “nothing has been done by our rulers to change this situation.”

 

In the manifesto issued on Thursday, the 17th, they claim that procedures for officially establishing the bounds of 13 indigenous lands in the state of Acre and in the south region of the state of Amazonas should be resumed. They ask the authorities to begin to review the bounds of six lands and to begin to identify six other lands.

 

The leaders of OPIN stressed the conflicts being faced by the Apolima Arara people who live on the banks of the Amônia river: environmental agencies authorized the removal of timber from the area, which is in the process of being identified. As a result of pressures applied by the indigenous people, the federal and the state environmental agencies (Ibama and Imac) suspended, in May 2006, licenses for exploiting and transporting forest products which had been issued to woodcutters until the situation of the land is defined. However, according to Manoel Kaxinawá, coordinator of OPIN, about a month ago the same agencies disregarded their own decision and allowed the exploitation to continue, and now they are arguing that they must wait until Funai makes a final decision on the land for them to change their position.

 

An anthropologist had begun to carry studies on the Apolima Arara land in the first half of 2005, but after his death the indigenous people received no further information about how Funai was handling the procedure. “We reject and we do not accept any interference from political groups, economic interests, IBAMA, IMAC and INCRA to hinder these processes, because we once again reaffirm that a constitutional right must be respected and fulfilled,” the leaders say. See here the full document.

 

FIFTEEN INDIGENOUS PEOPLE ARE ARRESTED IN THE STATE OF ESPÍRITO SANTO

 

Fifteen Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous people and seven non-indigenous people were arrested on August 9 in the city of Aracruz, state of Espírito Santo. According to the information available so far, they were arrested because the indigenous people were removing eucalyptus from an area under dispute with the Aracruz Celulose corporation. However, the individuals who were arrested and some military police officers said to the representative of the National Human Rights Movement that they were not in the area under dispute and that they had been attracted to it by military police officers.

 

Because of a dispute for the possession of a 11,000-hectare area between the Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous peoples and the Aracruz Celulose transnational company, an agreement was reached that none of the parties would be allowed to exploit the area until the regular administrative procedure for demarcating it is completed.

 

Reports

Lawyer Isaias Santana of the Human Rights Council of the State of Espírito Santo visited the location where the group is in prison and was informed – by indigenous people and police officers involved in the arrest – that the group was set up to be arrested in flagrante delicto. “The indigenous people said that on the day they were arrested they were in an area they could be in and police officers induced them the go to the area under dispute telling them that a military police captain was waiting for them there for a meeting. When they arrived there, there were staff of Visel carrying cameras to take pictures of them committing the supposedly illegal act. Visel employees actually helped to arrest them. They reported that private security guards were carrying weapons,” said Santana in an interview to Cimi. Visel – Vigilância e Segurança Ltda. – is a private security company hired by Aracruz.

 

The lawyer also mentioned irregularities in the arrest: the individuals who were arrested were taken to a fort of the Military Police in Aracruz and not to the local police station (judiciary police), where they should have been taken. The indigenous people also reported that when arrived to the fort, a team of reporters and cameramen of the Norte TV station was waiting for them there, raising suspicions on the true purpose of the police action.

 

Brasília, August 17, 2006