Meeting in Parque Harmonia in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 11-14 April, 2007, we Guarani people present in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia, with more than 800 persons, wish to make public the historic accounts of our elders and to present our proposals for a better world. In spite of all the violence practiced throughout the past 500 years, we resist. Today we are more than 325 thousand people, one of the major peoples of America. By means of our continental meetings we hold the memory of the struggle of our ancestors and announce the hope for the future we construct with our own hands.

 

The lack of land is the principle problem afflicting our people. We cannot live without the land and the land cannot live without our people. We form a single body. The absence of land does not permit us to live according to our culture. Our youth are obligated to search for work in other locations not allowing time to learn from our elders.

 

Our people have always lived with much respect in relation to nature. The true forest is our principal location for construction of our villages and the living of our culture. Without the forest, the water, the rivers and all of the beings that inhabit it, it is not possible for us to live. For millions of years we have lived in this nature, respecting and living with her. Today we perceive, with profound sadness, that there remains little true forest, that the rivers are becoming polluted and the animals becoming extinct. In spite of this, what remains of the true forest is being transformed into reserves and environmental parks; these for us are sacred places, but the non-indigenous impede us from occupying them. This is due to non-Indian greed that needs to destroy everything in order to say that progress is being made. Still today the non-Indian is perceiving that their own land is warming up and could disappear. Our ancients always said that this could happen if nature was not respected. Because of this we affirm that the demarcation of our lands is a good for all humanity, because we will never destroy it.

 

Our territory, Yvy Rupá, was cut, various times, by borders between nations and states. There have been wars to rob our lands. For this, today, our people are divided between Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia. For us there are no borders. We continue to visit our families and attempt to walk freely as has been done in times past.  However, we perceive each time these countries develop policies that prevent us from living our mode. In some countries we are called strangers, foreigners and told that it is not possible to recognize the right to our lands because they do not pertain to us. Just the same, we continue struggling for our territory and for the end of all type of boundary that impedes our living in liberty.

 

We always develop our education with a base in the values and teachings passed on by our ancients, our place of education and the house of prayer. Today we have schools in nearly all villages, and many schools do not respect our skill in teaching the children, wanting us to learn identically to the non-indigenous. In spite of our having sought laws that guarantee differentiated education, we perceive that some nations and states are not competent to develop the differentiated education. The school needs to be made in our manner, with our professors and programs developed by our people so that they contribute to our communities and that are not of a mode destructive to our culture. We need from nations and states special secretaries with professional competence to attend to the Guarani schools. In the same way, we want health care undertaken respecting our traditional knowledge.

 

Finally, we affirm that we continue living and struggling for our land, that supports all of nature, of all life and all culture. We are created by nature and thus she is always in our favor, our nurse and our nourishment. We reaffirm our dedication of continuous struggle for land and for all nature and in unity with all who also struggle for a more just and humane world, that the cultures are respected so that together, in mutuality, we construct this great house we call the Land without Evil.

 

Nature is Life and Future

 

Porto Alegre, 14th of April