Newsletter No. 771
Newsletter No. 771
– Aggression in Roraima and Pará
– One judge upheld a Declaratory Government Order in Santa Catarina; another one was suspended
AGGRESSION IN Roraima AND Pará
A car driven by the Tuxaua Anselmo Dionísio Filho was chased by a pick-up that was carrying the rice grower Paulo César Quartiero (ex-mayor of Pacaraima), Márcio Junqueira (Federal Deputy for Roraima) and a television crew, last Sunday, 17 June. On the same day, Quartiero and the ex-deputy mayor, Anísio Pedrosa went into the Parawani community in a pick-up and two trucks, according to a report by the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR) coordinator. Armed, hooded men got out of the vehicles fired their guns, surrounded and threatened the indigenous people. They scattered in shock and up until 20 June, a 19-year old woman who fled during the confusion had still not reappeared.
Indigenous people were bundled into a truck and after being insulted, they were abandoned on the highway a few kilometers away from the settlement. The attackers broke up the community hut, poured diesel oil on the food and took the indigenous people’s tools.
The CIR has reported what happened to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Roraima, the Federal Police and the President of the Republic’s Special Human Rights Department. In the Council’s view, this type of attack takes place because there is still a feeling of impunity and lawlessness in Raposa, brought about by omission on the part of the State.
The deputy Márcio Junqueira, a member of the old PFL, now called DEM, has also sent a report of the aggression to the Federal Police. It stated that he and the rice grower Paulo César Quartiero were attacked and thrown out of the indigenous land, whilst producing a report for his TV program.
The Federal Police said that it has opened up an inquiry.
Pará
In Pará, the Chief Odair José Borari, the Tapajós and Arapiuns Indigenous Council (Cita) coordinator, was the victim of further aggression on 6 June. This is the second attack on this leader this year. The first took place in February. Borari was beaten up by four armed men and then tied up.
Odair has been received threats and had already reported this to the Federal Police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office. According to Cita, the conflicts in the region have been aggravated because Funai have not carried out the requests for demarcation of the land of the Borari community in Nova Olinda.
ONE JUDGE UPHELD A DECLARATORY GOVERNMENT ORDER IN SANTA CATARINA; ANOTHER ONE WAS SUSPENDED
The Government Order issued by the Ministry of Justice which lays down the limits of the Guarani do Araçá´i land was suspended by the Federal Judge Narciso Leandro Xavier Baez until the final judgment of the ordinary lawsuit brought by the Movement for the Defense of Property and Dignity (DPD) – which brings together ranchers from the region – and by the municipalities of Saudades and Cunha Porá. The sentence was passed on 11 June. In the suit, the group petitions for the annulment of the Government Order, published on 19 Abril. Without this Government Order, it is not possible for Funai to carry out the physical demarcation of the land and remove the non-indigenous occupants.
At the same judicial section in Chapecó, on 6 June, the Federal Judge André de Souza Fischer came down against the request to suspend the Government Order that lays down the limits of the Toldo Pinhal land. In this case, it was the municipalities Seara and Arvoredo who brought the suit together with ranchers affected by the demarcation of the indigenous land.
In his ruling, Fischer said that it was against the law for a first level judge to grant an injunction when it was a Minister of State that had issued the act being contested, because these acts can only be the object of a security mandate at the Superior Court of Justice.
In the Araça´í casa, the judge Baez, who granted the injunction, concluded that the authors “needed to have some degree of security concerning the maintenance of their properties or belongings until a final sentence was passed, in order to guarantee the agricultural production and cattle raising that guarantees their livelihood, and they could not be left in a position where they are suddenly forced to vacate their lands, leaving crops behind that are already being grown”.
On the other hand, the judge that denied the injection referring to Toldo Pinhal considered that “there is nothing in the government order about the immediate expulsion of the farmers from the land that they are occupying (…). To the contrary, based on the experience of other processes that are being dealt with by this Federal Jurisdiction concerning similar demarcations, FUNAI only takes possession after the occupants have voluntarily agreed to the compensation payment for their improvements, and that apparently these have yet to be evaluated.”
Appeals against these decisions may be addressed to the Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region, in Porto Alegre.
Bishop threatened
Dom Manoel João Francisco, the Bishop of Chapecó, Santa Catarina, has recently been receiving death threats for having taken up a position in favor of the demarcation of the Guarani, Kaingang and Xokleng lands.
This was reported by the Archbishop of Florianópolis (SC) and Chairman of the South IV Regional Office of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB), Dom Murilo Krieger, during the CNBB meeting.
The letter of support, sent to the bishop, sets out the reasons for the death threats that he has been suffering, and proposes solutions: “Together with our brother of the cloth, we challenge the authorities responsible (…) to assume their responsibilities for the mistakes of the past, pay compensation for the lands incorrectly transferred to these families, grant fair recompense for improvements made to the real estate, and carry out the respective resettlement procedures”.
Brasília, 21 June 2007
Cimi – Indianist Missionary Council
