To Your Excellencies:

 

Deborah Macedo Duprat

Assistant Attorney General of the Republic;

Luis Inácio Lula da Silva

President of the Federated Republic of Brazil;

Edson Lobão

Minister of Mines and Energy;

Carlos Minc

Minister of the Environment;

Marcio Meira

President of FUNAI;

Roberto Messias Franco

President of IBAMA;

Tarso Genro

Minister of Justice;

Gilmar Mendes

President of the Federal Supreme Court

         We indigenous peoples here represented: Kayapó Peoples of the villages Kokraxmõr, Pykarãrãkre,  Kikretum, Las Casas, Kriny, Moxkàràkô; Kayapó of the Xingu, village of Kararaô; Xipaia, village of Tukamá, Tukaiá; Juruna, village of Paquiçamba, Km 17 Vitória do Xingu; Arara da Volta Grande, Terra indígena Wangã; Arara People, Cachoeira Seca; and peoples of other regions: Yanomam; Guarani, of São Paulo, village of Krukutú, would like to communicate the following:

Respected representatives of the Brazilian government and Attorney General of the Republic,

 

We indigenous peoples of Brazil concerned with the actions that Brazil has directed toward the indigenous populations and the disrespect of the government in reference to the referred to populations have to tell you that after the first contact with non-indigenous in this country the indigenous peoples were massacred and decimated in a brutal and ignorant way by its representatives. We have lost significant indigenous populations in this country. Whereas at no time did the society treat these peoples with due respect; that after 500 years of contact with this civilization, the indigenous peoples of Brazil have only lost territories, cultures, lives, the disappearance of entire populations throughout this contact. The peoples who remain struggle for their survival from within their territories with deplorable structures, at high risk, disrespected in their human rights, with lack of moral integrity toward the indigenous peoples who still exist in this Brazil.

 

Respected representatives of the government, we are denouncing the disrespect of the Federal Government toward the indigenous populations as deals specifically with a project being executed in the region of Altamira, Volta Grande do Xingu; a project designed for hydric utilization, as it would affect the indigenous populations of this region and of the entire Rio Xingu hydrographic basin.

 

Twenty years ago the indigenous peoples of this region spoke in a meeting and made clear that this project is unviable for implantation on the Rio Xingu. In 2008 the indigenous peoples, in another General Meeting, returned to talk and debate opposition to this project that would be implanted in this region and one more time the government disrespected Convention 169 of the ILO to which the Brazilian government is a signatory.

 

Once again, we are here, indigenous peoples in Brasilia, to talk about Belo Monte. Throughout these 20 years of struggle by the indigenous peoples against the project of this UHE (hydro plant) Belo Monte the government had sufficient time to present alternative proposals to the indigenous populations of this region and did nothing. The indigenous peoples are tired of this struggle wherein the government hears only those of interest to it, we are asking for an end to this macabre history for the indigenous peoples.

 

Respected representatives of the Brazilian government, we indigenous peoples represented in this communication are soliciting of your cognizance for preventing negative positions that can occur in this region if the government continues to disrespect us as Brazilian people, as indigenous peoples and as first inhabitants of this country.

 

Throughout these 500 years we have been at the mercy of the government, serving as a massive labor force, as soldiers in protection of nature. We indigenous peoples, as defenders of nature are tired of seeing non-indigenous destruction of our forests with the collusion of governmental authorities and judiciary of this country. Given this situation, we are taking the following measure:

 

We Indigenous peoples, will no longer sit with any government representative to talk about the UHE Belo Monte: because we have already spoken for too long and this cost us 20 years of our history. If the Brazilian government wishes to build Belo Monte in an arbitrary manner as is being proposed, which being of total responsibility of this government and of its representatives as also of the court what would occur with the executors of this work; with the workers; with the indigenous peoples. The Xingu river will become a river of blood. This is our message. That Brazil and the world have to know that what could happen in the future if the Brazilian governors do not respect our rights as indigenous peoples of Brazil.

 

Brasilia, Federal District

December 1 of 2009