CIMI releases Report on Violence Against Indigenous Peoples in Brazil.

Data references calendar year 2009

 

There are 60 murder cases, 19 suicides, 16 cases of attempted murder, and the list goes on. These are just some of the critical data that will be presented by the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) through the Report on Violence Against Indigenous Peoples in Brazil – 2009. Much information is comparable to the 2008 report, which does not diminish the gravity of the matter, because the numeric repetition only confirms the quotidian violence experienced by indigenous peoples in all regions.

 
On July 9, Cimi presents one more alarming report on the violence suffered by indigenous peoples in the country. The launch of the publication will be at the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB), at 15:00 with the presence of the general secretary of the CNBB, Dom Dimas Lara, Ph.D. in anthropology from the PUC-SP, research coordinator Lucia Helena Rangel, CIMI president Don Erwin Kräutler, and vice president and legal counsel Roberto Antonio Liebgott.

Varied forms of  Violence
As stressed in his introductory text, Roberto Liebgott notes that the Report demonstrates "omission as the political option of the federal government in relation to indigenous peoples". This attitude is implicit in different forms of violence, such as non-demarcation of land, lack of protection of indigenous lands, neglect in the areas of health and education, intimacy with the execution of leaders, attacks on encampments and other aggressions by security agents, attacks on indigenous peoples in situations of isolation, torture by federal police and suicides among others.

The cases of violence against indigenous peoples are not ceasing. In the report, which covers data for the year 2009, once again calls attention to the concentration of rights violation cases in Mato Grosso do Sul, especially those related to the Kaiowá Guarani people. In this state, where the second largest indigenous population of the country lives, more than 53,000 people, the constitutional rights of these peoples are more than ignored.

In past year alone, 33 murders of indigenous persons occurred in MS, which represents 54% of the total of 60 cases presented in the report. Such occurrences are characterized by Iara Tatiana Bonin,  PhD.Ed., as institutional racism. "The systematic violence recorded in recent years permits the assertion that a type of institutional racism is configured in this state, materialized in actions of civil groups and omissions by public powers".

The Report further indicates the conflicted situation in which the indigenous people of southern Bahia live. In the region it is easy to verify a growing process of criminalization of leaders and intensified actions against indigenous peoples. In 2009, five indigenous members of the Tupinambá community of Serra do Padeiro were captured and assaulted during an action by Federal Police. During the action they received electric shocks in the dorsal and genital regions.

 
High indices of violence are still registered in refeerence to assaults on indigenous patrimony caused by large projects of the federal government. The works range from small hydropower programs for ecotourism, gas pipelines, mineral exploration/exploitation, railways and waterways. These projects impact indigenous territories and affect the lives of diverse peoples, including those who have little or no contact with surrounding society.

An example of such works is the Belo Monte hydroelectric, planned for the state of Pará on the Xingu river. The project advanced by the government as a source of development, will in fact bring disastrous and irreversible damage to the environment and communities in the region. Numerous specialists and social movements have pointed to the endless number of irregularities involving the work, such as failure to comply with Convention 169 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which guarantees the right of the people to be heard in the case of projects that affect them.

Methodology and purpose
The research methodology employed is the same utilized in previous years: taking as source, news reports carried in newspapers, magazines, radio, internet sites, in addition to systematic records kept by the regional staff teams of  CIMI. According to Professor Lúcia Rangel, "It is not possible to verify a diminution of  conflicts and situations of violence, even if some numbers are lower than those recorded in previous years". She also emphasizes that the report does not cover all cases and only reports cases of record that were possible to obtain during the calendar year.

In order to prevent  the reality of violence against these people becoming trivialized, CIMI makes explicit reporting of these aggressions to the public, to organizations in defense of human rights – at the national and international level – legislators, judges and authorities. And, as Liebgott states, the conviction of CIMI is that this entire reality must be confronted and those responsible denounced.

to download the complete report, click here