Bishop Erwin Kräutler, president of the Indigenist Missionary Council (Brazil), is one of four winners of the 2010 Right Livelihood Award, an alternative Nobel Prize. The prize honors the power of grassroots change. According to organizers, Bishop Krautler receives this award "for a life dedicated to working with human and environmental rights of indigenous peoples, and for his tireless effort to save the Amazon from destruction."

For Bishop Erwin Kräutler, the joy of receiving the prize is very great. "I’m not happy for my sake, but for the cause of the Amazon and indigenous peoples who deserve this recognition!" he declared.

The other prize recipients were the Israeli organization "Doctors for Human Rights-Israel," which operates in its own country and in Palestine, Nigerian activist Nnimmo Bassey, 52, who "revealed the human and ecological horrors of oil production", and Upadhyay Shrikrishna of Nepal, 65, together with the organization Sappros, "working against the multiple causes of poverty", according to the jury.

Prophetic

The press conference with the 2010 laureates will be held at the Press Center of the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Sweden in Stockholm on Dec. 6, at 09:30 (local time in Sweden). The Award Ceremony will be held in the Swedish Parliament on the same day, at 18:00h.

The President of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) had sent a letter to the Right Livelihood Award Foundation ratifying the nomination of the bishop of the Prelature of Xingu, in the Amazon state of Pará, for the Alternative Nobel Prize in Human Rights in February this year. According to the CNBB, the nomination is recognition of the "pastoral and prophetic" activity of Dom Erwin "together with the weak and the indigenous peoples".

Says CNBB president, Bishop Geraldo Lyrio Rocha: “This award is a great honor, precisely for being an Alternative Nobel! For Dom Geraldo, it is the recognition of the great struggle of bishop Krautler in defense of the life of indigenous peoples and human dignity itself of these people. "Dom Helder Câmara also received this award during the period we experienced of the dictatorial regime in Brazil, when he was denied the Nobel Peace Prize. And now, Dom Erwin receives the same prize! We have in our midst a fighter for social justice, for the environment and the lives of indigenous peoples!"

A life for life

Don Erwin Kräutler was born in Austria in 1939, became a priest in 1964 and soon after went to Brazil as a missionary. In 1978, he became a Brazilian citizen (while also keeping his Austrian citizenship). He worked among the peoples of the Xingu, including indigenous peoples of different ethnicities. In 1980, Dom Erwin was appointed bishop of the Xingu, the largest diocese in Brazil. Between 1983-1991 and since 2006 he has been president of the Indigenist Missionary Council (CIMI), an entity linked to the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB).

The work of Dom Erwin is guided by the teachings of the theology of liberation. He teaches that a Christian has to side with the weak and oppose their exploiters.

Indigenous peoples rights

For five centuries, the indigenous population of Brazil dropped sharply. Today the causes are well known and documented, including direct violence (but rarely investigated) in connection with the appropriation of indigenous land, a land grab for logging, energy, mining, industry, agribusiness and military projects.

During the presidency of Dom Erwin Kräutler, CIMI has become one of the most important advocates of indigenous rights in Brazil, focusing on land rights, self-organization and health care in indigenous territories. In 1988, intense lobbying by CIMI contributed to the inclusion of the rights of indigenous peoples in the Brazilian Constitution. The Council has also raised awareness within the Church on indigenous peoples and their rights.

 

Social initiatives

Since 1992, besides the work with CIMI, Kräutler has continued to work tirelessly in defense of the Xingu. The projects that he initiated include the construction of houses for the poor, functioning of the schools, construction of a facility for mothers, pregnant women and children, founding a "refuge" for recovery after hospital treatment, emergency assistance, legal support and work on farmers’ rights and demarcation of indigenous lands. He also has been fighting child prostitution in the region.

Fight against Belo Monte

For 30 years, Kräutler has been very active in the fight against the plans of the huge Belo Monte dam on the Xingu River, today strongly promoted by President Lula, which may be the third largest dam in the world. The dam could destroy 1000 km square of forest, inundating a third of the city of Altamira, Pará and creating a lake of stagnant water infested with mosquitoes in about 500 square kilometers, which would make life in the city itself very difficult. About 30,000 people would be forced to relocate.

Threats and 24/7 police protection

The commitment and frankness of Dom Erwin put his life at constant risk. In October 1987, several months before the decision to grant full civil rights for indigenous people in the constituent assembly, he was seriously injured in a car accident that was probably planned to kill him. Since 2006, Kräutler is under 24/7 police protection, partly because he insisted on an investigation following the murder of environmental activist Sister Dorothy Stang in 2005, who since 1982, had worked alongside of Dom Erwin. More recently, he received death threats because of his opposition to the Belo Monte dam and because he took legal action against a criminal group involved in sexual abuse of minors in Altamira.

Prizes and books

In 1989, Kräutler received the Grosser Preis für Binding-Natur und Umweltschutz (Principality of Liechtenstein) and in 2009 an honorary doctorate from the University of Salzburg, Austria. In the citation, Kräutler is called "personification of indignation against the social conditions that violate human dignity and the hope that another world is certainly possible".

Kräutler has written a series of books, most recently Flowers as red as blood: A bishop between Life and Death, published in Portuguese and German in 2009.