Newsletter n. 625
AFTER THREE OF ITS CHILDREN DIED FROM PNEUMONIA, XAVANTE PEOPLE SUFFER WITH 14 OTHER CHILDREN IN HOSPITAL
This morning (the 5th), the number of Xavante children being treated in hospitals for respiratory problems rose to 14. Three other children under three years old died of pneumonia last week.
For more than 9 months, 480 Xavante have been camped next to the BR-158 highway to press for a positive response from the courts for them to be allowed to return to their land of origin, the Marãiwatsede land in the state of Mato Grosso.
The Xavante were deported from the Marãiwatsede land in the 1960s by the Brazilian State in airplanes of the Brazilian Air Force. Althought the land had its bounds officially confirmed in 1998, the Xavante people cannot return to their land of origin because invaders, relying on a preliminary order granted in November 2003 by the judge of the 5th Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region, Francisco de Deus, will not allow them to. Right now, the decision as to whether the community will return to their land or not lies in the hands of judge José Pires, who promised to issue a judgment on the matter in March.
The indigenous land was invaded by farmers and is now guarded by hired gunmen who constantly threat to kill indigenous leaders and supporters of their cause. After the children died, the climate in the area became even more tense.
According to information provided by managers of a regional Funai office, one of the children who died was buried in the Xavante land by fifteen indigenous warriors. During the burial ceremony, an elder said: “This boy died, and he is a warrior who will enter the Maraiwãtsede indigenous land before us to lead us to it.”
COIAB AND APOINME STRONGLY CRITICIZE THE INDIGENOUS POLICY ADOPTED BY THE LULA ADMINISTRATION
Sluggish, aligned with contrary interests, and marked by inaction. These were some of the expressions used by the Coordinating Board of the Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB) and by the Association of Indigenous Peoples and Organizations of the Northeast, Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo (APOINME) to describe the Brazilian official indigenous policy in a “Manifesto Against the Indigenous Policy of the Lula Administration.”
Issued last Tuesday (the 3rd), the manifesto denounces the increasing violation of indigenous rights in Brazil. In the document, various cases of violations of rights registered during the first 18 months of the Lula administration are listed. Among them, mention is made of unfulfilled campaign promises, such as the official confirmation of the bounds of the Raposa/Serra do Sol indigenous land as a continuous strip, and unconstitutional decisions taken by the present federal administration, such as the one to reduce the size of the Baú land of the Kayapó people in the state of Pará.
The organizations also criticized the plans of the federal administration to militarize the indigenous policy. “Contradicting the expectations of indigenous peoples and organizations, the Government militarized the federal indigenous policy by transferring the responsibility for formulating it to the Institutional Safety Office,” the manifesto says.
In the text, the organizations say that the dialogue between the indigenous movement and the federal administration came to a standstill. “In practice, the Lula administration stopped dialoguing with indigenous peoples and organizations, so much so that the president of the federal agency in charge of indigenous affairs, the National Indigenous Foundation (Funai), Mércio Pereira Gomes, said that he does not recognize indigenous organizations as interlocutors. In this context, the so-called “Dialogue Table” set up during an audience granted by the President of the Republic on May 10 does not exist anymore. Actually, the sluggishness and neglect of the Government in relation to indigenous rights have favored the growth and strengthened the actions of sectors and parliamentarians who oppose indigenous rights inside and outside the National Congress, who are interested in eliminating rights enshrined in the Federal Constitution of 1988.
Finally, Coiab and Apoinme called on other indigenous organizations and supporters of the indigenous cause and human rights to demand from the government “a conduct in tune with the commitments it professed for over two decades in relation to indigenous peoples and organizations in Brazil.”
The full document is available at the Cimi website (www.cimi.org.br).
Brasília, 05 August 2004.
