INDIGENOUS PEOPLES ISSUE MANIFESTO DURING CONFERENCE ON LAND AND WATER

 

“Unfortunately, over the last two years the administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has given priority to its relations with oligarchic sectors in the states, conservative politicians, and the rural, urban, and financial elite. These segments impose insurmountable obstacles on government actions to demarcate indigenous lands, implement the land reform, protect the environment, implement household agriculture schemes, and promote justice and peace in rural areas.” This morning, the 25th, the 180 indigenous people attending the National Conference on Land and Water: Land Reform, Democracy and Sustainable Development issued a manifesto criticizing the current indigenous policy.

 

The Conference began on Monday the 22nd in Brasília and ends today, the 25th, with a march to the building of the Central Bank to protest against the economic policy adopted by the Lula administration.

 

The indigenous people are gathered with 9,000 rural workers affected by dams and militants of movements of Brazilian rural workers. The objective of the Conference, which was organized by the National Forum for Land Reform and Justice in Rural Areas, was to discuss the development model adopted in the country and prospects for the land reform and water use, and to bring different social movements together to plan join actions to be carried out in 2005. “This is the first assembly of rural workers and rural organizations, which came together to take a look at the reality and propose future actions for rural areas and Brazil at large,” said Dom Tomás Balduíno, president of the Land Pastoral Commission, in the opening speech of the event.

 

The Conference was marked by discussions on recent events, such as the murder of 5 landless rural workers in a camp of the Landless Movement in the state of Minas Gerais and acts of violence in the state of Roraima, where an indigenous person was wounded and four communities destroyed. In the two terrorist acts, farmers burned down houses and left about 200 families homeless.

 

But the event was also marked by the absence of representatives of the federal administration. José Dirceu, Minister of the Civil House, Luiz Dulce, from the General Secretariat of the Office of the President of the Republic, and president Lula himself had confirmed their presence but cancelled it during the meeting, frustrating the participants.  The Minister of Mines and Energy, Dilma Rousseff, attended the conference and was booed when she tried to defend the electricity project of the government, which is based on hydroelectric generation.

 

In a “Letter of Commitment” issued today, the participants took on the commitment to return to their cities and discuss the current economic policy and agricultural models with Brazilian society at large, to fight against monocultural production schemes, and to defend their seeds, water, rivers, and biodiversity. The struggle against the FTAA and the WTO in defense of a national development project which gives priority to the distribution of the land and of the income was another topic mentioned in the letter.

 

Yesterday, the 24th, the activities of the conference began with a mystic ritual organized by indigenous people. At the center of the gymnasium, divided in small groups, each of the peoples attending the conference showed a little bit of their traditional dances to illustrate the diversity prevailing amongst different indigenous peoples. The groups then formed a large circle symbolizing the alliance amongst indigenous peoples and between them and other social movements.

 

The indigenous manifesto

The representatives of 35 indigenous peoples who took part in the four-day discussions declare that the indigenous policy adopted by the current federal administration has been marked “by the lack of appropriate responses to acts of violence against our peoples, by the denial of our constitutional rights, and by the lack of interest to establish a dialogue for defining a new indigenous policy. Instead, the federal administration has been promoting and encouraging the establishment of committees to discuss and reflect on policies for indigenous peoples composed of persons and authorities who do not support our constitutional rights.”

 

In the opinion of indigenous people, the federal administration has contributed to enhance conflicts in indigenous lands by allowing farmers, miners, land grabbers, woodcutters, and rice farmers to organize themselves and promote “systematic invasions in our lands, plunder our riches, destroy our forests, pollute and poison our rivers and lakes, devastate our biodiversity, destroy our culture, and kill our people.”

 

Over the last two years, 40 indigenous people were murdered, most of whom because of the struggle for land areas. The document mentions the cases of the Cinta-Larga in the state of Rondônia and of the Marãiwatsedé land in the state of Mato Grosso, where the Xavante people live and child mortality rates began to rise again this year.

 

“In the southern states of Brazil, the Guarani have been pressing strongly for the demarcation of their lands, to which they cannot return because they were reserved by the government for settling landless rural workers and for large landownership to grow crops or raise cattle or because they overlap with environmental conservation units. Today, dozens of indigenous communities are living in camps set up between the fences of large farms and roads, without any right to access their mother land. In the Northeast, there are over sixty peoples claiming land rights, and of the 490,000 hectares they have the right to occupy, only 88,000 are being officially demarcated. In this region, we are also victims of ill-conceived projects, such as the transposition of the São Francisco river. In the Mid-West region, our lands have been invaded for waterways to be built and forests are being devastated for soybeans to be grown in large areas to meet agribusiness demands. In the state of Mato Grosso, thousands of hectares are being deforested for soybeans to be grown, many of them in indigenous lands. In the state of Tocantins, Krahô-Kanela were brutally expelled from their lands and forced to live in settlements of the Land Reform Institute for decades. Today, they are struggling for their right to return to the lands that were taken from them and given to large landowners,” they say.

 

The document also criticizes the official electricity policy, which is “based on the privatization of corporations and of the water and on the construction of dams and power plants which destroy the environment, flood ancestral lands, and displace indigenous peoples, communities of descendants of runaway slaves, and small farmers.” According to data provided by the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), the construction of power plants has displaced millions of people and flooded 34,000 km2 of forest areas.

 

Funai counts 229 indigenous lands less than Cimi

According to Cimi data, there are 842 indigenous lands in Brazil. This list includes 229 more lands than those included in the list of the National Indigenous Foundation, the official indigenous agency. The list is based on data provided by 114 Cimi teams which work directly with indigenous peoples and on official data. The figures were reported by Cimi’s vice president, Saulo Done, who took part in a debate on the “Reality and Prospects for Brazilian rural areas”.

 

Only 37% of these 842 lands had their demarcation procedure fully carried out, that is, were demarcated, officially confirmed, and registered with the Heritage Service of the Federal Administration or with notary’s offices covering their area.

 

The government has not indicated in any way that the lands which are not included in the list of Funai will be demarcated. “This reality perpetuates the invasion of lands and enhances land-related conflicts, intensifying the violence against indigenous peoples,” Done said.

 

FOUR COMMUNITIES BURNED IN THE RAPOSA/SERRA DO SOL AREA. ONE INDIGENOUS PERSION WAS SHOT

 

Farmers destroyed the Jawari, Homologação, Brilho do Sol, and São José villages in the Raposa/Serra do Sol indigenous land on November 23. The macuxi Jocivaldo Constantino was shot in the head and in the arm.

 

The communities were invaded by about 40 people, including rice growers, farmers, and indigenous people lured by them, who set fire to houses, destroyed plantations, and blocked roads to the region. 

 

According to the coordinator of the Indigenous Council of Roraima, Jacir José de Souza Macuxi, one indigenous person, Nelson da Silva, is missing. His documents were found near the Jawari village and there was blood where they were found.

 

During the invasion, 35 people, including adults and children, were in the village. They could not remove personal items, food, or clothes from their homes before they were destroyed. “They burned down everything,” explained Júnio Constantino, brother of the indigenous person who was shot.

 

Among the men who attacked the indigenous people, rice grower Paulo César Quartieiro, a larger landowner of the region and mayor of the Pacaraima municipality, Ivo Barelli, and Ivalcir Centenário were recognized, as well as a squatter known as Curica.” The group used tractors to destroy 10 houses made of bricks and then set fire to 13 houses with straw roofs.

 

A delegation made up of 14 leaders of the Raposa Serra do Sol area which is in Brasília attending the Conference on Land and Water contacted the Human Rights and Minorities Committee of the Chamber of Representatives (CDH) to request its support in the investigation of these acts of violence. The CDH accepted the request and will schedule a visit to the destroyed villages. 

 

In behalf of the delegation, CIR’s lawyer, Joênia Wapichana, also asked the Special Advisor to the President, César Alvarez, to set up a permanent federal task force to avoid new conflicts. Alvarez reported that he had requested the Brazilian Army to help preserve the order in the region until a Federal Police team is sent to the area to check the reports of violence.

 

Contacted by the Macuxi leader Júlio José de Souza, the president of Funai, Mércio Pereira Gomes, said that he will “do everything within my power to avoid more conflicts and ensure a rigorous investigation by the Federal Police.”

According to CIR, “this and other acts of violence carried out by large landowners are the consequence of the unduly long time it is taking for the President of the Republic to ratify the bounds of the Raposa/Serra do Sol indigenous land as a result of pressures from anti-indigenous groups of Roraima. Since June of this year, the Brazilian authorities have been warned about imminent conflicts in the indigenous land, but they took no steps to avoid them.”

 

Brasília, 25 November 2004