INDIGENOUS PEOPLES REACT AGAINST THE PARALYSIS OF PUBLIC POLICIES OCCUPYING BUILDING AND MOBILIZING THEMSELVES THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY. FUNAI INSISTS THAT THE LAND ISSUE IN BRAZIL IS ALMOST SETTLED

 

In the state of Pará, members of the Tembé Tenetehara indigenous people occupied the building of the National Foundation for Indigenous People (Funai) in Belém. They want to be provided with the necessary framework and resources to stop the illegal cutting of timber by woodcutters who rely on the connivance of local politicians. They have been occupying the building since June 14, and despite the meetings they held with authorities, they still have no assurance that their claims for a better environmental inspection will be satisfied.

 

In the state of Bahia, after an employee of the National Health Foundation (Funasa) refused to treat an indigenous person from the Atikum people, a group of them occupied the building where the man office of the agency is located in the city of Juazeiro. A group of Truká and Tumbalalá joined them in this occupation action. They want to have a decent treatment, medical teams available, health care agents to be hired, basic sanitation facilities, and an appropriate health care infrastructure set up in Juazeiro.  Funasa says it intends to give priority to the region, but so far it has taken no measures in relation to these claims based on the argument that its staff is on strike.

 

In the state of Amazonas, the Federation of Indigenous Organizations of the Negro River Region (Foirn), which is responsible for providing health care to indigenous people under an agreement with Funasa, says that all health care actions have been seriously affected by a delay in the transfer of funds for this purpose.

 

Also in the state of Amazonas, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office set a deadline of 30 days for the state, the Federal Administration and Funai to submit a diagnosis of the indigenous education situation or else they will have to pay a penalty of R$ 5,000 a day after the deadline expires. This sanction will be applied because of their failure to comply with an agreement signed in March 2003, under which they took on the commitment to create and straighten out the legal situation of indigenous schools and train their respective teachers. Adding to this situation, according to information provided by the Brasil news agency, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office accused the Attorney General’s Office in the State of having shown “ethnic prejudice,” since it challenged the decision of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office and questioned whether individuals “perfectly inserted in the political-social context of the ‘civilized’ community” would have the right to a differentiated education.

 

In the state of Rondônia, Cimi reports that isolated peoples are having their right to survival denied by Funai, which does not recognize their existence and, as a result, has not been taking any measures to legally protect their lands or to launch their demarcation processes. “Ensuring land for uncontacted indigenous people to live in is the only means to guarantee their survival,” says Friar Volmir Bavaresco, a Cimi missionary.

 

Amongst demonstrations and denunciations throughout Brazil, government representatives who attended a public hearing held at the House of Representatives mention, among others topics, the existence of a fair amount of budget resources earmarked for indigenous people. The audience was held yesterday (the 22nd) in Brasília. 

 

The representative of the Ministry of Education, Ricardo Henrique, stressed that these resources increased from R$ 1.2 million in 2002 to R$ 10.7 million in 2005. The budget for health care in 2004 was R$ 186.5 million and it increased to R$ 200 million in 2005.

 

However, the resources allocated to straighten out the legal situation of indigenous land areas actually decreased: R$ 43 million in 2004 against 36.73 million in 2005, according to a survey carried out by Inesc, the Institute for Socio-economic Studies.

 

Despite the availability of these funds, the activities carried out by the State have not improved the daily reality of indigenous peoples in Brazil in practice. In Cimi’s opinion, this situation is caused by the lack of a coordinated indigenous policy which is consistent with the needs of indigenous peoples and is defined with their participation.

 

Funai has been saying that the National Conference of Indigenous Peoples, scheduled to be held in 2006, will be an appropriate forum for debating this policy and defining a new version of the Statute of Indigenous Peoples. During the audience held at the House of Representatives, the president of the agency in charge of indigenous people, Mércio Pereira Gomes, mentioned the Conference once again. However, the process of building the meeting has been challenged by the indigenous movement, particularly because of its agenda, which is based on topics proposed by the government without consulting the movement and does not emphasize the indigenous policy as a whole.

 

No advances in the demarcation of indigenous lands

 

No progress has been observed in administrative procedures for officially recognizing indigenous lands throughout the country. In 2005, not a single working group was set up to carry out the necessary anthropological and land studies which are required for that purpose. Funai has been declaring for everybody to hear that actions to review the bounds of indigenous lands will not be carried out because they are not included in the agency’s list of priorities. The only administrative ruling declaring the bounds of an indigenous land issued by the ministry of Justice this year was the one related to the Raposa/Serra do Sol area. No other indigenous land had its bounds officially confirmed in the first six months of 2005.

 

Consistently with these attitudes, Mércio Pereira Gomes said at the House of Representatives that the demarcation of indigenous lands has been practically completed. According to him, the government is about to achieve the goal of setting apart 12.5% of the national territory for indigenous reservations. He said that all lands located in the states of Acre, Rondônia, Maranhão and Tocantins have been demarcated already.

 

The “goal” set by the president is highly questionable. As to the states in which all lands have been demarcated according to Mércio Pereira Gomes, there are least eight uncontacted indigenous peoples in the state of Rondônia whose lands have not been demarcated and in relation to whom Funai has not taken any concrete measures.

 

In the state of Maranhão, the fact that Funai has interrupted a procedure to review the bounds of indigenous lands paved the way for the violence which the Guajajara have been experiencing there on a daily basis. Over the past few weeks, the Guajajara have been attacked by local farmers, who killed a member of their community and raped a 16-year-old girl.

 

In the state of Tocantins, the Krahô-Kanela were brutally expelled from their lands and forced to live in Incra settlements for decades. They have been forced to live within the limits of the House of Indigenous People in Gurupi for Funai to continue with the process of recognizing their lands. The anthropological study was concluded, but it was not published by Funai. The land of the Apinajé people in Tocantinópolis was demarcated, but the most productive areas of the land were not kept within its bunds and are still being claimed by the indigenous people. The state is also marked by the intense presence of large projects in lands which have been demarcated already. In the state of Acre, contradicting what Gomes says, seven lands are still in the process of being demarcated.

 

The attitude of the official indigenous agency in relation to the rights of indigenous peoples reinforces the importance of creating the National Indigenous Policy Council for coordinating and supervising, inside the federal government, the definition and implementation of specific and differentiated public policies. The Council was the main claim made by the National Free Land Indigenous Movement in its camp in April 2005. On that occasion, Mércio Pereira Gomes and the minister of Justice, Márcio Thomaz Bastos, pledged to submit the proposal to president Lula in May 2005. So far, no measures have been taken in that regard.

 

Brasília, 23 June 2005.

 

Cimi – Indianist Missionary Council