In this Newsletter:

– RAPOSA/SERRA DO SOL LAND: TERRORIST ACT DESTROYS A SCHOOL, A CHURCH AND A HOSPITAL IN THE SURUMU VILLAGE

– PREVENTIVE CUSTODY OF NEGUINHO TRUKÁ IS REVOKED

– CHAMBER OF REPRESENTATIVES DISCUSSES SITUATION OF THE MAXAKALI PEOPLE

 

RAPOSA/SERRA DO SOL LAND: TERRORIST ACT DESTROYS A SCHOOL, A CHURCH AND A HOSPITAL IN THE SURUMU VILLAGE

 

In the wee hours of Saturday, the 17th, hooded men carrying firearms and clubs set fire to the Raposa/Serra do Sol Training and Cultural Center, formerly called the Surumu Mission, located at about 230 kilometers from Boa Vista, in the state of Roraima. Two people were wounded and a church, a hospital, a library, a hall and rooms used by teachers were destroyed, as well as the home of missionaries who were living there. The terrorist act was carried out four days before the beginning of festivities organized by indigenous people to celebrate the official confirmation of the bounds of the Raposa/Serra do Sol land in April of this year.

 

During the invasion, a teacher of a car repair course provided in the school and about 30 students were in the training center. The teacher was one of the people who were wounded during the incident. The Federal Police (PF) opened investigations to find out who perpetrated the terrorist act.

 

The Federal Police was aware that farmers and indigenous people who are against the official confirmation of the bounds of the land could react violently against the decision. They announced yesterday that they organized an operation to protect the indigenous people during their celebrations and that they will get reinforcements from the states of Amazonas, Pará and Brasília.

 

The directors of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) mailed a support letter to Dom Roque Paloschi, bishop of Roraima, on the 19th. “CNBB vehemently condemns this act of vandalism against the official confirmation of the bounds of the Raposa/Serra do Sol indigenous land, a cause that is openly supported by the Catholic Church through this Diocese and CNBB. At the same time (…), we call on the competent authorities to take all the necessary measures to find out who is responsible for these horrible acts, so that in the future we won’t have to experience similar acts in the Region.” The letter was signed by bishops Cardeal Geraldo Majella Agnelo, Dom Antônio Celso de Queirós and Dom Odilo Pedro Scherer.

 

The Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR) also condemned in a note “this additional cowardly act from sectors which oppose indigenous rights, which are manipulated by political and economic groups that traditionally resort to violence to achieve their objectives knowing that impunity will prevail.”

 

Late in 2003, after the government announced that it would officially confirm the bounds of the land in question, many protests were organized by different anti-indigenous groups led by rice farmers. In January 2004, missionaries were kidnapped. Late in that year, three communities were destroyed and set on fire and, right after the decree confirming the bounds of the land was signed, Federal Police agents were held hostage for many days in the Contão village by rice farmers, squatters and indigenous people who oppose CIR.  According to CIR, those responsible for destroying the Training Center on Saturday are the same people who carried out these other actions before.

 

Celebration of the official confirmation of the bounds of the land

Despite the violence they were once again exposed to, the indigenous people will hold festivities to celebrate the official confirmation of the bounds of the Raposa/Serra do Sol indigenous land.

 

Art contests, sporting activities, prayers and rituals, launching of books and CDs, “forró” dancing and musical performances are scheduled to take place on September 21-25 in the Maturuca community. About six thousand people will attend the festivities, as estimated by Marinaldo Justino Trajano, CIR’s coordinator.

 

Celebrations will also be held in other communities located in the Raposa area on September 25 and October 1.

 

The decree officially confirming the bounds of the Raposa/Serra do Sol land was signed by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on April 15. The ministerial ruling excluded from the land the headquarters of the municipality of Uiramutã, public facilities (such as schools and electricity transmission lines), the 6th Special Border Platoon of the Army, and state and federal roads located in the area.

 

For the indigenous people, the official confirmation of the bounds of their land was a victory after a struggle of almost 30 years, during which the Maturuca community acted as a center for spreading their resistance. During those years, they were victims of acts of violence of all kinds: murders of leaders, destruction of their homes, abduction of indigenous people and their allies, among others.

 

The Raposa Serra/ Serra do Sol land is located in the north region of the state of Roraima, on the border with Guyana and Venezuela, and it covers 1.74 million hectares and includes 164 villages where over 16,000 indigenous persons belonging to the Macuxi, Wapichana, Ingarikó and Taurepang peoples live.

 

PREVENTIVE CUSTODY OF NEGUINHO TRUKÁ IS REVOKED

 

By unanimous decision, the justices of the 5th Panel of the Higher Court of Justice (STJ) granted habeas-corpus to the leader of the Truká people, chief Aurivan dos Santos, known as “Neguinho Truká”, last Tuesday in Brasília.

 

With this decision, the preventive custody of Neguinho, as determined by the 1st Criminal Chamber of the Court of Justice of Pernambuco (TJ-PE), was revoked. The decision of the STJ also revoked the preventive custody of two other Truká leaders, namely, Francisco Alfredo Carinhanha and Eloísio Severino de Souza.

 

Lawyer Paulo Machado Guimarães, Cimi’s legal advisor, was the defense attorney of Neguinho Truká during the court proceedings.

 

Neguinho was waiting for the habeas-body to be judged in his village, after being transferred to it from the Petrolina penitentiary. According to justice Laurita Vaz, the rapporteur in the proceedings, his arrest was not justified, because even after the National Foundation for Indigenous People (Funai) indemnified the owner for his losses, the Court of Justice of Pernambuco ruled that the defendants should be kept under preventive custody.

 

In Cimi’s opinion, the Truká leaders were arrested for political reasons, as part of a campaign to incriminate indigenous leaders who are struggling for their right to the land. The charges brought against the Truká leaders were groundless and they were pressed when the Truká people were reoccupying their traditional lands as a means to pressure the federal administration to officially confirm the bounds of the area, namely, the Assunção Island in the state of Pernambuco. 

 

CHAMBER OF REPRESENTATIVES DISCUSSES SITUATION OF THE MAXAKALI PEOPLE

 

The Human Rights and Minorities Committee held a public hearing on Tuesday, the 20th, to report the results of its mission with representatives of Human Rights Sub-secretariat to the state of Minas Gerais, where the Maxakali indigenous people reoccupied their lands and are now facing conflicts with farmers.

 

Amongst other decisions made during the audience, the National Foundation for Indigenous People (Funai) was requested to begin to identify the indigenous land in question. The representative of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, deputy attorney Deborah Macedo Duprat, questioned Funai over the decision made by the agency not to set up a Technical Group to study the area. So far, all that the agency promised to do is to send an anthropologist to the area to carry out an initial survey of its agrarian and anthropological status.

 

It was decided that a new public hearing will be held in Belo Horizonte during the first fortnight of October to discuss topics such as where should the sharecroppers and leaseholders who live in the area be settled after they are removed from it. The National Land Reform Institute (Incra) is buying a farm to settle non-indigenous people who will be removed from an area in the Maxakali land which has been demarcated already and a similar arrangement will probably be offered to non-indigenous people who live in the region which was reoccupied by indigenous people recently.

 

With respect to the violent expulsion of Cimi missionaries who were working with the Maxakali people and lived in the city of Santa Helena de Minas from the area, the Human Rights Committee of the Chamber of Representatives is supposed to confirm whether investigations were opened by the Civil Police to find out who tried to beat them and who stoned the house a Cimi worker.

 

Brasília, 21 September 2005.

 

Cimi – Indianist Missionary Council