Newsletter n. 754
– Transposition of the São Francisco river: Bishop Cappio asks president Lula to resume dialogue
– Leader of the Borari people is assaulted in Santarém
Transposition of the São Francisco River: Bishop Cappio asks president Lula to resume dialogue
In the morning of this Thursday, the 22nd, Bishop Luiz Flavio Cappio sent a new letter to the Planalto Place (where the office of the President of the Republic is located) requesting president Lula to resume the dialogue with civil society on the project to transpose the São Francisco river. “The government continues to assume the authoritarian position of imposing a project that has not been discussed with society and with people living on the banks of the São Francisco river. A dialogue was started, we had meetings in Brasília already. But we need to expand this dialogue and society at large needs to take part in the discussions. This discussion should not be restricted to the elite,” said the bishop, who in September 2005 made a hunger strike for 10 days to challenge the transposition project.
The legality of the environmental license issued for the project to be implemented is also being questioned by social organizations and by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. They say that no reliable survey of environmental and social impacts caused by the transposition project has been carried out.
On February 12, the federal attorney general, Antonio Fernando Souza, filed an appeal with the Supreme Court requesting the suspension of the environmental license issued for the transposition project and the revocation of a prior license issued by the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) for the same purpose.
In his appeal, the general attorney insists that the requirement that the National Congress and indigenous populations affected by the project should be consulted about the utilization of natural resources in indigenous lands must be complied with.
The appeal will be analyzed by the 11 justices of the Supreme Court. A final judicial decision on the project will only be issued after this analysis is carried out.
In December of last year, a decision of justice Sepúlveda Pertence, of the Supreme Court, annulled preliminary orders which prevented the beginning of the transposition project and, in January 2007, the Federal Government announced that the Engineering Battalion of the Army – which can be designated to carry out engineering works without a tender process – would begin to implement the project. The minister for National Integration, Pedro Brito, said that he R$ 90 million had been transferred to the Ministry of Defense for the engineering works to begin.
Leader of the Borari people is assaulted in Santarém
Chief Odair José Borari, known as Dadá, was assaulted and injured by three unknown men in Santarém (state of Pará), in the morning of Monday, the 19th. The attack took place in a street near the office of the Indigenous Awareness Group (GCI) and of the Indigenous Council of the Tapajós and Arapiuns rivers (CITA), in the downtown area of the city. Odair is the coordinator of CITA and the chief of the Novo Lugar Village.
He was approached and assaulted by three men wearing hoods who were riding motorcycles and carried a gun and knives.
Odair had been receiving death threats and he had reported them to the Federal Police and to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. The community headed by Odair in the Nova Olinda area, located on the banks of the Maró river, has been denouncing the invasion of its lands, the existence of false title deeds to them, and the illegal exploitation of timber in the region. According to Odair, the death threats are related to land disputes.
The situation of indigenous people in the region is aggravated by the fact that Funai has not been complying with requests to demarcate the land of the Borari community in Nova Olinda. “The threats had been reported to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office already. We reported them a month ago and I requested protection to the Federal Police for me and for the CITA main office. So far, I haven’t seen any measures being taken for this purpose. The Attorney General said that there was nothing he could do, because he had not received any report from Funai confirming that we are indigenous people. And Funai took no measures to identify our lands so far,” Odair said.
The assault was registered with the Civil Police and a corpus delicti examination was made in Odair. (Based on information provided by brother Florêncio Vaz in Santarém)
Brasília, February 22, 2007
Cimi – Indianist Missionary Council
