On November 27, the bishop of the diocese of Barra (state of Bahia), Dom Luiz Flávio Cappio, started to fast again in protest against the São Francisco river transposition project. In a letter sent to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, he stressed that he will only stop fasting when the projects are suspended.

 

He also affirms in the letter that the president misled him and all society, since he did not honor the commitment he assumed in October 2005. On that occasion, Dom Cappio interrupted his eleven-day fasting after president Lula pledged to suspend the transposition project and to begin a broad dialogue on the project with society at large.

 

“For two years we tried to make the terms of the agreement feasible, but the government failed to do what we had agreed,” said Dom Luiz in an interview to Cimi. He stressed that the transposition project will not meet the needs of poor people, as Lula has been announcing. “If the objective was to assist poor people, the government would have concluded other projects in the northeast region that would have truly benefited the population. There are large economic interests involved in this project, and its real objective is not to help the people,” he concluded.

 

In the “letter to the People of the northeast region” disseminated today (November 29), Dom Luiz recalls that there are 70,000 ponds in the semi-arid region with a 36-billion-cubic-meter capacity, but there are no canals to transport this water to those who need it. He stressed that taking water from the São Francisco river will result in charging for water use in the northeast region. In the letter, he also affirms that “common people, mainly those living in cities, are those who will subsidize the use of the water for economic purposes, such as for irrigating expensive fruits and for shrimp cultivation and steel production projects for export purposes.”

 

Alternatives and Support

Dom Luiz evaluated that the 530 projects proposed by the National Water Agency (ANA) in its Atlas of the Northeast Region, which would supply water to 1,300 municipalities in the region at a cost of R$ 3.6 billion (just about half of the R$ 6.6 billion to be allocated to the transposition project), are the best alternative for the population of the semi-arid region, as well as the experiences of the Semiarid Region Network and of project such as the One Million of Cisterns project.

 

Dom Luiz is staying at the São Francisco Chapel in the municipality of Sobradinho (state of Bahia)on the banks of the São Francisco river, whose waters have been his only source of food in the past three days. Every day, people from Sobradinho, Juazeiro, Petrolina, Cabrobó, Recife, Feira de Santana, Sergipe, Salvador, and other localities visit him to support his fasting. 

 

Different organizations and movements are also supporting Dom Luiz, among which MAB (Movement of Dam-Affected People), MPA (Small farmers’ Movement), MST (Landless Movement), CPT (Pastoral Land Comission), Cimi (Indianist Missionary Council) and the Brazilian Caritas.

 

 

These displays of solidarity have touched Dom Cappio, such as the one from Dom Pedro Casaldaglia, from the prelacy of São Felix do Araguaia, who spoke to him on the telephone. Priests from the region and the bishop of the Diocese of Juazeiro (state of Bahia), Dom José Geraldo, are constantly in touch with him. At least four religious people have abstained from eating for from one to two days in support of Dom Cappio.

 

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Children from the Guajajara people die due to lack of assistance in the state of Maranhão

 

Since January 2007, 16 children from the Guajajara people, who live in the Araribóia land near the city of Amarante, in the state of Maranhão, have died. Last week alone, between November 19 and 25, four children died. The lack of water and the fact that the water available is polluted are the main factors which led to these deaths.

 

The cause of death of the four Guajajara children is unknown up till now. All of them had a high fever, and were vomiting and had diarrhoea symptoms before dying. There are ten other children with the same symptoms.

 

Many villages located in the Araribóia land do not have a water supply system. The Guajajara people use artesian wells that they dig themselves – which they call cacimbão. They fear that the diseases that are killing their children are water-borne.

 

Indigenous people have already asked the National Health Foundation (Funasa) to send a specialist team to diagnose the situation and provide guidance on treatments, but no measure has been taken up till now. The total number of children who are sick in the villages has not been calculated. Surama Guajajara, who is worried about the situation, has been asking “when will appropriate measures be taken? How many children must die before appropriate measures are taken?”

 

For Suluene Santana da Silva, a health expert, emergency actions are necessary because cases such as these have been registered in the region since 2002, and no preventive measures have been taken so far.

 

The Cimi team in the region, with the support from the indigenous community from the Lagoa Comprida Indigenous Station, formally asked the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in the city of Imperatriz today, November 29, to request Funasa to send a team to the area to build artesian wells – as soon as possible to prevent the death of more children.

(Amarante Team – Cimi Regional Office in the state of Maranhão)

 

Brasília, November 29, 2007

Indianist Missionary Council