• Guarani discuss regularization of schools in state conference in Mato Grosso do Sul


• Indigenous peoples are opposed to the proposal that submits demarcation of lands to the Senate

 

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GUARANI DISCUSS REGULARIZATION OF SCHOOLS IN STATE CONFERENCE IN MATO GROSSO DO SUL

 

Between March 30 and April 3, approximately 140 Guarani and 40 non-indians are meeting in Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul, in the Regional Conference on Indigenous School Education. Adaptation of the schools to indigenous specificities was one of the questions discussed at the event, in preparation for the National Conference, which occurs from September 21-25, in Brasilia.

 

According to Guarani Anastácio Peralta, various schools are registered as traditional and not as specific to indigenous school education. This complicates the elaboration of an appropriate pedagogic and bilingual project adapted to the reality of the Guarani. In the majority of these schools there is a lack of bilingual material prepared with indigenous participation.

 

For Anastácio, also lacking are autonomy in management of the schools and clearer regulation of how the resources designated for indigenous education need to be spent. Every expenditure or action of the schools depends on the relationship that the community has with the secretary of education of the municipality where the village is located.

 

Some indigenous present at the Conference complain that in many villages the secretaries of education impose, without dialogue, the school education. In addition to this there are schools of precarious physical structure and irregular distribution of school meals in many villages on the border of the state with Paraguay.

 

The lack of land – the greatest problem for the Guarani in Mato Grosso do Sul – also negatively impacts indigenous school education: the majority of the indigenous encampments do not have schools.

 

Tomorrow (3), 27 delegates will be elected and nine non-indigenous delegates who will represent the region in the National Conference.

 

Next week, Mato Grosso do Sul must hold another regional stage of the Conference. The indigenous peoples of the Pantanal will be meeting in Campo Grande. There have already occurred three regional stages, in São Gabriel da Cachoeira (Amazonas), Salvador (Bahia) and Ceará) (Fortaleza).

 

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INDIGENOUS ARE OPPOSED TO PROPOSAL THAT SUBMITS DEMARCATIONS OF LAND TO THE SENATE

 

The Articulação dos Povos Indigenas do Brasil (APIB), which unites indigenous organizations of all regions of Brazil, manifested their rejection in a memorandum on the Proposed Amendment of the Constitution (PEC 38/99) that submits to approval of the Federal Senate the demarcations of indigenous lands made by the Executive Power. On Wednesday, April 8, the Comissão de Constituição e Justiça do Senado is due to judge the PEC 38/99, the author of which is senator Mozarildo Cavalcanti (RR).

 

The PEC 38/99 also proposes that the areas of indigenous lands and the Unidades de Conservação not exceed 30% of the area of each unit of the federation (states and the Federal District of Brasilia). The APIB memo also addresses PEC 03/04, authored by Senator Juvênico da Fonseca, which suggests the payment of the value of bare land to the occupants of indigenous lands that have been demarcated.

 

According to the APIB, the PEC 38/99 invades the competency of the Executive Power based on the constitutional principle of separation of powers and makes the error more onerous. The indemnification for bare land, aside from indemnification for beneficiaries realized in good faith, includes the indigenous territories in the logic of the land market. According to the memo, that perspective was removed by the decision of the Supreme Tribunal Federal (STF), which, “on the occasion of the judgment of the Terra Indigena Raposa Serra do Sol, it is understood that the indigenous lands are not able to be comprehended in the civil sense, becoming, in this way, unviable [for] the indemnification of illegal and illegitimate occupants”.

 

The Articulação also laments that the indigenous lands and the Units of Conservation are still characterized as obstacles to development, contradicting the importance that these realities have in the preservation of the forests and of biodiversity, as well as their significant contribution to the mitigation of global warming. The memorandum from APIB petitions the senators of the CCJ to reject the PEC.

 

Brasilia, April 2 of 2009

CIMI – Conselho Indigenista Missionário