Home / The Guarani: from jejuvy to recovered word
  • 17/09/2009

    The Guarani: from jejuvy to recovered word

    Far from being banal deaths, indigenous suicides in Mato Grosso are also protest, ritual, performed by a culture that survives by a very tenuous and beautiful thread. Now, a national campaign wants to defend their lands and forests, their distinct tempo, their singularity made possible.

     


    Fabiane Borges, Vernilde Santos*


     


    Performative ritual: The day dawns with an indigenous Kaiowá-Guarani strangled. A sneakers shoelace stretches taut from the tree. Bathed, perfumed and kneeling.[1]


     


    The village of Bororo knows what this deals with: it is jejuvy. This however is not a comfort, it is a ritual of death. The word jejuvy in the Guarani language[i] has a semantic weight that signifies a tightening of the throat, annihilated voice, impossibility to speak, suffocated words, imprisoned soul.  It is through the ritual of jejuvy that the Kaiowás commit suicide, by strangling or ingestion of poison. Despite being recognized as an ancestral ritual practice, in recent years jejuvy has spread through the villages on an epidemic scale. There are nearly 50 suicides per year, involving youths from 9 to 14 years of age.


     


    According to data from the Indigenist Missionary Counsel (CIMI), the numbers began increase in the 1980s, doubled in the 1990s and hit record levels in the 21st century, reaching more than 50 per year. This article does not deal with deaths through malnutrition, the homicides among the indians themselves or the incessant battles between the indigenous peoples and the ranchers, facts that are equally shocking[ii].


     


    Imprisonment of the soul


    The suicides (jejuvy) are usually committed by strangling (the ancient method) and sometimes by ingestion of monoculture poisons (new method). Rejected is any “pollution” like bloodletting or physical cutting, so that the word is not lost. Many Guarani consider suicide to be a disease produced by the imprisonment of the word (soul). It is through the mouth that the word is released. If there is no place for the word, there is no life. Because of this, at the time of death, there must be nothing that cuts otherwise the word is dissipated. In suffocation, the word / soul remains as an agglomeration of energy and could come back for revindication at another time.


     


    Singularity


    According to narratives of the Kaiowá themselves regarding the indigenous persons who commit suicide, they unify links that extend from the individual act inherent to the human condition and solitude of each, to the political meaning of the collectivity, “to be among the others”, producing limi-symbologies: the hangings, the poisonings. Acts that condense and point to the rescue, perhaps impossible, of a “way of being”, as the Kaiowá customarily say. And if for them language is one of the most important ways a being manifests itself, by impeding that, also the subjects are impeded of existence. The suicide epidemic would be the collective response to the impossibility of expressing the singularity of this people.


     Liberating suicide


    Many indigenous groups, including the Guarani Kaiowá, live in precarious encampments within the ranches of the large landowners, who in the name of expansionism or of some other barren and unjustifiable reason, took their lands by force – and still take, by unequaled arms. This is one of the motives most indicated by the indigenous peoples, indigenous advocates and anthropologists for the cause of the epidemic of suicides among the Guarani Kaiowá, the loss of land, of the tekohá, the place where they “realize their way of being”.


     


     


    Language as resistance


    If until about 40 years ago the Kaiowá and Nhandeva lived in great houses named ogajekutu-ogaguasu, uniting up to one hundred family members, today they live in miniscule houses, many still made of clay, without the protection of the forest, sheltering only one nuclear family. The extended family structure, whose governance is based in prestige and religiosity, became disorganized, in that the indigenous were not successful in substituting their cultural prestige for that of the whites. With the decimation of their lands, without the rites of planting and harvesting, the collective sagas of hunting and fishing, they have no reason to continue their rites, and accordingly lose those practices with the land, also losing their culture. All the same, what still subsists, in a curious way, is the Guarani language, which is the major focus of insistence and resistance of this collective body.



     


    Liberating suicide


    Many indigenous groups, including the Guarani Kaiowá, live in precarious encampments within the ranches of the large landowners, who in the name of expansionism or of some other barren and unjustifiable reason, took their lands by force – and still take, by unequaled arms. This is one of the motives most indicated by the indigenous peoples, indigenous advocates and anthropologists for the cause of the epidemic of suicides among the Guarani Kaiowá, the loss of land, of the tekohá, the place where they “realize their way of being”.



     


    If on one hand the suicides by hanging or by ingestion of poison can signify the suffocation, it can also signify the desire for liberation – it is on this point that ritual suicide functions as ethical, aesthetic and intervention performance; gestures of enunciation. The tragic functioning as signal denoting reversion on the indigenous question. Since the “suicide epidemic” began spreading in the villages, activists, students, researchers, people linked to the independent media began to view this situation with greater attention, forming alliances and becoming cooperatives in the struggle for Guarani land, by way of amplifying these signs, still being emitted in total invisibility. There are some indigenous groups principally indigenous professors connected to the university and local leaders, who dedicate their lives to this cause, the number of leaders who have died in this arduous task exceeds our imagination.


     


    Meaning


    In spite of the many suicides being committed in more secret places, there exist a large number of cases that occur in places of perambulation, the “public” places of the village like streets, gardens, areas where the suicide can be seen without much difficulty. There are nuances that help to clarify and also to inquire into this form of death. It is not a pact with the decimation, with the genocide, with the ethnocide. It is not cowardice in the face of destiny, but a brave and ultimate act as way of amplifying the meaning of the misery to which they are being submitted. The trees, the shrubs, the gardens, any place that has been a suicide site becomes marked in the village and fixed in the imagination, in the quotidian language and in their struggle against the confinement. The deaths continue to speak especially to sensitive hearts still connected by belief in the spirit of nature and the emission of her signs.


     


    Memory


    The rites, dances, canticles and struggles survive through pure insistence. The sensation we have in our being in the village of Bororo is that this culture survives by a thread both very tenuous and beautiful. As one voice that forces itself to speak, but already not sounding as accustomed. Sounding aphonic, agonized, stammering, insists on manifesting. A ritual of remembering. A residuum. The resistance of certain canticles and gestures. The Kaiowá Guarani fighting dances recall the martial arts, of sword fights. They are done with fragments of wood, knives and stones, resembling ninja fights.


     


    Dona Tereza Guarani is one of the last elders of the village. She conducts the rites of the Bororo village with a rugged and concentrated voice, powerful hands that move the maraca, pounding steps that reverberate on the clay ground. In the ecstasy, brought about through song, which we feel, we ask ourselves how is it possible that they still chant and dance and struggle in this way. In the name of what force? Dona Tereza makes an explicit effort so that this Kaiowá culture is maintained, because the great majority of her people see no reason to continue the rites. Many already no longer know how the dances and beating of the path were done. The indigenous elder Tereza, woman of prayer, woman who cures, the woman entrusted with the cultural rituals of the village, takes it upon herself to support the memory and meaning of the rites of the ancestors. Gathering sons, grandsons and friends to learn the songs and dances before she dies. This is the purpose to which she dedicates her life. Her power as shaman is not impeded by the witness of many suicides in her own family.


     


    Revocery


    Adherence to life is an imperative of domination, of the exercise of power – and of inclusion. When there is something more intense than adherence to life, there is media tactic, there is resistance, there is the potency of protest. Yet what is it that the Kaiowá love more than survival? It is, though stifled, what still cries out through the public space of the village, that is a favella that is city that is field. There is something these indians desire more than being included in the stupefaction of globalized bio-politics, in the misery imposed by neo-liberal policies. It is a form of life not content with the miserable survival of the white or the ‘indian’. In this case we think that it does not deal with indigenous inclusion in national society, but in the mobilization of society for the recovery of indigenous lands to collaborate in the process of this other ‘indian’ that the indigenous himself does not know and is tasked to become.



     


    The struggles of the agrarian movements in Brazil have intensified in the last 30 years and gain ever-greater global visibility as a function of their extreme importance. The indigenous struggle is one more of the agrarian struggles in the country, the most ancient, having experienced the greatest usurpation and decimation. The processes of confirmation and settlements are far from finished and it is with great effort, tension and deaths that realization of these is effected.


     


    Our challenge in generating a network of collaboration capable of changing the social perception regarding points tangled by society is both urgent and of great relevance. More than perceptual change, amplification is necessary of the relational spectrum of the social movements so that they gain the possibilities of diversified action. The role that media, Greenpeace and IMC (Independent Media Center) have exercised in these contexts is an aperture for considering how autonomous groups, organized or not, are able to act together with the social movements (our greater public space). Their activities are still precarious, but signal possibilities. For beyond denunciation and support, it is necessary to create means that become more incisive in effectuating of certain political projects of the civil society movements, as is the case of the pro-Guarani movement launched in September of 2007 and that recently began to emerge for broader society[iii].


     


    Recognition


    This media tactic campaign, activist, created for the most part by Guarani indigenous leaders and supported by CIMI, call for the recognition of the 32 indigenous lands of the Guarani People, call for the deceleration of the industrial agriculture and livestock market in the region of Mato Grosso do Sul, the reforestation of the decimated areas, respect and recognition of a tempo that does not need to be the same as every one else. But also demanding access to what there is of relevance in (inter)national society, taking into account the conquests of science and of technology, etc.


     


    There is much to consider in the intervention of these suicides in the white, indigenous and mestizo social imagination. But one thing is certain: these deaths have made evident the impasse this indigenous people experience, and reach out to us as warning signs of this unsupportable condition, indignant, shameful that the ideals of civilization, of development and of economic growth provoke. It is necessary to act before all difference disappears.


     


     


    * This article was originally posted on the site Le Monde Diplomatique:


    http://diplo.uol.com.br/2008-02,a2168


     


    Other sources for research:


     


    http://www.guarani-campaign.eu


    http://www.midiatatica.info


    http://www.rizoma.net


    http://hemi.nyu.edu


    http://www.midiaindependente.org


     


     


     







    [1] Traditionally the Guarani do not hang themselves, loose from the ground. They would tie a rope to a tree stem, fairly low, kneel and lean forward to tighten the rope around their neck in order to strangle themselves. This implies that they could stop the act any moment should they hesitate or change their mind. Nowadays it has become more frequent to actually hang themselves.







    [i] The Guarani are divided into three groups: Guarani-Nhandeva, Guarani-Kaiowá and Guarani-Mbyá. At the time of European arrival, these indigenous people numbered circa 4 million persons. At present there exist circa 40 thousand, spread through regions of Southern and Southwestern Brazil. In Mato Grosso, 27,000 are estimated to live in 22 small areas. The village of Bororo being one of these, presented in this text, sheltering 12 thousand Guarani-Kaiowá on 3,600 hectares of unproductive land without forest. There exist more than 90 churches among them catholic, evangelical and espiritas, which vie amongst themselves for indigenous adherence to their beliefs and modes of conversion.


     


    The territories of the Guarani extend Northward, to the Apa and Dourados rivers and south to the Serra de Maracaju and the tributaries of the Jejuí river, arriving at an east-west extension of approximately 100 km, on both sides of the Serra do Amambai embracing an extension of land approximately 40 thousand square miles, divided by the Brazil-Paraguay border.


     



    [ii] download the year report on violence on www.cimi.org.br



    [iii] see for more information on this campaign: http://www.guarani-campaign.eu and www.campanhaguarani.com.br

    Categories Arquivo

    Read More
  • 17/09/2009

    The Guarani: from jejuvy to recovered word


    Far from being banal deaths, indigenous suicides in Mato Grosso are also protest, ritual, performed by a culture that survives by a very tenuous and beautiful thread. Now, a national campaign wants to defend their lands and forests, their distinct tempo, their singularity made possible.


     


    Fabiane Borges, Vernilde Santos*


     


    Performative ritual: The day dawns with an indigenous Kaiowá-Guarani strangled. A sneakers shoelace stretches taut from the tree. Bathed, perfumed and kneeling.[1]


     


    The village of Bororo knows what this deals with: it is jejuvy. This however is not a comfort, it is a ritual of death. The word jejuvy in the Guarani language[i] has a semantic weight that signifies a tightening of the throat, annihilated voice, impossibility to speak, suffocated words, imprisoned soul.  It is through the ritual of jejuvy that the Kaiowás commit suicide, by strangling or ingestion of poison. Despite being recognized as an ancestral ritual practice, in recent years jejuvy has spread through the villages on an epidemic scale. There are nearly 50 suicides per year, involving youths from 9 to 14 years of age.


     


    According to data from the Indigenist Missionary Counsel (CIMI), the numbers began increase in the 1980s, doubled in the 1990s and hit record levels in the 21st century, reaching more than 50 per year. This article does not deal with deaths through malnutrition, the homicides among the indians themselves or the incessant battles between the indigenous peoples and the ranchers, facts that are equally shocking[ii].


     


    Imprisonment of the soul


    The suicides (jejuvy) are usually committed by strangling (the ancient method) and sometimes by ingestion of monoculture poisons (new method). Rejected is any “pollution” like bloodletting or physical cutting, so that the word is not lost. Many Guarani consider suicide to be a disease produced by the imprisonment of the word (soul). It is through the mouth that the word is released. If there is no place for the word, there is no life. Because of this, at the time of death, there must be nothing that cuts otherwise the word is dissipated. In suffocation, the word / soul remains as an agglomeration of energy and could come back for revindication at another time.


     


    Singularity


    According to narratives of the Kaiowá themselves regarding the indigenous persons who commit suicide, they unify links that extend from the individual act inherent to the human condition and solitude of each, to the political meaning of the collectivity, “to be among the others”, producing limi-symbologies: the hangings, the poisonings. Acts that condense and point to the rescue, perhaps impossible, of a “way of being”, as the Kaiowá customarily say. And if for them language is one of the most important ways a being manifests itself, by impeding that, also the subjects are impeded of existence. The suicide epidemic would be the collective response to the impossibility of expressing the singularity of this people.


     Liberating suicide


    Many indigenous groups, including the Guarani Kaiowá, live in precarious encampments within the ranches of the large landowners, who in the name of expansionism or of some other barren and unjustifiable reason, took their lands by force – and still take, by unequaled arms. This is one of the motives most indicated by the indigenous peoples, indigenous advocates and anthropologists for the cause of the epidemic of suicides among the Guarani Kaiowá, the loss of land, of the tekohá, the place where they “realize their way of being”.


     


     


    Language as resistance


    If until about 40 years ago the Kaiowá and Nhandeva lived in great houses named ogajekutu-ogaguasu, uniting up to one hundred family members, today they live in miniscule houses, many still made of clay, without the protection of the forest, sheltering only one nuclear family. The extended family structure, whose governance is based in prestige and religiosity, became disorganized, in that the indigenous were not successful in substituting their cultural prestige for that of the whites. With the decimation of their lands, without the rites of planting and harvesting, the collective sagas of hunting and fishing, they have no reason to continue their rites, and accordingly lose those practices with the land, also losing their culture. All the same, what still subsists, in a curious way, is the Guarani language, which is the major focus of insistence and resistance of this collective body.



     


    Liberating suicide


    Many indigenous groups, including the Guarani Kaiowá, live in precarious encampments within the ranches of the large landowners, who in the name of expansionism or of some other barren and unjustifiable reason, took their lands by force – and still take, by unequaled arms. This is one of the motives most indicated by the indigenous peoples, indigenous advocates and anthropologists for the cause of the epidemic of suicides among the Guarani Kaiowá, the loss of land, of the tekohá, the place where they “realize their way of being”.



     


    If on one hand the suicides by hanging or by ingestion of poison can signify the suffocation, it can also signify the desire for liberation – it is on this point that ritual suicide functions as ethical, aesthetic and intervention performance; gestures of enunciation. The tragic functioning as signal denoting reversion on the indigenous question. Since the “suicide epidemic” began spreading in the villages, activists, students, researchers, people linked to the independent media began to view this situation with greater attention, forming alliances and becoming cooperatives in the struggle for Guarani land, by way of amplifying these signs, still being emitted in total invisibility. There are some indigenous groups principally indigenous professors connected to the university and local leaders, who dedicate their lives to this cause, the number of leaders who have died in this arduous task exceeds our imagination.


     


    Meaning


    In spite of the many suicides being committed in more secret places, there exist a large number of cases that occur in places of perambulation, the “public” places of the village like streets, gardens, areas where the suicide can be seen without much difficulty. There are nuances that help to clarify and also to inquire into this form of death. It is not a pact with the decimation, with the genocide, with the ethnocide. It is not cowardice in the face of destiny, but a brave and ultimate act as way of amplifying the meaning of the misery to which they are being submitted. The trees, the shrubs, the gardens, any place that has been a suicide site becomes marked in the village and fixed in the imagination, in the quotidian language and in their struggle against the confinement. The deaths continue to speak especially to sensitive hearts still connected by belief in the spirit of nature and the emission of her signs.


     


    Memory


    The rites, dances, canticles and struggles survive through pure insistence. The sensation we have in our being in the village of Bororo is that this culture survives by a thread both very tenuous and beautiful. As one voice that forces itself to speak, but already not sounding as accustomed. Sounding aphonic, agonized, stammering, insists on manifesting. A ritual of remembering. A residuum. The resistance of certain canticles and gestures. The Kaiowá Guarani fighting dances recall the martial arts, of sword fights. They are done with fragments of wood, knives and stones, resembling ninja fights.


     


    Dona Tereza Guarani is one of the last elders of the village. She conducts the rites of the Bororo village with a rugged and concentrated voice, powerful hands that move the maraca, pounding steps that reverberate on the clay ground. In the ecstasy, brought about through song, which we feel, we ask ourselves how is it possible that they still chant and dance and struggle in this way. In the name of what force? Dona Tereza makes an explicit effort so that this Kaiowá culture is maintained, because the great majority of her people see no reason to continue the rites. Many already no longer know how the dances and beating of the path were done. The indigenous elder Tereza, woman of prayer, woman who cures, the woman entrusted with the cultural rituals of the village, takes it upon herself to support the memory and meaning of the rites of the ancestors. Gathering sons, grandsons and friends to learn the songs and dances before she dies. This is the purpose to which she dedicates her life. Her power as shaman is not impeded by the witness of many suicides in her own family.


     


    Revocery


    Adherence to life is an imperative of domination, of the exercise of power – and of inclusion. When there is something more intense than adherence to life, there is media tactic, there is resistance, there is the potency of protest. Yet what is it that the Kaiowá love more than survival? It is, though stifled, what still cries out through the public space of the village, that is a favella that is city that is field. There is something these indians desire more than being included in the stupefaction of globalized bio-politics, in the misery imposed by neo-liberal policies. It is a form of life not content with the miserable survival of the white or the ‘indian’. In this case we think that it does not deal with indigenous inclusion in national society, but in the mobilization of society for the recovery of indigenous lands to collaborate in the process of this other ‘indian’ that the indigenous himself does not know and is tasked to become.



     


    The struggles of the agrarian movements in Brazil have intensified in the last 30 years and gain ever-greater global visibility as a function of their extreme importance. The indigenous struggle is one more of the agrarian struggles in the country, the most ancient, having experienced the greatest usurpation and decimation. The processes of confirmation and settlements are far from finished and it is with great effort, tension and deaths that realization of these is effected.


     


    Our challenge in generating a network of collaboration capable of changing the social perception regarding points tangled by society is both urgent and of great relevance. More than perceptual change, amplification is necessary of the relational spectrum of the social movements so that they gain the possibilities of diversified action. The role that media, Greenpeace and IMC (Independent Media Center) have exercised in these contexts is an aperture for considering how autonomous groups, organized or not, are able to act together with the social movements (our greater public space). Their activities are still precarious, but signal possibilities. For beyond denunciation and support, it is necessary to create means that become more incisive in effectuating of certain political projects of the civil society movements, as is the case of the pro-Guarani movement launched in September of 2007 and that recently began to emerge for broader society[iii].


     


    Recognition


    This media tactic campaign, activist, created for the most part by Guarani indigenous leaders and supported by CIMI, call for the recognition of the 32 indigenous lands of the Guarani People, call for the deceleration of the industrial agriculture and livestock market in the region of Mato Grosso do Sul, the reforestation of the decimated areas, respect and recognition of a tempo that does not need to be the same as every one else. But also demanding access to what there is of relevance in (inter)national society, taking into account the conquests of science and of technology, etc.


     


    There is much to consider in the intervention of these suicides in the white, indigenous and mestizo social imagination. But one thing is certain: these deaths have made evident the impasse this indigenous people experience, and reach out to us as warning signs of this unsupportable condition, indignant, shameful that the ideals of civilization, of development and of economic growth provoke. It is necessary to act before all difference disappears.


     


     


    * This article was originally posted on the site Le Monde Diplomatique:


    http://diplo.uol.com.br/2008-02,a2168


     


    Other sources for research:


     


    http://www.guarani-campaign.eu


    http://www.midiatatica.info


    http://www.rizoma.net


    http://hemi.nyu.edu


    http://www.midiaindependente.org


     


     


     







    [1] Traditionally the Guarani do not hang themselves, loose from the ground. They would tie a rope to a tree stem, fairly low, kneel and lean forward to tighten the rope around their neck in order to strangle themselves. This implies that they could stop the act any moment should they hesitate or change their mind. Nowadays it has become more frequent to actually hang themselves.







    [i] The Guarani are divided into three groups: Guarani-Nhandeva, Guarani-Kaiowá and Guarani-Mbyá. At the time of European arrival, these indigenous people numbered circa 4 million persons. At present there exist circa 40 thousand, spread through regions of Southern and Southwestern Brazil. In Mato Grosso, 27,000 are estimated to live in 22 small areas. The village of Bororo being one of these, presented in this text, sheltering 12 thousand Guarani-Kaiowá on 3,600 hectares of unproductive land without forest. There exist more than 90 churches among them catholic, evangelical and espiritas, which vie amongst themselves for indigenous adherence to their beliefs and modes of conversion.


     


    The territories of the Guarani extend Northward, to the Apa and Dourados rivers and south to the Serra de Maracaju and the tributaries of the Jejuí river, arriving at an east-west extension of approximately 100 km, on both sides of the Serra do Amambai embracing an extension of land approximately 40 thousand square miles, divided by the Brazil-Paraguay border.


     



    [ii] download the year report on violence on www.cimi.org.br



    [iii] see for more information on this campaign: http://www.guarani-campaign.eu and www.campanhaguarani.com.br

    Categories Arquivo

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  • 17/09/2009

    Queimando a memória

    Quando, em mais de 10 carros, os fazendeiros e jagunços passaram por entre os barracos dos Kaiowá Guarani acampados, numa clara atitude de provocar pânico e terrorismo para que os índios abandonem esse espaço, não estavam apenas demonstrando o ódio e o racismo contra uma comunidade indígena, mas também que a guerra silenciosa também tinha que ser marcada por ruídos, luzes, balas e fogo. Em pouco tempo a comunidade atônita via ao longe a fumaça e labaredas.  Não eram apenas suas casas e o que restou que estava queimando, mas com as chamas também estavam queimando a memória, a história, os espíritos dos que ali moravam, conforme afirmou o líder Zezinho. “Os índios estão tristes. O fazendeiro não podia ter feito o que fez. Na tradição Kaiowá, não queimamos as casas que deixamos para trás. Para nós, quando a gente deixa a casa vazia, fica um espírito para cuidar dessa casa. O fazendeiro matou 36 espíritos”. Para o pretenso proprietário, ex-prefeito de Dourados, “isso é conversa fiada do Zezinho, ele está mentindo”.


     


    Conforme escreve o companheiro e um dos fundadores do Cimi, Egydio Schwade, em carta encaminhada à comunidade, “Depois de terem depredado todo o Mato Grosso do Sul, sua biodiversidade, ainda se consideram donos de tudo..É preciso lutar para que todos os que ocupam uma terra seja apenas administradores de um bem que é da humanidade, como os povos indígenas nos ensinaram…Os piores administradores desse bem que não lhes pertence acabam grilando e se abonando das maiores extensões de terra…Transmitam a nossa solidariedade aos Guarani de Rio Brilhante e aos que os apóiam (Presidente Figueredo, 15/09/09)”.


     


    Mundo solidário


    Um dos pedidos da comunidade, naquele final do dia 11, dia da vergonhosa expulsão, “não nos esqueçam”, soou como um desafio à solidariedade mundial. Efetivamente vemos um rechaço mundial a esse tipo de vandalismo, em nome da prostituída propriedade privada da terra. O Nhanderu Olimpio não se cansava de repetir, enquanto carregada seus poucos pertences até a beira da estrada: “Será que os fazendeiros fizeram a terra? Porque só eles podem ter a terra e nós, os primeiros e verdadeiros donos da terra somos jogados pra beira da estrada”.


     


    De todo o mundo chegam manifestações de repúdio e solidariedade. A Conferência dos Religiosos dos Brasil, Regional Mato Grosso do Sul, reunida neste final de semana, enviou uma nota de solidariedade à comunidade. “A Assembléia quer tornar público seu total apoio à luta pelos direitos dos Povos Indígenas, principalmente os do nosso estado que, desde 2007 vêem o projeto de demarcação de suas terras ancestrais sendo dificultado e impedido pela forte oposição dos poderes constituídos e interesses agrários do Mato Grosso do Sul”.


     


    Participantes indígenas e não indígenas do III Seminário Povos Indígenas e Sustentabilidade, realizado na UCDB, aprovaram uma nota pública na qual afirmam “Não haverá tempo para a espera, o poder público deve resolver esse impasse urgentemente, precisamos pagar essa dívida logo e poupar esse povo de sofrimentos vindouros. Por isso exigimos que se devolva aos povos indígenas o que lhes é de direito, não os deixem às margens da vida. Até quando teremos que conviver com injustiças desse porte? Respondam-nos se puderem senhores dirigentes”.


     


    A Anistia internacional lançou uma campanha pelo direito dos Kaiowá Guarani de Laranjeira Nhanderu. A Senadora Marina Silva fez seu apelo pelos direitos do povo Guarani e em especial da 21ª comunidade desse povo jogada à beira da estrada. A Justiça Global encaminhou um pedido à Organização dos Estados Americanos (OEA) para que seja feita justiça, garantindo a presença dos Guarani em suas terras tradicionais. A essas manifestações poderíamos somar centenas de outras, que em conjunto mostram a necessidade urgente de garantir o retorno dessa e das demais comunidades Guarani Kaiowá a seus tekohá, terras tradicionais.


     


    Egon Heck


    Cimi MS

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  • 17/09/2009

    Nota do MST sobre CPI protocolada no Congresso Nacional

    causaram uma forte reação do latifúndio, do agronegócio, da mídia burguesa e dos setores mais conservadores da sociedade brasileira contra os movimentos sociais do campo, em especial o MST, principalmente por conta do anúncio da atualização dos índices de produtividade da terra pelo governo Lula.


     


    Denunciamos que a CPI contra o MST é uma represália às nossas lutas e à bandeira da revisão dos índices de produtividade. Para isso, foi criado um instrumento político e ideológico para os setores mais conservadores do país contra o nosso movimento. Essa é a terceira CPI instalada no Congresso Nacional contra o MST nos últimos cinco anos. Além disso, alertamos que será utilizada para atingir os setores mais comprometidos com os interesses populares no governo federal.


     


    A senadora Kátia Abreu (DEM-TO), os deputados federais Ronaldo Caiado (DEM-GO) e Onyx Lorenzoni (DEM-RS), líderes da bancada ruralista no Congresso Nacional, não admitem que seja cumprida a Constituição Federal de 1988 e a Lei Agrária, de fevereiro de 1993, assinada pelo presidente Itamar Franco, que determina que “os parâmetros, índices e indicadores que informam o conceito de produtividade serão ajustados, periodicamente, de modo a levar em conta o progresso científico e tecnológico da agricultura e o desenvolvimento regional”.


     


    Os parâmetros vigentes para as desapropriações de áreas rurais têm como base dados do censo agrário de 1975. Em 30 anos, a agricultura passou por mudanças tecnológicas e químicas que aumentaram a produtividade média por hectare. Por que o agronegócio tem tanto medo da mudança nos índices?


     


    A atualização dos índices de produtividade da terra significa nada mais do que cumprir a Constituição Federal, que protege justamente aqueles que de fato são produtores rurais. Os proprietários rurais que produzem acima da média por região e respeitam a legislação trabalhista e ambiental não poderão ser desapropriados, assim como os pequenos e médios proprietários que possuem menos de 500 hectares, como determina a Constituição.


     


    A revisão terá um peso pequeno para a Reforma Agrária. A Constituição determina que, além da produtividade, sejam desapropriadas também áreas que não cumprem a legislação trabalhista e ambiental, o que vem sendo descumprido pelo Estado brasileiro. Mesmo assim, o latifúndio e o agronegócio não admitem essa mudança.


     


    Os setores mais conservadores da sociedade não admitem a existência de um movimento popular com legitimidade na sociedade, que organiza trabalhadores rurais para a luta pela Reforma Agrária e contra a pobreza no campo. Em 25 anos, tentaram destruir o nosso movimento por meio da violência de grupos armados contratados por latifundiários, da perseguição dos órgãos repressores do Estado e de setores do Poder Judiciário, da criminalização pela mídia burguesa e até mesmo com CPIs.


     


    Apesar disso, resistimos e vamos continuar a organizar os trabalhadores pobres do campo para a luta pela Reforma Agrária, um novo modelo agrícola, direitos sociais e transformações estruturais no país que criem condições para o desenvolvimento nacional com justiça social.


     


    SECRETARIA NACIONAL DO MST

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  • 16/09/2009

    Newsletter 880: Guarani Kaiowá families dispossessed of traditional land in Mato Grosso do Sul


    September 11, 2009, the approximately 130 Guarani Kaiowá of Laranjeira Ñanderu, in the municipality of Rio Brilhante, Mato Grosso do Sul (MS), leave the parcel of traditional land where they have lived for nearly two years. They have nowhere to go other than the roadside of the BR-163, a major commercial trucking route. This will be the 21st indigenous roadside encampment in Mato Grosso do Sul.



    CIMI and representatives of several social movements in the state were present in solidarity. “The departure was tranquil, but the people are very sad, indignant about having to leave the land were they were living”, reports Egon Heck, coordinator of CIMI-MS.


     


    “We comply with the court order, but what if a child is hit by a car? I will charge the representative!” warns Farid Guarani, one of the women leaders of the community and indignant about the action. There are 60 children and adolescents. In recent months, two children have died and three youths have committed suicide in this village. “They say that the demarcation study will begin in a week”, Farid declares, still hopeful.


     


    Two years of humanitarian aid impeded


    The community has also been under constant armed surveillance by private security forces hired by the titleholder to the land. The proprietor has also stopped the authorities to enter the area. Several times medical teams from the National Health Foundation (Funasa) were unable to enter and attend sick persons. For two children attendance came too late which caused their death. The National Foundation for Indigenous Affairs (Funai) was not allowed to enter and could only deliver the basic food baskets at the side of the road, handed over the fence.


    The children had to walk 4 kilometers to the BR-163, as the school bus was forbidden to enter the area.


    The constant pressure, threat of eviction and lack of social assistance motivated three youngsters to commit suicide.



     


    Federal Prosecutor: “improper titling”


    According to Federal Prosecutor Marco Antonio Delfino de Almeida, “There has been undue granting of titles [of rural properties] in the past by the authorities. The government was not empowered to title these lands, it titled, and now it is going to have to compensate these people”, explained Delfino, emphasizing that a historic mistake was committed, in which indigenous peoples were induced to live on reduced areas of the reserves. “There is on the part of the federal government an undeniable obligation for reparation to this population”, he said. He further noted that the state government also issued documents of possession to producers in the region and will have to grapple with any indemnifications.


    In the same September 10 statement, Delfino clarified the situation saying, “What Mato Grosso do Sul society needs to understand is that this process of demarcation does not turn back. There is no possibility of sweeping 40 thousand indigenous people under the rug. The humanitarian demand is very grave.”


     


    Process in the courts


    The (initial) order for reintegration of possession to the title-holder of the occupied area was issued by the Federal Court of Dourados. The Funai and the Federal Public Ministry (MPF- Ministério Público Federal of Mato Grosso do Sul) appealed in the TRF3 (Tribunal Regional Federal – 3rd Region). On May 26, the Federal Appeals Court Judge of the TRF3, Marli Ferreira, suspended the order for reintegration and granted 90 days for the community to remain in the area.


     


    During this period, the Funai was to have conducted the studies to identify if the area occupied is traditional Guarani territory. However the studies did not take place. Besides the climate of harassment of the Funai anthropologists that persists in Mato Grosso do Sul, the TRF3 issued a decision to suspend all studies by the Funai Working Groups assigned for the land identification of any indigenous area in Mato Grosso do Sul.


     


    The Kaiowá Guarani group resumed habitation of their lands at the end of 2007, after spending nearly two years camped at the side of the road. Prior to this, they had been expulsed by gunmen from another area that is also traditional land of the people.



     


                                                            ***


     


    SUPERIOR COURT ANNULS PRISON SENTENCE OF PATAXÓ CACIQUE (in Bahia) AND TRANSFERS JAILED XUKURU LEADER (in Pernambuco) TO INDIGENOUS LAND


     


    In the second week of September Superior Tribunal de Justiça (STJ) handed down two important decisions in cases involving indigenous leaders of the Xukuru and Pataxó peoples.


     


    Xukuru


    On 8 September, the 5th circuit of the STJ decided that Rinaldo Vieira, of the Xukuru people, and jailed since March 2008 in Caruaru, is to be transferred to the National Foundation for Indigenous Affairs (Funai) post for the Xukuru in Pernambuco. Rinaldo Vieira was accused of involvement in the murder of Xukuru José Lindomar de Santana. He was accused by eyewitnesses of the crime together with Edmilson Guimarães, also Xukuru, and in a trial by jury, found guilty of the crime. This testimony is questioned because the crime occurred at 2am under darkness of a new moon and cloud cover in an area without public illumination. Besides this, the real shooters wore helmets. Rinaldo and Edmilson Guimarães have fixed residences and good prior records. All the same, they have been in preventive imprisonment for the past year.


     


    Pataxó


    On 1 September, the same court unanimously annulled the preventive imprisonment of Pataxó Cacique (chief), Joel Braz, who has been in prison since 2006, in the Pataxó Funai post in southern Bahia. The penal action against the cacique occurred in the Common Court Jurisdiction of Itamaraju (Bahia). However, the 5th circuit of the STJ decided that the case should be judged by the Federal Court. With this, the case will be reopened and therefore, all findings are annulled, among them the preventive imprisonment. The defense had requested this transfer of competence in 2006 because the crime for which Joel is accused occurred within a context of territorial dispute.


     


    The annulment of the prison sentence was to have been carried out immediately, however cacique Joel Braz still remains jailed eight days after the judgment. The communiqué from the STJ is not being located in the jurisdiction of the Tribunal de Justiça of Bahia and hence the official information has still not arrived in the District Court of Itamaraju. The attorneys for Joel have already petitioned the STJ for direct communication of the decision to the district court of Itamaraju, so that the cacique be set at liberty as soon as possible. This will also diminish the anguish and tension that has weighed on the Pataxó community since his imprisonment.


     


    Defense for Joel Braz are attorneys Cláudio Luiz Beirão, Paulo Machado Guimarães, Michael Mary Nolan and Denise da Veiga Alves.


     


    Brasília, 10 September of 2009


    Indigenist Missionary Council

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  • 15/09/2009

    Nhãnderu Laranjeira, chronicle of a dispossession

    By Suki Ozaki


     


    This time the gate was open. The padlock had been removed. For nearly two years it had been closed and the Guarani-Kaiowá passed by a small opening at the side. The farmer, title holder to the lands that they had to cross to arrive in the forest where they had camped, this morning, day 11 of September, he arrived early and left the large gate open. Twice before it’s opening had been refused by the security forces that guard the place. Two times that cost the life of two children: one 8 years old and the other a baby. Both were in need of medical care and this was denied them.  The car from the National Health Foundation, responsible for indigenous health, was not allowed to enter onto the property and when the indigenous people managed to remove the children from the encampment, which was 3.5 kilometers from the road, it was already too late. They died in the hospital: the first from pulmonary complications and the second, from dehydration.


     


    The day dawned and the activity was intense. Bicycles, baby carriages serving as means of transport, took the few belongings of the 35 Guarani-Kaiowá families who claim the lands of Nhãnderu Laranjeira, situated within the fazenda of Santo Antônio da Boa Esperança, in the municipality of Rio Brilhante.* The 35 families had, for 1 year and 8 months been within the 420 hectares of forest reserve. There they had water, game for hunting, fish and shelter.


     


    The children, without understanding the dimensions of the problem, sought out their beloved animals: parrots, dogs, cats. The elders could not hide the great sadness: “Today I am furious like a jaguar”, repeats Nhãnderu Olímpio, a spiritual leader, as he tied parts of a bed to his bicycle. “Since midnight we have not stopped gathering our things, we are treated like [unwanted] beasts”, he declares releasing the tensions of the night. Suddenly, he lowers his head and cries. “I want to hang myself”, he murmurs. More than 70 years old the pajé (shaman) who still dreams of dying in a land that is theirs is taken over by despair. The same despair that led three youngsters of the encampment to kill themselves by hanging, in the last two threats of dispossession.


     


    “Here there is firewood, there is water for the children. If the FUNAI does not bring basic food baskets, we hunt a macaco or fish to eat. We do not need much land, only a portion to live on, to plant manioc and potato, bananas for the children”, explains Kaiowá Adelaide Albino.


     


    It was half past 9 in the morning and finally the FUNAI truck arrived to help with the move. The deadline of 48 hours set by the federal police on September 9, for leaving the fazenda, expired at 11 that morning. By midday there remained only the barracks of tarp and thatch at the site. The 130 indigenous people expulsed still left some things behind; cooking pots, pails and clothes to complete what they had agreed to: a peaceful departure.


     


    “They said that if we did not leave on our own two legs, they would remove us by force, that there would be gunfire”, Adelaide states flatly.




     


    At the side of BR163 some of the barracks have already been set up. Of others, only the wood skeleton is standing. Four meters from there, the trucks pass in indifference. The greatest concern for the moment was to obtain water. A technician was brought in by a partner observer from the social movements that are accompanying the dispossession. He indicated the place for digging a water hole. Immediately, the indigenous start taking turns to dig a well on that spot.


     


    It is half past three when three Federal Police riot vans arrive at the fazenda. About 12 agents come out accompanying the court servant to inspect the eviction area. The Kaiowá gather, began to dance and the chants, ever stronger, unite children, youngsters and the elders, in sad lamentations. Slowly they form a mass that goes back and forth, several times crossing the bustling BR. Cries of protest begin to echo. “We want justice”, “We want the return of the anthropologists”, “We want the demarcation”. For 30 minutes they externalize their revolt, their fears, their contained despair. When the police return, the gate is closed again and the padlock replaced.


     


    Following the departure of the police, the observers also took their leave. One Guarani-Kaiowá, her tears streaming said: “You who are here today, take this to your people. Tell them that in the lands of Mato Grosso do Sul the indigenous people are not treated as human beings”.


     


    At the end of this day, night fell on the 21st Guarani-Kaiowá encampment, all of them at the sides of highways in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.


     


     


     







    * The Guarani-Kaiowá of the Nhãnderu Laranjeira, at the end of 2007, left the village of Panambi, in the municipality of Douradina, where approximately 250 families live (more than one thousand indigenous people on 1200 hectares). The lack of space led them to seek the ancient Tekohá (traditional land) situated within the fazenda of Santo Antônio da Boa Esperança, in Rio Brilhante. Appeals Court judge Marli Ferreira, president of the Federal Regional Tribunal of the 3rd Region (São Paulo) denied the appeal by FUNAI to keep the indigenous people on the fazenda [in the forest part] and determined for the reintegration of possession [to the title holder of the fazenda]. She had already granted 90 days, which expired on August 24, for the FUNAI to provide another area.


     


    The law was observed, but was Justice?

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  • 15/09/2009

    Rio Madeira: Funcionários do IBAMA acusados de crime ambiental são absolvidos

    Em sentença proferida no último dia 10/09, o Juiz Federal da 3ª Vara da Justiça Federal de Rondônia, Élcio Arruda, absolveu o presidente do IBAMA , Roberto Messias Franco e o Diretor de Licenciamento, Sebastião Custódio Pires, acusados de cometer irregularidades na concessão da Hidrelétrica de Jirau, no Rio Madeira


     


    O argumento utilizado pelo Juiz foi de que “a emissão de licenças ambientais independe de conclusão de Estudo de Impacto Ambiental”.


     


    Segundo a coordenação do MAB (Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens), este argumento é absurdo. “Se a licença ambiental independe dos estudos de impacto ambiental, então porque o solicitam? Porque existe o IBAMA? Isso mostra o poder das empresas construtoras de barragens, que passam por cima de tudo, inclusive da justiça, para obterem os seus lucros mais


    rapidamente”, denunciou o Movimento.


     


    O Ministério Público Federal, em junho deste ano, considerou que a expedição da licença de Instalação da Hidrelétrica de Jirau “encerra um dos maiores delitos ambientais impostos à sociedade”. De acordo com esse argumento, o MPF junto com o Ministério Público regional de Rondônia entrou com uma Ação de Improbidade Administrativa contra os funcionários do IBAMA.


     


    Uma prova dos enormes impactos causados pelas hidrelétricas no Rio madeira foi a morte de 11 toneladas de peixe causadas pelas obras da Hidrelétrica de Santo Antonio.


     


    O consórcio Madeira Energia S/A (Mesa), responsável pela construção da Hidrelétrica multado pelo IBAMA.


     


    Recentemente, os ribeirinhos da região denunciaram na imprensa local o fato dos peixes tradicionais do rio Madeira, como Mandi, Pacu e Bico de Pato estarem desaparecendo e prejudicando o modo de vida daquela comunidade.

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  • 15/09/2009

    Aldeia Guarani é incendiada no Mato Grosso do Sul

    Na noite de ontem, 14 de setembro, pessoas não identificadas queimaram cerca de 35 casas de indígenas Guarani Kaiowá, da aldeia Laranjeira Ñanderu, próxima do município de Rio Brilhante, no Mato Grosso do Sul. Os indígenas não estavam na aldeia, pois desde o dia 11 foram obrigados a sair da terra por ordem judicial e estão acampados à beira da BR-163.


     


    Os cerca de 130 Guarani Kaiowá da comunidade Laranjeira Ñanderu assistiram o fogo consumir suas casas e o restante de seus pertences. Durante a noite, os causadores do incêndio continuaram a amedrontar os indígenas, com carros vigiando as coisas queimadas e acendendo os faróis contra os barracos na beira da estrada.


     


    O Ministério Público Federal foi alertado e se comprometeu a enviar agentes policiais, mas isso não aconteceu. De acordo com Zezinho, uma das lideranças Guarani, os indígenas estão abalados porque não foram apenas as casas queimadas, mas também os espíritos dos que moravam com eles.


     


    Durante a madrugada, alguns indígenas ainda se arriscaram a ir à antiga aldeia para resgatar pequenos animais, mas a maioria dos bichos, como galinhas e cachorros, estavam mortos. Toda a comunidade passou a noite sem dormir, com medo dos ataques.


     


    Os indígenas Guarani Kaiowá estão acampados na beira da estrada, em frente à fazenda Santo Antônio de Nova Esperança, onde está a terra tradicional do povo, à espera de demarcação.

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  • 14/09/2009

    Belo Monte e o Circo no Xingu

    Foi realizada ontem, na cidade de Brasil Novo, a primeira audiência pública da maior obra do PAC, o Aproveitamento Hidrelétrico de Belo Monte. Com início as 13h30 e término as 19h00 foram realizadas apresentações bonitas, porém superficiais e assim foram também as respostas dadas nas seções de perguntas que não atenderam os anseios das populações. Será que pensam que somos palhaços em um grande circo Amazônico?


     


    A pequena Brasil Novo, 40 quilômetros distante de Altamira, na região da Transamazônica, foi sede da primeira audiência pública para discutir os impactos ambientais do projeto da usina de Belo Monte, uma das mais polêmicas obras do PAC. Adhemar Palloci, pela Eletrobrás e Valter Cardeal, da Eletronorte, junto com pesquisadores da Leme Engenharia e técnicos do governo federal, apresentaram os estudos da obra para cerca de 600 pessoas.


     


    O rito da audiência pública prevê que a população faça perguntas sobre os impactos, para obter respostas e compromissos quanto aos impactos. Omissões, superficialidade e ausência de respostas, no entanto, marcaram a audiência. O procurador da República em Altamira, Rodrigo Costa e Silva, responsável por fiscalizar o licenciamento de Belo Monte, apresentou sete questões objetivas relacionadas à saúde, educação, ordenamento fundiário. A resposta padrão dos técnicos foi: “os detalhes estão nos EIA”.


     


     “As apresentações foram muito bonitas com fotos, vídeos e muitas cores mostrando os diversos benefícios do empreendimento, não apresentando com clareza os impactos previstos, possíveis problemas e mitigações de forma mais específica. Foram apresentações e respostas muito superficiais para o tamanho da obra e impactos socioambientais previstos”, avalia Marcelo Salazar, do Instituto Socioambiental


     


    As perguntas colocadas por representantes dos movimentos sociais, políticos, empresários, Ministério Público mostraram que a população tem dúvidas diretas e relevantes sobre o empreendimento.


     


    Muitas perguntas foram realizadas a respeito da mão de obra a ser empregada nas obras. A população mostrou preocupação quanto à qualificação dos moradores da região para ocupar os postos de trabalho que seriam gerados. Apesar de afirmarem que há previsão de programas de treinamento, os técnicos não foram capazes de especificar os investimentos a serem realizados ou listar os tipos de treinamento.


     


    Não senti nenhuma segurança porque as perguntas da população não foram respondidas. Nem para explicar o que vai acontecer com as praias de Brasil Novo (provavelmente alagadas pela usina), eles serviram. Além disso, eu conheço quase todos os agricultores do município e fiquei surpresa de não ver quase nenhum conhecido na audiência.. A maioria dos presentes eram empresários de Altamira, sindicalistas de Belém. O IBAMA não se preocupou em garantir a presença das pessoas que realmente serão atingidas”, afirma Antônia Martins, coordenadora do Movimento de Mulheres da região.


     


    As outras audiências prometem ser mais calorosas, com mais participação da população local e com questões ainda mais especificas do que as feitas em Brasil Novo. A sociedade espera que a equipe técnica seja mais competente para ao menos apontar os locais do EIA onde se podem encontrar respostas, ou assumir o compromisso de buscar essas repostas, quando elas não existirem. “A impressão que ficou foi de que os técnicos não tinham certezas para apresentar, nem o mínimo conhecimento da dimensão dos impactos. Saímos com a certeza de que é necessário complementar os estudos e fazer novas audiências públicas”, concluiu Salazar.


     


     

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  • 14/09/2009

    Guaranis: do jejuvy à palavra recuperada

    Muito além de mortes banais, os suicídios indígenas em Mato Grosso são também protesto, ritual, performance de uma cultura que sobrevive por um fio muito tênue e belo. Agora, uma campanha nacional quer defender suas terras e matas, seu tempo distinto, sua singularidade possível


     


    Fabiane Borges, Verenilde Santos


     


    Performance ritual:


    O dia amanhece com um índio guarani-kaiowa enforcado. Cadarço de tênis esticado da árvore. Banho tomado, perfumado, de joelhos.


     


    A aldeia Bororo sabe do que se trata: do jejuvy. Isso não é conforto, é ritual de morte. A palavra jejuvy na língua dos Guarani [1] tem uma carga semântica que significa aperto na garganta, voz aniquilada, impossibilidade de dizer, palavra sufocada, alma presa. É através do ritual do jejuvy que os kaiowa praticam o suicídio, por enforcamento ou ingestão de veneno. Apesar de ser reconhecido como prática ritual ancestral, nos últimos anos o jejuvy alastra-se pelas aldeias em escala epidêmica. São cerca de 50 suicídios por ano, envolvendo jovens de 9 a 14 anos de idade.


     


    Segundo dados do Conselho Indigenista Missionário (CIMI), o número de suicídios começou a aumentar nos anos 80, dobrou na década de 90 e bateu o recorde na virada do século 21, chegando aos mais de 50 por ano. Não são temas deste artigo as mortes por desnutrição, os homicídios entre os próprios indígenas ou as guerras incessantes entre indígenas e fazendeiros, fatos igualmente chocantes. [2]


     


    Os suicídios (jejuvy) são efetuados basicamente por enforcamento (método antigo) e ingestão de venenos das monoculturas (método novo). Rejeita-se a “poluição” como derramamento de sangue ou cortes físicos, para que não se perca a palavra. Muitos guaranis consideram o suicídio uma doença produzida pela prisão da palavra (alma). É pela boca que a palavra se liberta. Se não há lugar para a palavra, não há vida. Por isso, na hora de morrer, não deve ser utilizado o corte contra si mesmo, pois a palavra se dispersaria. Sufocando-a, ela permaneceria como um aglomerado de energia e poderia voltar a vingar em algum outro momento.


     


    Conforme narrativas dos próprios kaiowa sobre índios que cometeram suicídio, eles unificam elos que vão desde o ato individual inerente à condição humana e solitária de cada um, até o sentido político de coletividade, um “estar entre os outros”, produzindo simbologias-limites: os enforcamentos, os envenenamentos. Atos que condensam e apontam para o resgate, talvez impossível de uma “forma de ser”, como os kaiowa costumam falar. E se para eles a linguagem é uma das mais importantes formas de fazer o ser se manifestar, ao impedi-la, impede-se também os sujeitos de existirem. O suicídio epidêmico seria a resposta coletiva à impossibilidade de expressar a singularidade desse povo.


     


    Se até cerca de 40 anos atrás, os kaiowa e nhandeva moravam em casas grandes denominadas ogajekutu-ogaguasu, reunindo até cem pessoas de uma mesma família, hoje vivem em casas minúsculas, muitas ainda feitas de barro, sem a proteção da floresta, abrigando apenas a família nuclear. A estrutura da família extensa, cuja chefia baseia-se no prestígio e religiosidade, desorganizou-se, visto que os indígenas não conseguiram substituir seu prestígio cultural pelo poder dos brancos. Com a dizimação de suas terras, sem os ritos do plantio, da colheita, das sagas coletivas de caça e pesca, eles não têm razões para continuar com seus ritos, e conforme perdem as práticas com a terra perdem também sua cultura. Mesmo que ainda subsista, de forma curiosa, a língua guarani, que é o maior foco de insistência e resistência dessa coletividade.


     


    Muitos grupos indígenas, inclusive guarani kaiowa, vivem em acampamentos precários dentro das fazendas dos latifundiários, que em nome do expansionismo ou de mais alguma razão macha e injustificável, tomaram a força suas terras – e ainda tomam, com armas desiguais. Isso é um dos motivos mais apontados por indígenas, indigenistas e antropólogos para a causa da epidemia de suicídios entre os guarani kaiowa: a perda da terra, da tekoha, o lugar onde “realizam seu modo de ser”.


     


    Se por um lado os suicídios por enforcamento ou pela ingestão de veneno podem significar o sufocamento, também podem significar o desejo da libertação – e é nesse ponto que o suicídio ritual funciona como performance ética, estética e interventiva. Gestos de enunciação. O trágico funcionando como dispositivo de reversão sígnica sobre a questão indígena. Desde que a “epidemia suicida” começou a se alastrar nas aldeias, ativistas, estudantes, pesquisadores, pessoas ligadas à mídia independente passaram a olhar com mais atenção a essa situação, fazer alianças e se tornar cooperadores na luta pela terra guarani, de forma a amplificar esses sinais, até então emitidos em total invisibilidade. Há alguns grupos indígenas, principalmente professores indígenas ligados à universidade e lideranças locais, que dedicam sua vida a essa causa, sendo que o número de líderes mortos nessa empreitada supera nossa imaginação.


     


    Apesar de muitos dos suicídios serem praticados em locais mais resguardados, existe um grande número de casos que ocorrem em lugares de perambulação, os lugares “públicos” da aldeia, como estradas, roças, áreas onde o corpo suicida pode ser visto sem muita dificuldade. São nuances que ajudam a esclarecer e também interrogar sobre essa forma de morrer. Não compactuar com a dizimação, com o genocídio, com o etnocídio. Não se acovardar diante do destino, ter o ato bravo e último como forma de amplificar os sinais da miserabilidade que foram submetidos. As árvores, os arbustos, as roças, qualquer lugar que tenha sido utilizado para o suicídio torna-se marco da aldeia e fica cravado no imaginário, na linguagem cotidiana e na sua luta contra o confinamento. Os mortos continuam falando especialmente para os corações sensíveis, ainda conectados em crenças de espíritos da natureza e nas emissões dos seus sinais.


     


    Os ritos, as danças, os cantos as lutas sobrevivem por pura insistência. A sensação que tivemos ao estarmos na aldeia Bororó é que essa cultura sobrevive por um fio muito tênue e belo. Como uma voz que se força a falar, mas já não soa como costumava. Mesmo afônica, agônica, gaga, insiste em se manifestar. Ritual de rememoração. Resíduo. Resistência de certos cantos e gestos. As danças de luta dos guarani kaiowa lembram as lutas marciais, lutas de espadas. São feitas de pedaços de paus, facas, pedras assemelhando-se a lutas ninjas.


     


    Dona Tereza Guarani é uma das últimas velhas da aldeia. Conduz os ritos na aldeia Bororó com o rosto enrugado e concentrado, mãos fortes que movimentam o maracá, passos contundentes que provocam o som retumbante no chão de barro. No êxtase, provocado pelos cantos, que sentimos, nos perguntamos como é possível que ainda cantem e dancem e lutem dessa forma. Em nome de qual força? Dona Tereza faz um esforço explícito para que essa cultura kaiowa se mantenha, pois a grande maioria do seu povo não vê motivo para continuar os ritos. Muitos já não sabem mais como eram as danças e as batidas. A velha índia Tereza, a rezadeira, curandeira, a mulher compromissada com os rituais culturais da aldeia, toma para si o encargo de dar suporte de memória e sentido aos ritos dos antepassados. Coloca os filhos e netos e amigos para aprender os cantos e as danças, antes de morrer. Essa é a função para a qual dedica sua vida. Mesmo seu poder de xamã não a impediu de presenciar muitos suicídios em sua própria família.


     


    Apego à vida é um imperativo da dominação, do exercício de poder – e da inclusão. Quando há coisa mais intensa que o apego a vida, há mídia tática, há resistência, há potência de protesto. Porém o que é que os kaiowá amam mais do que a sobrevivência? É isto que grita de maneira abafada ainda pelo espaço público da aldeia, que é favela que é cidade que é campo. Tem alguma coisa que estes indígenas desejam mais do que serem incluídos na pasmaceira da biopolítica globalizada, na miserabilidade imposta pela política neoliberal. É uma forma de vida que não se contenta com a sobrevivência miserável do branco ou do índio. Nesse caso pensamos que não se trata de inclusão indígena na sociedade nacional, mas da mobilização da sociedade para a retomada das terras indígenas para colaborar no processo desse outro índio que o próprio índio não sabe e tem que devir.


     


    As lutas de movimentos agrários no Brasil se intensificaram ao longo desses últimos 30 anos e cada vez ganham maior visibilidade mundial em função da sua extrema importância. A luta indígena é mais uma das lutas agrárias do pais, a mais antiga, a mais usurpada e dizimada. Os processos de homologação e assentamentos estão longe do seu fim e é com muito esforço, tensão e mortes que se efetivam suas realizações.


     


    Nosso desafio em gerar uma rede de colaboração capaz de mudar a percepção social sobre pontos enredados da sociedade é urgente e de grande relevância. Mais do que mudança perceptiva, é necessário a ampliação do próprio espectro relacional dos movimentos sociais, para que ganhem possibilidades de ação diversas. O papel que a mídia tática, Greenpeace e CMI (centro de mídia independente) têm exercido nesses contextos é uma abertura para ajudar a pensar em como grupos autônomos, organizados ou não, podem atuar junto aos movimentos e às lutas sociais (nosso grande espaço público). Ainda são precárias suas atuações, mas sinalizam possibilidades. Para além da denúncia e do apoio, é preciso criar meios que se tornem mais incisivos na efetivação de certos projetos políticos dos movimentos da sociedade civil, como é o caso da campanha pró-guarani foi lançada em setembro de 2007 e que recém começa a aparecer para a sociedade geral [3].


     


    Essa campanha midiática, ativista, feita na sua maioria por lideranças indígenas guaranis e apoiada pelo CIMI, reclama o reconhecimento das 32 terras indígenas do povo guarani, reclama o desaceleramento do mercado agropecuário na região do Mato Grosso do Sul, o reflorestamento das áreas dizimadas, o respeito e reconhecimento de um tempo que não precisa ser igual para todo mundo. Mas também reivindicam o acesso ao que há de relevante na sociedade (inter)nacional, levando em conta as conquistas da ciência e da tecnologia, etc.


     


    Há muito o que pensar na intervenção desses suicídios no imaginário social branco, indígena, mestiço. Mas uma coisa é certa: essas mortes têm evidenciado o impasse que esses indíos vivem, e chegam até nós como sinalizadores dessa condição insuportável, indígna, vergonhosa que os ideais de civilização, de desenvolvimento e de crescimento econômico provocam. É preciso agir antes que toda diferença desapareça.


     


    Outras fontes de pesquisa:


     


    http://www.campanhaguarani.org.br


     


    http://www.midiatatica.info


     


    http://www.rizoma.net


     


    http://hemi.nyu.edu


     


    http://www.midiaindependente.org


     


    [1] Os índios guarani estão divididos em três grupos: guarani-nhendeva, guarani-kaiowá e guarani-mbyá. À época da chegada dos europeus, esses indígenas somavam cerca de quatro milhões de pessoas. Atualmente existem cerca de quarenta mil, espalhadas pelas regiões Sul e Centro-Oeste do Brasil. No Mato Grosso, calcula-se que existam cerca de 27.500, pessoas espalhadas em 22 pequena áreas. Sendo que a aldeia bororó, apresentada nesse texto, abriga 12 mil índios guaranis- kaiowas, comprimidos em 3.600 hectares de terra improdutiva e sem mata. Aí existem mais de 90 igrejas entre católicas, evangélicas e espíritas, que disputam os indígenas entre si conforme suas crenças e métodos de conversão.


     


    O território dos índios guarani estendia-se ao Norte, até os rios Apa e dourados e ao Sul até a Serra de Maracaju e os afluentes do rio Jejuí, chegando a uma extensão Leste-Oeste de aproximadamente 100 quilômetros, em ambos os lados da serra de Amambai abrangendo uma extensão de terra de aproximadamente 40 mil km2, dividida pela fronteira Brasil-Paraguai.


     


    [2] Ver mais


     


    [3] http://www.campanhaguarani.org.br


     


    Veja a notícia no site do Le Monde Diplomatique: http://diplo.uol.com.br/2008-02,a2168

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