So magnificently written! You can almost feel being there. In reading article such as those there are suggestions of tears.
"But the bottom line is certainly not a bank – it is communal human wellbeing in concert with the rest of the species on the only planet we have – or are ever likely to have. Making profits while endangering people's lives and livelihoods is immoral, and it is happening in the Amazon today. It doesn't have to be that way.
Chief Megaron Txukarramãe addressed the crowd at the recent Piaraçu assembly.
Blended into the deciduous forests of Mato Grosso in Brazil's Upper Xingu River basin, the village of Piaraçu is as much a home to the Kayapó people as a symbol of their fortitude, forged by sustained cultural and political struggle for rights and territory. It is also where, after decades of indigenous resistance against the damming of the Xingu, the Kayapó are leading last ditch attempts to defend the river, its peoples, and its forests from the impending Belo Monte Dam Complex.
In Piaraçu for three days, I had the honor of participating in an extraordinary, inspiring, and historic gathering of 320 indigenous representatives from 18 ethnicities from the Xingu basin and beyond. We were joined as well by leaders of the Xingu Alive Forever Movement (MXVPS), who brought news from endangered communities of Altamira. Called by the legendary elder Kayapó Chief Raoni Metyktire, this assembly aimed to discuss the impending human rights and environmental disaster that is the Belo Monte Dam on the Lower Xingu – in particular the menace it represents to Brazil's indigenous peoples – and ways for its opponents to forge a single and unified force to resist its construction.
The days and nights of the Kayapo meeting were marked by fierce speeches denouncing Belo Monte and its government protagonists, punctuated by the spontaneous and colorful dances of different groups that demonstrated the rich cultural diversity of those in attendance. Their bodies streaked with intricate body paint designs and adorned with beads, feathers, and bright headdresses, leaders and warriors brandished long battle clubs and bows, shaking them defiantly at the government that has chosen to dismiss them, ignoring their pleas and trampling on their rights. As the meeting progressed, the piercing songs of men and women grew in intensity, matched by their anger and thirst for justice and recognition, bearing witness to the power of these people, who are committed to overcoming severe and escalating threats to their way of life.
Kayapó warriors demonstrated their great opposition to the impending Belo Monte Dam project which would change their way of life forever.
As the dominant indigenous group of the Xingu basin, the Kayapó have a history of bold and victorious confrontation with outside forces, gaining them hard won legal recognition for their ancestral lands, which make up an enormous mosaic of demarcated territories spanning a long stretch of the Xingu River and its tributaries. Traditional guardians of their forests and rivers, the Kayapó were the driving force behind the defeat of the Brazilian government's first plans to dam the Xingu – known then as the Kararaô Complex – in 1989.
Yet 21 years later the Xingu River and its people are imperiled like never before, this time by the Belo Monte Dam Complex, slated to carve the world's third-largest dam into the heart of the Amazon. The Kayapó are keenly aware that the Belo Monte Dam will not be a stand-alone project, despite dubious government pronouncements, but rather will initiate a process that drives a series of massive cement walls up the Xingu, strangling up the river basin, wiping out fish stocks so central to local diets while decimating surrounding forests and communities. This life-giving river is sacred to its indigenous peoples and its healthy flow – free of dams – is imperative to those who gathered in Piaraçu. .. insert video ..
Nowhere was the urgent need for courageous Kayapó leadership more apparent than in the statements of Antônia Melo, Sheyla Juruna, and Renata Pinheiro of the MXVPS. Bringing news from the frontlines in the struggle to stop the Belo Monte Dam, their powerful testimonies illustrated the ominous situation on the ground in the city of Altamira: the "monster" Belo Monte is at their doorsteps. The construction consortium NESA has rented out nearly all of the city's hotel rooms, cars, and boats, furiously contracting laborers to initiate project works. An enormous shipment of cement was recently delivered, undoubtedly destined for the dam's work camps. Farmers and riverine populations are being driven from their homes, paid a pittance for their lands. The only thing delaying construction is Mother Nature herself: unseasonably heavy rains have made the initiation of NESA‘s criminal operations impossible.
In such a grim reality, the Movement is straining against what Antônia Melo calls "psychological torture" as the city spirals into increasing chaos of violence, disorder, and misery brought on by the failure of overburdened social services.
"This is the last chance we have to paralyze Belo Monte's construction," Renata Pinheiro told the indigenous assembly. "The future of the Xingu is in your hands, indigenous peoples and social movements. You succeeded in stopping Belo Monte for 30 years – now more than ever we need to strengthen our resolve, joining forces to stop the beginning of construction."
It is clear that the Brazilian institutions charged with policing socio-environmental norms – like the environmental agency IBAMA and the indigenous foundation FUNAI – have reneged on their role, yielding to the belligerent demands of higher government offices to authorize the project. Now all the stands between the Xingu and the bulldozers are the people themselves.
A fisherman waded into the life-giving Xingu River at dusk.
Yet the messages of the leaders in Piaraçu were not meant to dispirit, they were crafted to inspire. The stirring presence of such powerful groups speaking in one voice – large contingents of Kayapó from Mato Grosso and Pará, the assembly of Juruna, Enawene Nawe, Arara, Bororo, Xavante, Cinta Larga, Terena, Bakairi e Fulni-ô, among others ethnicities – forged an undeniable and collective will to resist. And this was the objective of the assembly: to make a last stand.
"I came here to join with you, my indigenous brothers and sisters, and to leave feeling stronger," said Sheyla Juruna. "We need to fight together to strengthen our union, defend the rights of our peoples, to show the government that we exist and we must be respected! We are the owners of the Xingu - we will not allow it to be destroyed."
Presiding over the assembly were two forceful leaders of the Kayapó of Mato Grosso: Megaron and Puiu Txukarramãe. After days of deliberation, debate, and affirmation, they demonstrated a keen understanding of the significance of their role in leading the next phase of resistance to Belo Monte. And with the commitment of the MXVPS and its Brazilian and international allies, as well as the leaders of the diverse indigenous groups assembled in Piaraçu to back Kayapó's leadership, it was clear that grassroots resistance was far from over.
"We need to continue to unite. We are few, but we are strong," said Chief Megaron Txukarramãe. "We need to fight together with our allies, organizations that represent Brazilian indigenous communities, and together with the 11 ethnicities [from the Xingu Basin] that are ready to struggle against any construction that will bring suffering to the people of the Xingu."
What was made clear in the Piaraçu assembly is that Belo Monte is not simply a disaster for the Amazon but an announcement of future disasters for the rainforest's rivers and communities. It is also a very real assault on the rights of all of Brazil's indigenous peoples, including the right to be consulted and have a say over decisions that effect their lands, resources, and way of life. Called to defend these fundamental rights from further attack, the Kayapó know they will need to urgently lead resistance with the same success as two decades before.
"We will fight until the end to preserve our river and our lands," avowed Puiu Txukarramãe.
Belo Monte dam marks a troubling new era in Brazil's attitude to its rainforest
Karen Hoffmann .. 15th August, 2011
When completed, the Belo Monte Dam will flood more than 500 square km of the Amazon region
Belo Monte is just one of a dozen giant dam projects Brazil plans to build in the Amazon region in the coming decades and opens up the world's largest tropical rainforest to oil and mining exploration
The Kayapó chief stands, and a hush comes over the circle. All the other caciques wait expectantly for Raoni Metuktire to speak.
Instead, he starts to dance, whooping and shouting, a dance for the enemy. Afterwards, he speaks. 'I will go there, to Belo Monte, and warn my family,' he says, the disc in his lower lip punctuating his words. 'What happened with Tucuruí will not happen again.'
His nephew Megaron Txukurramãe translating, Raoni exhorts the chiefs gathered at the 50th anniversary of Brazil's Xingu Indigenous Park: 'I want you to feel strong, you are great! I want to see you fighting!'
Raoni and Megaron are intimately familiar with the Belo Monte dam. They've been fighting it for decades. Belo Monte's first incarnation was called Kararaô, a name that was quickly changed after indigenous people pointed out that the word, in Tupi, means 'war.'
In 1989, a major protest was held in the town of Altamira. Even Sting showed up at the event. In a memorable speech, a Kayapó woman said: 'Electricity won't give us food. We need the rivers to flow freely. Don't talk to us about relieving our 'poverty' - we are the richest people in Brazil. We are Indians.' (See 'Adios Amazonia?' in the Ecologist, Vol 19 No 2, March/April 1989) .. http://exacteditions.theecologist.org/exact/browse/307/308/6250/3/24 ..
That protest put the brakes on Belo Monte for two decades. But now, the project is on the fast track once again.
The picture has changed significantly since 1989. Then, the funding was mostly international: loans from the World Bank and international companies like Lloyds of London, Midlands, and Citibank. This made the project more susceptible to international public pressure.
This time around, the dam is being funded by Brazilian government and business. The consortium that's building the dam, Norte Energia, is mainly funded by the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES), reportedly with a push from President Dilma Rousseff, formerly Minister of Energy.
Belo Monte's price tag is a substantial R$30 billion, but its actual cost is even higher. The enormous dam - it will be the third largest in the world - will both flood more than 500 square km, including parts of Altamira, and dry up more than 100 km of the Xingu River.
The particular section of the river most affected, called the Big Bend, happens to be home to indigenous and riberine communities such as the Juruna, Arara, and Kayapó. The project would cause the disappearance of entire species of birds, reptiles, and fish, and displace tens of thousands of people.
And Belo Monte is just one of dozens of giant dam projects Brazil intends to build in the Amazon region in the coming decades.
First dams then mining
The obvious argument in favor of hydroelectric projects is that Brazil needs more energy to power its astonishing ascent. But critics say that energy could be recouped in other ways. 'Brazil could be hugely more efficient in its transmission and consumption of energy,' says Brent Millikan, Amazon Program Director of International Rivers.
Where, then, will the 11,200 megawatts generated by Belo Monte go?
'Belo Monte is a pretext for mining and oil exploration in the Volta Grande,' says Sheyla Juruna, a leader from the Juruna tribe. One journalist tells me she has the governor of Pará on record saying just that.
Tucuruí, the older dam project of which Raoni spoke, was built in the 1980s on the Tocantins river to convert bauxite into aluminum. It caused major flooding along its 125-km reservoir and caused loss of forest, displacement of indigenous peoples and riverside residents, eliminated fisheries, created breeding grounds for mosquitos, and caused mercury methylation with potentially grave public health consequences for fish consumers in urban centers like the city of Belém, says researcher Philip M. Fearnside of the National Institute for Research in the Amazon.
'Tucuruí mainly benefits multinational aluminum companies,' he says, adding, 'The need for fully informed public discussion of the ambitious hydroelectric plans that have been made for Amazonia is urgent. Unfortunately, many of the lessons of Tucuruí have not yet been learned.'
Murders and the Forest Code
The town with the fortune or misfortune to be closest to Belo Monte is Altamira (pop. 105,000 and growing every day). Altamira is situated in the state of Pará, the Wild North of Brazil. Lately, the region has experienced paroxysms of violence inextricably linked to environmental debates.
On May 26, Brazil’s Senate approved changes to the Forest Code that rolled back forest protections in place since 1965. The rural bloc of cattle ranchers and farmers, a stronghold in Pará, wields much power in Congress.
On May 27, land rights activist Adelino Ramos was killed in Rondonia. The next day, Eremilton dos Santos, a possible witness to Da Silva's death, was murdered in Pará.
On June 1, the day IBAMA approved Belo Monte’s construction, Joao Vieira dos Santos (alias Marcos Gomes da Silva), another Pará forest activist, was killed. A week later, Obede Loyola Souza was shot dead — yet again, in Pará. And on July 24, rural farmer Francisco Oliveira Soares was murdered in what police ruled was a conflict over land rights. Guess in which state?
Unsurprisingly, the majority of Pará business class, with real signs in their eyes, is in favor of the dam. 'Belo Monte is 30 years late,' Jose Maria Mendonça, vice-president of the Federation of Pará Industries, told a local daily. 'While the world is questioning nuclear energy, Brazil has this opportunity to generate clean energy and contribute more and better jobs, starting with the mineral industry. Pará society can't let these compensatory measures slip through their fingers.'
Without question, the dam is bringing money into the region. But this influx comes with its own problems. Celso Rodrigues, a taxi driver who's lived in Altamira 17 years, says that with the frenzy of activity around the dam, crime has risen substantially. It's no longer safe for him to pick up passengers in the street - he only operates by phone. 'The dam brings lots of outsiders to town, but the problems aren't just caused by them - it's even family,' he told me. 'But development brings these things, right?'
According to the coordinator of local NGO Movimento Xingu Vivo Pará Sempre (Xingu Alive Forever Movement), Antonia Melo, the town has suffered with the growth of urban occupations and homeless populations. 'With the installation license of Belo Monte, the situation is bordering on a public calamity,' she says.
At the peak of the construction activity, forecast for 2013, Norte Energia's own figures estimate that between workers and family members, the total number of people attracted to the region will be 96,000, doubling Altamira's population.
Bribes and charm
At the Xingu festival, Raoni was far from the only speaker to denounce Belo Monte. But there is another difference between the fighting Kayapó of 1989 and the tribes' attitude today: When I asked Megaron what his people planned to do to stop Belo Monte, he demurred, noting, 'They are getting R$30,000 a month [from Norte Energia].'
And, says Sheyla Juruna: 'Better health, education, employment - everybody wants that. We Juruna aren't against development. But it divides people. Many don't want to speak out against Belo Monte, for fear of not receiving benefits.'
Besides payoffs, Norte Energia is operating a charm offensive, distributing videos, sending press releases to environmental NGOs, and putting on concerts.
Brega means 'cheesy.' It also refers to the most popular style of music in Pará. Calypso, a local band, are the reigning kings of brega. So Norte Energia brought them to Altamira for a pro-Belo Monte concert, the biggest event the town had seen in quite awhile, possibly ever.
That night, waiting for the music to start, bored teenagers hung around in the rain. The speeches seemed interminable. The mayor of Uruará shouted, 'Whoever is against Belo Monte is against the region, against Amazonia, against sustainable development!'
Even the headliner got in on the rhetoric. 'In the capital they have air conditioning and internet,' recited Calypso's buxom blond singer, Joelma. 'Belo Monte will get you these things. Belo Monte is the solution.' Her head hung down as if she were reading a text, or ashamed.
'You hear?' repeated the representative from Uruará. 'Joelma is in favor of Belo Monte!'
Legal challenges
Inside Brazil, there is much resistance to the dam, if not in the highest echelons of government. Objections have been raised on scientific, legal, and economic grounds.
Eleven civil actions lawsuits against the Belo Monte Dam, filed by the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office, are still pending in Brazilian courts. In May, 20 Brazilian scientific associations sent a letter to President Rousseff, requesting the suspension of the process of licensing the dam.
'The Brazilian government is trying to frame itself as concered with balancing environmental sustainability with economic growth. We want to shine a spotlight on these inconsistencies,' says Christian Poirier, Brazil campaigner for the NGO Amazon Watch. 'It's a waste of money - companies have pulled out because they can't afford the spiralling cost. The expense falls on the Brazilian taxpayer to subsidize this boondoggle in the Amazon.'
'In response to the escalating assault on the Amazon and its peoples being perpetrated by the Brazilian government, Amazon Watch will continue to work with its partners on the ground to shine a spotlight on these environmental crimes in order to shame Brazil on the international stage,' he added.
After the approval of the license to build Belo Monte on June 1, protests were held all over Brazil. From the chic Avenida Paulista in Sao Paulo to Salvador, Bahia, and Washington D.C., many Brazilians far from the front lines are against the dam.
Internationally, the dam has been criticised by everyone from Amnesty International to James Cameron, director of Avatar, who has visited Altamira several times.
In April, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recommended to Brazil that it take urgent action to guarantee the rights of indigenous peoples before going ahead with dam construction, as required by the Brazilian Constitution as well as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Convention 169 of the International Labor Organisation.
Brazil responded by withdrawing its commissioner, a step that could jeopardise its chances at a coveted permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.
One typical response to international attention is that it's just foreign meddling, trying to keep Brazil from rising to first-world status. And the United States, for example, has already done the same thing, so who are they to talk? I overhear a conversation on a plane leaving Altamira: 'In the U.S. they've already gotten rid of their forests. They want to be the guard of the world. We need to be armed.'
Evictions and Occupations
Altamira has many low-lying neighborhoods made up of palafitas, houses built on stilts over creeks. Parts of the city below 100 meters of elevation will be flooded. These areas already flood during the rainy season, so they don't stand a chance against Belo Monte. Norte Energia, in its public statements, has played up the 'precarious circumstances' of the families that live in these neighborhoods. Even those that won't be 'relocated' are being forced out by skyrocketing rents due to the massive influx of people to the city: In all, more than 6,000 families will be affected, according to Xingu Vivo.
Families with nowhere else to go have resorted to occupying vacant land in Altamira. This has led to violent clashes with police. On June 22, about 150 families were violently evicted from land they had occupied. Without a warrant, civil and military police used rubber bullets and tear gas to evict the occupiers. Forty people, including three minors, were arrested. The previous day, about 120 families were removed and three people were arrested. Witnesses said the military police used pepper spray.
'Educating' the indigenous population
As for the indigenous who will be affected, the attitude toward them in Pará is at times openly racist. Said the Calypso chanteuse, with the development resulting from Belo Monte, 'We'll show that Pará is not just Indian' - echoing a quote from Norte Energia director of construction Luiz Fernando Rufato in O Globo: 'It's inevitable that the Indians, eventually, will have to change their way of life. Are they going to live their whole lives hunting with bows and arrows and living in villages?'
Even the Brazil's government agency that ostensibly protects indigenous peoples, FUNAI, has its hands tied, two employees told me separately. 'There's the official line, and then there's what we really think,' said one. FUNAI is traveling around Brazil to 'educate' Indians on the benefits Belo Monte will bring them, in an uncomfortable throwback to the days when they were given the ignoble task of 'pacifying' indigenous tribes ahead of the Transamazonica Highway.
According to Norte Energia's schedule, the drainage of Altamira will happen in June 2014. Belo Monte will begin commercial operations at the first turbine, at Pimental Site, on February 28, 2015. The last turbine is set to be installed at Belo Monte Site on January 31, 2019.
Despite the compensation measures, it seems Belo Monte will not go forward without meeting fierce resistance.
'Our culture is not for sale. My mother, older people, who are connected to their land – how they can build their lives elsewhere?' Sheyla, the tribal leader, asks.
'My fight continues, not just for me, but also for my sons,' she says, adding, 'I'm not afraid to die.'
Court Rules Against Indigenous Rights in Belo Monte Hearing Decision violates Brazil's Constitution and international human rights convention; appeal to Supreme Court expected
Amazon Watch, International Rivers FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | November 9, 2011
For more information, contact: Brent Millikan, International Rivers, +55 61 8153 7009, brent@internationalrivers.org Christian Poirier, Amazon Watch, +55 11 8565 5343, christian@amazonwatch.org Caroline Bennett, Amazon Watch, +1 415 487 9600, caroline@amazonwatch.org
Brasilia, Brazil – A district federal court in Brazil ruled today that indigenous communities threatened by the controversial Belo Monte Dam complex – under initial construction since July on the Xingu River in the Amazon – do not have the right to free, prior and informed consultations regarding the project despite guarantees in the Brazilian Constitution and international human rights agreements to which Brazil is a signatory.
In a tie-breaking vote that clashed with a previous decision by the court in the same lawsuit, Federal Judge Maria do Carmo Cardoso claimed that there was no need for prior consultations with indigenous communities affected by Belo Monte since dam infrastructure and reservoirs would not be physically located on indigenous lands. Her statement was based on arguments presented by dam proponents within the Brazilian government and conservative Judge Fagundes de Deus, a former legal counsel with the parastatal energy company Eletronorte.
"This decision surprised us because the result of this judgment is contrary to what the court had previously decided about the same lawsuit, with regard to a restraining order back in 2006," said Federal Prosecutor Felicio Pontes, one of the authors of the lawsuit. Now it's up to the Supreme Court to decide whether the Federal Constitution is valid or not in Brazil."
In October, Federal Judge and rapporteur Selene Maria de Almeida cast an initial vote on the merits of the lawsuit filed by the Federal Public Prosecutor's office, in which she agreed that a 2005 legislative decree that authorized construction of Belo Monte was illegal, since prior consultations with indigenous communities – guaranteed under Article 231 of the Brazilian Constitution – were not carried out by Congress. Almeida's decision also cited the need for Brazil to comply with its commitments to ILO Convention 169 and other international agreements that require free, prior and informed consent among indigenous peoples regarding projects that significantly affect their territories and livelihoods.
Citing overwhelming evidence from official sources and independent researchers, Almeida concluded that the diversion of 80% of the Xingu River into artificial channels and reservoirs would have devastating impacts downriver for the Arara, Juruna and Xikrin Kayapó indigenous peoples, given inevitable losses to the tribes' ability to catch fish, raise crops, and navigate freely. As such, prior consultations by the Brazilian Congress with indigenous communities were required before the dam project could be legally authorized.
In sharp contrast to Almeida's decision, Judge Cardoso justified her dissenting vote by arguing that the project's impact studies and meeting conditions for an environmental license would fully mitigate any possible harm on indigenous communities. She downplayed the importance of prior consultations with indigenous peoples threatened by infrastructure projects such as Belo Monte, claiming they are "informative" and irrelevant for congressional decisions on whether to authorize mining and hydroelectric projects on indigenous lands. Cardoso further stated that while unnecessary in the case of Belo Monte, indigenous peoples should consider themselves "privileged" to be consulted about large projects that affect their livelihoods. In her statement today, no mention was made of international agreements on indigenous rights, such as ILO Convention 169.
"To suggest that consultations with indigenous peoples can take place after the authorization of a project like Belo Monte is disrespectful to the point of absurdity," said Ubiratan Cazetta, head of the Federal Public Prosecutor's office in the state of Pará, where the Belo Monte Dam is being built. "We firmly believe this is not the spirit of the Brazilian Constitution and international human rights agreements, such as ILO 169, that hold the status of law in our country. Consultations are not a privilege; they are a question of survival for indigenous peoples that is assured by the Constitution that cannot be abolished by the judiciary."
"Today's decision by Judge Cardoso proves that there is no independent judicial system in our country," said Sheyla Juruna, a leader of the Juruna indigenous community located near the Belo Monte Dam site. "With political pressure and money, the government gets anything it wants. We have no more illusions about the government and judiciary's respect for the Brazilian Constitution when our rights are at stake. Judge Cardoso can be sure that we will never forget the harm she caused us today. This vote will weigh against her forever."
i had a First Contact video ready to go, but a bit in was overwhelmed in dismay and struck by a forlorn feeling, "leave these people alone." .. it was debilitating .. so stuff those videos for evermore .. the one above felt acceptably unobtrusive .. not sure if we've seen it before ..
The Baka are a tribe of Pygmies living in central Africa. These nomadic hunter-gatherers live in the central African forests and have one of the oldest surviving cultures in Africa, certainly older than that of their taller black neighbours living on the open plains. They are endgangered - more in danger than the whale (which makes me wonder why I have never yet seen anyone walking around with a badge declaring "Save the Pygmies"). But we should call them the Baka, not Pygmies. The name "Pygmy" was coined by foreigners, who have generally behaved despicably towards these people, which is why the Baka prefer to be known by their own name.
From time to time white people think there is a question that needs to be answered - the question of what it is that makes us different from (other) animals. The most common answer the white people come up with is that we are beings with Reason. In contrast to the animals lost in a world of thoughtless instinct, we can think rationally. How would the Baka answer that question? I imagine they would find it a very strange question because it assumes that we are set apart from the natural world, whereas they believe themselves to be a part of it. However, if pushed (because the white people are very good at pushing) the Baka could well answer: "What makes us different is our singing." Singing is a huge part of their culture, and they sing brilliantly. If they have to do someting as a group - say, going fishing - one of them will start singing, and slowly the others will join in.
Listen to the women singing HERE. ..
I have just been to the tax office - and the taxation system is one of the achievements of the rational mind. It was not a pleasant experience. It made me think of the Blake poem .. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172929 .. describing the marks of woe on the faces of the passers-by and the "mind-forg'd manacles" that Blake saw . The employees were at their desks - one each. The walls were white and blank, save for a large poster of a wild green landscape. No one was singing.
Of course our white culture still gives a place to singing. Two places, actually. There is singing as spectacle, which is also singing as commodity - as an industry. But to find communal singing among fully-fledged adult citizens, we have to go to the football ground. Do those songs bear any comparison, though, with those of the Baka?
Baka culture has very nearly been destroyed. While they were left to themselves the Baka and the other Pygmy tribes managed to sustain a way of life that dates back to way before the time of the Pharoahs. The whites and the Baka's black neighbours, the Bantu, have driven the Baka out of what remains of the forest, and forced them to live in villages. Paul Raffaele has written an excellent first-hand report .. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/The-Pygmies-Plight.html .. of how the culture of the Baka and other Pygmy tribes has collapsed, suffering exploitation, harassment, neglect, disease and drug abuse.
We - as a culture, as a civilisation - can no longer sing, but surely we should be able to see the inestimable value of neighbours who still know how to live through song - neighbours who help to keep alive what we have lost. The Bantu, who consider themselves civilised, despise the Baka and consider the Pygmies the sort of thing that they can own. Are we any better? Are we doing anything to help the tribe survive in a world which is more threatening than anything that previously lurked in the darkest corners of their forest?
To see what we might be doing let's pop over to the UNESCO website where there is lots of material about protecting our World Heritage. Let's put "pygmy" in the search box. We find a page about a West African forest .. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/195 .. which is now a national park, where the pygmy hippopotamus can now live unthreatened, together with "11 species of monkey which are of great scientific interest". The park dates back to 1926, when it was declared a Forest and Wildlife Refuge by the French. It became one of UNESCO's World Heritage sites in 1982.
The pygmy hippo is safe. What of the Pygmy people, though? The UNESCO website has only three lines about them. Apparently a 3-day conference was organised in Gabon in 2002 to discuss how to "include the pygmies in the development process". The fact that "pygmy" is written with a lowercase "p" is revealing. There is no news of what conclusions the conference came to or what is being done to help the Baka and the other Pygmy tribes. UNESCO have, though, compiled a CD of Pygmy music, .. http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=6888&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html .. just so that it is not lost forever.
The forests, which are full of things of "great scientific interest", are to be protected by being made into national parks. What this usually means, though, is that the indigenous people are expelled, as the Baka have been in Cameroon. Presumably these indigenous people and their amazing culture are not part of our World Heritage.
Within the space of 6 years Paul Raffaele witnessed a massive erosion of Baka culture. Am I mistaken in thinking that it would be so easy to help them survive so that they could hold their own and learn how to resist the threats both from the white and the black worlds?
Achuar (FENAP) President Peas Peas Ayui reacts to the news that Talisman Energy will leave Achuar ancestral territory
September 17, 2012
"We have fought long and hard against Talisman. Now we've achieved this, but it doesn't end here. We have to remain awake."
Last Thursday September 13, Talisman Energy announced its decision to cease oil exploration activities in the Peruvian Amazon and to exit the country upon completion of ongoing commercial transactions.
"We have fought long and hard against Talisman's drilling in our territory because of the negative environmental and social impacts we have seen from oil drilling around the world," said Peas Peas Ayui, President of the National Achuar Federation of Peru (FENAP). "Now that Talisman is leaving we can focus on achieving our own vision for development and leave a healthy territory for future generations."
Amazon Watch has been supporting the Achuar since 2004, when Talisman began exploratory operations in the heart of Achuar territory in an extremely bio diverse region of the Amazon rainforest. In recent years Talisman has come under increased pressure by human rights groups and shareholders for operating without Achuar consent. Talisman is the fifth oil company to withdraw from controversial Block 64.
Despite Talisman's claim of attaining local support from communities and signing good neighbor agreements with 66 communities downriver from their operations, the company never had the consent of the majority of communities living within Block 64. Talisman first invested in Peru one year after leaving Sudan and became sole operator in 2007, shortly after John Manzoni's appointment as CEO. Manzoni was replaced by ex-TransCanada CEO Hans Kvisle on Monday this week.
"We are the owners and the original people of this land," said Peas Ayui. "No outside person or company may enter our territory by force, without consultation and without asking us. We have been fighting against oil development on our land for 17 years and we maintain the same vision to protect our territory and resources for future generations. Let this be a clear message to all oil, mining and logging companies: we will never offer up our natural wealth so that they can extract our resources and contaminate our land."
They owned an island, now they are urban poor: the tragedy of Altamira
"The last stand of the Amazon "
Antonio das Chagas with his wife Dulcinéia Dias and their family (two-year-old Cauã, left; four-year-old Marocs, on lap; granddaughter Camila de Oliveira, grandson Ronildo, daughter Dilene and her husband Euclides Photograph: Lilo Clareto
Cities is supported by Rockefeller Foundation
Eliane Brum in Altamira
Tue 6 Feb 2018 18.30 AEDT Last modified on Mon 3 Feb 2020 23.48 AEDT
Construction of the Belo Monte dam has cast men, women and children who lived rich lives along the Xingu River to the outskirts of Altamira, Brazil’s most violent city. Here, to the sound of gunfire, they must live behind barred windows, and buy food with money they’ve never had – or needed before
Antonio das Chagas and Dulcineia Dias had an island. A slice of the Amazon rainforest, on the Xingu River.
“I had a better life than anyone in São Paulo,” says Das Chagas, referring to Brazil’s wealthiest city. “If I wanted to work my land, I did. If I didn’t, the land would be there the next day. If I wanted to fish, I did, but if I’d rather pick açaí, I did. I had a river, I had woods, I had tranquility. On the island, I didn’t have any doors. I had a place … And on the island, we didn’t get sick.”
The couple now rent a house with one window. The window has bars, because they live on the periphery of Altamira, Brazil’s most violent city. They have discovered hunger, which they cannot find words to describe. When asked to do so, Das Chagas, a 60-year-old man who had known nothing of city life before, finds his eyes welling up. Dias, 52, crouches in a corner, her back pressed hard against a cracked cement wall.
I’ve never had a job … always been free. I was rich Antonio das Chagas
Somewhere between their island on the river and their rented house in the city, these people of the forest were converted into urban poor. Typifying the government-led settlement of the Amazon, this process reached its apex under the 1964-1985 civilian-military dictatorship, when megaprojects like the Transamazon Highway were launched. But the event that obstructed the lives of Das Chagas, Dias and and hundreds of families living on the Xingu took place under democracy.
Built in the Amazon forest, in the state of Pará, the Belo Monte hydroelectric complex is one of the biggest infrastructure projects on the planet. It is also hugely controversial. The Public Prosecutor’s Office has filed 24 lawsuits against Belo Monte for human rights and environmental violations. The project has left a huge stain on the Workers’ Party, two of whose leaders – Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (“Lula”) and Dilma Rousseff – made it a top priority of their administrations.
Oblivious to political events in Brazil .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/brazil , Das Chagas and Dias are now poor. Das Chagas, who had never thought of retiring, because he “didn’t need to”, has gone on a state pension so he can feed his wife, youngest daughter and grandson. After paying rent and electricity, which consume 70% of his income, they are left with 1.60 Brazilian reais a day per person – about 36 pence.
Construction at the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images
Located on the Xingu River, Altamira is a typical Amazonian city: almost all of its trees have been cut, because the local political and economic elite view them as roadblocks or something to “clean up”. The heat index (which takes account of temperature and humidity) tops 40C in summer, and climbs above 30C even during the winter rainy season. The couple have neither a refrigerator nor a fan. The centrepiece of their living room is a photomontage of their youngest daughter and two grandsons, a princess and two soldiers against a fake Disney backdrop.
When the new dam’s reservoir began filling up and the water began to rise around their island, Das Chagas witnessed forest creatures dying. Monkeys, agoutis, armadillos and sloths dove from the forest into the water. “We managed to save a few by pulling them into the canoe, but we saw a lot die,” he says. They are part of the forest, like him; like them, he has yet to find terra firma and feels as if he’s drowning in the loneliness of the city. The hardships of his urban life aside, he took in two puppies because he says he doesn’t know how to “live without animals”. He borrowed money for powdered milk to feed them.
Now, theirs is a life of firsts: the first electricity bill, the first rented home, the first time they needed to buy what they eat, the first hunger. Das Chagas wakes before 4am feeling suffocated and rushes to the backyard, a cement slab that has no trees but where he can glimpse a piece of sky. He doesn’t sit because he doesn’t have a chair. He stands, clinging to this shard of freedom, sometimes crying. “Being poor is living in hell,” he says.
Raimundo Braga Gomes looks out from his home in Altamira … ‘I used to have a living river, today I have a dead lake.’ Photograph: Lilo Clareto
‘I was king’
Raimundo Braga Gomes is harsher: “On the river, I was king.”
He and Das Chagas are ribeirinhos, traditional people of the forest, and one of the most invisible, misunderstood populations in Brazil.
Ribeirinhos have a singular identity, defined by their intimate relationship with forest and river. They do not own the land, they belong to it. This is “walking on wealth,” as Gomes puts it. “I didn’t need money to live happy. My whole house was nature. The lumber, straw, didn’t need any nails. I had my patch of land where I planted a bit of everything, all sorts of fruit trees. I’d catch my fish, make manioc flour. If I wanted something else to eat, I’d grab a hen I’d raised. If I wanted meat, I’d hunt in the forest. And to make money, I’d fish some more and sell it in town. I raised my three daughters, proud of what I was. I was rich.”
Like Gomes, most ribeirinhos descend either from poor north-easterners, taken to the forest to harvest latex in the late 19th century, or from second world war-era “rubber soldiers”. When the rubber market crashed and the war ended, the bosses abandoned them in the woods. Some made families with indigenous women, occasionally stealing them from their villages. They began leading lives as fluid as the river: first on one bank, then another, shaping a unique experience. Even ribeirinhos of indigenous origin are different. They are not farmers, but they till the land. They fish, crack Brazil nuts, hunt, tap rubber, and on occasion try their hand at prospecting. They live between worlds.
Accustomed to changing islands and indifferent to the concept of land as merchandise, they often confound people when they proclaim their freedom. “I’ve never had a job,” says Das Chagas. “Always been free.” They all work hard, because forest life is tough, but they only do what they want, when they want. Converting them into the urban poor drains them of their essence.
The Altamira skyline. Since 2000, the city’s population has grown by just under 50%, while the murder rate has skyrocketed 1,110%. Photograph: Lilo Clareto
It also makes them pariahs, because they cannot find employment. Once proud of their freedom, they find themselves forced to live off odd jobs and favours. Significantly, they call the city “outside”. “I know everything on the river. Outside I know nothing,” says Das Chagas. “Who’s going to give me a job?”
Until recently, ribeirinhos were not recognised as a traditional people by the government or by Norte Energia, the public-private consortium overseeing the dam. One day in 2012, Gomes was startled to see strangers arrive in a motorboat, men “from the company”. They said his island was going to be “removed”. He replied, “I won’t leave.” Then they told him his island would be under water soon – it was sign or go down with it. “I signed a document. But I can’t read. I only know how to draw my name.”
Gomes was moved into one of the near-identical tract homes that Norte Energia constructed to house Belo Monte’s expelled families. His neighbourhood was named Blue Water: ironic given that it lies more than four miles from the river. That’s much farther away than the mile or so stipulated in the construction agreement, which also says the houses must be varied and built with quality materials. After the walls started cracking, the courts suspended work on the dam until the dwellings could be brought into compliance. In the meantime, Gomes watches as the cracks burrow deeper into his walls and roof.
“Now I’m poor. I have to buy everything I need,” he says. “Since I don’t have money to buy what I want, I buy what I can. I like manioc flour, but I can only afford rice. I used to harvest 400 good watermelons, but today I can’t buy even a bad one. I used to pick the hen I wanted to eat, but today I can’t buy one. I used to have a living river, today I have a dead lake – and to get there I have to pay for transportation.”
Motorbikes laden with entire families, usually helmetless, are a common sight in Altamira. Photograph: Lilo Clareto
‘I live among drug dealers now’
Gomes decided to defy the monotony of lookalike houses by adding wooden lean-tos, in the ribeirinho way. While he was working, a passerby hollered: “Hey, it’s already got that poverty look!”
“You’ll never understand my style,” Gomes shot back. Later, he added: “Know what being poor is? It’s having no choice.”
He has also learned that being poor means “bullets are always shattering your windows”. Since 2000, Altamira’s population has climbed from 77,000 to 111,000, a rise of about 44%. Over the same period, the murder rate skyrocketed 1,110%.
"Once in a while, there’s a body on the ground. I counted 13 that I saw myself. There’s others I don’t see Raimundo Braga Gomes
Last June the Atlas of Violence .. http://brasilobserver.co.uk/en/2017/07/the-victims-of-a-violent-country/ – published by the Institute for Applied Economic Research, a public thinktank – ranked Altamira as Brazil’s most violent large city. According to the Igarapé Institute’s Homicide Monitor, Altamira’s annual murder rate is 124.6 deaths per 100,000 people. By contrast, the rate is 21.8 in Rio de Janeiro. Both the rising population and the murder boom are in part attributable to Belo Monte, which drew thousands to a city without adequate infrastructure and has profoundly disrupted its social structure.
For ribeirinhos, who used to live a life without doors, the effect has been devastating. “I’m living among drug dealers now. Once in a while, there’s a body on the ground. I counted 13 that I saw myself. There’s others I don’t see. One Sunday alone, it was two of the neighbour’s boys. I just heard the pop, pop, pop,” says Gomes, imitating the sound of bullets. “They tossed us into a field of violence.”
At least 40,000 people were torn from their homes so Belo Monte could be built. Roughly 1,500 are ribeirinhos. There are also farmers, fishermen, and urban residents who lived in areas flooded by the dam. Some received cash payments, others relocation credit; still others were resettled. There were also those who got nothing and are fighting in the courts for reparations. The subdivisions that were built to house the displaced families have splintered neighbourhood bonds and jumbled together people who had never before lived side by side. They also mixed in members of rival drug factions that formerly kept to their own turf, and overnight found themselves next-door neighbours.
In less than four years, these “collective urban resettlements” have been transformed into Altamira’s new territory of violence. Not only are the residents routinely subjected to robberies, hold-ups, and murders, but they must also bear the stigma of being labelled “criminals”.
The streets of Altamira. Photograph: Lilo Clareto
Eliza Ribeiro, 47, lived with her husband on a small island. When they were cast into the city, he couldn’t find a job. “My husband got desperate because we were going hungry, and he started drinking heavily,” she says. He also got involved with drug traffickers.
During the 2016 elections, Ribeiro, a fisherwoman, thought she couldn’t get any poorer. She handed out flyers for one of Altamira’s mayoral candidates and waved political banners on street corners for 50 reais a day. Returning home one Sunday, she waited futilely for her husband, then eventually went out to search for him. When she found him, he was naked, his head smashed by bricks and his tongue pulled out.
She saw her life contract. “When I go to bed, I never know what we’re going to eat the next day. My youngest daughter wakes up crying and asks for food. I tell her, ‘Your dad died, I don’t have any money’. And I cry too,” she says. One day she went knocking door to door. They offered her 20 reais and a plate of food to clean house and wash clothes. “And my kids, what are they going to eat?” she asked, and went home to be hungry with her children.
She returned to fishing, but the four mile journey to the river costs dearly in transportation and petrol. She and her daughter load everything they can – from gas canister to mattress – on a motorcycle, and tuck her daughter’s toddler in front. Clinging to the bike, and then a boat, the family takes four hours to reach a friend’s island. There, they put up a tarp and hang hammocks. Five exhausting days of fishing later, she returns to town for a few days to sell her fish and then repeats the stint.
Hordes of these motorbikes, often laden with entire families and usually helmetless, can be seen in Altamira, weaving around the air-conditioned double-cab pickup trucks with their lone drivers – a sight that epitomises the social tension in the cities of the Amazon.
Leonardo Batista, a leader of the resistance movement, at home with his borduna. Photograph: Lilo Clareto
Resistance
Critics see the conversion of the forest peoples into the urban poor as no accidental tragedy, but rather a political strategy.As a traditional people, the ribeirinhos have a constitutionally guaranteed right to their way of life.When they are transformed into residents of the periphery, they lose this right. On the one hand, the forests they once occupied are freed for construction, mining, agriculture, and livestock raising. On the other, they become part of the enfeebled urban masses who will support any major incursion into the forest if it holds the possibility of a job.
Since democracy was reclaimed in Brazil, the pressure has never been greater to relax environmental laws and open forests to exploitation than under the current congress, the most corrupt and conservative in recent history. Michel Temer, president by force of impeachment, needs congress to stay in power. It’s a tough moment.
But it is also the first time that ribeirinhos expelled by a megaproject have forged a resistance movement of real size. This week, a group of them landed in Brasilia, the capital, to lodge an unprecedented demand: the creation of a “ribeirinho territory” for 278 families along the Xingu river. They refuse to continue as urban poor. They demand, in effect, a kind of “un-conversion” back to their lives as forest people.
As a result of their fight, the company has already been forced to provide some of them a monthly stipend to guarantee minimum support until the matter is settled. “Norte Energia complies with all determinations laid out in the Basic Environmental Project,” the company said in a statement to the Guardian, “which calls for measures to monitor and mitigate long-term social and environmental impacts in areas of direct or indirect influence of the Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant. The document is validated by public and federal agencies.”
Leonardo Batista, 58, is one of the ribeirinho leaders and a member of the Ribeirinho Council. Better known as Aranô, he is son of a ribeirinho and an indigenous woman from the Juruna tribe. He lives in Jatobá, another urban resettlement, where he survives on 50 reais a month. He only had something to eat on Christmas because his pastor sent him a plate of food. His house has been broken into three times. In December, Aranô grew so desperate that he picked up his borduna, an indigenous weapon, and entered a meeting ready to capture the world’s attention by busting things up. He was barred.
His tears make a river down his cheeks when he says: “We’ve always had the before, the now, the after. The before has gone, the now is a nightmare. And the after?”
Apologies aren’t enough, Indigenous people say of Brazil dictatorship’s crimes
"The last stand of the Amazon Novelist Edward Docx has spent almost a decade travelling to the Amazon, watching as multinational companies ravage the land he loves. Here is his heartfelt dispatch on the forest's final frontier – still home to as many as 100 tribes of uncontacted Indians The lost tribe: a long-range aerial photograph of uncontacted Indians living deep in the Amazon forest. Edward Docx Sunday 3 April 2011"
Make the post this replies to the first book of the 'indigenous people" or "lost tribe" or "most exploited people" library. This being the 9th reply.
Related: We always think of Chili's Pinochet Ten years ago, this coming September 11th, we underwent a horrendous attack that I can only describe as evil. The most concise but telling definition of evil that I have come across is this: to willfully do harm to others, or to take action, knowing that what one is about to do will result in harm to others. In the latter case, of course, not all knowingly harmful actions are totally evil; some have mitigating circumstances and thus make the act less evil, or, more correctly stated, a mix of good and evil. P - I recalled the other day something I'd forgotten for many years -- there was another fateful 9/11 -but in Chile. That other tragic 9/11 was the day in 1973 when the Chilean military, commanded by General Augusto Pinochet, with the encouragement, knowledge, and assistance of the U.S. government, overthrew the legitimately elected government of Salvador Allende. https://www.911memorial.org/node/76966
I don't recall any day more vividly as the day JFK was assassinated. It was at Vancouver's UBC. It felt such a loss. I cried. I wasn't as aware then of many things, the Monroe Doctrine being one.
Uncontacted people, also referred to as isolated people or lost tribes, are communities who live, or have lived, either by choice (people living in voluntary isolation) or by circumstance, without significant contact with globalized civilization. Few people... [...] United States Ishi .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishi , a Yahi, is believed to be the last Native American in Northern California to have lived most of his life completely outside American culture. In the year 1911, he emerged from the wild near Oroville, California, leaving his ancestral homeland in the foothills near Lassen Peak. More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=90629290
by Fernanda Wenzel on 30 April 2024 | Translated by Roberto Cataldo
* After the Brazilian state apologized for the crimes perpetrated during the military dictatorship, the Krenak and Guarani-Kaiowá Indigenous peoples are demanding the demarcation of their territories.
* The Krenak were tortured during the military regime, while the Guarani-Kaiowá were enslaved by farmers; both were forced from their lands.
* Violations also affected Indigenous peoples such as the Avá-Canoeiro, who were driven to the brink of extinction by years of persecution.
In Mato Grosso do Sul state, around 100 Indigenous individuals from the Guyraroká community of the Guarani-Kaiowá people are confined to an area of 50 hectares (123 acres) on the edge of a road, surrounded by soybean and corn plantations. Meanwhile, in Minas Gerais state, the Krenak are fighting to reclaim the area where their cemeteries and sacred sites are located.
They still experience the effects of the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964-85, when Indigenous peoples were tortured, enslaved and forced from their territories. “The state will always be indebted to us, Indigenous peoples,” says Erileide Domingues, a young leader at the Guyraroká Indigenous land.
In early April, the Krenak and Guyraroká communities received the first collective amnesties .. https://agenciagov.ebc.com.br/noticias/202404/comunidade-krenak-recebe-primeira-reparacao-coletiva-da-historia-do-pais .. in the country’s history — previously, amnesties had only been granted on an individual basis. The recognition was established by the Amnesty Commission attached to the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship, which was created in 2002 to shed light on the dictatorship’s crimes. It is a formal apology from the Brazilian state.
“The recognition of collective reparation will not erase the incarceration, murders and torture committed,” Brazil’s Minister of Indigenous Peoples Sonia Guajajara wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “But it is an important step toward memory and justice, and a way for us to mark the severe persecution we suffered during that very violent period in Brazil’s history.”
For the leaders of both peoples, however, true reparation will come when their territories stolen by the Brazilian state are returned.
Guarani-Kaiowá elders attended a session in which the Brazilian state asked for their forgiveness for the crimes committed against their people during the military dictatorship. Image courtesy of the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI).
“We understand that the commission’s apology is valid, emblematic and symbolic. But it won’t serve the Krenak people if it remains only as symbolic,” explains Geovani Krenak, leader of the Krenak Indigenous land in Minas Gerais. “It has to come with actions that aim to demarcate the Sete Salões Indigenous land in order to minimize the trauma suffered during the dictatorship,” he adds, referring to the territory of around 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) that was stolen from them.
The Krenak people experienced a succession of violations throughout the military regime. In 1969, the federal government and the Minas Gerais state government created the Krenak Indigenous Agricultural Reformatory .. https://apublica.org/2013/06/ditadura-criou-cadeias-para-indios-trabalhos-forcados-torturas/ .. by the Doce River in Resplendor, Minas Gerais. There, Indigenous people were starved and tortured, as described in the amnesty request signed by the Federal Prosecution Service.
The forced move to the Guarani farm in the municipality of Carmésia, in 1972, also had devastating effects, according to reports collected by the prosecutors. “It was even worse when they arrived at the Guarani farm, because they couldn’t live off hunting and fishing as they used to do in their own land. There wasn’t even a river in the Guarani farm, and the climate was completely different, much colder than the land they had always occupied before they were expelled,” Geovani says.
Geovani’s grandfather Jacó was one of the elders who could not bear the longing for his homeland and died at the Guarani farm. His father, who died in 2010, was tied to a horse and dragged through the village. Anyone who spoke the original language or danced traditional dances was punished.
“My father used to tell that story with lots of anger; he was very angry at the military, and I think this caused him trauma. It was very hard for him to remember it,” says Geovani.
In 2021, a Federal Court in Minas Gerais ordered .. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24538165-sentenca_juiza_mg_krenak?responsive=1&title=1 .. that the Sete Salões Indigenous land be delimited within six months. The following year, however, the Indigenous affairs agency (Funai) — still during the administration of former President Jair Bolsonaro — filed a request to suspend enforcement of the sentence. Now, the Krenak want the agency to withdraw that request.
“It’s unacceptable that the Brazilian state apologizes and then Funai keeps this request,” Geovani says.
For Erileide Domingues from the Guyraroká Indigenous land, the horrors of the dictatorship are also alive in the stories told by her grandfather, Indigenous leader Tito Vilhalva. As a young man, he had to abandon his land after being enslaved by farmers who said they had bought the area “with the bugres in it” — a racist reference to the Guarani-Kaiowá.
“Without our territory, we can’t have anything. We can’t produce our own food, we can’t talk about health, education, well-being. Without our territory, it’s as if we were fish out of water,” Domingues says.
According to information provided by the Indigenous Missionary Council .. https://cimi.org.br/2024/04/apos-anistia-povos-krenak-e-guarani-kaiowa-cobram-demarcacao-como-forma-de-reparar-violacoes-na-ditadura/ (CIMI), the demarcation of the Guyraroká Indigenous land was annulled by Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court in 2014, based on the time frame thesis, according to which Indigenous peoples would have to prove they were living in the territory before the 1988 Constitution to be entitled to land. The Indigenous people appealed, and the case is ongoing.
The Avá-Canoeiro on the brink of extinction
Even before the military dictatorship, Indigenous people were seen by the Brazilian government as obstacles in the way of large infrastructure projects and the expansion of the agricultural frontier. The Avá-Canoeiro, who live in the Araguaia River region in Tocantins, are known to have put up the fiercest resistance to colonization, and they paid a high price for it.
After decades of fleeing the advance of miners and farmers, in 1973, they were victims of forced contact by Funai, whose agents arrived shooting at them. After being arrested, they were exhibited for six months as animals on one of the largest farms in the area. “People came from all over the place to see those people who had been captured,” says Patrícia de Mendonça Rodrigues, an anthropologist in charge of the report that identified the territory of the Avá-Canoeiro.
After forced contact, the Avá-Canoeiro Indigenous people were exposed like animals at the Canuanã Farm in 1973. Image courtesy of Klaus Gunther.
From there, the group was taken to live in the territory of the Javaé Indigenous people, their historical enemies. During that period, the ethnic group was reduced to just five members. Rodrigues, who interviewed survivors from that period, says they do not even like to remember that time.
“So five individuals were living on the outskirts of the village of an Indigenous people of whom they were historical enemies. And they lived in that situation for almost 50 years, being marginalized politically, culturally and economically,” she says.
However, their fight for their own territory is not over. The Taego Ãwa Indigenous land has been recognized and demarcated by the federal government, but it has to be officially confirmed, and non-Indigenous occupants still have to be removed.
Funai was contacted for comments but did not respond until this story was published.
Banner image: Leaders of the Guyraroká community in Mato Grosso do Sul are still fighting to recover their territory stolen during Brazil’s military dictatorship. Image courtesy of Christian Braga/Farpa/Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
This story was reported by Mongabay’s Brazil team and first published here on our Brazil site on Apr. 18, 2024.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
