BRAZIL:
Land Shortage Provokes
Murders of Indigenous
People
By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, (IPS)
- At least 76 indigenous
people were murdered in
Brazil in 2007, 58
percent more than in
2006. The killings
increased the most in
the west-central state
of Mato Grosso do Sul,
where the Guaraní people
are confined to
territories too small
for them to maintain
their traditional way of
life.
This number of killings
-- published by the
Indigenist Missionary
Council (CIMI) in its
bulletin Thursday -- is
still preliminary. The
definitive total will be
known in April, when
CIMI, an agency of the
Catholic Church,
publishes its annual
report on violence
against native peoples
in Brazil. The
hostilities include
attacks, threats,
suicides and invasions
of native reserves.
"We’ve just heard of
another five murders,"
not included in the
former total, CIMI vice
president Roberto
Liebgott, told IPS. The
information will be
fully analysed in the
coming months, but it is
already apparent that
the most serious
problems are in Mato
Grosso do Sul, where 48
of the 76 killings last
year were perpetrated,
he said.
In 2006, 20 out of a
total of 48 known
murders were committed
in this state.
The main cause is the
"confinement" in which
the Kaiowá branch of the
Guaraní people is forced
to live, according to
CIMI. At the Dourados
reserve, where the
violence is most
visible, "12,000
indigenous people are
living on little more
than 3,000 hectares,"
Liebgott explained.
Life in the limited
confines of a small
reserve is particularly
inappropriate for the
Guaraní -- traditionally
a nomadic people who
frequently cross borders
into Paraguay and
Argentina -- where they
are also numerous.
Consequently, conflicts
within the group and
with society outside
tend to become violent.
The National Indigenous
Foundation (FUNAI), a
government agency in
charge of policies
involving original
peoples, promised to
create 35 new indigenous
territories in Mato
Grosso do Sul, but has
failed to do so. As a
result, the tensions are
as bad as ever, said
Liebgott.
FUNAI would not comment
on the figures and the
complaints lodged by
CIMI, despite repeated
efforts to contact its
offices, Liebgott said.
Over 60,000 indigenous
people live in Mato
Grosso do Sul, nearly
half of whom belong to
the Guaraní-Kaiwoá
ethnic group. The group
has a high suicide rate
among young people,
which is usually
attributed to hopeless
prospects in light of
land shortage.
But according to CIMI,
around 16,000 Terena
indigenous people also
live in the same state.
There is no abnormal
incidence of murders and
suicides among them,
although their land is
similarly restricted.
"Our people have very
little land, we have a
village of 400 people on
four hectares," Marcos
Terena, president of the
Inter-Tribal Committee
and head of the
Indigenous Peoples
Memorial, a museum for
indigenous crafts and
culture in Brasilia,
told IPS.
There are big
differences between the
Kaiwoá, who "suffer from
a ‘victim complex’ and
are not farmers," and
the Terena, who
cultivate the soil
collectively and have
adapted better to the
life imposed on them by
the white colonisers, he
said.
Furthermore, the Kaiwoá
were subjected to the
influence of the
Jesuits, Catholic
priests who set out to
evangelise indigenous
people as soon as the
Portuguese arrived in
South America in the
sixteenth century. The
Jesuits preaching the
myth of "a promised land
which is reached through
death," Terena said.
Egon Heck, the
coordinator of CIMI in
Mato Grosso do Sul,
said, "the situation is
terrifying because of
the absurd increase in
violence," which is
aggravated by a
combination of different
factors.
In economic terms, large
investments are being
made to expand sugarcane
cultivation amidst a
surge in ethanol
production as a gasoline
substitute. This has
resulted in a
monoculture and a hike
in the price of land,
which is becoming the
object of more intense
and aggressive disputes,
Heck said.
Politically, local
governments are
completely "aligned with
the interests of
agribusiness," according
to Heck.
The reality of their
surroundings is
worsening the future
prospects for indigenous
people’s lives,
"unleashing internal
violence in the
villages," he said.
Many indigenous people
work away from home, in
the sugarcane harvest,
for example. They spend
about 70 days at a time
away from their
communities, "and return
bringing with them
problems like alcoholism
or dependence on other
drugs, which damages
social relations
internally and with the
surrounding
neighbourhood," he said.
There are 11 sugar mills
and fuel alcohol
distilleries in the
state, and another 30
under construction, with
plans for a total of 60,
according to Heck.
In November 2007, a
company producing sugar
and alcohol in Mato
Grosso do Sul was closed
by the Special Mobile
Inspection Group after
it was found to be
exploiting over 800
indigenous workers in
conditions akin to
slavery.
The Special Group was
set up specifically to
combat the practice of
slave labour, and is
made up of inspectors
from the Labour
Ministry, the Public
Prosecutor’s Office and
the Federal Police.
Another source of
violence is the
oligarchy of local
landowners, who still
behave like "coroneles"
(rural overlords). They
react violently to the
new Guaraní tactic of
invading land they
consider as belonging to
them and setting up
camps there, in the
style of the Landless
Workers Movement (MST),
which is struggling for
land reform.
Elders in the Guaraní
community have been
brutally stabbed and
beaten to death, Terena
said. With land values
rising due to the
expansion of soybean and
sugarcane cultivation,
"even 100 hectares are
reason enough to fight
over," Terena said.
Kaiwoá and Terena
reserves were demarcated
many decades ago, when
the local indigenous
population was small and
it was thought that they
would integrate into the
"dominant" white
culture. But their
population has
multiplied, and
assimilation has not
occurred, Terena said.
Now that there is a
consensus that the land
shortage is the root
cause of the murders,
the solution would
appear to involve the
state buying lands near
the Guaraní territories
for native use. But
there are territorial
difficulties -- as the
Kaiwoá live in densely
populated areas where
land values are very
high.
There are also political
difficulties. If the
state these steps here,
it would set a precedent
which would trigger land
claims by indigenous
peoples living in
similar conditions in
other parts of the
country, from the south
to the Northeast, where
land is not as abundant
as in the Amazon region,
Terena said. But "it is
necessary," he
concluded.
One example of the
potential difficulties
can be seen in the
Terena village of Taunay,
where the land
recognised as indigenous
territory was increased
from 600 to 30,000
hectares.
Local farmers there --
threatened with losing
land they occupy
illegally -- are felling
trees as fast as they
can, with a view to
claiming larger amounts
in compensation for land
"improvements", Terena
said.
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