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 Across Brazil Indians are celebrating a resolution by the Brazilian Supreme Court, where the majority of judges ruled to uphold indigenous land rights in a key case. Indian representatives have called the decision, made Wednesday, December 10, on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a "great victory."
The ruling concerns the indigenous territory Raposa-Serra do Sol (Land of the Fox and Mountain of the Sun) in the Amazon state of Roraima. A small group of powerful farmers, who want the Indians' land and are supported by local politicians, had petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the Brazilian government's legal recognition of the territory. President Lula signed the territory into law in 2005.
Eight out of eleven Supreme Court judges affirmed the Indians' rights to the land, saying it had been demarcated according to the Brazilian constitution. They affirmed the importance of maintaining indigenous territories as single, continuous areas and stated that territories on Brazil's borders do not pose a risk to national sovereignty.
The five tribes of Raposa-Serra do Sol had struggled for 30 years to reclaim their ancestral land. The group of farmers refused to leave the area when it was demarcated as an indigenous territory, and since the demarcation they have been waging a campaign of violence against the Indians in order to resist being removed from the land.
Shocking footage taken in May this year shows gunmen hired by one of the farmers attacking a Makuxi Indian community, throwing homemade bombs and firing assault rifles. Ten Indians were wounded in the attack.
The judges also ruled that the farmers must leave Raposa-Serra do Sol, but did not specify when. This will be decided when the ruling is concluded during the court's next session starting in February 2009, when the remaining three judges deliver their rulings.
Makuxi leader Jacir José de Souza of the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR), commenting on the decision, said "The land is our mother. We are happy that [our land] has been reclaimed and that the Supreme Court has vindicated indigenous people."
The Indians of Raposa-Serra do Sol believe that the loss of their land would have destroyed their way of life. Indians elsewhere in Brazil also feared that if the Supreme Court had overturned the demarcation of the territory, it would have left their lands open to similar legal challenges.
Stephen Corry, the director of international organization Survival, which defends the rights of tribal peoples, saluted enthusiastically the Brazilian justice's ruling:
"This is fantastic news for the people of Raposa-Serra do Sol. The Brazilian government must now make sure that the farmers leave the area and that the campaign of terror against the Indians ends. It must also ensure that Indian land rights are upheld nationwide, so that never again will we see such blatant attacks on Indians on their own land."
The Other Side
Farmer Ailton Cabral, 65, who owns 12,000 hectares (29.6 acres) of land in Raposa Serra do Sol, told reporters that he will not leave his farm unless he gets 1 million Brazilian reais (US$ 423,000) as compensation.
Like him many other farmers vow to stay and fight for what they see as their rightful property.
Cabral was born and grew up in the indigenous reservations of Raposa Serra do Sol and São Marcos. He seems very bitter with the Supreme's decision.
"When I was 8, I was already riding horses with my father throughout this land," he says. "After walking all I walked and building all that I have for 57 years I'm not abandoning all of this behind."
In his farm Cabral raises cattle, sheep and horses. What he plants is just for family use.
"I'll leave only if I get 1 million. If the Funai (National Indian Foundation) had conducted a fair and honest survey over the value of the lands and improvements nobody would be here." He accuses the government agency of having vastly underestimated the value of his property.
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The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
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Sounds like fair price to me. Actually, it sounds like a bargain of a deal given the size of the land and Cabral's history to it; least to mention the polemic it’s become. I couldn’t' get 1000 acres here in the south for that price!
The expropriation of lands always makes for a combustive climate placing one group's needs above another. Dealing with the Amazon, indigenous rights and farmers needs and ambitions even more so. And while there has been a great deal of intimidation and violence with this specific case; it has not escalated to the degree of blood shed many if not most feared. At least not YET. So, if it’s a simple matter of negotiating remuneration, drag everyone from the courts to INCRA and let the government pull out their cheque books. 200 farmers? I imagine the finally tally wouldn’t even put a dent in Lula’s caixa 2. Did Dirceu ever hand over the key?
I know this is naïve daydreaming, because it is obvious there are other interests behind the scenes here thinking greater issues are at play, and they're manipulating both sides of the fight with fear mongering, and probably cash, while feeding resentment and creating even more division than necessary. Cue a certain Brazzildotcom poster and his: "This is an international conspiracy to thwart Brazil's sovereignty by manipulating the ignorants" rant.