|
 At least 53 Brazilian Indians were murdered in nine states in Brazil during the year of 2008, according to a preliminary study by the CIMI (Conselho Indigenista Missionário - Indigenous Missionary Council).
In Mato Grosso do Sul alone, in the Brazilian Midwest, there were 40 cases. In this state there were also 34 indigenous suicides reported, an increase of more than 50% in relation to 2007, when 22 cases were registered.
In comparison with 2007, when 92 assassinations of indigenous persons were registered, the number of cases identified in 2008 is approximately 40% lower. In Mato Grosso do Sul, the number of assassinations reported in 2008 (40) forty is nearly 10% lower than the number of cases from 2007 (53) fifty three.
In May, CIMI released a Report with data on the violations of indigenous rights in 2008. The report tracks numbers about threats, attempted murder, deaths due to lack of assistance (suicide, lack of medical attention...), invasions of indigenous lands, among others. The study is based on information from indigenous communities and in news journals from throughout the country.
The CIMI says that it continues to be alert to the grave situation of the Guarani Kaiowá in Mato Grosso do Sul. Between assassinations and suicides there were 74 cases in 2008 and 75 cases in 2007, in a population of approximately 40,000 people.
The lack of land and the confinement in small villages are the principal reasons, in the evaluation by CIMI, to the constant threat to physical and cultural survival of this people. For years CIMI and diverse indigenous activists have been alerting that the Guarani Kaiowá are victims of genocide.
In 2008, politicians of Mato Grosso do Sul and the large estate owners asserted forceful pressure against the initiation of anthropological studies for the identification of lands for the Guarani Kaiowá. The Federal Government has in part ceded to the pressures, which delay the process of the studies.
The state with the second greatest number of reports was Minas Gerais, with 4 indigenous persons assassinated, among these, a supporter of the campaign that reelected José Nunes de Oliveira, of the Xakriabá people, to mayor of São João das Missões.
Also in the electoral context, candidate for a city council seat in Cabrobó (Pernambuco), Mozeni Araújo de Sá, leader of the Truká people was assassinated.
Aggression and Omission
In addition to assassinations, in 2008, there occurred serious cases of aggressions on the indigenous peoples in all of the country. Prejudice, the dispute for land by agribusiness (sugar cane, soy, eucalyptus...) and hydro business are the causes of these aggressions in which, sometimes, the State, by means of the police, is the aggressor.
In the south of Bahia , between the days of October 20 and 23, an operation by the Federal Police, in diverse villages, injured more than 20 persons of the Tupinambá people. One helicopter, a car with coffins and more than 25 vehicles were used in the action.
In Maranhão, there were two assassinations registered. One of these was of a Guajajara child of 6 years of age, who was watching TV with the family, when the assassin passed on a road at the side of the village and randomly shot at the home where the little girl was.
There are constant cases of aggression by the population of Arame, Grajaú and other cities against the Guajajara who live in this region. In 2008, there was an invasion by wood cutters of the indigenous land Ararinóia and two attempts by gunfire against the Guajajara people, in one of these a couple was shot.
In Roraima, the indigenous people also suffered attacks, as a function of incitement of the dispute over the indigenous land Raposa Serra do Sol. In May, employees of rice farmer Paulo Cesar Quartiero shot and launched bombs against indigenous persons who were constructing small wooden buildings within the land. On the occasion, 10 indigenous were injured and the leader of the rice farmers spent some days in jail.
In addition to aggressions that result in physical damage, the year of 2008 was marked by intense racist campaigns against the indigenous peoples in the country's leading communications media.
The judicial processes around the lands of Raposa Serra do Sol (Roraima state) and of the Pataxó Hã Hã Hãe (Bahia state), the struggle to improve indigenous health and the perspective of completing the identification of lands for the Guarani Kaiowá were the issues used to give voice to racism in the country.
Marcy Picanço works for CIMI (Indigenous Missionary Council).
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
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.
2) Stupid question to the Brazilian Indigenous : do you think that the Indigenous French, Italians, Germans, U.K., Swiss etc etc still have hundreds or thousands hectares of land dating back to many centuries...in their own country ?
You may as well look in America and Australia ! Indigenous mostly dont want to work and still expect large government handouts...with barrels of alcohols on top !
I too should get hectares and hectares of land....in my native country....Switzerland !
My successive governments, neighbourts, have also taken over all these hectares.
My governments were not as nice as others. I must pay my own beers, wines. And pay them at Swiss prices...of course !
No handout to me. They told me to work hard for years and years to buy a 200 square meter appartment.... or shut up !
And shut up...even after I paid my taxes. Why should I pay taxes...in your views ? Do you pay taxes ? Of course not.
In my humble opinion you should pay REAL ESTATE TAXES...at least ! And also pay your own beers or whatever alcoholic beverage
you drink, even if and when made locally.
In my country it is ILLEGAL to make our own alcoholic beverage. We need a licence and pay some taxes....again !
Not only for the licence, but also on the production quantity.
D