The Paraguayan government has failed to act to protect a group of uncontacted tribal people, despite having been ordered to do so in February of this year.
Several major ranching corporations are clearing forest to raise cattle in the Chaco, which is losing an average of 14 million trees per month. Deforestation continues and bulldozers have recently been heard on Ayoreo land.
Local organizations GAT and OPIT have been trying to persuade the government to act on the Commission’s demands but the government has so far done very little.
One Ayoreo told Survival: “We don’t want to lose our land. It’s where our fathers and grandparents lived and where our relatives live now. We want our children and grandchildren to grow up in the land of our ancestors. We are claiming this land.’’
Companies destroying the Chaco include Carlos Casado S.A. (a subsidiary of Spanish construction company Grupo San José), River Plate S.A, and Yaguarete Porá S.A, a Brazilian beef company. Yaguarete previously received Survival International’s “Greenwashing of the year” award for trying to brand an area it had heavily deforested as a “nature reserve.”
Evidence proves that tribal territories are the best barrier to deforestation and therefore the best way to protect the Chaco is to uphold the Ayoreo’s land rights. Uncontacted tribes are also the best guardians of their environment. Their knowledge is irreplaceable and has been developed over thousands of years.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Unless Paraguay takes rapid action, the Ayoreo will become another statistic in the ongoing genocide of South America’s uncontacted peoples. The situation couldn’t be more serious: the Ayoreo face catastrophe unless their land and forest is protected from these rapacious foreign companies.”
Panama’s national police left approximately 20 indigenous Ngäbe protesters injured last week in what one medic described as an “absurd and irresponsible act.”
The protesters, all residents of Gualaquita, mobilized against the Barro Blanco hydro dam after the project’s owner and operator, Honduran-based Generadora del Istmo (GENISA) began flooding the Tabasará River basin with blessings from the government.
It didn’t take long for Ngäbe communities within the basin to suffer the consequences. In the community of Kiad, local road connections were washed away by the flood waters leaving entire families geographically isolated. Houses were also submerged by the rising waters, along with significant archaeological sites in the region.
Submerged houses. Photo: Ricardo Miranda
All of the Tabasará communities affected by the flood waters were excluded from the talks that led to the agreement. They also didn’t endorse the new agreement in any way, shape, or form.
The Ngäbe community of Gualaquita is located outside of the affected area, but they too declined to endorse the agreement.
For the protesters, who are members of the Mama Tatda religion, the Tabasará River is a holy site that needs to be protected. The river is also home to ancient petroglyphs and unique Ngäbe cultural centers. To the protesters, their loss or destruction represents a violation of religious freedom.
The government wasted little time responding to the protesters.
According to a preliminary report by one of the country’s largest trade unions – the National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (Frenadeso) – around 2pm on Aug 24, 2016, some 500 police officers arrived to crush the opposition.
Police in Gualaquita. Credit: Frenadeso
Speaking to Frenadeso, Dr. Manuel Pardo, who attended to the injured in the aftermath of the assault, called the protesters “victims of police aggression,” stating, “There was a clear and flagrant violation of the fundamental human rights of the community of Gualaquita.”
Dr. Manuel Pardo assesses the injured. Credit: Frenadeso
Osvaldo Jordan, director of the Alliance for Conservation and Development (ACD), told IC that the police didn’t just target the protesters. “[They] stormed into the whole community, detaining people who were not even in the protest… It was an outright occupation of the community, war style.”
Injuries that appear to have been inflicted by rubber bullets. Credit: Frenadeso
“The weapons that were used for the confrontation were rubber bullets, birdshot and pepper gas,” said Dr. Pardo during his visit to the community on Aug 28, 2016.
“The police entered the community and practically every house was ‘fumigated’ with pepper gas… we are still coughing and itchy… In addition to rubber bullets, birdshot and pepper gas, the attacks involved physical blows and kicking… The result was 20 people injured…”
Police ammunition and equipment collected in Gualaquita. Credit: unknown
Police ammunition and equipment collected in Gualaquita. Credit: unknown
Police ammunition and equipment collected in Gualaquita. Credit: unknown
Dr. Pardo went on to explain that, three of the protesters were severely wounded during the crackdown. One person may have suffered a life-changing injury to his right eye. Another, who sustained serious head trauma, was detained by police for 48 hours before receiving medical treatment in a hospital.
Some of the injured community members reportedly refused to seek help from official institutions for fear of being arrested. Dr. Pardo described this as a “lamentable” violation of their basic human right to health care.
The Frenadeso report also alleges that the police burned a Mama Tatda flag and broke into several community stores. They apparently stole food, cell phones, chargers and hundreds of dollars in cash. They are also alleged to have threatened a storekeeper with firearms and made various death threats to different people.
Adolfo Miranda was allegedly shot in his right eye by a rubber bullet. Credit: Frenadeso
Some of the protesters hit back at the police with rocks and slingshots. Several officers were injured and subsequently transported by plane for treatment in private hospitals.
In the aftermath of the clash, images of the injured protesters were circulated on social media, but government ministers initially denied their veracity.
“They are using old photos of other incidents,” Alexis Bethancourt, Minister of Security, told La Estrella newspaper. “This police force guarantees human rights.”
Subsequent on-the-scene reporting from national journalists such as Lissette Centen helped to confirm that the images were in fact real.
This photograph of journalist Lissette Centen at the scene verifies that the images were real. Credit: Frenadeso
According to a BARRO BLANCO. INFORME DDHH 22-6-16 (HRNP), the repression in Gualaquita is only the latest act of violence the Varela government has committed against Panama’s Indigenous Peoples.
According to eye-witness testimonies collected by the HRNP, on May 23, 2016, in an orchestrated prelude to the filling of the Barro Blanco reservoir, riot police descended on a Ngäbe protest camp, demolished a Mama Tata church and decapitated the community’s livestock. They rounded up some 30 protesters and held them for 36 hours without due process. Young children were among the detainees and one woman was apparently stripped naked in front of her family.
Despite clear threats to their safety, the Tabasará communities are determined to keep fighting Barro Blanco. Mass mobilizations are planned in different parts of the country for Monday September 5, 2016.
Meanwhile, the Ngäbe community of Kiad is at a critical juncture. According to Osvaldo Jordan, the waters of the reservoir are nearing the houses. “The main square can still be saved,” he said. The government just has to stop the flooding of Ngäbe land.
Indigenous Ngäbe communities living on the banks of the Tabasará River in western Panama are scrambling for their lives as flood water from the Barro Blanco hydroelectric reservoir inundates their houses, schools, farms and cultural centers.
“We are without homes and without anywhere to take shelter,” said Weni Bagama in a video statement recorded on Wednesday, Aug 24, 2016.
Bagama—a lifelong resident of the community of Kiad—explained that local road connections have been washed away by the flood waters leaving her family and neighbors geographically isolated. A group of springs that the community relied upon for safe drinking water have also been lost along with archaeological sites of local and national significance.
Roads into Kiad are now under water and the community is inaccessible. Photo: Ricardo Miranda
Two days before Bagama’s statement, Panama President Juan Carlos Varela was busy celebrating the signing of a formal “peace agreement” between his government and Silvia Carrera, the elected chief of the semi-autonomous Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé.
“After 19 months of dialogue we seal the deal that ends the conflict over the Barro Blanco Hydroelectric project,” wrote President Varela on his Facebook page without the slightest hint of irony.
“With the signing of this agreement we have achieved clear objectives for the benefit of the Ngäbe people.”
His Facebook post includes a self-congratulatory public relations video and a link to a full press statement asserting that “the success was achieved on the basis of respect, tolerance and a thorough examination of the key aspects of the project.”
Despite President Verala’s claims, however, none of the Tabasará communities directly affected by the flood waters were involved in the talks. Nor did they endorse the new agreement.
Since the project’s inception in 2011, the affected communities have maintained vigorous opposition to the Barro Blanco dam.
Submerged houses. Photo: Ricardo Miranda
What’s more, according to Bagama, the flooding of their communities commenced on Friday, Aug. 19, 2016 – a full three days before the signing in Llano Tugri. Furthermore, by Saturday—some 48 hours before the ill-fated PR fiasco—the inundation had already completely destroyed the community of Quebrada Caña.
“The population who lived there had to collect their things and see what they could salvage,” she said.
President Varela’s pronouncement seems to be the latest move in what human rights lawyer Osvaldo Jordan calls “a game of words”—that is, a cynical and carefully planned PR campaign designed to obfuscate gross human rights violations.
“The agreement does not seem to have any legal basis,” he told IC. “However, many people seem to believe in it and have forgotten the most important story: the communities being flooded illegally before the agreement was signed.”
In fact, the flooding of the Tabasará River basin began last May with what the government cunningly described as a “test filling”. The reservoir was allowed to rise to a height of 87.5 meters and remained stable until last Friday when the green light was given to let it rise higher and flood the communities.
Disturbingly, according to evidence presented in an independent report by the Human Rights Network of Panama (HRNP), the so-called “test-filling” was achieved not through “respectful dialogue” but through violence and thuggery.
According to eye-witness testimonies, on May 23 2016, police invaded a long-standing indigenous Ngäbe protest camp on the banks of the river, assaulted and humiliated the assembled families, confiscated their possessions, demolished their church, and killed and mutilated their animals.
Said one anonymous witness:
“While we [were] praying in the church, and in the presence of various pastors visiting from other regions, a heap of people arrived from the company, the police, SINAPROC, and they told us that we would have to leave there because it was the property of the company and it was to be flooded.”
“They told us that there was an eviction order–that we would have to die if we would not move. We continued praying and then they pulled us away and started to break up and tear down the houses. They killed the dogs, chickens, pigs, and even the parrots that we had. They grabbed the children and women and carried them to the bus. There were many against us and some ran away. One companion was stripped naked in front of her children and husband…”
Some 30 Ngäbe protesters were rounded up that day and transported to the nearby town of Tolé where they were detained for approximately 36 hours without due process.
Police confined the protesters to Tolé’s Catholic Mission Center and reportedly failed to explain to the priests exactly what had occurred. In fact, none of the detainees were formally charged or permitted to seek legal support. Some of them alleged injuries to their legs and arms, but no medical care was dispatched.
While the protesters spent a gloomy night incarcerated in the Mission, Panama’s civil protection services distributed sacks of rice and other sundry ‘gifts’ to nearby communities not directly impacted by the dam in an apparent effort to create further division between the communities.
The next day, at around 11:00am, without any regard for domestic protocols or international human rights law, Generadora del Istmo (GENISA) closed the gates on their 29 MW hydroelectric dam and commenced flooding the Tabasará River basin. As the water levels rose, farm plots were washed away and witnesses reported a massive fish die-off.
The formation of the reservoir saw endemic fish die. Photo: Chiriquí Natural
Any hopes that GENISA would soon conclude their “tests” and reopen the gates were definitively crushed when the company met with their financial backers and the Government of Panama on July 8 2016.
Owned and built by the Kafie family (who are currently embroiled in a massive fraud scandal in their home country of Honduras), Barro Blanco is being financed primarily by European taxpayers via the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank (FMO) and the German Development Bank (DEG), along with the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI).
“It was important to have for the first time a tripartite meeting [in Panama City], which allowed the Government and Genisa to exchange feasible options for the continuation of the project… FMO and the other lenders will continue to support this process.”
The statement went on to applaud the project for its “benefits to the local communities”.
Indeed, the political pressure to maintain a “positive” environment for foreign investors—that is, one presumably devoid of human rights or environmental obligations – may have been the force driving Varela’s latest PR stunt.
“He did it to stay on good terms with the corporate lawyers in his entourage and foreign embassies, including the US one”, said Eric Jackson, editor of the Panama News. “Think about the dam business as a whole. Varela is threatening more of these projects, with offsetting promises that are empty.”
For what it’s worth, the agreement between the government and Carrera does include promises of significant investment in Ngabe communities, particularly those living in Muna District near the project.
That’s not saying much, however, as the document has been roundly rejected by GENISA, the Tasabará communities, and even Panama’s own National Assembly. In any case, promises of long overdue regional investment will be cold comfort to those communities experiencing the flagrant violation of their human rights, not to mention the destruction of their homes.
One elder from Kiad told HRNP:
“Those people do not understand that I cannot sell this sacred land. I need my land, I will not sell my land, the land is not like money. Money gets wet, it rots, melts and ends; the land, no, it is permanent, not for sale. Money is deception… What price do the ants have? The stones? The crickets? The trees? The water? I cannot put a price on it, it is the heritage of my children. Without this land we die.”
There is some hope that the national ombudsman may be able to interrupt the violations currently taking place on the Tabasará River. However, with national and international media turning a blind eye to these events, that hope appears tenuous at best.
In this 60-minute film, the Mexican writer, novelist and political activist Paco Taibo II travels to the territory of the Yaqui Peoples to remember the longest-running armed struggle in Mexico’s history (1867-1909); a righteous struggle that was dragged to its end, in Paco Taibo’s own words, through a malignant ten year program of “Systematic military destruction” that used “multiple mechanisms of violence, torture, mass murder [and] enslavement of a community.”
Today, the Yaqui may no longer carry arms, nevertheless, their struggle–like that of all Indigenous Peoples and Nations around the world–is one that can only truly end in Justice.
On the eve of the Olympics, a tribe in Brazil has made a powerful statement to the ranchers who are destroying their land and subjecting them to genocidal violence and racism.
This follows a recent wave of violence and evictions, and the death of a seven-month-old baby in Apy Ka’y community in July.
Aty Guasu, the organization of Brazil’s Guarani tribe, said: “You are killers and you continue to attack our tekohá [ancestral lands]. But we won’t retreat from the fight for our lands which were stolen from us. Every time you kill one of us, we will be stronger in our struggle. Every time you shoot at us, we will take a step forward. And for every grave, we will reoccupy more land. We guarantee this.”
Aty Guasu has also produced a video compiling footage of recent instances of brutality against the Guarani and featuring graphic footage.
Many Guarani Indians have been forced to live on roadsides and are attacked by gunmen or forcibly evicted if they try to reoccupy their ancestral land. In July, Guarani families were evicted from their ancestral land by almost 100 heavily-armed police officers. A baby subsequently died of malnutrition and exposure, as Guarani houses were bulldozed and the community was forced back into makeshift encampments on the roadside.
Earlier in 2016, several other Guarani communities were attacked by ranchers’ gunmen. One attack in Tey’i Jusu community led to one Guarani man being killed and several others – including a twelve year old boy – being hospitalized.
Over the past few decades, most of the Guarani’s land has been stolen by destructive agribusiness, and they live by the side of the road and in overcrowded reservations. Guarani children starve and many of their leaders have been assassinated. Hundreds of Guarani men, women and children have killed themselves, and the Guarani Kaiowá suffer the highest suicide rate in the world.
In a video made with equipment provided through Survival’s Tribal Voice project, Eliseu Guarani, a Guarani leader, said: “Brazil will host the Olympic games this year, the government will be on the world stage and is trying to hide the situation we indigenous people face…We Guarani are being attacked, our leaders are being killed… and our land is not being returned to us, but these Olympic Games won’t show any of that. People around the world will watch these games and cheer and they’ll also be cheering our suffering.”
In April Survival International launched its “Stop Brazil’s Genocide” campaign for the run-up to the Rio 2016 Olympics, to draw attention to the situation facing tribes like the Guarani. Their lands, resources and labor are being stolen in the name of “progress” and “civilization.”
On July 31st Survival supporters demonstrated outside the Brazilian embassy in London.
The campaign is calling for the Brazilian government to uphold the law by protecting the Guarani, demarcating their land, prosecuting murderers and providing food for starving communities until they get back their ancestral land. It is also concerned with uncontacted tribes – the most vulnerable peoples on the planet – and PEC 215, a proposed change to Brazilian law which would undermine tribal land rights and lead to the break up and exploitation of existing indigenous territories.
Survival’s Stephen Corry said: “An urgent and horrific humanitarian crisis is unfolding across Brazil while the media’s eyes are diverted by the Olympic Games. The Guarani’s situation is not an anomaly, it’s the continuation of a centuries-old process of land theft, genocidal violence, slavery and racism. Scores of indigenous people are dying and being killed, tribes across the country are being annihilated. It’s difficult to exaggerate the severity of this crisis which will only end when tribal peoples are respected as contemporary societies and their human rights protected. Brazil needs to act now, before more tribes are destroyed.”
