Featured image: A pair of macaws in flight. The Amazon basin is under extreme threat, as the Brazilian government passes measure after measure to gut environmental, indigenous and social movement protections. Photo by Rhett A. Butler
“The first five months of 2017 have been the most violent this century,” Cândido Neto da Cunha, a specialist in agrarian affairs at the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) in Santarém, Brazil, told Mongabay. According to the Catholic Church’s Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), which has been compiling statistics on rural violence since 1985, 36 people have already been assassinated in rural conflicts this year.
The latest violence came on 24 May when nine men and a woman were killed in what seems to have been a deliberate massacre on the Santa Lúcia estate in the rural district of Pau D’Arco located 860 kilometers (535 miles) south of Belém, the capital of the state of Pará.
For many years, landless families had lobbied for the creation of a land reform settlement on this estate, saying that the man claiming to own the land, now deceased, was a land thief. His widow agreed to hand over the property, but had second thoughts when INCRA officials, who cannot pay above the market price, refused to pay her what she asked.
In the meantime, landless families had occupied the area and a security guard, working for the ranch, was killed on 30 April. A posse of military and civil police went in to evict the families and to investigate the death. The families say the police arrived shooting. This version is disputed by the police, who claim that the peasant families shot at them first. However, no police officer was killed or wounded.
A landless peasant occupation at KM Mil, a settlement near the Thousand Kilometer marker on highway BR 163 near the town of Novo Progresso in Pará state, Brazil. Violence against peasants involved in the agrarian reform movement is increasing across the nation as wealthy land thieves are emboldened by the Temer administration which has done little to stop the attacks. Photo by Thais Borges
As Cunha pointed out, this is only the latest in a series of violent land conflicts this year. On 19 April, ten peasants, including children, were tortured and then murdered in the rural district of Colniza in the northwest of Mato Grosso. On 30 April a group of Gamela Indians were attacked by a large group of armed men sent in by farmers. Over two dozen Indians were injured, with four hospitalised in critical condition. Two had their hands lopped off and their legs cut at the joints.
On 25 May, 19 organizations, including the CPT and the landless movements (MST), published a letter in which they railed against the systematic “impunity of human rights violations in the countryside.” They went on: “The State is not only complicit and absent… but also an active agent in encouraging the violence, not only through the policies and programs carried out by the Executive, but also by the action of the Legislative which is destroying rights won by the workers.”
Wave of violence spurred by bancada militancy
Cunha made a similar point, linking the spike in violence to the government’s rapid dismantling of environmental laws, agrarian reforms and indigenous protections, a process that gained greater momentum, he said, after Osmar Serraglio, a well-known member of the bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby in Congress, was appointed Justice Minister in February.
“Violence is one of the ways in which agribusiness and land thieves get rid of ‘obstacles’ to their never-ending expansion,” explained Cunha.
Indigenous leaders tear-gassed by police in front of Brazil’s National Congress in April. They were protesting the surging violence against Indians seen since Temer took power, as well as the government’s assaults on indigenous land rights. Photo by Wilson Dias courtesy of Agencia Brasil
However, his, or even Temer’s, removal seems unlikely to threaten the power of the bancada. Even if the President falls, a scenario that seems increasingly likely, the agribusiness lobby will remain strong — or grow even stronger. That’s because the bancada holds a firm grip on Congress, which will likely have a big say in selecting Temer’s successor who will most likely be chosen in indirect elections in Congress.
The only way that the agribusiness lobby’s power might be challenged is if Congress passes a constitutional amendment that mandates immediate direct elections for president — a solution to the crisis many social movements are demanding, but which, as yet, seems unlikely to happen.
Agribusiness attacks on indigenous rights
For the moment, the bancada (the members of which have again refused to grant Mongabay an interview), is pressing ahead with a program that heavily favors agribusiness and is extraordinarily hostile to Indians, the environment and social movements.
On 30 May a Parliamentary Commission of Enquiry into FUNAI, the federal agency responsible for Indian affairs, and INCRA (the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform), approved the final version of its report. The Commission, whose members came mainly from the bancada, called for 67 people to be indicted for allegedly illegal activities in support of the indigenous movement. The list included a former justice minister (José Eduardo Cardozo), anthropologists, FUNAI employees, INCRA employees and 30 Indians.
Brazil’s large scale farmers and commodities companies (such as Amaggi), aren’t the only ones to benefit wildly from an agribusiness-friendly Brazilian government that attacks indigenous land rights and environmental protections. International commodities companies like ADM, Cargill and Bunge will also greatly benefit. Photo by Thais Borges
The list of names will be handed to the Public Ministry and other authorities for possible prosecution. Though no other action has yet been taken against those named in the list, the report has created a climate of trepidation, with many of those named by the Parliamentary Commission fearful of possible arrest and prosecution.
The report’s rapporteur, Nilson Leitão, who had initially called for the closing down of FUNAI, changed his position, in the face of widespread criticism, with the report proposing, instead, the “restructuring” of FUNAI.
An inquiry established by Brazilian parliamentarians who represent the powerful agribusiness lobby has just published a report calling for the closure of the Indian Affairs Department, FUNAI.
Its findings have been met with outrage and incredulity in Brazil and beyond. Francisco Runja, a Kaingang spokesman said: “Killing off FUNAI is tantamount to killing us, the indigenous peoples. FUNAI is a crucial institution for us; our survival; our resistance; and it’s a guarantee of the demarcation of our traditional territories.”
The report attacks indigenous leaders, anthropologists, public prosecutors and NGOs, including Survival International.
It alleges that FUNAI has become a “hostage to external interests” and calls for dozens of its officials to be prosecuted for backing what it calls “illegal demarcations” of tribal territories.
Yesterday a group of 50 Indians was barred from attending the session in congress discussing the inquiry.
The inquiry took 500 days and the report is over 3,300 pages long. It is a blatant attack on indigenous peoples and a crude and biased attempt to destroy their hard-won constitutional rights.
It was headed by politicians representing Brazil’s powerful agri-businesses who have long coveted indigenous territories for their own financial gain.
One member, congressman Luis Carlos Heinze, received Survival’s Racist of the Year award in 2014 following his deeply offensive remarks about Brazilian Indians, homosexuals, and black people.
Another member, congressman Alceu Moreira, called for the eviction of tribal people attempting to reoccupy their ancestral lands.
The increasingly hostile, anti-indigenous climate in many sectors in congress is fuelling violence against indigenous peoples. Last month, 22 Gamela Indians were injured following a brutal attack at the hands of local landowners’ gunmen.
FUNAI has suffered severe budget cuts, which have resulted in the grounding of several teams responsible for protecting uncontacted tribes’ territories. This effectively leaves some of the most vulnerable people on the planet to the mercy of armed loggers and land grabbers.
The organization has been greatly weakened. Many staff have been made redundant, and political appointees now run key departments.
In the last five months, it has had three presidents. Earlier this month the second president, Antonio Costa was dismissed. In a press conference he strongly criticized President Temer and Osmar Serraglio, the Minister of Justice, stating that they “not only want to finish off FUNAI, but also public policies such as demarcation of [indigenous] land… This is very serious.”
Yanomami shaman and spokesman Davi Kopenawa said: “FUNAI is broken… it is already dead. They killed it. It only exists in name. A nice name, but it doesn’t have the power to help us.”
Thirteen Brazilian Indians have been hospitalized after a brutally violent attack by men armed with machetes in the Amazon.
One man appears to have had his arms severed in disturbing photos released to Survival International.
The attack was in retaliation for the Gamela Indians’ campaign to recover a small part of their ancestral territory. Their land has been invaded and destroyed by ranchers, loggers and land grabbers, forcing the Gamela to live squeezed on a tiny patch of land. The Gamela are indigenous to the area in Maranhão state in northern Brazil.
Powerful agribusiness interests – reportedly including the Sarney landowning family – have been in conflict with the tribe for some time. The family includes a former president of Brazil and a former governor of Maranhão state.
Eyewitnesses say that the ranchers gathered at a barbecue to get drunk, before surrounding the Gamela camp, firing guns, and then attacking with machetes, causing grievous injuries. Local police are reported to have stood by and allowed the attack to happen.
The Gamela have received death threats in response to their attempts to return to their land. In a declaration released by Brazilian NGOCIMI, they said: “People are mistaken if they think that by killing us they’ll put a stop to our fight. If they kill us, we will just grow again, like seeds… Neither fear nor the ranchers’ bullets can stop us.”
The attack came just days after massive indigenous protests in Brazil’s capital against proposed changes to Brazil’s indigenous laws, which could have disastrous consequences for tribal peoples.
Land theft is the biggest problem tribal peoples face. Around the world, industrialized society is stealing tribal lands in the pursuit of profit.
Campaigners fear that the close ties between Brazil’s agribusiness lobby and the Temer government installed after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in 2016 could lead to further genocidal violence and racism against Brazilian tribal peoples.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Right now, we’re witnessing the biggest assault on Brazilian Indians for the last two generations. This truly horrific attack is symptomatic of a sustained and brutal onslaught which is annihilating indigenous communities across the country. Heinous acts like this won’t end until the perpetrators are prosecuted and Brazil starts enforcing tribal land rights as it should do under national and international law.”
All the government units currently protecting Brazil’s uncontacted tribes from invasion by loggers and ranchers could be withdrawn, according to information leaked to Survival International. The move would constitute the biggest threat to uncontacted Amazon tribes for a generation.
Agents from FUNAI, the country’s indigenous affairs department, perform a vital role in protecting uncontacted territories from loggers, ranchers, miners and other invaders. Some teams are already being withdrawn, and further withdrawals are planned for the near future.
Thousands of invaders are likely to rush into the territories once protection is removed.
There are estimated to be over 100 uncontacted tribes in Brazil, well over two-thirds of the global population of uncontacted people. Many of them live in indigenous territories, which total over 54.3 million hectares of protected rainforest, an area about the size of France.
These territories are guarded by just 19 dedicated FUNAI teams. It is possible that all 19 teams could be eliminated from the Brazilian state budget, despite the fact that money spent maintaining these teams is equal to the average salaries and benefits paid to just two Brazilian congressmen per year.
The proposals are the latest in a long list of actions from the Temer government, which came to power in 2016 after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, that could have catastrophic consequences for indigenous peoples.
Indigenous activist Sonia Guajajara said: “By cutting down the FUNAI budget, the government is declaring the extinction of indigenous people.”
Paulo Marubo, an indigenous man from the Javari Valley in Brazil’s Amazon said: “If the protection teams are withdrawn, it will be like before, when many Indians were massacred and died as a result of disease… If the loggers come here, they will want to contact the uncontacted, they will spread diseases and even kill them.”
Campaigners have suggested that the government’s close ties to Brazil’s powerful ranching and agribusiness lobbies – which consider indigenous territories to be a barrier to their own expansion – could be part of the reason for the proposal.
Major indigenous protests are taking place this week in Brasilia against government proposals to water down protection for indigenous rights.
Uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. Whole populations are being wiped out by violence from outsiders who steal their land and resources, and by diseases like flu and measles to which they have no resistance.
Survival International is leading the global fight for uncontacted tribes’ right to their land, and to determine their own futures.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Cuts in government budgets to protect uncontacted tribes are clearly nothing to do with money – the sums involved are tiny. It’s a political move from agribusiness which sees uncontacted tribes as a barrier to profit and is targeting rainforest which has been off-limits to development. The reality is these cuts could sanction genocide.”
Survival International has learned that politicians from a notoriously violent town in Brazil are lobbying behind the scenes to open up the territory of a vulnerable uncontacted tribe.
Councilors from Colniza in central Brazil, which is dominated by illegal logging and ranching and for years was Brazil’s most violent town, have met the Minister of Justice to lobby for the Rio Pardo indigenous territory to be drastically reduced in size. The minister is reportedly sympathetic to the councilors’ proposals.
Their plan is for road-builders, loggers, ranchers and soya farmers to move in, despite the territory being home to the last of the Kawahiva tribe, one of the most vulnerable peoples on the planet.
The Kawahiva depend entirely on the rainforest for survival, and have been on the run from loggers and other invaders for years.
The Rio Pardo territory was only recognized in 2016, following a global campaign by Survival International and pressure within Brazil.
Thousands of Survival supporters contacted the then-Minister of Justice demanding action. Oscar-winning actor and Survival ambassador Sir Mark Rylance fronted a major media push, culminating in the signing of the decree that should have secured the Indians’ territory for good.
Now, however, vested interests in the region could undo much of that progress.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Brazil must respect the rights of its tribal peoples. Uncontacted peoples, like the Kawahiva, clearly want to be left alone and to live as they please. But Brazil’s current leaders are holding closed-door meetings with corrupt politicians, and kowtowing to the agribusiness lobby, expressly to deny them that right. The stakes could not be higher – entire peoples are facing genocide as a result of this callous approach.”
Background briefing
The Kawahiva are hunter-gatherers, who migrate from camp to camp through the Rio Pardo rainforest.
Roads, ranches and logging all risk exposing them to violence from outsiders who steal their lands and resources, and to diseases like flu and measles to which they have no resistance.
All uncontacted tribal peoples face catastrophe unless their land is protected. Survival International is leading the global fight to secure their land for them, and to give them the chance to determine their own futures.
The current Brazilian government is attempting to roll back decades of gradual progress in the recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights in the country. The Minister of Justice recently said: “Enough of all this talk of land [demarcation] – land doesn’t fill anyone’s stomach.” And the new head of Indigenous Affairs Department FUNAI has said “Indians can’t be ‘fixed in time.’”
