HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS ESCALATE
FOR INDIGENOUS WOMEN IN BRAZIL
In 1991 the Brazilian Government coined the slogan "Indian
is Land." It was an acknowledgement of the centrality of
land rights to the social, economic, cultural and political
survival of Brazil's indigenous peoples. Indians derive
their identity from their relationship to land; their
survival as unique cultural entities is linked to land.
However, in practice the right to land traditionally
occupied which is recognized in the Brazilian Constitution
has been ignored by land claimants who have abducted and
killed Indians to drive them off land sought for the wealth
of its resources. Indians who attempt to claim their
constitutional rights are in gravest danger of becoming
victims of human rights abuse.
Amnesty International is concerned by the persistent failure
of successive governments to protect the fundamental human
rights of Brazil's indigenous peoples - women and men. By
failing to arbitrate promptly in disputes between the
indigenous and non-indigenous community, the state has left
indigenous groups ever more vulnerable and faced with
escalating violence against them. The authorities at all
levels have failed to protect the Indians effectively or to
bring to justice those responsible for killing, abducting,
harassing and threatening them. As a result, human rights
abuses continue with impunity.
IN A STATE OF SIEGE
Current official figures put the indigenous population of
Brazil at 250,000, arranged in 180 different ethnic groups
with 170 different languages. The conditions in which
several of these groups now live are little short of
desperate. Forced off their traditional lands, and in
dispute with powerful local land claimants, many are now
living in small isolated groups in overcrowded conditions
with inadequate resources, often surrounded by hostile
landowners and settlers and at the mercy of hired gunmen who
operate with impunity.
The case of the Guajajara Indians on the Canabrava
Indigenous Area in Maranhao state is an illustration of
this. For the past thirty years the Indians have been in
conflict with settlers who occupied land inside the
indigenous area in violation of constitutional provisions
for the protection of Indian land. Violence culminated with
the killing in 1979 of nine pregnant Guajajara women.
The National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), the government body
responsible for Indian affairs, transferred resources to the
Maranhao state government to facilitate the relocation of
settlers outside the indigenous area following this
incident. However, the settlers were not relocated, and in
June 1992 they took hostage seven Guajajara Indians. They
demanded guarantees from the authorities that if they moved
they should be resettled and receive compensation. The
hostages were released within a week, but some 3,000
settlers remain in the indigenous area.
The taking of Guajajara Indians hostage followed a violent
raid by federal police in May to crack down on marijuana
cultivation in the area. The Guajajara allegedly smoke
marijuana in their religious ceremonies but had been accused
of selling it in towns nearby. The local branch of the Bar
Association and FUNAI officials later took testimonies and
condemned the raid. According to their reports a group of
nine federal police found women, children and old men in the
village and proceeded to beat and otherwise ill-treat them
to gain information about the village menfolk. One of the
community leaders, Nazare Guajajara, had a revolver placed
in her mouth when she challenged the police authority, and
asked why FUNAI wasn't present . "The law now is us. For
Indians there is only prison and bullets," she was told. A
gun was put into her daughter's mouth. Many of the women and
girls were sexually abused, and threatened with rape and
death. Women and children were handcuffed and machine gun
shots were fired over their heads.
Speedy and just resolution of land disputes is an essential
element in preventing further abuses against indigenous
groups. Official failure to arbitrate promptly and
definitively in these cases is primarily responsible for the
continuing conflicts - conflicts in which the Indigenous
women frequently become the victims.
"OUR CHILDREN ARE DYING....":THE PATAXO-HA-HA-HAE
"Our children are dying from lack of medicine. Our leaders
cannot go into the town, because they are threatened by
gunmen. FUNAI itself threatens us in every way
possible...The FUNAI representative in Eunapoplis receives
me with a gun on the table to intimidate me...FUNAI doesn't
want us to claim our rights...it's like living as a
prisoner."
This description of the plight of the Pataxo-ha-ha-hae
Indians was given by a leader interviewed by Amnesty
International. Since 1982 hundreds of Pataxo-ha-ha-hae
Indians have been living in a state of siege on a reserve in
the south east state of Bahia. At least eight Indians have
been killed and over 30 wounded during the past decade; they
have been repeatedly ambushed, abducted, arrested and
beaten. Their homes have been raided and their leaders
threatened. Police inquiries and judicial proceedings have
reportedly halted in all cases of violent deaths of Pataxo-
ha-ha-hae Indians. The federal authorities appear to have
taken no extra measures to protect them.
Usually their assailants have been gunmen hired by claimants
to the land the Indians occupy. These gunmen operate with
near impunity. Military police responsible for carrying out
land evictions have reportedly beaten and tortured the
Pataxo-ha-ha-hae. After a military police raid on the
Pataxo-ha-ha-hae community in 1985, 20 Indians, including
five pregnant women, needed medical treatment for their
injuries.
HUMAN RIGHTS SACRIFICED ON THE ALTAR OF EXPANSION
Central to the debate over Indian rights, and a source of
violent conflict, is the issue of access to and exploitation
of timber, mineral and other resources on Indian lands. The
Brazilian rainforest with its vast wealth of natural
resources has for decades attracted settlers, miners, and
commercial interests. Indians living in areas rich in timber
and mineral resources or areas which are of strategic or
economic importance, have been the target of violent attacks
designed to intimidate them or to force them to leave their
traditional land.
In the 1970s the then military government began a major
program to develop the Amazon region through the National
Integration Plan, an official colonization scheme. The plan
resulted in the removal of Indians from their traditional
lands to make way for roads to be built and to provide land
for the settlers who arrived by the thousands. The National
Integration Plan had a disastrous effect on the Yanomami
Indians of south west Roraima. The Yanomami, who are
officially estimated to number over 9,000, live in the
forest on the border with Venezuela and, as a result of
their isolation, are the largest of Brazil's tribal groups
to have maintained their traditional way of life.
THE YANOMAMI
Attacks on the Yanomami first reached public notice in
August 1987 when a conflict over a mine in the Paa-piu area,
on Yanomami traditional land, lead to the deaths of four
Indians and two miners. As far as the interpreters could
ascertain, the conflict arose when a group of Yanomami,
including women and children, had gone to the mine, which
they had themselves previously been working, to disarm a
group of miners who had taken possession of it. Federal
police did identify and bring charges against four miners
held responsible. In February 1991 FUNAI officials were
called to give evidence in the early stages of pre-trial
proceedings. None of the accused have ever been arrested.
During 1988 the influx of miners in the Indian areas
increased dramatically and with it reports of violent
attacks on Yanomami Indians. In May 1988 a Yanomami man from
the Hakomatheri group, who live near the Venezuela border,
was brought by FUNAI to the hospital in Boa Vista with a
serious gunshot wound. He and a group of Indians had been
attacked by armed miners. The man's two-year-old daughter
had died in his arms from her wounds and two other Indians
were reportedly seriously wounded. After opening a brief
inquiry, Federal Police recommended closing the case. No
further progress has been reported.
On August 11, 1989 two Yanomami women and a child were shot
dead by a group of miners near a prohibited airstrip, the
DOCEGEO air-strip, after they had challenged the miners'
right to be there. According to reports, other Yanomami
Indians had difficulty in retrieving the bodies for funeral
rites, as the miners had mounted an armed guard at the site
of the killings.
A LEGACY OF FAILURE: THE URU-EU-WAU-WAU
The Uru-eu-wau-wau Indians are a nomadic hunter-gatherer
people, who range over the center south of Rondonia state.
For years their unprotected status meant that no official
attempt was made to prevent or mediate conflicts between the
settlers and the Indians. Because they have aggressively
defended their territory several "punitive" expeditions have
been carried out against them since the 1950s when settlers
and landowners began to move onto their areas.
In 1963 workers on the San Tome rubber estate, led by the
estate owner, massacred 31 Indians - children were
reportedly thrown in the air and impaled on knives as they
fell - and abducted another 28, most of them women and
children. The estate owner was charged with "genocide" but
the case against him is still running in the local court,
almost 30 years after the massacre. He is now over 70 years
old. Even if convicted he will not have to face a custodial
sentence and he has retained the land for which he killed.
Between 1981, when they were first contacted by FUNAI, and
1991 the Uru-eu-wau-wau population is estimated to have been
reduced by half as a result of violence and disease. By
August 1990 there was evidence of a dramatic increase in the
level of timber and mineral extraction in Indian areas.
There were also reports of continuing violent clashes
between Indians and settlers.
A CLIMATE OF IMPUNITY
Common to every case of abuse of the rights of Indigenous
people in Brazil is the fact that those responsible almost
always escape justice. As a consequence those trying to gain
land from Indian communities feel they may use violent
methods without fear or redress. The guilty go free. Most of
the human rights abuses against Indians surveyed by Amnesty
International have been carried out by hired gunmen or armed
settlers and prospectors.
On January 11, 1991 Genildo Kambiwa, a Kambiwa Indian
traveled to the capital of Maranhao, Sao Luis, with Elisa
Cabra, a Guajajara Indian, who needed hospital treatment for
tuberculosis. On finding that there were few supplies at the
hospital, Genildo Kambiwa went to the regional administrator
of FUNAI for assistance and the two of them went to a
supermarket to buy food and other necessities for Elisa
Cabra. At the register the FUNAI administrator refused to
pay for the supplies. The police arrived and Genildo Kambiwa
was arrested. According to reports by CIMI in Maranhao, he
was tortured by civil police in custody. An inquiry has
reportedly been opened. The condition of Elisa Cabra is not
known.
THE TICUNA MASSACRE
Since 1980 the Ticuna have become increasingly organized in
their campaign for official demarcation of their lands. To
date, they have been granted only 10 per cent of the
territory they claim. However, they have increasingly become
the victims of human rights abuses as a result of their
peaceful campaign.
It is more than four years since 14 Ticuna Indians were
massacred at the mouth of the Capacete Creek, just outside
the officially demarcated Sao Leopoldo Indigenous Area in
Amazonas state. They were killed by settlers, allegedly
employed by a local timber merchant. The killings occurred
on March 28, 1988. A group of 100 Indians from four
communities - men, women and children - were waiting at
Capecete Creek for the return of a delegation who had gone
to Benjamin Constant to report the theft of a bull. They
were apparently picnicking and singing. When the gunmen
approached, the Indians told them that they had come in
peace and were unarmed, but the gunmen opened fire. After
the first shots were fired the Indians started to run for
cover: some headed into the forest, some tried to escape in
canoes, some took refuge in a house.
Six of the 14 Indians were children, as were several of the
23 Indians injured in the attack. Most of those killed had
tried to escape by boat. The bodies of 10 of the victims,
which were apparently swept away in the river, were never
recovered. One boy was saved by hiding in a clay over for
baking cassava bread. A 12-year-old girl who was shot in the
back and in the nape of her neck, managed to escape by
running into the forest with another girl. Though wounded
she swam across a creek and made her way back on foot to Sao
Leopoldo, Leila Valentin Marcos, aged six, was also wounded.
She was in a canoe with a number of other people, all of
whom were killed. Although more than 12 pieces of gunshot
had lodged in her head, she survived by pretending to be
dead. Her nine-year-old brother, Aldemir, did not.
Federal police arrived at the scene the next morning.
Although they found the gunmen who had allegedly taken part
in the attack still armed, they did not arrest them. The
police confiscated their weapons, but failed to identify
them correctly, a necessary preliminary procedure for
ballistic tests. It was some time before the police took
statements from the men the Ticuna had identified as their
assailants. One week later, only five suspects had been
interviewed and charged.
Brazil Action
You Can make a Difference
TAKE A MOMENT TO WRITE A LETTER ON BEHALF OF THE WOMEN,
CHILDREN AND ELDERS BEATEN BY FEDERAL POLICE. LET FEDERAL
AUTHORITIES KNOW THAT THIS KIND OF ILL-TREATMENT DOES NOT GO
UNNOTICED.
Exmo. Sr Nicolau Dino de Castro Cosa Neto
Procuradoria da Republica
Rua dasHortas 223, Centro
Sao Luis, Ma 65020 -270
Brazil
Your Excellency,
I would like to express my concern about the violent raid on
Guajajara Indians that took place in may 1992 in the
Canabrava Indigenous Area in Maranhao state. Women, children
and old men were beaten and otherwise ill-treated by a group
of nine federal police. The women and girls were sexually
abused and threatened with rape and death.
I am concerned about the failure of the state and federal
authorities to settle the land disputes in the area,
especially since 1979, including relocation of non-
indigenous settlers outside the indigenous area.
Continuation of these disputes exposes the Indians to
attacks. In addtion, I am concerned that none of the federal
police have been charged for the beatings, rape threats and
other cruel, degrading treatment of Guajajara women and
children. We urge you to take action to protect Guajajara
Indians against these attacks and to bring to justice those
responsible.
Sincerely,