BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT THREATENS INDIAN RIGHTS
Contrarily to what the president of Brazil publicly declared
during his international visits, the Brazilian government will not
spare efforts to restrict Indian rights. That is what the minister of
Justice, Nelson Jobim, made clear at a public audience granted this
week to the National Defense Commission of the Chamber of Deputies.
For two hours, the minister expounded points of the official Indianist
policy and government plans to modify decree n. 22/91, which provides
for the administrative procedure to be adopted in relation to the
demarcation of Indian lands, and to amend a bill which provides for
the Charter of Indian Societies, so as to include in it a provision
for the adoption of the adversary system - so as to allow invaders
interested in remaining in Indian lands to be heard. Before the end of
this month, the ministry of Justice will submit a proposal to this end
to president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Jobim assured.
Supporting the position of several deputies who are against the
demarcation of Indian lands, Jobim resorted to false arguments to
justify the use of the adversary system and defended its inclusion in
the administrative procedure for the demarcation as the only means to
solve conflicts between different interests which usually arise
whenever lands are demarcated. It is not the first time that an
attempt is made to incorporate that principle. In 1990 and 1991, the
Collor administration tried to have a similar measure approved when
the text of decree n. 22 was being discussed. The rights to contest
and to defend oneself is constitutionally ensured in judicial or
administrative procedures.
In the opinion of the Indianist Missionary Council - CIMI -, the
demarcation is an administrative procedure to which the adversary
system does not apply in any way. Various judges, lawyers and district
attorneys who support this point of view argue that it is not the
demarcation procedure that provides Indians with the right to a land
to live in, because this right has been already recognized in the
Brazilian Constitution. Therefore, the introduction of the adversary
system is nothing but a neoliberal approach to the Indianist policy
aimed at pleasing private interests.
CIMI believes that the Brazilian Government is trying to shirk its
constitutional responsibility of ensuring the demarcation of Indian
lands. The Council has been doing all within its power to prevent the
Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration from applying that legal
mechanism. To his end, it will demand measures in tune with what the
minister of Justice himself said as he closed the public audience:
"The demarcation of Indian lands is a means to ensure citizenship
rights."
Brasilia, May 11, 1995.
Indianist Missionary Council - CIMI