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ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND
1875 Connecticut Ave., NW, 10th Fl.
Washington, D.C. 20009
Tel.: (202) 387-3500; Fax: (202) 234-6049
Subject: Marcio Santilli resigns FUNAI presidency
11/03/96Steve Schwartzman, EDF
steves@edf.org
Tel.: 55-61 2248 2439; Fax: 55-61 248 6420 (in Brazil)
11/03/96 President of Brazil National Indian Foundation (FUNAI)
resigns under pressure from government mafias
Marcio Santilli, former congressman from Sao Paulo and
ex-executive director of the nongovernmental Socioenvironmental
Institute, on March 8 resigned from the Presidency of the National
Indian Foundation (FUNAI). He had occupied the position since last
September.
Santilli, although hampered by byzantine job security laws for
public sector employees, had fired or removed from decision making
authority high-level FUNAI staff, many in office for more than 10
years, linked to illegal logging and mining in Indigenous areas
and to longstanding patronage practices in Indian areas.
Previous FUNAI administrators had showered money and goods on
selected chiefs, and paid hotel and shopping bills in the city for
their families in exchange for support. Other staff, as in the
frontier state of Para, brokered illegal logging contracts and
deals with miners, in collusion with logging chiefs. Santilli
closed regional offices or replaced staff in the most flagrant
cases.
In January, Santilli delivered a proposal for the reorganization
of the agency to the Ministry of Justice, including clearer lines
of accountability for application of resources, and the opening of
the agency to work with state and local agencies and NGOs. The
reform also institutes merit pay and incentives for staff,
presently concentrated in Brasilia and regional capitals, to work
in the Indian areas. Currently the agency with 3,700 employees,
has 1,357 of these actually in indigenous areas.
The reaction was quick. At the beginning of February, a group of
Kayapo took FUNAI staff hostage, demanding the return of the
employees removed for brokering logging contracts and
misappropriation of agency funds. The Redengco FUNAI office,
which provides services to some of the Kayapo areas, spent $R4
million in 1995, or 10% of the agency's total disposable budget.
Some $R 0,8 million is unaccounted for. Santilli negotiated the
release of the hostages, but has presented the federal police with
evidence of misallocation of funds and requested an
investigation.
On February 12 several dozen Xavante Indians invaded the FUNAI
office, with national TV in tow, and held Santilli hostage in the
basement of the building, demanding FUNAI resources. The Xavante
proceeded to the Ministry of Justice and delivered a letter
requesting Santilli's replacement by Francisco Cruz, one of the
former staff removed by Santilli. One of Santilli's first steps in
office had been to cut off money for Xavante chiefs supported by
FUNAI in Brasilia hotels. Federal authorities guarantee that the
letter was not written by the Indians. Cruz was second in command
of the agency under former president Apoena Meireilles, currently
a gold mining pilot.
The Kayapo areas linked to Redengco and Xavante, with about 3.5 %
of Brazil's Indian population, accounted for nearly 15% of FUNAI's
disposable budget last year.
The Ministry of Justice requested a federal police investigation
into the involvement of former FUNAI officials in planning the
incident. The investigation has so far produced no results. Faced
with the prospect of continuing invasions, and police inaction,
Santilli resigned. Government sources noted links between
freemasons among the former FUNAI employees and freemasons in the
federal police as an obstacle to the investigation.
Indigenous rights organizations called for radical reform of the
agency. "We owe Marcio Santilli our thanks for his effort to clean
up FUNAI, and put it in shape to effectively defend Indian rights
in Brazil. But its now clear that the National Indian Foundation
needs radical surgery, not band aids, if the defense of indigenous
rights in this government is to move from rhetoric to reality,"
said Carlos Alberto Ricardo, executive secretary of the
Socioenvironmental Institute.