Tupinikim and Guarani Indians launched an international campaign
in the state of Espirito Santo to recover and expand their traditional
territories, invaded by the Aracruz Celulose S/A corporation. The
multinational corporation set up its operations in that state in the
1960s and since then has been exploiting cellulose there relying on
official investments. The company occupies 203 thousand hectares, many
of which encroach on indigenous land, which were bought at incredibly
cheap prices or stolen from Indians. For years FUNAI said that the
presence of the corporation in the area in question was legal because
there were no indigenous groups there. The ecosystem was affected as
little by little the native forest was replaced with eucalyptuses,
contributing to jeopardize the means of survival of the Indians.
In 1983, the Tupinikim and Guarani recovered, on their own
initiative, 4,491 hectares of their area which had been demarcated by
the government and ten years later they proposed to FUNAI that the
area should be expanded. With this international campaign, the
indigenous peoples intend to win the support from sympathetic
individuals and entities in Brazil and abroad to pressure Aracruz
Celulose S/A and the Brazilian government to let them occupy 14,270
hectares demarcated as a continuous area, so as to unify their
villages. FUNAI suspended the analysis of this claim in order to adapt
it to the provisions of Decree 1,775/96, and nobody knows when it will
be resumed.
TENSION AT THE JAVARI VALLEY
The hostile movement of woodcutters who resent the seizing by
IBAMA (Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural
Resources) and the Federal Police of 21,000 cubic meters of hardwood
illegally taken from the Javari Valley has given rise to tension among
Indians who live in the region. Information got about that the
woodcutters are giving weapons to the population to resist any
attempts to remove the seized hardwood from the region. Cimi, Civaja
(Indigenous Council of the Javari Valley) and Coiab (Coordinating
Board of Indigenous Organizations of Brazilian Amazonia), which have
always denounced the smuggling of hardwood, issued a note warning on
the problem. Twelve different ethnic groups live in the Javari Valley,
six of which do not have any contact with society, such as the Korubo
group. The above-mentioned entities believe that the Korubo are facing
a particularly difficult threat, as they usually resort to violent
means against the presence of the white man.
GOVERNMENT OF RORAIMA HINDERS DEMARCATION
The bishop of Roraima. D. Aldo Mongiano, denounced this week that
the vice governor of the state of Roraima, Airton Cascavel, announced
to the local press that the state will be receiving 10,000 heads of
cattle as an incentive to agriculture/livestock activities.
According to governmental sources, the cattle will be raised in the
Raposa/Serra do Sol indigenous area, creating new obstacles to the
demarcation of that continuous area, which for 20 years the Indians
have been pressing for. The existence of the area, identified by FUNAI
in 1993, was contested according to Decree 1,775/96 by the state and
municipal administrations of that state, natural persons and mining
companies, which want to annul the governmental decree identifying the
area and have its bounds reviewed.
Brasilia, 31 May 1996
Indianist Missionary Council - CIMI