Environmental Defense Fund
1875 Connecticut Avenue N.W. #1016
Washington, D.C. 20009; tel.: 202 387 3500; fax 202 234 6049; edf@igc.apc.org
Attn: Rainforest/Indigenous Rights Activists
Two urgent alerts follow: the first is from Steve Schwartzman of EDF;
the second is from Josi Adalberto, Vice-Cooridinator of the Indigenous
Council of Roraima; please pass them onto appropriate staff in your
organization. Ken Walsh for EDF.
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The Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Area and Decree 1775: the fate of 177
indigenous areas in Brazil hangs in the balance
The dispute over the 1,678,000 hectare Raposa Serra do Sol indigenous area,
in Roraima state in the Brazilian Amazon threatens to roll back critical
legal protection for 177 indigenous areas in Brazil, covering 16.5 million
hectares. Loss of legal protection would have drastic consequences for
Brazil's indigenous minority, as well as opening some of the few previously
protected areas in the Amazon to predatory exploitation. The conflict may
also undermine the credibility of Brazilian government claims that revision
of Indian land demarcation procedures (Decree 1775) sought to make the
demarcation process more efficient, not, as critics argued, to reduce the
area legally recognized by the government as Indian lands.
Over the last thirty years, indigenous groups in Brazil have won
legal protection for more than 900,000 square kilometers of land,
almost all in the Amazon. Regional elites and logging, mining and
agribusiness interests have consistently attempted to halt or
impede the demarcation process, as well as invading already
demarcated areas. When, last January, the government revised
demarcation procedures to give states, counties and private
claimants the right to contest and potentially reduce already
demarcated Indian lands, the measure was widely denounced by
indigenous organizations as a maneuver to trade away Indian land
for Congressional support for Fernando Henrique Cardoso's stalled
economic reform program. The government insisted that the measure
was merely intended to protect Indian lands from legal challenge
by safeguarding due process.
The demarcations of thirty-two areas were contested under Decree 1775, in
over 500 claims. Brazil's National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), duly
rejected all of the claims. By the law, the final decision rests with the
Minister of Justice, who in July rejected all but 8 claims. Among the most
contentious is Raposa Serra do Sol. Justice Minister Nelson Jobim will
issue a final decision on this area by October 10th. His decision will
substantially affect the future of Indian land yet to be demarcated.
Raposa Serra do Sol covers 1,678,000 hectares, and is inhabited by some
12,000 Macuxi, Wapixana, Ingariko and Taurepang Indians, on Brazil's
border with Guiana and Venezuela. The area includes mountain forest and
tropical savannah ecosystems. Parts of the area were invaded more than 20
years ago by cattle ranchers who introduced alcohol and forced labor to
the area, as well as violently repressing Indian attempts at resistance.
The situation was exacerbated by invasions of gold and diamond miners
particularly in the 1980s. The Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR),
founded in 1987, emerged from arduous local initiatives in the Raposa/
Serra do Sol area over the last twenty years to combat alcohol abuse,
resist the appropriation of traditional Indian lands, and provide services
to local communities, with support from the Catholic Church. Ranchers
reacted with threats, intimidation, and violence, and the area has become
the scene of constant conflict. Both Military Police and private gunmen
typically act at the ranchers' request. CIR now represents a majority of
the villages in the area, and through CIR's work, local communities have
reoccupied many areas formerly controlled by the ranchers.
It was in consequence of CIR's work that FUNAI finally in 1993 carried out
the identification of the area, the first step in the official recognition
process. The technical report on the area was approved by FUNAI and has
been awaiting approval of the Ministry of Justice for the last three
years. FUNAI rejected all of the challenges to the area as lacking
technical merit. The Justice Minister surprisingly requested further
information on the area, citing the existence of a county near the
boundaries of Raposa Serra do Sol. Minister Jobim has stated that he will
visit the area to hear the opinion of the communities before reaching a
decision, but repeatedly put off the visit.
CIR and indigenous rights organizations in Brazil are gravely concerned
with these developments. It is well known in the region that since the
identification was carried out the state government has invested heavily
in dividing the indigenous communities along religious lines, furnishing
goods and services exclusively to villages with marked presence of
evangelical Protestants, and threatening to cut off support in the event
of the demarcation of a continuous area. Worse still is the Oct. 3
election for the creation of a county in the area. The law that created
the new municipality is unconstitutional, in that indigenous lands are
inalienable according to Article 231 of the Constitution of 1988. A
county seat cannot legally be located on Indian land. The purpose of the
election is to lend the appearance of legitimacy to a land grab. The
supposed county seat is in fact a decaying relic of the gold boom.
There are thus strong indications that the Minister intends to reduce the
area. To do so would be to subvert the criteria of the Decree he himself
promulgated, since the technical report on which the boundaries of the
area is, according to the brief of the Federal Attorney General's Office,
fully in accordance with Constitutional requirements for indigenous land
demarcation.
What is at stake in the Raposa Serra do Sol case is nothing less than the
future of the 16.5 million hectares that await identification in Brazil.
All of these areas will be open to challenge under the decree. If the
Minister reduces Raposa/Serra do Sol it will be on political grounds and
not according to the technical criteria of Decree 1775, and once the
political interests of the privileged elite take precedence over the law,
there will be no going back. This indeed appears to be what the rumored
deals in the back halls of the Brazilian Congress are about: starting the
process of rolling back indigenous lands in Brazil.
________________________________________________________________________
Date: 09/06/96 10:17:05 AM
From: isadf@ax.apc.org (Nilto Tato)
Subject: CIR statement
Raposa/Serra do Sol Runs Risk of Reduction
The deadline established by Decree 1775 for Justice Minister Nelson Jobim
to present his decisions on the challenges to ongoing demarcations of
indigenous lands, including Raposa Serra do Sol in Roraima, was last July
10. Although the decree, written by the Minister himself, stipulates that
these decisions should be justified, Jobim determined that the Raposa/
Serra do Sol case and those of seven other areas return to FUNAI in order
that "new proceedings" be carried out without explaining the motives and
obejctives of this decision. A note distributed by his staff mentioned
that the town of Normandia forms an enclave between the indigenous land
and the Guiana border. This indicates probable intent to review the
boundaries identifed by FUNAI and sent to the Ministry of Justice more
than three years ago.
The minister has stated that he intends to visit Roraima and the
indigenous area before taking his decision with regard to the
demarcation. But he continues to delay this visit, while the decree
establishes a limit of 90 days to do the new proceedings, which falls on
October 10. It is unclear whether or not the delay is related to the
municipal elections to occurr on October 3.
The situation is aggravated by the fact that elections are planned to
establish the administrative center of a pseudo-municipality, recently
created without Constitutional basis, within the indigenous area, in a
gold boom town.
Last August 30, the President of FUNAI Julio Gaiger, at a seminar in
Manaus, afirmed that the anthropological report (laudo antropologico) that
is the basis of the demarcation procedure, although well done, was open to
question. The anthropolgical and legal documentation of the Raposa Serra
do Sol demarcation case is among the best. It is a matter of consensus
that this issue depends entirely on the will and political courage of the
federal government.
Considering the successive delays of the Minister's decision, and the
negative signals sent by the Minister of Justice and presidency of FUNAI,
the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR) manifests its extreme concern with
the risk that the Raposa Serra do Sol indigneous area be reduced by
Minister Jobim, and with the concrete fact of the intensification of
conflicts between Indians and invaders, since the latter are encouraged by
the procrastination, vacillation, and manipulation of facts with respect
to the demarcation on the part of the government. CIR will hold a
demonstration on September 16 in Boa Vista, Roraima and calls on all of
the allies of the indigenous peoples, within Brazil and internationallly,
to reinforce their support for the demarcation of the entire Raposa/Serra
do Sol Indigenous Area, and to express their support for an immediate and
just decision by the Minister of Justice.
Boa Vista, September 5, 1996
Josi Adalberto Vice-Coordinator, CIR