Date: Sun, 20 Oct 1996 02:25:31 +0000 (GMT)
From: Rich Winkel <rich@pencil.math.missouri.edu>
Subject: Filmaker Documents Terrorism Against Brazil's Rondonia Indians
To: Multiple recipients of list ACTIV-L <activ-l@mizzou1.missouri.edu>
** Topic: Filmaker Documents Terrorism Against Brazil's Rondonia Indians **
/* Written 8:13 AM Oct 16, 1996 by wild@edf.org in en.alerts */
/* ---------- "Rondonia Action Alert" ---------- */
URGENT ACTION
Stephan Schwartzman
Environmental Defense Fund
(CTI) Tel. 202-387-3500
Fax 202-234-6049
steves@edf.org
Vincent Carelli
Indigenous Work Center
(55 11) 813 3450
(55 11) 813 0747
Filmaker Vincent Carelli, of the Indigenist Work Center (CTI) in Sao Paulo and Marcelo Santos of the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) documented today that a rancher in Xupinaguaia county in Rondonia state in the Brazilian Amazon bulldozed the remains of a village of uncontacted Indians, to erase evidence of the Indians' presence. Before and after aerial photographs of the village site reveal the destruction. The cattle rancher had already clearcut the forest in the area. This is the most recent piece of evidence in a pattern of killings, terrorism, forced removal and destruction of the traces of uncontacted Indians over the last decade in Rondonia that the NGO and Santos, a government Indian agent, have brought to light. Indians in Brazil in theory are guaranteed rights to the land they traditionally occupy by the Constitution, and the government is obligated to protect them. This pattern of genocide of uncontacted Indians in Rondonia has yet to be investigated by the police and has gone entirely unpunished by the courts.
In mid-September, FUNAI agents in Rondonia delivered a report to Federal Prosecutor Francisco Marinho, in Porto Velho, Rondonia documenting the expulsion by gunfire of uncontacted Indians from their village. Witnesses attest that the rancher Hercules Golviea Dalafini, of the Modelo ranch in Xupinaguaia county ordered his men to open fire on the surviving members of an uncontacted Indian group to drive them off of land that he claims.
On September 13, a National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) team discovered a clearcut in the forest on the site of an indigenous garden, where a bulldozer had attempted to extinguish the traces of a wrecked Indian house, and holes dug by the Indians around it. The remains of a garden of corn and papaya were still clear at the site, as were 14 holes and signs of an older house.
Various reports confirm that in January of 1996 the rancher hired a contractor to clearcut the area in month of January. The contractor entered the village shooting, pulled down and burned the longhouse, and destroyed the garden of corn and squash. On this occasion, three Indians, with long hair and without clothing, fled and were pursued through the forests on the ranch. Later, a bulldozer opened an acess road for the deforestation and attempted to cover up the vestiges of the village. That the deforestation was done in January, the height of the rainy season, indicates that the rancher's intent was to destroy evidence of the Indians' presence, since deforestation for cattle pasture or agriculture is done in the dry season.
This type of action by cattle ranchers against isolated Indians in Corumbiara and Xupinaguaia counties has been repeated over the last ten years. In 1984, loggers' trucks were shot with arrows by Indians in vicinity of the Igarape Umere (Umere Creek). In 1985, Marcelo Santos reported evidence of a possible massacre of Indians on Mr. Junqueira Vilela's Yvupita ranch. He found the same scenario as last September: houses and gardens destroyed, a bulldozer to finish the job, and bullet shells.
No judicial inquiry was ever opened to establish what had happened. In April 1986, FUNAI interdicted a 60 thousand hectare area for nine months, during which time the cattle ranchers continued clearcutting freely, interfering with FUNAI's attemtps to contact the Indians. On confirming that the Indians were not at the moment on the Yvupita ranch, FUNAI suspended the interdiction of the area, turning it over to the ranches.
Indigenist Marcelo Santos, meanwhile, continued his investigations, visiting the region repeatedly, and collecting references to the Indians from local workers. Starting in 1994, as head of the FUNAI department for Isolated Indians in Rondonia, Santos put the search on a more systematic basis.
On September 3, 1995, FUNAI finally located the first two Canoe Indians on the Umere Creek, on the boundaries of Antenor Duarte's Sao Sebastiao ranch, and Alceu Feldman's Olga ranch.
The Federal Court in Porto Velho, at the request of the attorney general's office, had already guaranteed a safe conduct on the ranches for the FUNAI team, to allow the search to go forward, and then issued several court orders interdicting a 50 thousand hectare area in order to protect these Indians. By the end of October, contact was consolidated with the Canoe, and another 7 Indians of the Tupari language family. The judicial interdiction was subsequently ratified by FUNAI.
In May 1996, filmaker Vincent Carelli, who has documented case since 1986, collected from the Tupari a statement that confirms the ocurrence of an armed attack against these Indians ten years ago, in which about ten were killed. The members of both groups show visibile signs of psychological disturbance from the violence they have suffered. Anthropological reports attest that the Canoe have been driven away at least twice from the left bank of the Umere Creek (on Mr. Almir Lando's ranch).
The vestiges discovered last week on the Modelo and Bagatolli ranches suggest that the group in question is a third group, with different characteristics from the others: they dig deep holes in the middle of their longhouses and mark the trees around their villages.
The discovery of the first two groups in 1995, and the interdiction of parts of some the ranches in the area appear to have moved rancher Dalfini to a desperate attempt to wipe out the vestiges of indigenous presence on his ranch. The three Indians who lived in the area have fled into forest. The FUNAI team sighted one man last month, while he was collecting wild honey.
The World Bank has financed development projects in the region over the last decade that inlcude indigneous protection components. The most recent of these, Planafloro, finances the FUNAI contact teams. World Bank involvment, and the government's contractual obligations to carry out Indian protection, have been insufficient to prevent the extermination of the the Indians of the Umere Creek. In September of 1995, days before Santos made the first contact with the survivors, a UNDP consultant to the Bank project vigorously attempted to convince the new President of FUNAI to cancel the isolated Indians subcomponent of the project, arguing that there were no more uncontacted Indians in the state.
Frightend and famished, these small isolated indigenous groups have been submitted over the last decade to a process of ethnic cleansing by the cattle ranchers. The pattern of terroristic explusions, evidence of killings, and destruction of the Indians' homes and means of subsistence, coupled with complete judicial impunity for the perpetrators indicates that the genocide of these Indians is commonplace and accepted in the region.
PLEASE WRITE, FAX OR EMAIL
Imo. Sr. Nelson Jobim Ministro da Justica Esplanada dos Ministerios Bl. T Brasilia DF 70064-900 Brasil fax 55-61-2242448 email: njobim@ax.apc.org
Request that the Minister ensure a thorough police investigation of the events and that the responsible parties be held judically accountable for their actions. Also request that the Minister instruct FUNAI to fully protect the land of the Indians of Igarape Umere immediately.
Please Write:
Ilmo. Dr. Julier Sebastiao da Silva Av. Presidente Dutra 2203 Justica Federal Centro 78.900-970 Porto Velho, Rondonia Brasil
Request that in light of the urgent situtation, the judge approve the judicial interdiction of the territory of the Indians of Igarape Umere, and that he open an investigation and ensure its conclusion.
for further information contact:
Stephan Schwartzman
Environmental Defense Fund
(CTI) Tel. 202-387-3500
Fax 202-234-6049
steves@edf.org
Vincent Carelli
Indigenous Work Center
(55 11) 813 3450
(55 11) 813 0747
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