• Raposo Serra do Sol ratified, ranchers and politicians continue to apply pressure for lands
• Transgenics: A new phase

Raposo Serra do Sol ratified, ranchers and politicians continue to apply pressure for lands

After more than thirty years of resistance and organization by the Makuxi, Ingarikó, Taurepang, Wapichana and Pantamona peoples, the demarcation of the Raposa Serra do Sol indigenous land, as a continuous area, was ratified on April 15.
“The Brazilian state has thus taken its first step towards reestablishing true respect for the life of these peoples. Cimi considers that the conclusion to this stage of the political struggle, in favor of the confirmation of the constitutional rights of the indigenous peoples of Roraima to have come about as a result of the firm, fair and resolute position adopted the indigenous people, as articulated by the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR), which coordinates the resistance of these peoples”, the institution stated in a press release issued on the day of the President’s signature.
The news of ratification, by the Federal Government, came together with the announcement of four measures to protect the indigenous land from intrusion: the setting aside of 150,000 hectares of Government-owned land for setting up areas for the development of farming and cattle raising; the legalization of 10,000 family properties; identification and registration of all the families to be transferred out of Raposa Serra do Sol and São Marcos and settling them in Incra (National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform) projects; and the conclusion of the analysis, evaluation, and compensation payments for improvements identified in the Raposa Serra do Sol indigenous land within a year.

National Foundation for Indigenous People (Funai) data indicate the existence of around 67 honest, non-indigenous residents, living in Raposa Serra do Sol, who will be removed from the land and compensated. As far as the 16 rice farmers that are in the indigenous land today are concerned “there will probably be a solution found which involves the 150,000 hectares mentioned in the government package”, according to the Minister of Justice, Márcio Thomaz Bastos.

The urban center of the municipality of Uiramutã – set up four years after Funai had completed the identification of the indigenous land, the federal and state highways, the electricity transmission lines, the Monte Roraima National Park and the area belonging to the 6th Special Border Platoon in the municipality of Uiramutã, were excluded from the indigenous land.

At the start of the week, the Governor of Roraima, Ottomar Pinto, announced seven days of mourning in the state because of the ratification of the land, which he considers a way of rendering rice farming in the region infeasible.

Yesterday, 20 April, 15,000 people gathered in the center of Boa Vista, in Roraima, to protest against ratification of Raposa Serra do Sol, according to information disclosed by Agência Brasil and by the Folha de São Paulo newspaper. The Folha de Boa Vista newspaper, from Roraima, claimed that there were 3,000 people present.

According to Agência Brasil, the Federal Police accompanied the demonstration in Boa Vista to guarantee the safety of the indigenous people. Since last week, the Federal Police Chief Francisco Mallman has been coordinating an operation to protect the indigenous community. As a precautionary measure, the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR) remained closed this Wednesday. The CIR coordinator, Marinaldo Trajano, reveals that the indigenous people are not opposed to the farmers getting paid compensation, but they regret that many of them have polluted rivers and cleared forest areas, causing incalculable damage to the indigenous people.

"This demonstration in the city center strikes the CIR as a contradiction. The government has carried out its constitutional duty: it is our right to have our land demarcated", said Trajano in an interview with Agência Brasil.

Activities cancelled

Activities connected to the Indigenous People's Week, which had been programmed by the indigenous organizations and their allies for Tuesday, 19 April, in Roraima, were cancelled. “The cancellation of these activities was also a protest against the “terrorism” installed in the state of Roraima. This is a fruit of the action of groups of large estate owners, business segments and politicians, the position adopted by the State Government, and the incessant campaigns by the local media which, by sowing the seeds of misinformation and anti-indigenous bias, have led to more and more violent reactions against the signing of the decree to ratify the Raposa Serra do Sol indigenous land”, said the institutions that announced the cancellation. These include the Indigenous People's Ministry, the Organization of the Indigenous Teachers of Roraima, the Indigenous Council of Roraima, the Socio-environmental Historical Center of the Federal University of Roraima and the Migrant and Indigenous Person’s Information Center in the City.
A lecturer, who coordinates the Insikiran Indigenous Undergraduate Training Center at the Federal University of Roraima (UFRR), had his house firebombed. His family has also received two anonymous threatening telephone calls. The Federal Police have set up an inquiry to investigate the case.

In a press release repudiating the "acts of vandalism and violence suffered by the lecturer Fabio Almeida de Carvalho, Coordinator of the Insikiran Indigenous Undergraduate Training Center and consequently, UFRR", the University states that "this aggression could be linked to the climate of tension in the State, due to the decision concerning the complex indigenous land situation. We must stress that the work of the Insikiran Center and the UFRR is carried out within the existing legal framework and aims to improve education in the State of Roraima. Therefore, we repudiate the violence suffered by the UFRR employee and his family".

In Cimi’s opinion, these demonstrations against the ratification and demarcation of the Raposa Serra do Sol, organized by sectors that hold political and economic power in the state of Roraima, aim to retain the system of land grabbing, which is a common practice in this region and, above all, intend to pressurize the Federal Government to transfer lands belonging to the Union to the state of Roraima, so that these lands can be further exploited by agribusiness.

Brasília, 21 April 2005.
Source:  Cimi - Indianist Missionary Council

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Transgenics: A New Phase
by Frei Sergio Antonio Gorgen

[editor’s note: On March 4, 2005, the Law of Biosecurity, which legalizes the planting and commercialization of transgenic seeds, was approved by the National Congress.  Now social movements and environmental groups have but one option: to present a case to the Federal Supreme Court to show that the law is unconstitutional.]

The approval of the law of Biosecurity--which actually is a threat to biosecurity--has brought the tensions between small farmers and multinational agricultural businesses to a new level.

After seven years of attempts, multinational transgenic companies finally were able to get a law passed which will facilitate their goal of approving once and for all the commercial production of genetically modified produce.  Since 1998, these companies have been trying to impose their products without any sort of controls.  But their attempts were confounded with the resistance from social movements, environmentalists, consumers, innumerous independent scientists, and renown lawyers.  Only now, during President Lula’s tenure and with his support (due honor, however, goes to his Minister of Environment, Marina Silva, who has resisted the trend at every step) has it been possible for transgenic companies to get a law passed.  This law has opened the door for massive, commercial use of transgenic foods, without any studies, independent field tests, food security studies, or environmental impact studies.

It is an embarrassing decision which the Brazilian nation will regret one hundred times over.  The multinationals celebrate in silence.  The agribusinesses celebrate in public, not even perceiving that they also are victims and will become the slaves of a handful of multinationals.

General Contamination

Now, agricultural multinationals will accelerate the imposition of transgenic soy across the country.  Next will come cotton, then corn, sugar, rice, papaya, and tobacco.  They will try to impose a general contamination of as many food products and in as many regions of the country as possible.  They will move forward in their monopolies of seeds, in sales of herbicides and pesticides, and in charging royalties for the use of this technology.  They will try to put us on a one-way street, and make Brazil kneel before their interests.  Their objective is total control of the food market, and profit at whatever cost.

The law approved by the Congress gives CTNBio (National Technical Commission of Bio-security) total power to decide  to use transgenics.  Housed in the Ministry of Science and Technology, the ad hoc commission is made up of scientists who meet from time to time, the majority of whom research for companies involved in transgenics.

CTNBio does not have the permanent structures necessary for technical studies, evaluation, and field accompaniment concerning the effects of transgenics in nature.  The technical organs with legal force and permanent structures for the evaluation and accompaniment of the impact of this new technology, Ibama (the government’s environmental agency) and Anvisa (the health agency), will be obliged to honor and carry out the decisions of CTNBio, decisions which will be based on information furnished by companies interested in the legal use of transgenics.

Approval is Unconstitutional

The juridical confusion may continue as the Federal Constitution, article 225, demands environmental impact studies before an activity which may cause environmental damage can be legalized.  Increasing every day are scientific studies from all over the world which demonstrate the environmental risks of transgenic plants.  The same group of scientists who warned the world about climatic changes today are alerting to us about the risks of transgenics.  But popular consciousness about these risks will force society to exert pressure on governments and lawmakers to apply the principle of caution in the legalization of transgenic foods on a large scale.

Our resistance will continue.  We will denounce the disastrous consequences of transgenics for farmers, the environment, health, the sovereignty and economy of the nation.  These seven years of resistence have not been in vain.  The multinationals have succeeded in imposing their new form of domination at the worst possible moment for them: agribusiness controlled by multinationals is sinking in a severe crisis with the increase in the costs of agricultural production, the fall of international prices, and the devaluing of the dollar.  As transgenics are part of this model, if the model enters into crisis, it also affects the strategy of implantation.  It is in this crisis that we need to prepare ourselves and advance in the construction and consolidation of our own alternative projects.  It is up to us to move forward with new models of agriculture, with new land reforms, technology with ecological bases, and agricultural production controlled by small farmers, organized in cooperatives under their own control, and producing varied foods to feed, before all else, the Brazilian people.

Frei Sergio Antonio Gorgen is a state congressman of the Workers Party from Rio Grande do Sul, and has worked closed with the MST (Movement of Landless Workers) since the 80's when he was a member of the Catholic Church’s Land Commission.  He is the author of the book, “O Massacre da Fazenda Santa Elmira.”

Source: Jornal Sem Terra, March 2005



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