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This week´s edition of News from Brazil gives an update on the situation of the Tupinikim and Guarani Indigenous People and their eviction from their land in Aracruz, Espirito Santo.

On January 20, 2006 shock troops of the federal police invaded by surprise the indigenous villages Córrego D´Ouro and Olho D´Agua of the Tupinikim and Guarani Indigenous people. The villages are located in the city of Aracruz, in the state of Espirito Santo (eastern Brazil). At least nine Indians are injured. About 120 federal police officers arrived with a helicopter, bombs and other weapon to complete the eviction. According to eyewitnesses the indigenous leader Paulo Henrique Tupiniquim was taken into prison, and tractors of Aracruz Cellulose destroyed the houses/villages of the Tupinikim and Guarani. Aracruz Cellulose is the world´s leading producer of bleached eucalyptus pulp. The indigenous wounded by the Federal Police had medical examinations at the Medical Legal Institute (Instituto Médico Legal - IML) in Vitória on January 24th. Paulo Henrique de Oliveira, National Coordinator of the second largest indigenous organization in Brazil: APOINME, had his arm broken by federal policemen and others have severe wounds on their bodies.

  The order of ownership reintegration was given by federal judge Rogério Moreira Alves, on December 7, 2005, but no formal communication about it was given to the indigenous groups. The eviction came as a complete surprise for the indigenous and the involved organizations, and is in fact an illegal action. The conflict between the indigenous people and Aracruz Cellulose has existed for more then 15 years. In May 2005 the indigenous reoccupied the areas that they themselves had demarcated. It is an area of 11,009-hectare that currently is in the hands of the company Aracruz Cellulose. These 11,009 hectares have already been identified by FUNAI (Government National Indigenous Agency) and recognized as indigenous lands by the ex-Minister of Justice Íris Rezende, but were not included in the demarcation orders due to an unconstitutional agreement signed in 1998 after indigenous leaders had suffered violent coercion.

  Over the past two weeks, hundreds of international solidarity messages to the Brazilian authorities have been received from abroad. Denouncements of the police violence and the irregularities involving the judicial decision (being now investigated by the Federal Public Prosecution Service) that motivated the police action, led to the decision of the Royal House of Sweden to withdraw their financial investments from the Aracruz company. This news was also announced in the Brazilian media.

  On January 28 , Tupinikim and Guarani, helped by supporting groups and movements such as students and the MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais sem Terra, Brazil´s Landless Workers Movement), reconstructed the indigenous village of Olho d´Água that had been destroyed by Aracruz tractors. The Tupinikim and Guarani are firm in their intention not to leave the area of 11,009 hectares. The Federal Public Prosecution Service in Espírito Santo is preparing a new appeal in which they demand the Federal Judge to give the Tupinikim and Guarani a right to occupy the area until a final decision on the demarcation is taken by the federal government.  

On January 30, a delegation of 8 indigenous leaders had a 30-minute meeting with the President of the Republic, Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva, at the Vitória Airport, at the end of a short visit of the President to the Espirito Santo State. Lula was concerned about the violence practiced against the indigenous and promised that he would send the Minister of Justice Márcio Thomaz Bastos to talk directly with the indigenous groups in order to solve the demarcation issue. On February 9, an indigenous commission of 20 chiefs and leaders had a meeting with the Minister of Justice and the President of FUNAI, Mércio Pereira Gomes. The meeting was also attended by other authorities, such as the President of the Human Rights Commission of the National Parliament, Iriny Lopes, and other members of the parliament, authorities and representatives of NGOs.

A summary of the reports identifying the lands of the Tupinikim and Guarani peoples in the state of Espírito Santo as indigenous areas was published on February 20 in the Official Gazette, after they were approved by the president of Funai, Mércio Pereira Gomes. The reports cover three different lands: Caieiras Velhas and Pau Brasil, united as the 'Tupiniquim' area, with 14,227 hectares, and the Comboios land, covering 3,800 hectares. The reports clearly state that those lands are indigenous areas, which means that they can now be demarcated, and reaffirm the conclusions of Funai based on studies carried out between 1994 and 1998.

   The deadlines for demarcating indigenous lands are provided for in the Decree 1775/96, according to which there is a 90-day period for reports to be contested and a 60-day period for Funai's legal department to analyze the arguments. The process is then referred to the ministry of Justice for the bounds of indigenous lands to be officially declared. According to the forecast of the President of FUNAI, the declaration of the area as an indigenous land could be done by the Minister of Justice in July/August 2006 and the homologation by President Lula in November/December 2006. The Minister of Justice affirmed that President Lula has a firm commitment to the demarcation of the Tupinikim and Guarani lands. He promised to do everything, as a Minister, to demarcate the lands as soon as possible, respecting the legal time periods of the demarcation procedure. "Now, Funai should respect the 90-day deadline for the report to be contested, as well as other deadlines set for the process. If this process is delayed, as we see happening in most indigenous lands, the likelihood of conflicts will increase," said Cláudio Luiz Beirão, lawyer of the Indigenous Missionary Council.

  Finally, Judge Camilo José de Ávila Couto of the 2nd Civil and Commercial Court of Aracruz, who in November 2005 had forbidden the supporters of the indigenous struggle to practice any ‘perturbing or plundering’ against Aracruz, increased the daily fine from R$5,000 Brazilian reais to 100,000 reais (about 45,000 US dollars) for those who do not respect his decision. Several indigenous leaders are being processed by the Federal Police. Also, the main regional media company "Gazeta" is attacking the indigenous rights of the Tupinikim and Guarani in a systematic way, giving much more support to the arguments of the Aracruz company. We understand this all as a strategy of criminalizing the indigenous and their supporters in order to weaken the struggle for the land demarcation.

The Minister of Justice, Marcio Bastos, promised to investigate thoroughly the violent federal police action from the 20th of January, based on the complaints that were presented to him by the indigenous and other testimonies.

Source: CIMI web-site
Alert against the Green Desert Network
February 23, 2006

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