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talkpoliticsWe often hear the success stories of the BRICS countries (I live in the "S" of the BRICS), the new tigers on the stage of globalised international economy. Many have said that those five emerging economies possess the potential to outlast the crisis and make it into the next stage of global development as some of the strongest players. We hear about the increased living standard in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and the emerging middle-class, and everything else. But we shouldn't forget that beneath the surface, beyond the optimistic reports in the TV documentaries, and behind the hugs between world leaders, there is a darker side of those societies, which is still far from being dealt with, and enormous social problems which are far from being alleviated. I could speak a lot about South Africa where I live, but what about another country I am closely associated with, Brazil? "We could take many lessons from Brazil", is the meme that I am often hearing around here. OK then, here is a lesson we would probably be willing to avoid...
The Brazilian government never misses an opportunity to say that its policies towards the indigenous population in Brazil is a balanced policy of integration in correspondence to the constitutional rights of the Amerindians, and it always consults with the indigenous tribes in the Amazon and in the Brazilian south before taking any major decisions that would affect their communities. But the facts tell a very different story of which we rarely see any hints in the mainstream media. It took an actual social organisation of the indigenous people to take the trip to the international human rights authority in Geneva to make their case.
The leader of APIB (the Voice of the Indigenous People of Brazil), Uilton Tuxa, met in Switzerland with representatives of the UN, and the international community was presented with a petition proposing a more thorough investigation of the conduct of the Brazilian government in the lands inhabited by indigenous people. The UN is now being asked to intervene and pressure the Brazilian government to remedy the situation, because there are problems which will not go away and will only deteriorate unless it takes matters seriously.
According to the 2010 census conducted by IBGE (the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), there are more than half a million indigenous people living in Brazil today. Of these, about 40% live in poverty. For comparison, for the white (brancos) population this figure is 4.7% and for the black (pretos) and mixed (pardos) it is 10%. But if we are to look at the problem in terms of not just the economic but also the political, ethnic, cultural and environmental issues, the situation starts to look even more depressing.
The most pressing issue is the problem of demarcation of the borders of the reservations populated by indigenous people, and the areas with special status:
The problem is with the legal registration of the Amerindian population, and their rights to their own territories. The Brazilian government likes to brag that nearly 95% of all cases of territorial claims have been resolved, and those lands are now fully demarcated, but it hasn't yet specified what happens when it comes to reservations in the Amazon, where most indigenous people live. Moreover, this settlement of the disputes was achieved through international cooperation, and not at the expense of the National treasury, as the government claims. What's more, a demarcation of the borders of these lands is only part of the solution, but hardly enough to solve the problems. Because the region hosts the poorest and most vulnerable communities, they need to be provided with physical protection and other social rights, a thing which hasn't happened at all yet. And in many cases, especially in the south, the already established agreements count for nothing and are never implemented.
In other places outside the Amazon, where compact communities of Amerindians live (in the south and north-west of the country), the demarcation problem is particularly serious and it results in serious conflicts between the indigenous people and the Brazilian farmers (fazendeiros) who are making huge inroads and are now dominating those areas previously populated by Amerindians. This process was especially accelerated in the 70s and 80s under the military junta. For example the reservation where the Xavantes tribe lives (in Alto Boa Vista and in Mato Grosso do Sul), 1000 km north-east of the city of Cuiaba, is about to become a battlefield between 900 indigenous people and 6 thousand newcomers who are presently occupying that territory. The Amerindians responded to the injustice by burning and destroying the local hacienda and threatening to continue with the riots if the settlers didn't withdraw within a month (and that time is running out now). What could happen there would be mass riots and the army coming in, with a potential for a massacre or at least mass detention of hundreds of people who are merely protesting for their right to use their own land which was taken away from them. The boundaries of that particular reservation were set in 1998 but the government has neglected solving the problem of the re-settlement of farmers who've progressed further into that territory, although there have been court decisions in favour of the indigenous people. In practice, the court decisions count for nothing when you have the right of force on your side, and the local authorities are turning to the other side because they have probably been corrupted by the farmers. This conflict has lasted for the past 40 years and the Amerindians are now preparing to take drastic measures and march on the federal capital Brasilia and bring the issue to the federal parliament.
But this is only one half of the problem. In fact most of the indigenous peoples in Brazil are experiencing similar amounts of pressure not only on their inherited territories but also on the natural resources there, which are used for carrying out massive private and public projects such as building roads, hydropower plants and of course the huge invasion of mining, logging and agricultural companies, individual entrepreneurs from the coastal regions, and also drug and human traffickers.
The most stunning case happened with the Guarani-Kaiowa tribe in Mato Grosso do Sul, who were driven from their lands and are still waiting for the demarcation of a small area designated for them. It is located on infertile land, spanning beside a paved highway. Their original lands are now occupied by a large agricultural firm using them for the cultivation of monocultures: soybeans, sugar-cane and eucalyptus, and producing biofuels. The crime rate in the reservation is 10 times higher than the national average, and the mortality rate is close to that of Iraq (a country in a state of civil war!) The Amerindians cannot even hope to get their due compensations for the destruction of their natural resources. This is also the case with the Pataxo Hahahae tribe which lives in the south of the Bahia state... for more than 20 years they have been waiting for a court decision about the allocation of compensations for their destroyed lands, and things have started taking a course towards a violent outcome.
The mega-infrastructure projects that the Brazilian government has embarked on are causing especially big concerns among the indigenous population. There currently are a total of 400+ development projects actively being worked on, but one has particularly struck the indigenous population. It's a very ambitious project to turn the direction of the São-Francisco river to produce cheap power, but the problem is that this will happen in regions already experiencing endemic drought in the north-east of Brazil. The project includes the construction of several hydropower stations and flooding the last remaining fertile patches of land still held by the Amerindians. The project was rejected by them 20 years ago, and yet work has initiated and carried out, despite the growing protest movement involving both the local indigenous population and that of the adjacent regions (including hunger strikes from clerics). The problem is that flooding about 500 sq km of land will lead to a vast social and ecological catastrophe and a human tragedy of proportions never seen before in that region. The people there are already experiencing water shortages, the fish industry along the river is almost dead, and what has been a transport artery for three dozen tribes and a means of income for 70 thousand people will be gone. And those people will have to flock into the big cities (Fortaleza, Natal and Recife), and cause more social turmoil there. In addition, the ethnic integrity and coherence of the indigenous population will be destroyed, and many of the 20 thousand workers now being hired at the peak stages of the project (most of them coming from other areas) will have to either stay there as unemployed work force, or relocate to other regions and cause more havoc on the labour market there.
All that said, as the Amerindian representatives have informed the UN, Brazil is violating the Convention 169 of the International Labour Organisation at the UN, which prescribes mandatory consultations of the central governments with the indigenous populations on the matters affecting the interests of the latter. The delegation said that the information presented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil about such consultations, is forged, and they said that a media campaign is being carried out to discredit the indigenous leaders and destroy their credibility, which would later affect the court in their decision making process.
The violation of human rights of the indigenous peoples in Brazil causes concern not only in these NGOs. According to the latest annual report on the "Violence against indigenous peoples of Brazil" (June 30, 2011), commissioned by CNBB (the National Conference of the Bishops of Brazil), the health situation in those areas is particularly aggravating. The authorities are unable to provide the population with adequate health care. Infant mortality has increased by more than 500% compared to two years ago, especially in the reservations in the states of Parana, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. Additionally, the number of conflicts with these traditional communities has increased, and the police cannot prevent many of those cases of social unrest. As a result, an increasing number of suicides, homicides and arrests of Amerindians is being observed, particularly in the south, where these communities are under immense pressure.
According to the chairman of COIAB (the Coordinating Council of the Indians of Amazonia), the Brazilian government "does not respect the indigenous peoples". "It does not recognise our problems. Our task is to voice our position outside the country, our cry should be heard in order to make sure that the already reached agreements are ratified and implemented". "We live in a very difficult situation, and the Brazilian government is creating the wrong impression abroad on this issue. We are suffering from a lack of a responsible public policy and moreover, from the pushing forward of various federal projects on our lands, against our will, at any cost". The hopes are that this time, since the Brazilian governments have consistently refused to address this issue in a sensible way, they will be made to do it from outside.
The Brazilian government never misses an opportunity to say that its policies towards the indigenous population in Brazil is a balanced policy of integration in correspondence to the constitutional rights of the Amerindians, and it always consults with the indigenous tribes in the Amazon and in the Brazilian south before taking any major decisions that would affect their communities. But the facts tell a very different story of which we rarely see any hints in the mainstream media. It took an actual social organisation of the indigenous people to take the trip to the international human rights authority in Geneva to make their case.
The leader of APIB (the Voice of the Indigenous People of Brazil), Uilton Tuxa, met in Switzerland with representatives of the UN, and the international community was presented with a petition proposing a more thorough investigation of the conduct of the Brazilian government in the lands inhabited by indigenous people. The UN is now being asked to intervene and pressure the Brazilian government to remedy the situation, because there are problems which will not go away and will only deteriorate unless it takes matters seriously.
According to the 2010 census conducted by IBGE (the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), there are more than half a million indigenous people living in Brazil today. Of these, about 40% live in poverty. For comparison, for the white (brancos) population this figure is 4.7% and for the black (pretos) and mixed (pardos) it is 10%. But if we are to look at the problem in terms of not just the economic but also the political, ethnic, cultural and environmental issues, the situation starts to look even more depressing.
The most pressing issue is the problem of demarcation of the borders of the reservations populated by indigenous people, and the areas with special status:
The problem is with the legal registration of the Amerindian population, and their rights to their own territories. The Brazilian government likes to brag that nearly 95% of all cases of territorial claims have been resolved, and those lands are now fully demarcated, but it hasn't yet specified what happens when it comes to reservations in the Amazon, where most indigenous people live. Moreover, this settlement of the disputes was achieved through international cooperation, and not at the expense of the National treasury, as the government claims. What's more, a demarcation of the borders of these lands is only part of the solution, but hardly enough to solve the problems. Because the region hosts the poorest and most vulnerable communities, they need to be provided with physical protection and other social rights, a thing which hasn't happened at all yet. And in many cases, especially in the south, the already established agreements count for nothing and are never implemented.
In other places outside the Amazon, where compact communities of Amerindians live (in the south and north-west of the country), the demarcation problem is particularly serious and it results in serious conflicts between the indigenous people and the Brazilian farmers (fazendeiros) who are making huge inroads and are now dominating those areas previously populated by Amerindians. This process was especially accelerated in the 70s and 80s under the military junta. For example the reservation where the Xavantes tribe lives (in Alto Boa Vista and in Mato Grosso do Sul), 1000 km north-east of the city of Cuiaba, is about to become a battlefield between 900 indigenous people and 6 thousand newcomers who are presently occupying that territory. The Amerindians responded to the injustice by burning and destroying the local hacienda and threatening to continue with the riots if the settlers didn't withdraw within a month (and that time is running out now). What could happen there would be mass riots and the army coming in, with a potential for a massacre or at least mass detention of hundreds of people who are merely protesting for their right to use their own land which was taken away from them. The boundaries of that particular reservation were set in 1998 but the government has neglected solving the problem of the re-settlement of farmers who've progressed further into that territory, although there have been court decisions in favour of the indigenous people. In practice, the court decisions count for nothing when you have the right of force on your side, and the local authorities are turning to the other side because they have probably been corrupted by the farmers. This conflict has lasted for the past 40 years and the Amerindians are now preparing to take drastic measures and march on the federal capital Brasilia and bring the issue to the federal parliament.
But this is only one half of the problem. In fact most of the indigenous peoples in Brazil are experiencing similar amounts of pressure not only on their inherited territories but also on the natural resources there, which are used for carrying out massive private and public projects such as building roads, hydropower plants and of course the huge invasion of mining, logging and agricultural companies, individual entrepreneurs from the coastal regions, and also drug and human traffickers.
The most stunning case happened with the Guarani-Kaiowa tribe in Mato Grosso do Sul, who were driven from their lands and are still waiting for the demarcation of a small area designated for them. It is located on infertile land, spanning beside a paved highway. Their original lands are now occupied by a large agricultural firm using them for the cultivation of monocultures: soybeans, sugar-cane and eucalyptus, and producing biofuels. The crime rate in the reservation is 10 times higher than the national average, and the mortality rate is close to that of Iraq (a country in a state of civil war!) The Amerindians cannot even hope to get their due compensations for the destruction of their natural resources. This is also the case with the Pataxo Hahahae tribe which lives in the south of the Bahia state... for more than 20 years they have been waiting for a court decision about the allocation of compensations for their destroyed lands, and things have started taking a course towards a violent outcome.
The mega-infrastructure projects that the Brazilian government has embarked on are causing especially big concerns among the indigenous population. There currently are a total of 400+ development projects actively being worked on, but one has particularly struck the indigenous population. It's a very ambitious project to turn the direction of the São-Francisco river to produce cheap power, but the problem is that this will happen in regions already experiencing endemic drought in the north-east of Brazil. The project includes the construction of several hydropower stations and flooding the last remaining fertile patches of land still held by the Amerindians. The project was rejected by them 20 years ago, and yet work has initiated and carried out, despite the growing protest movement involving both the local indigenous population and that of the adjacent regions (including hunger strikes from clerics). The problem is that flooding about 500 sq km of land will lead to a vast social and ecological catastrophe and a human tragedy of proportions never seen before in that region. The people there are already experiencing water shortages, the fish industry along the river is almost dead, and what has been a transport artery for three dozen tribes and a means of income for 70 thousand people will be gone. And those people will have to flock into the big cities (Fortaleza, Natal and Recife), and cause more social turmoil there. In addition, the ethnic integrity and coherence of the indigenous population will be destroyed, and many of the 20 thousand workers now being hired at the peak stages of the project (most of them coming from other areas) will have to either stay there as unemployed work force, or relocate to other regions and cause more havoc on the labour market there.
All that said, as the Amerindian representatives have informed the UN, Brazil is violating the Convention 169 of the International Labour Organisation at the UN, which prescribes mandatory consultations of the central governments with the indigenous populations on the matters affecting the interests of the latter. The delegation said that the information presented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil about such consultations, is forged, and they said that a media campaign is being carried out to discredit the indigenous leaders and destroy their credibility, which would later affect the court in their decision making process.
The violation of human rights of the indigenous peoples in Brazil causes concern not only in these NGOs. According to the latest annual report on the "Violence against indigenous peoples of Brazil" (June 30, 2011), commissioned by CNBB (the National Conference of the Bishops of Brazil), the health situation in those areas is particularly aggravating. The authorities are unable to provide the population with adequate health care. Infant mortality has increased by more than 500% compared to two years ago, especially in the reservations in the states of Parana, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. Additionally, the number of conflicts with these traditional communities has increased, and the police cannot prevent many of those cases of social unrest. As a result, an increasing number of suicides, homicides and arrests of Amerindians is being observed, particularly in the south, where these communities are under immense pressure.
According to the chairman of COIAB (the Coordinating Council of the Indians of Amazonia), the Brazilian government "does not respect the indigenous peoples". "It does not recognise our problems. Our task is to voice our position outside the country, our cry should be heard in order to make sure that the already reached agreements are ratified and implemented". "We live in a very difficult situation, and the Brazilian government is creating the wrong impression abroad on this issue. We are suffering from a lack of a responsible public policy and moreover, from the pushing forward of various federal projects on our lands, against our will, at any cost". The hopes are that this time, since the Brazilian governments have consistently refused to address this issue in a sensible way, they will be made to do it from outside.
