News-Letter  Nr. 420

Superior Justice Court will analyze massacre at Haximu

In early August, the 5th Panel of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) will analyze an appeal regarding the Haximu Massacre, in which 16 Yanomami were slaughtered by miners in June of 1993 in Roraima State. In December of 1996, the Federal Judge Itagiba Catta Preta convicted four of the 22 accused of the crimes of genocide and damage in the lower court. The sentences range from 19 to 20 years in prison for the crime of genocide and six months for inflicting damages. The convicts appealed to the Regional Federal Court of the 1st Region in Brasilia, and requested a trial by jury. In June of 1998, the Court accepted the appeal and annulled the sentence in the lower court. In order to avoid yet another case of impunity, the Pro-Yanomami Comission set up an international campaign of faxes to the judges of the 5th Panel of the Superior Court of Justice requesting that they uphold the lower court conviction.

The appeal to the Superior Court of Justice was issued by the Public Prosecution Service Ministry, which requested proof of the lower court Federal Judge's competence to judge the crime. According to the Federal Prosecutors, "The Federal Public Prosecution Service believes that under the jurisdiction of the Federal Courts, it is the Federal Judge who must be solely responsible, and not the trial by jury, because in the case of genocide, the legal issue in question is not human life, but rather ethnicity. For the CCPY, the convicts count on being absolved as a result of a potentially anti-indigenous sentiment amongst the jurists.

The Haximu Massacre was revealed in August of 1993, when sister Aléssia, who works in Xitei at the Demini outpost, on the Venezuelan border, informed what she had heard from a Tuxuaua named Antonio about how seven children, five women, and two men had been murdered and a village in Haximh destroyed by miners who had invaded the indigenous land. The case set off an international uproar. In a visit to the location, the Minister of Justice at the time, Maurício Correia, the President of Funai, Cláudio Romero, and the Federal Attorney General, Aristides Junqueira, found remains of burnt huts, a woman's body riddled with bullet holes, and several wounded. The bodies of the slaughtered indigenous people were probably cremated in the Yanomamis' own ritual. The police investigation indicted 22 people, but only four were judged, convicted, and imprisoned. This stands as one of the few crimes against indigenous peoples for which the perpetrators were convicted of genocide.Cimi hopes the Justice system upholds its conviction of the perpetrators of this crime, doing away with the possibility of impunity.

Gunmen are arrested and freed in Bahia

On Saturday, July 15th, four gunmen were arrested by the Military Police after being detained by the Pataxó and residents of the village of Cumuruxatiba, in the Municipality of Prado, at the southern tip of Bahia, close to the reoccupied "Barra do Caí" indigenous area. The gunmen were detained as they were trying to expel a homeless squat from the village. They entered the camp shooting and scaring people, but were surrounded and held captive in a house until the Military Police arrived. Due to a lack of efforts by Funai and the justice system, the gunmen were set free on Thursday, July 18th, as a result of the influence of the Mayor of Prado, Antonio Barreto da Silva. Tensions in the region are on the rise again. The arrested gunmen work for the farmers Vitor Dackeche and Norma. They are the same ones who threatened to kill Pataxó leaders so as to impede the demarcation of the "Barra do Caí" indigenous land.

The reoccupation of "Barra do Caí" by the Pataxó in April motivated the residents of Cumuruxatiba to fight for their rights. Two weeks ago, a group of homeless people who had lost everything they had in the tourism business decided to occupy an urban plot that was being divided by tourists up into lots. The owner of the land reacted by hiring the gunmen to kick the squatters off the land.

Brasilia, 20 July 2000.
Indianist Missionary Council - Cimi





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