News-Letter Nr. 483

Deni People Secures Administrative Ruling Autorizing Demarcation of Their Territory

After 16 years of struggle and a little more than one month after they began to self-demarcate their traditional territory, the Deni people has managed to force the ministry of Justice to sign an administrative ruling authorizing the demarcation of their traditional land. The act, which was published in the Official Gazette on Wednesday, the 17th, was celebrated by the indigenous people, Cimi, Operation Native Amazon (Opan) and Greenpeace, which for two years had been reporting the illegal purchase of indigenous lands by Malyan timber company WTK. Greenpeace joined the struggle for the demarcation of the land after it found out that the timber company had purchased 313,000 hectares in the region and that half of these - 150,000 hectares - encroached upon the Deni territory. Demarcating the area is a means to prevent the illegal trade of land and the indiscriminate exploitation of hardwood. Ten years ago, the Deni were under the risk of disappearing as a result of epidemics of tuberculosis, measles and other diseases brought by invaders of their lands. In 1992, malaria and measles decimated ten percent of the population of the region around the Xeruã river.

The administrative ruling could only be signed after the self-demarcation of the land by the Deni began.The Brazilian government wasn't happy at all with the positive repercussions of the initiative throughout the world, since the international public opinion supported the decision of the indigenous people to demarcate the land on their own initiative. The field work began on September 11.

Fifteen days after the Deni began to open trails in the Amazon forest , Greenpeace received a letter from Funai stating that the demarcation of the Deni lands was to be imediately suspended and that it could only be resumed after the minister of Justice recognized the right of the indigenous people to occupy it. Outraged, the indigenous people told Funai that they were the ones who were self-demarcating the land, and not the environmental organization. The Deni set a deadline for the government to fix a date for the official demarcation and to recognize the work carried out so far. On that occasion, Biruvi Deni stated: "We have been waiting for the government to demarcate our lands since 1985, when it promised to do so. The government did not fulfil its promises, so we decided to demarcate the land ourselves. Why do they want to stop us now?".

Kaiová are Violently Evicted from Reoccupied Area

The Kaiová indigenous people, who two years ago reoccupied the Brasília Sul farm, which encroached on the Taquara traditional territory in Juti, state of Mato Grosso do Sul, were evicted by force from it on Tuesday, the 16th, by at least 100 military and federal police officers of five cities of the State. The police acted in compliance with two eviction notices. The first one was issued by federal judge Renato Toniasso, of the Federal Court of Dourados, and the second one was issued on the 13th by federal judge Odilon of Oliveira of the 3ª Federal Court of Campo Grande.

As soon as the police arrived, they started beating the indigenous people, shooting rubber bullets and throwing tear gas bombs. Women and children rushed in panic to the forest while the men began to shoot arrows at them. Both preliminary orders ignored the fact that the Kaiová have been waiting for two years for Funai to publish a report identifying and delimiting this indigenous land. Documents confirming the presence of indigenous people in the region leave no doubt about the traditional right of the Kaiová to occupy the area. The indigenous people who occupied the farm were taken to areas already overcrowded by other communities. Without a sufficiently large demarcated area for the indigenous population of Mato Grosso do Sul and without appropriate means of subsistence, the Kaiová have been living in extreme poverty and subjugated by large landowners who control the State to the point of hindering the action of the federal agency officially in charge of protecting indigenous rights

Brasília, 18 October 2001.
Indianist Missionary Council - Cimi




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