News-Letter Nr. 485

Pataxó Hã-Hã-Hãe Await Judgment of the Murderers of Galdino Jesus of the Santos

The Pataxó Hã-Hã-Hãe are getting ready to attend the judgment of the murderers of the Pataxó Galdino Jesus dos Santos in Brasília next week. About 40 people will leave the Caramuru Catarina Paraguassu indigenous land in Pau Brazil, state of Bahia, to come to Brasília to attend the trial. Because of health problems, only the mother of Galdino, Minervina de Jesus, will attend the jury trial. His father, Juvenal dos Santos will follow up on the course of events from the village.

The Pataxó Hã-Hã-Hãe, who since the last week have been trying to reoccupy their territories, have dedicated their 65 reoccupation actions to the memory of Galdino. Burned alive in a bus stop in Brasília, Galdino was a member of a Pataxó delegation that was in Brasília to request the regularization of a land they have been fighting for during the last 20 years or more.

Because of the repercussions of the crime, the trial has drawn a lot of attention. Although they are in prison, the murderers are serving their sentence in what used to be a library at the Papuda penitentiary without any bars and with a private bathroom.

The defendants, Max Rogério Alves, Antônio Novély Cardoso de Vilanova, Tomás Oliveira de Almeida and Eron Chaves Oliveira, middle-class young men of Brasília, will be judged by seven of 21 persons selected to compose the jury. The auditorium of the court has a seating capacity of 200, but only 32 seats were reserved to indigenous people. The prosecutor of the case, Maria José Miranda, resigned for alleged personal reasons and will be replaced by attorney Maurício Miranda.

A climate of uneasiness lingers on in Pau Brasil. Even after the arrival of the Federal Police, the indigenous people who remain in the farms they reoccupied continue to be threatened by gunmen in what has clearly become a lawless territory. Eight people were caught inside the indigenous land carrying weapons of different gauge measures. Only five of the over 300 farmers involved filed repossession suits to remain in the land they invaded, among whom Durval Santana and Jaime do Amor Divino, suspects of attacking the Pataxó Hã-Hã-Hãe on the 23rd and 24th. The large majority of the indigenous people who occupied the Caramuru Catarina Paraguassu area are about to reach an agreement with Funai under which they would leave the area and wait until the farmers involved are indemnified for improvements they have made in good faith in the land.

Large Landowners Launch Campaign Against the Kaiová

Two weeks ago, large landowners linked to the National Agricultural Council and to a virtually unknown Rural Brazilian Society published large reports in the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo with the aim of undermining the struggle of the Kaiová to reoccupy their territories and of pressing authorities to criminalize their reoccupation actions. In those reports, the indigenous people are accused of being violent for occupying territories from which they were expelled in the past. The false arguments involve Cimi and Funai as well, which were accused of "manipulating" the indigenous people.

Frightened with the determination of the Kaiová to return to the lands of their ancestors, these large landowners have been inciting squatters against the government as a maneuver to prevent the demarcation of indigenous lands in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Cimi rejects all of these actions and will continue to play its prophetic role in relation to indigenous peoples by supporting their legitimate struggle for the demarcation of their sacred territories.

Brasília, 1 November 2001.
Indianist Missionary Council - Cimi

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