Brazil Tells Indians ``Show Me the Money''
6/10/99
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Title: Brazil Tells Indians ``Show Me the Money''
Source: Reuters Limited
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: June 10, 1999
Byline: Joelle Diderich
BRASILIA, June 10 (Reuters) - The new president of the Brazilian
government's Indian foundation says he wants indigenous tribes to
start paying for themselves after years of relying on government
hand-outs.
``We are talking about the use of natural resources, managed as
much as possible by the communities themselves in their own
interests, in order to meet their basic needs,'' Marcio Lacerda said
in an interview with Reuters. Pending the approval of Congress,
Indian communities would switch from their traditional subsistence
economies to running sustainable businesses on reservations, some of
which are potentially rich in minerals such as gold, copper and iron.
Under Lacerda's plan, the Indian foundation, a federal agency known
by its acronym FUNAI,no longer would provide basic services such as
health and education to indigenous tribes.
But he said the agency would continue to defend the rights and
interests of the tribes, which account for 350,000 of Brazil's total
population of 160 million.
The proposal already has run into opposition.
Officials from nongovernmental organisations say they fear Indian
reservations whose lands have been protected until now will fling
open their doors to unscrupulous loggers and miners in order to
survive.
But Lacerda insisted in the interview conducted on Wednesday that the
idea is not to let unbridled capitalism run riot in the vast expanses
of Brazil's largely untapped Amazon rain forest.
``Naturally these communities cannot be abandoned to their own luck
to compete in a market for which their culture is not suited,''
Lacerda said.
``It's as if you let an indigenous community compete on the Chicago
exchange, or on the Amsterdam bourse, or compete with (billionaire
international speculator) George Soros for example. What do you think
would happen?'' he said.
But the tribes may have little choice. The Indian foundation is broke
and has debts of $3.8 million to small suppliers.
Its 1999 budget, initially pegged at $44 million, has been cut to $17
million as part of a sweeping government fiscal austerity plan
designed to pull Brazil back from a currency collapse in mid-January.
In FUNAI's dilapidated headquarters in Brasilia, the paint is
crumbling and office desks are crowded with antiquated telephones.
Some of the foundation's 48 regional outposts have been forced to
suspend basic services.
Indian tribes demanding better health care or the demarcation of
their land have kidnapped several FUNAI officials in recent months to
protest the cuts.
All this has made for a bumpy start for Lacerda, a career politician
who took over FUNAI in February following the death in a plane crash
of the organisation's previous president, Sullivan Silvestre.
Last week, he was forcibly marched out of his office by a group of
Indians from the Xavante tribe who were upset about his
administrative style. After a 15-hour negotiating session, he was
escorted right back to his desk in a gesture of reconciliation.
Lacerda said the clashes came with the job.
``If I recognise the right to organisation, the autonomy of the
indigenous community, I have to accept any kind of protest,'' he
said. ``It's an exercise in mutual understanding, in respecting
differences.''