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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Brazil's Indigenous Land Grab

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

12/26/96

OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE

The long awaited decision regarding Brazilian land demarcation and whether

Indian lands would be reduced in extent has arrived; and there has been a

"radical subversion of indigenous land rights as defined in the Constitution

of 1988." Indian land in Raposa do Sol, Brazil, will be reduced; setting a

dangerous precedent. The door is open for "miners, ranchers, and loggers (to)

use the decision in court to overturn prior government action to ensure

Indians' constitutional rights or prevent future protection." The

Environmental Defense Fund appeals for letters of protest to the Brazilian

government. See < http://forests.org/forests/brazil.html > for major

background information on Decree 1775 and the long effort to defeat Brazilian

policies which reduce Indian lands, opening the way for industrial development

of vital rainforests. Recall that originally many more demarcated indigenous

areas were threatened, and that the Brazilian environmental movement along

with international support was able to reduce the number of contested areas.

International support will be critical in ensuring Brazilian Indian lands

remain so.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 08:22:35 -0500

From: Kenneth Walsh <Kenneth_Walsh@edf.org>

Subject: Theft of Indian Land/Brazil/Raposa do Sol

URGENT ACTION

BRAZIL JUSTICE MINISTER OPTS TO LEGALIZE

THEFT IN INDIAN LAND:

STAGE SET FOR MASSIVE AMAZON LAND GRAB

Minister Jobim calls for reduction of Raposa/Serra do Sol area; ranching and

gold mining invasions take precedence over Indian land rights.

December 23, 1996

Brazilian Justice Minister Nelson Jobim, in a decision taken jointly

with President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, ordered Brazil's National Indian

Foundation (FUNAI) to cut an area the size of Rhode Island from the

traditional land of the Macuxi Indians before demarcating the area, to benefit

ranchers and gold miners who have invaded the Indian land. The decision flouts

constitutional protection of Indian land rights, in an apparent trade-off of

Indian land for Congressional support for Fernando Henrique's re-election to

the Presidency. Jobim's order, if carried through to its intended conclusion,

would signal open season on Indian land across Brazil and particularly the

Amazon, as miners, ranchers, and loggers use the decision in court to overturn

prior government action to ensure Indians' constitutional rights or prevent

future protection.

The anxiously awaited decision on the 1.6 million hectare Raposa/Serra do Sol

indigenous area in Roraima state in the Brazilian Amazon, calls for FUNAI to

give about 200,000 hectares of Indian land to some 14 ranchers to whom the

National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) issued titles

in the area since 1982, as well as creating enclaves of non-Indian land in the

middle of the indigenous reserve for five decaying gold boom towns. The

decision was handed down last week in a memo from Jobim to FUNAI President

Julio Gaiger, stating his conclusion on challenges to the demarcation of the

area brought by the state of Roraima under the new rules for Indian land

protection promulgated by the government in January 1996 in Decree 1775.

Reducing the area creates a potentially disastrous precedent for other

indigenous lands across Brazil. The Constitution of 1988 states explicitly in

Article 231 that private land titles on lands traditionally occupied by

Indians are null, restating the priority of indigenous land rights present in

Brazilian Constitutional law since 1934. Raposa Serra do Sol is among the

very best documented, in legal and anthropological terms, of indigenous lands

in Brazil. The anthropological reports based on which FUNAI in 1992 determined

that the 1.6 million hectare Raposa/Serra do Sol area is land traditionally

occupied by the Indians have been upheld by the Federal Attorney General's

Office as well as by legal counsel to the Justice Ministry. Consequently,

excluding private claims titled by INCRA from the indigenous area subverts

Article 231 of the Constitution in favor of INCRA's titles. By this logic, any

of the hundreds of land titles issued by public agencies on Indian land can

also take precedence over indigenous land rights. This is precisely what

Article 231 intended to prevent in considering titles on indigenous land null.

Worse still, the Minister orders FUNAI to exclude five gold boom towns from

the indigenous area to be demarcated, leaving these as foci of permanent

conflict. This is an invitation to violence. The economic activity on which

the towns depend for their existence -- gold and diamond placer mining, or

garimpagem -- is explicitly prohibited by law in the indigenous land that

surrounds the towns, but the towns become non-indigenous enclaves in the midst

of the reserve. Rather than resolving the chronic conflicts and human rights

abuses that plague the region, the Minister's decision would worsen them and

ensure their perpetuation. The decision further upholds the state government's

recent creation of a new county (or municipio) in the decaying boom town of

Uiramuta, legitimating the gold mining invasion in fact stimulated by local

politicians in the hope of preventing the demarcation of the area. This

constitutes a clear incentive to further invasions in hundreds of other

indigenous areas not yet fully demarcated and their subsequent legitimization.

Under the guise of a Solomonic solution, contemplating all affected interests,

Minister Jobim has in fact decided for the radical subversion of indigenous

land rights as defined in the Constitution of 1988. Where Indian lands have

been invaded through the omission the federal government and the avarice of

local elites for their natural resources, Jobim proposes that the Indians bear

the cost by giving up their lands. The effect, for hundreds of other

indigenous areas, and tens of millions of hectares of forest they comprise,

will be disastrous.

International public opinion has however had an effect. Without continued

manifestations of concern and alarm from around the world (and particularly

from northern governments and parliamentarians) it is likely that Raposa/Serra

do Sol would already have been reduced, by more. The state government has

stated that it plans to appeal Jobim's decision because it wants more of the

area. CIR has said it will take legal action against the decision. Your fax or

email can make a difference.

ONLY THE PRESIDENT CAN REVERSE THIS DECISION, BUT IT IS ALREADY BEING

PROCESSED BY FUNAI. PLEASE FAX OR EMAIL:

Ilmo. Sr.

Fernando Henrique Cardoso

Presidente da Republica

Palacio do Planalto

Brasilia DF 70160-900

Brasil

Fax - 55-61-226 7566

email - pr@cr-df.rnp.br

cc

Conselho Indigena de Roraima - CIR

cir@technet.com.br

Express your serious concern with Minister Jobim's December 20th decision to

reduce the Raposa Serra do Sol indigenous area in favor of ranchers with

private land titles, and to legitimate miner's invasions. Respectfully urge

the President to suspend the Minister's decision and demarcate the entire

Raposa Serra do Sol indigenous area, as identified by FUNAI in 1993.

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